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Charisma Productions Gazette Volume 3, Issue 4 April 2011

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E

1 Smart Meetings

1 Comments From Our LinkedIn Friends

2 Smart Meetings Continued

3 From Our IT Department

4 Recipe of the Month

5 Strategic Partner – Airstage – A Must See

6 Monthly Linked In Polls

Smart Meetings

Strategic Meetings Management Program

Understanding Smart Meetings

Charisma Productions Network

What is a Strategic Meetings Management Program? A Strategic Meetings Management Program (SMMP) is the strategic management of enterprise-wide meeting related processes, spend, volumes, standards and suppliers to achieve quantitative cost-savings, risk mitigation and superior service. SMMP can help your company reduce meeting costs, reduce contractual risks and improve service. It's not a glamorous process. And it doesn't happen overnight. In fact, rolling out a strategic meetings management program is a pretty labor-intensive job that's often met with some tough resistance. The primary purpose of the SMMP is to ensure that everyone is working within the same guidelines for sourcing and working with correct suppliers of services. To be successful, an effective SMM program begins by investigating literally every aspect of meetings spend. Companies need to know what they are spending on meetings and events, where that spending comes from, how the various costs are accumulated, what steps are involved in the numerous approval cycles, etc. This first step is primarily a data collection process, and companies need to identify and collect as much meetings and event related data as possible. The question is – which data needs to be collected and how? The ultimate goal of SMM systems is to provide increased visibility and control to the corporate meetings management

The Importance of Meetings

and Incentive Programs in a

Down Economy

Last Month’s Article Comments

From our LinkedIn Friends

Charisma Productions Network

“This is an excellent commentary. Quoting "Contented Cows Give Better Milk" is the key factor in your thesis. Managers and the financial officers of the companies that give a "go" or no "go" to meetings and incentives want quantitative analysis for their decision making process Sure smiling faces tell a lot, but management wants hard numbers as shown in the book. Thank you for quoting from the book. I am going to buy several copies for clients and potential clients! “PA

“As a speaker and event planner I find it interesting that they fail to see that this is when they need us the most. We are the shot in the arm, the people who can keep employees and companies on track. In the 80's we experience a similar hick-up in the economy as well as a drastic reduction in jobs here in Michigan. But back them my business was going gang busters. CEO's and Managers would say to me "THIS IS WHEN I NEED YOU THE MOST!" They would say they are tire of all the crying and now it is time to get motivated and see the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact one of my clients is putting on an event for his employees as he has for the last twenty years. She said "even though we had to layoff some people and restructure we would be fools not to thank the employees remaining because without them we have not company." I believe this company will be around a long time because they see what they need to and that is to take care of their employees who in some cases will someday be their customers”RP

“An excellent discussion and of course, I completely agree. We need to bring the discussion beyond this group of corporate meeting and event planners ot the rest of corporate America, to the marketing departments, human resources, and especially to the accounting departments! “PA

Thank You for All of Your Comments and

Suggestions

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Smart Meetings

process, and to extend this visibility, oversight and control across the entire corporate enterprise. This widespread perception has significant implications on the roles and responsibilities of meetings and events planning professionals, both inside the corporate enterprise and throughout the independent meetings/event planner and corporate travel agency industries. As program cutbacks and personnel reductions take center stage in responding to stalled revenue streams and plunging profits, internal planners and outside agencies alike are faced with growing demand for cutting costs. At the same time, these, already-strapped meetings and travel professionals are being charged with delivering a higher level of value-added services and measurable returns on new investments of limited corporate resources.

There are many elements to an SMMP and all do not apply to every case (one size does not fit all!). In general, SMMP should provide a formal meetings management policy extending to all departments and division of an organization. Among the key elements usually included in SMMP are the following: 1. Meeting Design: This involves the pre-event planning of the meeting including:

Meeting scope specification: the purpose of the meeting, the agenda, size, and cost elements.

Budget planning tools are commonly involved with meetings design including the ability to track budgeted, actual and negotiated savings for specific meeting spend elements.

2. Strategic Sourcing: Once the meeting is approved, the next step is sourcing. This involves choosing the meeting site(s) and negotiating the contracts for sleeping rooms, meeting space, travel and other event services. 3. Meetings and Attendee Management A significant component of tracking total meeting spend is managing the attendee registration, travel and housing expenses. Automated, web-based attendee management tools will not only track these expenses, they can substantially improve staff efficiency and customer service as well. Specific components often include:

The ability for attendee and their guest to register for a variety of program tracks and more.

The ability for the attendee to arrange all travel matters online including air and ground transportation automatically funneling to preferred vendors.

The ability for planners to create arrival and departure manifests drawing real-time date directly from the travel bookings.

