Learning Content Schedule

The last few years have been rough for the business events industry. Economic uncertainty, talent shortages, and unreliable revenue streams have forced us to constantly do more with less. And that’s often sapped our motivation and fueled feelings of burnout. The good news is that we can make a fresh start in 2023 — and Daniel Pink will show us how. In his entertaining and practical session, Pink will share simple science-based tips to replenish your drive, motivate your team, take back your time, and sharpen your decisions. You’ll gain proven techniques to turn the page on the past and usher in a a bold, exciting year of possibilities.

Daniel Pink is the author of 5 New York Times bestsellers — including his latest, The Power of Regret, which was named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Amazon, the Financial Times, and other outlets. His previous books include When and A Whole New Mind as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s deeply researched works have won multiple awards, have been translated in to more than 40 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world.

Extending Your Event in Multiple Channels
Bring your ideas and lessons learned on repurposing content and creating ongoing connections long after your closing session.

How Have You Stretched Your Event Budget?
Join us for the popular conversation about how to prioritize what’s most important and what questions to ask your suppliers to uncover potential cost savings.

How the Negotiating Stakes Have Changed
Join this conversation to discuss how leverage on both sides of the negotiating table has changed. How are you proactively approaching business relationships going forward?

Developing Meaningful Hybrid Workplace Relationships
Join this conversation to share strategies on connecting with colleagues without the traditional office water cooler.

Immersive experiences are attracting attention in an increasingly distracted world but applying a human-centric approach can be challenging. No two humans interact with the world in the same way, which creates complexity. In this session we will explore the science, design process and implementation of immersive experience design and dissect the forms and depths of engagement. We will learn to optimize the creative process from an event strategy perspective and what key performance indicators event teams should consider for their immersive activations. You’ll hear real-world case studies from award-winning, innovative, and disruptive immersive experience designers to help you experiment in this medium with more confidence.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the neuro-chemical basics of Immersive Experience Design.
• Discover how a team-driven approach to event design and validation steps can make designing immersive experiences more accessible and more measurable.
• Be inspired by real world examples you can apply at your own events in the future.

There is an on-going change in the way events do business and what they measure as success. Experts in this session will discuss the different event business models to focus on various value propositions from profit driven models to purpose driven models. Join the session to ask yourself – Why are you doing events and what does that mean for your event business model?

Learning Objectives

• Explore why we are doing events and how data is key to develop events that meet your changed attendee’s behavior
• Dive into case studies shared by our expert and how they catalyzed the change to embrace the different event formats (live, hybrid, virtual)
• Learn how to develop multi-channel opportunities to consume content, deliver value, enhance revenue, and build community in new ways

The next great idea could be at your fingertips. To bring it to life it’s important to have an equitable, inclusive space that matches creativity to a solutions-driven framework to help produce a new business model, marketing campaign, or company-wide process. Bring your big idea to this interactive masterclass and gain inspiration from Asteroid Technologies CEO Mateo Salvatto, on the intersection between inclusion and innovation. Using your ideas, we’ll test selected techniques, used by organizations like Microsoft, Google and IDEO, to drive creative problem-solving and innovative processes to leverage with your teams and customers.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover different ways a growth framework will help you examine ongoing challenges through the lens of transformation and inclusion.
• Create an equitable and experimental canvas for your team’s ideas—and steps for creating a proof of concept and business case.
• Tie your ideas to business outputs and gain buy-in from colleagues, leadership and stakeholders.

Attention is a scarce commodity and it’s harder than ever to capture and keep your audience’s attention. Thriving organizations leverage multi-touch experiences to accelerate the journey from attendee to loyal customer. This session will explore how to guide your audience down their desired path by curating and delivering compelling content experiences with existing resources.

Learning Objectives:

• Create customer personas that reveal the multi-dimensional characteristics of your attendees.
• Develop a content journey that gives your audience a seat at the creation table.
• Explore how to scale your content plan based on your audience and stakeholder needs with your team’s bandwidth in mind.

