Written by: Vickie Sullivan  |  April 30, 2013

Corporate Meeting Trends

The convention season is in full swing this month, so it’s time to check out trends this year in the meeting space.  Good news:  Aberdeen Group predicts that corporate meeting/event spending will rise from 9% to 20% of the budget in the next two years.  Just in time for increases in travel costs.

Drilling down, here are two more things to consider from this Successful Meetings article.

• Smart phones will eclipse PCs as the tech tool of choice during events.  There will be a bunch of apps launched for folks to connect, track schedules, etc.  (TED had a very handy app that allowed instant messaging.  Cool!)  Ask yourself:  how are you going to play here?  Give content?  Give access?  Q&A sessions?  Start thinking about how you will engage within this system.
• Big data is coming to meetings.  The powers that be want to know everything about their attendees.  And that is good news for us.  Question:  can this information be used to determine if the opportunity is worth reducing/waiving our speaking fee?  Or at the very least, creating custom content?