toolkit

Meeting Professionals International (MPI) is going to unleash to the world a comprehensive Meeting Design Toolkit on August 20th and will include the following:

  • How-to Documents
  • Worksheets
  • A Case Study
  • Implementation Phases and
  • Tutorials on how to use the toolkit.

This downloadable document will be free to all MPI members and will be found at  ww.mpiweb.org/FOM.

Here are MPI’s 5 principles for best practices in meeting design: 

ASSESSMENT and EVALUATION

Setting clear and measurable goals will help you and your stakeholders design a great meeting and help contribute toward ROI. It is also important to have your attendees evaluate meeting content, speakers and exhibitors, so you can find out what attendees like and don’t like about your conference. Evaluations can be anonymously and instantly collected through wireless Audience Response Systems.

EXPERIENCE

Designing a meeting with the attendee in mind allows you to create a meaningful and memorable experience for the participant. Creating meeting content in a bubble, with no attendee input, can lead to disastrous results. Ask attendees what they want, who they want to hear from and why they think this topic or speaker is important to the conference. This can be handled virtually through crowdsourcing via an online community.

DISTRIBUTED LEARNING

Providing attendees with what they want, when they want it, is the future of learning. Meetings are moving toward an on-demand methodology in both the face-to-face and virtual environment. Attendees come to meetings to learn and network. However, sometimes due to work demands or travel budgets, it is just not possible for attendees to travel to a live event. Providing F2F, hybrid and virtual offerings allows a multitude of attendees to learn in the environment they are most comfortable in or can afford.

COLLABORATION

The ability to collectively generate new ideas, solutions and plans is a great reason individuals get together for a meeting. If you rent iPads for your meeting, attendees can mind map solutions through an app or ask questions via social media postings. They can collaborate F2F, virtually or both. Attendees want to learn from each other as much as they want to learn from the presenter.

MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT

Attendees want to connect with each other physically, intellectually and emotionally. By hitting all three of these levels, attendees are most likely to have higher satisfaction with their meeting experience. Providing the right meeting space and content can meet the first two needs, but what about the last one? Emotional connections occur through the ability of attendees to relate to each other and the speaker. Stories and icebreakers are great ways to make this happen.

AV Event Solutions has a variety of interactive technology tool rentals to help make your meeting design the best of the best! Give them a call today at 888.249.4903 to speak with one of their experienced Account Executives to learn more about their state-of-the-art technology offerings!