Fashion designer and two-time Project Runway contestant Amanda Perna is known for designing bright, whimsical clothing with a mission to empower women. She’ll share why living in color is not just an outward way to express your style. It’s about being your authentic self, making adjustments as you go and sharing your “superpower” with others.

Learning Objectives:

• Take steps to find and create an environment where you shine as your authentic self.
• Be intentional about your decisions and how you represent yourself knowing you have no control of the outcomes.
• Get the most out of your team and partners by discovering and leveraging their unique superpower.

During this conversation, a gender-diverse panel of business event strategists will share their stories and insights into their professional experiences. The panelists will also discuss the range of current challenges and barriers that members of the transgender community have and continue to face when booking and attending events.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the experiences of gender-diverse populations as they relate to the business events industry.
• Gain awareness of existing and future implications regarding transgender issues and business events.
• Identify opportunities and methods to make events safer and more inclusive for transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive participants.

Contracts, Clauses and Booking Events
Join the conversation to share the latest insights on contract clauses, negotiations and how you’ve booked business with suppliers to lower risk on both sides of the negotiating table.

Navigating New Audience Experience Expectations
Discuss changing audience behavior and how to address their needs in the event experience. Share which actions you have taken and leave with fresh ideas to design events that matter.

Quiet Quitting or Setting Healthy Boundaries at Work?
Join the conversation to spot the differences between quiet quitting and setting healthy boundaries. Share ideas on how you have created boundaries to be your most productive at work and at home.

How Are You Using Data to Improve Your Event Design?
Exchange tips on how your event data can help you uncover actionable insights to create new value for your audience, sponsors and all stakeholders.

It’s extremely challenging to plan events in such uncertain times, and it might be that the techniques you’ve always used don’t leave much room for uncertainty.The main tools that event planners must use to offer high-value experiences while tolerating the uncertainties of larger – or fewer – attendees are scalability and flexibility.
In this interactive session, we will look at case studies on strategic scaling that consider resources, infrastructure, and the event environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop a framework to include scalability in your event strategy and execution planning.
• Identify the scalable elements of your event’s design, operations & staffing.
• Recognize the potential pitfalls and roadblocks at each level of the scalable planning process.

Conducting salary surveys can uncover wage inequity, like Convene’s Salary Survey, but the more targeted approach to combat this issue is salary transparency. A March 2022 bankrate.com survey, revealed that more than two out of five Gen Z workers have shared their salary with a coworker vs. fewer than one out of five boomers. How do we get to a place where salary sharing isn’t so taboo? You’ll hear contrasting viewpoints and the implications of sharing vs not to help you navigate this uncomfortable conversation – as a manager and as an employee.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine the latest research on pay gaps and what that means for the business events industry.
• Recognize the benefits of salary transparency as a starting point to achieve equitable pay.
• Adopt your own approach to discuss salary with peers, current and prospective employers.

One of the benefits of social media is the ability to eavesdrop on conversations about your event or brand digitally. These insights help you understand what individual customers like, dislike, and need from your content, programming, and people. With AI you could gather thousands of people’s sentiments from multiple channels in any language and analyze them all in real-time. The personal nature of your responses would become an essential tool in your customer retention toolbox. Learn how to make this dynamic duo work for you.

Learning Objectives:

• Review some popular AI-enhanced social listening tools.
• Convert social insights into action steps for your events.
• Go beyond social mentions to supercharge social listening with AI and drive real business results.

PCMA and the key stakeholders responsible for creating and implementing the Convening Leaders sustainability efforts will walk through the goals and action plan. They’ll discuss the process of meeting early and often to address all aspects of goal setting, planning and execution for a sustainable event. Join us at 4:15pm Tuesday 10 January for the Behind-the-Scenes Sustainability Tour! Please note that pre-registration is requiered. The tour is fully booked and available places will be filled on the spot with first come first serve.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the project management process to plan sustainable event.
• Dive into the various stakeholder roles and responsibilities that are essential to a successful plan.
• Take away questions to ask your supplier partners to stay on track with your individual goals.

