Risk management has always been on the minds of meeting professionals, but the industry is galvanizing behind the issue in unprecedented ways in 2017, and Meeting Professionals International is at the leading edge of the trend.
For the first time, MPI will offer an entire educational track on safety and risk management at its World Education Congress in June, with nine sessions looking at duty of care, cybersecurity, travel safety, crisis management, and more. At the same conference, the association is debuting a six-hour intensive Emergency Preparation for Meetings and Events certificate program created in conjunction with the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security. The course will be held the day before the official start of the WEC.
Kristi Casey Sanders, MPI’s director of professional development, says MPI this spring will also be announcing a major new risk management initiative that will be part of the Thought Leaders Summit in the fall.
Read more about crisis management in the April 2017 issue of MeetingsNet magazine.
In other MPI news, the association has announced a five-year partnership with IACC, the association for conference centers and other meeting-focused venues. Extending the content sharing between the associations over the past two years, MPI and IACC have agreed to continue to deliver education to one another’s conferences and work together on research.
A new initiative, starting with the WEC in June, will see MPI conferences live streamed to IACC venues, allowing MPI members to come together, learn, and network. “One of our top priorities at MPI is to continuously enrich our portfolio of professional development offerings, and this collaboration with IACC will certainly help us deliver more value to our membership community,” said Paul Van Deventer, president and CEO of MPI. “We are especially excited about the opportunity to live stream WEC to members that are unable to make it to the conference this year.”
MPI will also take part in the next phase of the IACC Meeting Room of the Future research project. The first phase surveyed meeting planners, including MPI planner members, and was published in 2016. The second phase will focus on the venue buyer community, drawing parallels with the initial research. The results will be unveiled at WEC 2017.
