maarten.vanneste@meetingsupport.org's blog

The pain was almost palpable at IMEX in Frankfurt. I talked to a few people clearly worried or expressing concern about the challenges to innovate and to move forward in the meeting industry. Some individual planners as well as some leaders from big organisations literally expressed their frustration with this challenge. They felt it was difficult and clients or staff didn't seem able to make the necessary innovation happen despite a few years of trying. But they couldn't put their finger on what is causing it...

Are people tools in the hands meeting architects, to influence participants? It sounds a bit weird but on the other side, it is about time we see professionals (and volunteers or staff) of all sorts as a category of tools in designing better meetings. Our participants are people and consciously deploying ‘non participant’ people to assist, facilitate, inspire, motivate and even drive meeting objectives is probably the most logic and maybe even the most effective thing we can do.