International meetings are becoming more complex in today’s challenging times. This session will focus on the most important legal issues in today’s global meeting contracts. Designed for both suppliers and planners, we will examine ways to successfully navigate the maze of laws affecting events abroad.

• Identify potential issues associated with meeting in a particular global destination, and negotiate contract provisions to reduce the risks arising from those issues.
• Consider needs of meeting attendees from countries outside of the meeting destination, including visa requirements and conforming to societal norms of the destination, and implement plans to ensure that the meeting will be successful for everyone.
• Create a plan for resolving disputes arising in a global destination, to ensure that any problems are resolved in an efficient, timely, and cost-effective manner.

Professionals are often rewarded for handling organizational details. Joining the C Suite requires a different skill set. This session gives meeting professionals a lens to look at the tangible tools for advancement – the strategic components of business, executive needs of professionals, action-oriented initiatives, and technology that can make this possible!

Learning Objectives:

• Presenting your initiatives in ways your leadership team will listen.
• Evaluate your skill set and growth opportunities to become the leader your organization needs.
• Step up to the challenges your business faces today.

In the current environment of highly regulated healthcare meetings, hoteliers need to know the fine points of how to market their venue to the healthcare industry. This session will provide strategies on how to book and manage healthcare meetings in accordance with the client’s requirements.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how your hotel may (or may not) be a good fit for regulated healthcare meetings.
• Learn to modify marketing messages to attract meetings with HCPs in attendance.
• Discover the importance of educating the rest of the hotel operations team about the need to adhere to the client’s guidelines.

You may be considering spending budget dollars on a keynote speaker for your event, but be cautious as there are hidden risks. In this session you will explore the risks and mitigation strategies of hiring a speaker including making sure your internal speakers are properly prepared for the event.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and mitigate the risks of hiring a keynote speaker.
• Use the five-step process for creating content rich events.
• Develop your in-house speakers to deliver high value events.

Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter present a variety of new ways for planners and meeting sponsors to market their meetings and interact with attendees. Do you know all the legal risks and liability issues that your organization needs to manage these sites?

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key issues and risks involved with using social media web sites and online media platforms.
• Distinguish between various intellectual property rights including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and understand how to protect yours and others.
• Explain online privacy risks, rights, rules, and define best practices for preparing social media policy for your office.

In this thought-provoking session, you'll be exposed to the current state of the market, and the changes you can expect to see in the industry within the next decade.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop insight into the current state of the global meetings and events market.
• Review predictions for how forecasted trends will impact the market within the coming decade.
• Apply these trends to ensure your business stays ahead of the competition.

The devil is in the details when preparing or revising hotel contracts. Terms that appear to be reasonable or standard may contain serious and expensive pitfalls for the unwary and untrained. This session is an intermediate to advanced approach on how specific terms in hotel contracts should be written.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify what clauses are typical problem areas between meeting sponsors and suppliers.
• Discuss the two different methods for calculating performance damages.
• Demonstrate the best practices for writing attrition, cancellation, and force majeure clauses.

Meeting venues are your biggest expense and are often the most negotiable. Yet, venue sales managers are far better at negotiation than planners. In this session, you'll learn strategies and tactics that even the odds. You'll also find the insights and tools you need to negotiate the best possible deal.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe five things you can do to make your event more valuable to a venue that don’t cost you anything and explain why they are of value to the venue.
• Negotiate the cost of in-house vendor expenses such as audio visual and electrical.
• Use supply and demand dynamics in your favor as well as identify types of venues that are not subject to demand, leveraging those opportunities to your advantage.

When you put pen to paper, you open your heart and unlock creativity. In this course, you will discover the wonderful world of doodling, along with many practical applications you can begin applying today. You may be thinking, “I can’t draw.” Well, you CAN, and we will show you how.

Learning Objectives:

• Experience an instant boost in creativity but putting pen to paper in structured lessons.
• Practice putting basic shapes together to visualize ideas, insights and inspirations.
• Understand practical and powerful ways to apply doodling at home, school and work.

This session was not approved for CMP-IS clock hours, but may count towards other industry designations such as the CAE.

Why take a risk on hiring a speaker you have never heard before? National Speaker Association’s New York Chapter has partnered with Meeting Professionals International to give you a Ted Talk style variety of their best speakers.

In this session, attendees will hear 6 minute abbreviated segments on a variety of topics that planner that could be a big hit for your next conference. The audience will vote on the top 2 winners and they will go on to present hour long workshops on the same day. The other speakers will be available to meet one-on-one outside the Thought Leader’s Theatre throughout the day.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover new speakers you can hire for your next conference or event.
• Learn how you can think out of the box for your general session topics.
• Learn new skills you can take implement in your professional and personal life.