In her recent Convene article, contributor Beth Surmont explored why embracing uncertainty is vital to thriving on the long, tough road ahead. The events community can lean on each other for support to proactively produce events amidst the challenging, uncertain path forward. You’ll hear inspiring stories from fellow event profs who have made the leap, how it changed them and what they learned in the process.

The right strategy and gameplan are critical when you design and execute welcoming, inclusive experiences. Kevin Clayton leads the DEI efforts of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers drawing from his decades-long experience with associations and corporations. He will share case studies, including the recent NBA All-Star event, to highlight the importance of commitment, accountability and measurement to understand the impact of DEI on your business and the communities you serve.

Event strategists increasingly want events to behave like other digital marketing channels with hard metrics, high NPS scores, and transparent return on investment. While event technology providers adapt to marketing’s demands, event strategists need to catch up, acquiring more skills and mar-tech mastery to hit those digital high notes. Learn the technology and competencies required to act like a digital marketer while planning events like a boss.

Learning Objectives:

• View current event technology through a digital marketing lens.
• Position your events as marketing data goldmines.
• Prepare for the convergence of digital marketing and events.

Mentoring is a vital tool in disseminating the capital of talent, skill, knowledge, and is a key facilitator of professional and personal development. Participate in this session to learn about how great Mentoring relationships work from Nan Marchand Beauvois, an executive with the US Travel Association and connect with a Mentor, specially curated for you by PCMA’s Community Engagement team.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain best practices as a Mentor – and a Mentee
• Learn how to set reciprocal expectations.
• Determine effective ways to discuss goals and intentions of your mentoring relationship.

Inclusive language seeks to honor the diverse identities of every person, making them feel valued and inviting them to be part of the conversation. It’s even more critical when navigating sensitive topics, including those involving race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Industry DEI expert Greg DeShields will help you gain awareness on how you can incorporate inclusive language in your communications to acknowledge diversity, convey respect and promote equitable opportunities for your audience and colleagues.

Learning Objectives:

• Prioritize terms that are correct, respectful, and inclusive to avoid reinforcing harmful language habits and assumptions.
• Gain best practices for inclusive language and learn more than 100 common non-inclusive words and phrases.
• Demystify some concepts around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and steer clear of miscommunication.

F&B sourcing and menu planning is more of a balancing act than ever due to the pressure of pleasing attendees’ diverse palates, navigating rising costs while being sustainable on top of it all. This session isn’t your typical “What’s Hot & Trendy in F&B” list. You’ll get a break down of the top trends, how to creatively bring your vision to life that is cost conscious and environmentally friendly.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the F&B Trends in the Event industry and how to balance bringing unique experiences to life with reducing food waste.
• Be inspired to design creative, flexible menus that allow you to manage rising costs and sourcing limitations.
• Learn what questions to ask and how to work with your supplier partners to bring the trends to table in a sustainable manner.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize what’s important when designing events from a disabled person’s perspective.
• Identify the questions to ask your venue and supplier partners upfront to be prepared for every eventuality.
• Design your event environment with the intention of providing physical and psychological safety.

Getting Sponsors to Support Your Sustainability Goals
Share methods and ideas to proactively involve your sponsors in your sustainability action plan. Collaborate on solutions to achieve your mutual objectives.

The Halo Effect: Events as a Marketing Vehicle
Sharing the pros and cons of launching new products and services at your events, this discussion will explore ways to cut through the noise and use the halo effect of your events as a marketing launchpad.

Contracts, Clauses and Booking Events
Join the conversation to share the latest insights on contract clauses, negotiations and how you’ve booked business with suppliers to lower risk on both sides of the negotiating table.

Extending Your Event in Multiple Channel
Bring your ideas and lessons learned on repurposing content and creating ongoing connections long after your closing session.

