September/October 2024

Cover illustration by Line Hachem

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One Key to Preventing Your Team’s Burnout

Work can be difficult, but it shouldn’t be difficult all the time, shows new research from a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Executive Education.

BY Michelle Russell October 24, 2024

What Makes a Great Place to Work

Responses to Convene’s Annual Salary Survey 2024 confirm the qualities of a healthy workplace culture recognized by workplace culture company Great Place to Work.

BY Michelle Russell October 24, 2024

Chef Conference Cooks Up Conversations From Coast to Coast

In Philadelphia and Los Angeles, chefs and industry pros gather to tackle critical issues impacting chefs and hospitality workers such as mental health and the challenges women face.

BY Casey Gale October 24, 2024

What Art Can Teach Us About Networking

Finding a common interest — whether it be elephant sculptures, paintings, or something else — is one way to elevate conversations and cultivate connections.

BY Michelle Russell October 24, 2024

A New Way of Thinking

One key connection between DEI and sustainability is a shared commitment to challenging the status quo. While technology can help us solve some issues, it alone isn’t enough. We need to think and act in new ways.

BY Sherrif Karamat October 18, 2024

Salary Survey 2024: It’s Not You, It’s the Company Culture

What’s the difference between planner respondents to this year’s Salary Survey who are happy in their jobs and those who are not? It doesn’t seem to be how they feel about the intrinsic nature of the role — which, even the most satisfied planners said, is challenging and demanding. It’s the organizations they work for.

BY Magdalina Atanassova and Michelle Russell October 17, 2024

Speaker Registration Fees and AI Policies at Events

Two questions from members of the PCMA Catalyst Community: Do speakers pay a registration fee for the events where they are speaking, and what is your AI policy for a medical conference.

BY Convene Editors October 16, 2024

Beyond the Old Boys’ Club: How Women Are Networking Their Way

Research shows traditional networking methods don’t work for women. A growing number of female-only events and spaces are trying to get it right.

BY Jennifer N. Dienst October 11, 2024

Building Authentic Connections: The Human-Centric Vision of C2 Montréal

Since it launched in 2012, the C2 Montréal conference — conceived by creative agency Sid Lee in partnership with Cirque du Soleil — has set a high bar for daringly different session formats, environments, and approaches to connecting diverse participants. How has that evolved?

BY Michelle Russell October 11, 2024

Advanced Networking in the Curriculum at Higher Ed Event

From its session for first-time attendees to constituent roundtables and Connect and Collaborate sessions, the National Association of College and University Business Officers Annual Meeting focuses on helping its 2,000 attendees find — and connect with — their peers.

BY Michelle Russell October 10, 2024

Event Attendees ‘Don’t Want to Waste Their Time Anymore’

The creator of Braindate, a platform that links event participants with shared interests, on what attendees are looking for now.

BY Barbara Palmer October 10, 2024

Leaning Into Connections Is the Secret to This Event’s Success

A session that served to reconnect attendees after the pandemic has become an essential element of the Exponent Philanthropy Annual Conference program.

BY Michelle Russell October 10, 2024

Why Are These Women-Only Networking Spaces So Popular?

Convene breaks down the secret sauce behind the Female Quotient’s sassy style of pop-up Equality Lounges.

BY Jennifer N. Dienst October 9, 2024

FTC’s New Impersonation Rule Means to Stop Scammers

Members of the PCMA Catalyst Community share how their organizations deal with companies posing as authorized partners of their events — and how the ‘Government and Business Impersonation Rule’ can help.

BY Convene Editors October 7, 2024

How Fair Is It to Compare Generative AI Tools?

When a competition pitted Spark AI against other gen AI tools, it became clear that the outcomes depend more on the users than the tools themselves.

BY Barbara Palmer October 7, 2024

How Is the DEI Backlash Impacting the Events Industry?

As funding and support for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives decline in the U.S., event professionals consider the consequences for meetings, destinations, and associations.

BY Barbara Palmer September 25, 2024

Designing ‘A Beautiful Nesting Ground’ for Deeper Relationships

How software company Avalara turned networking on its head and delivered business and bonding at its FUSE partner conference.

BY Barbara Palmer September 24, 2024

Flying High: Polling Takes a Surprising Form at CEMA Summit

Corporate event marketers embraced an analog way of voting on topics — raising or lowering a balloon at their table — during a session by event experience company Projectory.

BY Curt Wagner September 24, 2024

Taking Advantage of Geography With an Unusual Off-Site

At ASAE’s 2024 Annual Meeting & Exposition, Destination Canada broke the brand activation mold by whisking attendees away for an afternoon on Ontario’s Pelee Island. Here’s how they pulled it off.

BY Jennifer N. Dienst September 20, 2024

Events Professionals Offer Advice on Meeting in Extreme Heat

As record-breaking temperatures reach unprecedented levels, event organizers — and their participants — will have to take extra precautions to keep everyone cool, and safe.

BY Barbara Palmer September 16, 2024

Looking Back on a Remarkable, 42-Year Career in Tourism

Kitty Ratcliffe said she ‘bluffed’ her way into her first tourism job — but let the facts speak for themselves: In her more than four decades successfully leading DMOs, including her last 18-year stint — before retiring last month — as president of the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, she earned numerous awards and honors.

BY Michelle Russell September 11, 2024

How This Medical Association Gets Quality Media Coverage for its Conferences

The American Society of Hematology’s comprehensive strategy includes a stringent vetting process for journalists who apply to attend its annual meeting and detailed logistics to accommodate their needs and deadlines.

BY Bill Reed September 9, 2024

3 Ways for Event Planners to Strategically Incorporate AI

Most conversations about the use of artificial intelligence in the events industry focus on use cases that improve workforce productivity and performance for repeatable processes. Here are approaches that not only help you but help your event participants implement AI within their own organizations.

BY Dave Lutz, CMP September 9, 2024

Inaugural Convene 4 Climate Launching as a ‘Catalyst for Change’

PCMA’s brand-new conference will gather invited participants from a variety of business events industry sectors, climate-tech experts, and professionals from adjacent industries to help create a sustainable future. 

BY Curt Wagner September 5, 2024

How to Make Networking Feel Less Intimidating

Attendees rank networking as a top priority for event participation. But many people experience social anxiety that prevents them from participating to the fullest. These experiential networking ideas lessen the fear of getting together.

BY Kimberly Hardcastle-Geddes September 4, 2024

Introverts, Extroverts, and the Majority in the Middle

We tend to separate event participants into two camps — introverts or extroverts — but we should design our events for the overlooked ambiverts, too.

BY Barbara Palmer August 30, 2024

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