Full hotel and flight confirmation number tracking Ability for attendees to make changes to the travel

records online. When procurement principles are applied to travel arrangements through these tools, substantial savings can

be accrued in addition to automating many of the management tasks and improving client service. 4. Reconciliation of Expenses When the meeting is over, the bills will need to be paid. Tracking these payments is a crucial component of SMMP. The payment process should be consistent throughout the company and in compliance with standard procurement policies. Meeting expense cards (such as a credit card) can simplify and streamline this process making it easier to assign specific event costs to specific budget codes. 5. Measure and Evaluation The data tallied and tracked throughout the meeting life cycle, should be easily accessible for analysis. What was the average meeting cost per person? How much is the company spending annually with a specific hotel chain across all meetings? What are the meeting cost trends from year to year? What were the negotiated saving for a specific meeting? How close are the actual to budget? These are among the hundreds of analytic questions answered through a successful SMMP. If you do not know how much you are spending on your meetings, you are likely spending too much. In addition to measuring meeting spend, there is a strong need to measure meeting effectiveness – or return on investment (ROI). It is not just about the money spent, it is about how much “bang for each buck” spent that counts. This requires a systematic way to convey the specific, measureable goals and objectives from the meeting owner to all meeting stakeholders. The progress toward these goals (learning, new customers, increase sales, etc.) should be measured before, during and after the event usually by a series of carefully worded, consistent surveys. At meeting’s end, the value of this progress divided by the meeting cost will give you the ROI measurement. Fortunately, the company-wide communication lines and discipline required for setting up a successful SMMP lend well for the two-way communication and tracking ROI data as well.

Contract experts. Reduced regulatory risks and better legal

compliance to regulations such a Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) through policy guidelines and compliance tracking

Increased efficiencies and productivity through standard operating procedures and technology automation.

Greater meeting value and quality through ROI management and meeting consistency.

As we grow as an industry and with the maturation and proliferation of SMMP technologies and increased industry awareness, corporations are increasingly moving toward SMMP. Additionally, regulatory laws, such as Sarbanes-Oxley requiring public corporations to have more auditable meetings processes, have spurred companies to move in this direction as well. Today there are a variety of SMMP technology providers as the range and scope of what constitutes a strategic meetings management program continues to evolve. box fills, the text will flow into the other text boxes that you’ve linked. To let the reader know that an article will continue on another page, insert a small text box under the text box, choose the Jump To style, and then type the words “Continued on Page.” Click Cross-

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From Out IT Department

Save it First

One of the most important things you can do before making registry changes is to make a backup of the keys you change BEFORE you make the changes. The best way to handle this is to export the affected key for later recovery. For example, in the last tip we showed you a REG file designed to remove the Shortcut to prefix from shortcut names. To do this, we modified the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. To save this key prior to running the REG file, click Start, Run. Type

regedit

And press Enter. Now, navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

and select the key. Choose Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File dialog box opens, make sure the Selected Branch radio button is deselected. Type a name for the file and click Save. Now close RegEdit by choosing Registry, Exit.

If you have a problem with the changes the new REG file made, you can always run the exported file to put the Registry key back to its default settings.

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From Our Executive Chef

Chili-Rubbed White Fish with Asparagus and Lemon

Prep Time – 20 Min

Serves - 4

Ingredients

2 pounds asparagus, tough ends trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 tablespoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

1 pound tilapia, Pacific sole or other firm white fish fillets

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Put asparagus in a steamer basket, place in the pan, cover and steam until tender-crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a large plate, spreading out to cool.

Combine chili powder, garlic powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt on a plate. Dredge fillets in the spice mixture to coat. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish and cook until just opaque in the center, gently turning halfway, 5 to 7 minutes total. Divide among 4 plates. Immediately add lemon juice, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and asparagus to the pan and cook, stirring constantly, until the asparagus is coated and heated through, about 2 minutes. Serve the asparagus with the fish.

box if you don’t want to save the art with the

newsletter.

change line properties and crop the image. For more detailed editing, double-click on the graphic to activate the drawing layer.

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Strategic Partner

Airstage

The impression of seeing a seemingly heavyweight object flying gracefully through the air is both magical and uncanny. We construct and operate radio controlled custom-made objects that look like the real thing, but magically fly without the need for any further technical support. Each flying object is precision-made in our own production facility from special ultra-light expanded polystyrene foam that surrounds a helium filled inner casting. Using mini motors, plasma or ion as propulsion and high tech radio controlled systems, the object flies freely in the air. The complex shape of each object is reproduced using the original computer-aided-design data, thus ensuring its shape will match the original in every detail. It is also possible to build-in special features such as functioning lighting, moving parts, miniature video cameras, etc. We are to-date the only company in the world that provides such spectacular show productions with free flying objects combining “made in Germany” precision engineering, uniqueness and superior customer service.

www.airstage.biz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WYjlOzZxqM

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Recent Results of Surveys Taken by

Charisma Productions Network on LinkedIn

Informative, Inspiring and Empowering

Let Charisma Productions Network become your one-stop solution for all your corporate meeting, events and conference needs.

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Thank You for Your Support

We wish to thank our readers and our clients for their support and feedback helping to continually grow the Charisma Productions Network. We look forward to another successful year in 2011 as we continue to grow and provide you with successful stress-free events. We appreciate hearing from all of you and strive to improve our articles and hope to have something for everyone at one point or another. Please send us suggestions for topics you would like to read about or if you have an article that you would like to share we’ll be happy to post it.:

Please send all comments to: comments@cpnevents.com

Charisma Productions Network

A Geoff Andrews Company

805-241-0566 www.charismaproductionsnetwork.com

info@cpnevents.com

© Charisma Productions Network 2011

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