Implications like inflation, rising energy costs, plus the climate crisis and increased demand with fewer resources, are challenging the global business events industry . Do you have a handle on the potential impact this will have on your business in the coming year?

Former tech CEO and public figure Carly Fiorina will moderate a high-powered panel with Hilton, Encore and an international economics expert to get to the bottom of these macro trends, how business events will be impacted and the industry growth trajectory over the next few years.

As technology accelerates and takes over boring, repetitive tasks, humans will take care of innovation, empathy and entertainment-related work. Now the old-fashioned leaders, those who expected mostly obedience and were successful are confronted by new generations expecting leaders they want to follow with a mission and values they connect with. Former CEO, author and speaker Leo Piccioli, will examine the intersection between accelerated trends and leadership styles. You’ll gain an understanding of the new demands on leaders and what to emulate to inspire and motivate your team.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how accelerated trends and current events have placed new demands on leaders at all levels.
• Compare 20th and 21st century leadership examples to understand what to embrace and emulate as the business world and future of work continues to evolve.
• Adopt characteristics to attract and motivate today’s diverse workforce.

Facing tough budgets and fewer resources make it harder for event organizers to implement full scale sustainability efforts. Influencing your leadership, boards and suppliers to set priorities and take action are critical steps on your sustainable event journey. This session will provide scientific evidence on how climate change is progressing coupled with stories of why education and collaboration can have a ripple effect on your stakeholders and leave an environmental legacy after your event.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the current and potential future state of climate change including our industry’s carbon footprint.
• Gain a better understanding of climate challenges to make choices that make a positive impact on your event audience and the destination as well.
• Communicate the importance of the climate crisis to get buy-in from your leadership, board and stakeholders so you can act now.

Event data has become multi-dimensional in a few short years compared to when post-event surveys were the go-to source. Where should you start and how do you effectively communicate what the data means for your in-person, hybrid and digital events? Data expert Joe Colangelo will outline the steps to take to make your data collection and analysis more manageable. The second half will unpack various approaches to sharing the results in a way that’s compelling for your leaders and stakeholders.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how the use of data has changed and improved.
• Incorporate best practices into your approach to data-driven decision-making and strategy development.
• Learn how to effectively create a story around your most important data point for the win.

Learn how to channel and amplify the voices of the next generation through cross-functional and disciplinary collaborations powered by students. Bring fresh perspectives to your ideation process while supporting student voices through empowerment and constructive critique. We’ll bring best practices from leading industry studios at NYU and GWU to show how you can create programs that build relationships with future #eventprofs. You’ll also get to cheer for this year’s PCMA Global Student Competition winner as they share their winning pitch.

Learning Objectives:

• The Win/Win: learn how to structure a balanced syllabus and design challenge that benefits the organization and the students.
• The Feedback Loop: understand the important role of constructive critique and how to provide great feedback as a model client.
• Paying It Forward: How you can integrate student ideas – and students – into your experience design.

Even though the future vision of the metaverse is yet to be fully realized, business events in the current metaverse are emerging. Join metaverse event designers for a frank discussion on business and consumer trends. You’ll learn what it takes to design, deliver, and monetize metaverse events and how to overcome the barriers and learning curve of Web3 technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• Dive deep into the contours of current metaverse technologies and tools.
• Learn metaverse event design dos and don’ts.
• Develop a metaverse blueprint for your current event portfolio.

Keeping People Safe and Making Them Feel Welcome
Share how you have implemented inclusive event strategies to design emotionally and physically safe environments and experiences for your attendees.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Integrating Your Event Technologies
Share what has and hasn’t worked when integrating different software tools into your event tech stack.

Where Event Legacy + Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Intersect
Discuss how legacy projects can play a larger role in transforming communities and enhancing your audience’s experience in an event destination.

Quiet Quitting or Setting Healthy Boundaries at Work?
Join the conversation to spot the differences between quiet quitting and setting healthy boundaries. Share ideas on how you have created boundaries to be your most productive at work and at home.

