2014 CMP Conclave in Review

The Convention Industry Council would first like to thank everyone who helped make the 2014 CMP Conclave, hosted in beautiful, historic New Orleans, Louisiana, September 6-8, such a success.

Boasting a registered attendance of more than 450 people, including international CMPs from several countries around the world, this was the highest attended CMP Conclave ever! Why Conclave? Because, as the only annual event exclusively for CMPs, it provides an opportunity for attendees to network, attend cutting-edge educational sessions designed to aid their professional development, and share their insights, questions and even concerns, among an inviting community of other CMPs. Last month, we gave you a brief preview of some of those educational sessions, and in this issue we will follow-up with an overview and some of takeaways from the conference.

With such a robust educational program, it was difficult for some attendees to decide which sessions they wanted to attend most. And while all of the sessions addressed a relevant interest to CMPs, the three highest rated educational sessions were: "Serve This, Not That" and "How Hotels Evaluate Your Business," and "How Modern Meetings Use Technology to Create Personalized Experience," lending credence to the issues that are at the forefront of the minds of our CMPs in the ever-changing meetings and events industry. This year’s Conclave also featured two off-site experiential learning sessions which garnered a great deal of interest from our attendees.

Speaking of technology, this year, CIC decided to make better use of technological advances and step further into the digital age in a couple of ways. We re-launched our Facebook page at last year’s Conclave and really took advantage of the growing community on that social network by creating an Event page, just for Conclave, where attendees, speakers and sponsors could share and communicate prior to (and at) the event. We continued the conversation on-site where we live tweeted a number of the sessions, activities and special events (search hashtag #cmp14 for a recap). For the second time, we used a Conclave event app, designed by EventMobi, to help organize all Conclave-related items (schedule, maps, speakers, presentations, photos, social media, attendee list, etc.) in one convenient online location. Attendees could open the app online or download it for free to any mobile device and have instant access to up-to-date Conclave details, both at and after the event. We also, for the first time, utilized the apps function to allow attendees to give session feedback in real time and share their thoughts with us while they were still fresh in their minds.

Our keynote sessions were very well received and ran the gamut from The Watercoolers’ energetic and interactive performance, complete with a personalized song just for CMPs, to lessons from Simon T. Bailey on "Releasing Your Leadership Brilliance," Kaplan Mobray’s "10Ks of Personal Branding," and Mary Matalin and James Carville’s take on "Love, War & Politics."

As you know, this year we partnered with Dress for Success New Orleans for our CSR activity and encouraged all Conclave attendees to bring any gently used suits and accessories to help women transitioning into the workplace. We received a great response and would like to thank everyone who donated an item of clothing or an accessory to help those in need.

To see photos from the event, provided to us by Christie’s Photography Studio, please visit our Facebook page – www.facebook.com/ConventionIndustryCouncil – connect with us there, tag your friends or yourselves and share your comments.

We would like to offer another sincere thank you to our event partners, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, the New Orleans CVB, House of Blues New Orleans and PSAV, and our event sponsors for helping making this CMP Conclave arguably the best one yet. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to mark your calendars for the 2015 CMP Conclave, September 27-29 in Reno, Nevada!

– Convention Industry Council

The Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) is a
program of the Convention Industry Council

Convention Industry Council
700 N. Fairfax Street, Suite 510
Alexandria, VA, USA, 22314
Tel: 571-527-3116