To make a lasting impact on the environment, sustainability must become a part of your organization’s DNA from strategy to execution – especially within your events. This session will breakdown how to integrate sustainability into your operations plan, dive into carbon off-setting as another solution and share tips on setting achievable goals.

Learning Objectives:

• Increase your effectiveness as a socially and environmentally conscious organization by making strategic decisions that impact all aspects of your business.
• Explore carbon off-setting including its roadblocks and opportunities.
• Examine the timeline across the event planning cycle to make intentional decisions that help achieve your goals.

Three industry leaders will share their perspectives on strategic challenges that require new ways of thinking and preparation – rising costs, inflation, and understanding the impact of social media on audience behavior to name a few. Participate in this session to discuss how major trends have fundamentally changed our industry and the new realities for international business events.

Have you ever avoided uncomfortable conversations on challenges individuals and our industry as a whole are facing? It’s tough for so many reasons and that’s why this session will spotlight challenging topics led by PCMA’s 20 in their 20s. We will spotlight uncomfortable topics, deep dive and explore what you believe needs to change. It’s time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Join us for an immersive session and help us identify what needs to change.

If you want an exclusive glimpse into the design strategy and execution of the biggest stage at Convening Leaders, you won’t want to miss this behind-the-scenes experience. You’ll get exposed to PCMA’s and Encore’s creative processes that drove our event’s Main Stage production and obtain inside access into the journey from design conception to execution. Stay tuned for additional exciting elements to be revealed! Timing subject to change.

Both planners and suppliers agree that the contracting experience has been one of the biggest challenges in the current business environment. A panel of industry leaders will examine industry trends, including the impact of political, economic and social issues on everything from clauses to communications and staffing shortages impacting service levels. Come prepared to share your biggest challenges and exchange creative solutions with your peers on both sides of the negotiating table.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore current business challenges and their impact on contract clauses plus how your communication with suppliers from RFP to execution has changed as a result.
• Determine realistic timeframes to make business decisions tied to registration performance in order to mitigate potential financial consequences.
• Adopt new contracting and negotiation strategies that address business objectives and potential roadblocks concerning both parties in a transparent manner.

Learning Objectives:

• Dive into sustainable practices to learn how they could apply to your logistics planning.
• Examine what sustainable decision-making looks like and the factors to consider.
• Understand how small and individual sustainable choices contribute to a bigger mission.

Successful events are personalized, proficient, and (often) profitable. Artificial intelligence and biometrics—the measurement and analysis of unique human physical or behavioral characteristics—are quickly becoming part of the business event strategist’s event management tool kit. Join pioneers and practitioners in the field of ethical facial analysis to discover the benefits and future trajectory of these evolving technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• Dispel the Big Brother myths behind biometrics.
• Learn the mechanics and data outputs of AI-enabled facial recognition.
• Map AI and biometrics to your event objectives.

Stress and long hours are no strangers to event professionals. However the pandemic and continued uncertainty have, in some cases, compounded repeated exposure to stress impacting emotional, mental and physical well-being. Clinical professionals from the Ohio State Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Wexner Medical Center will share tips from their evidence-based training and therapy program to add to your wellness routine and how to support colleagues to build resilience in your teams.

Learning Objectives:

• Stay on top of how you manage stress, trauma and take action to build resilience.
• Recognize instances where you can provide emotional support to peers versus directing them to professional support services.
• Build a culture of built-in support amongst your peers

We hear a lot about circularity and zero waste.  But let’s get into the nitty gritty of what it is, what it means for events and how you can strategically implement it at your event.  This session will break through the noise and provide you with examples of executed strategies around circularity and zero waste. These examples will be simple and complex. Giving you a wide range of ideas and tools, you can take back to your planning table and then implement it at your next event.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what circularity and zero waste mean.
• Learn how to strategically apply circularity and zero waste strategies to your event.
• Apply these concepts and build upon them year over year to increase your impact.

The last few years have been rough for the business events industry. Economic uncertainty, talent shortages, and unreliable revenue streams have forced us to constantly do more with less. And that’s often sapped our motivation and fueled feelings of burnout. The good news is that we can make a fresh start in 2023 — and Daniel Pink will show us how. In his entertaining and practical session, Pink will share simple science-based tips to replenish your drive, motivate your team, take back your time, and sharpen your decisions. You’ll gain proven techniques to turn the page on the past and usher in a a bold, exciting year of possibilities.

Daniel Pink is the author of 5 New York Times bestsellers — including his latest, The Power of Regret, which was named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Amazon, the Financial Times, and other outlets. His previous books include When and A Whole New Mind as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s deeply researched works have won multiple awards, have been translated in to more than 40 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world.

Immersive experiences are attracting attention in an increasingly distracted world but applying a human-centric approach can be challenging. No two humans interact with the world in the same way, which creates complexity. In this session we will explore the science, design process and implementation of immersive experience design and dissect the forms and depths of engagement. We will learn to optimize the creative process from an event strategy perspective and what key performance indicators event teams should consider for their immersive activations. You’ll hear real-world case studies from award-winning, innovative, and disruptive immersive experience designers to help you experiment in this medium with more confidence.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the neuro-chemical basics of Immersive Experience Design.
• Discover how a team-driven approach to event design and validation steps can make designing immersive experiences more accessible and more measurable.
• Be inspired by real world examples you can apply at your own events in the future.

Organizations have gone through unforeseen changes since the pandemic began, many offering digital and hybrid events in new ways. You’ll hear case studies on how to increase your reach by offering multi-channel opportunities for your members to consume content, do business and build community in new ways.

Contracts, Clauses and Booking Events
Join the conversation to share the latest insights on contract clauses, negotiations and how you’ve booked business with suppliers to lower risk on both sides of the negotiating table.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Integrating Your Event Technologies
Share what has and hasn’t worked when integrating different software tools into your event tech stack.

Event strategists increasingly want events to behave like other digital marketing channels with hard metrics, high NPS scores, and transparent return on investment. While event technology providers adapt to marketing’s demands, event strategists need to catch up, acquiring more skills and mar-tech mastery to hit those digital high notes. Learn the technology and competencies required to act like a digital marketer while planning events like a boss.

Learning Objectives:

• View current event technology through a digital marketing lens.
• Position your events as marketing data goldmines.
• Prepare for the convergence of digital marketing and events.

In her recent Convene article, contributor Beth Surmont explored why embracing uncertainty is vital to thriving on the long, tough road ahead. The events community can lean on each other for support to proactively produce events amidst the challenging, uncertain path forward. You’ll hear inspiring stories from fellow event profs who have made the leap, how it changed them and what they learned in the process.

Quiet Quitting or Setting Healthy Boundaries at Work?
Join the conversation to spot the differences between quiet quitting and setting healthy boundaries. Share ideas on how you have created boundaries to be your most productive at work and at home.

Navigating New Audience Experience Expectations
Discuss changing audience behavior and how to address their needs in the event experience. Share which actions you have taken and leave with fresh ideas to design events that matter.

The last few years have been rough for the business events industry. Economic uncertainty, talent shortages, and unreliable revenue streams have forced us to constantly do more with less. And that’s often sapped our motivation and fueled feelings of burnout. The good news is that we can make a fresh start in 2023 — and Daniel Pink will show us how. In his entertaining and practical session, Pink will share simple science-based tips to replenish your drive, motivate your team, take back your time, and sharpen your decisions. You’ll gain proven techniques to turn the page on the past and usher in a a bold, exciting year of possibilities.

Daniel Pink is the author of 5 New York Times bestsellers — including his latest, The Power of Regret, which was named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Amazon, the Financial Times, and other outlets. His previous books include When and A Whole New Mind as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s deeply researched works have won multiple awards, have been translated in to more than 40 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world.