PCMA 10: Sunday notes
By tony | No Comments
Great first day for me–met lots of people.
Social media kiosks.
I got to the event early to volunteer in the social media kiosk booth. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic, but the people who did come were mainly interested in CrowdVine (self-serving but true!). We do well with social media newbies because we can say what our purpose is.
New Member Orientation.
PCMA does a great job of welcoming new members. My local NorCal chapter didn’t just ask that I come their last chapter meeting, they demanded. Then when I got there the president-elect immediately introduced me to ten people. I think that’s so important–I arrived at this event knowing people. Sunday we had a new member orientation with two parts. The first was specific to suppliers where we got an entertaining lecture in how not to scare meeting planners. That advice was promptly ignored in the second half of the session when we actually got to mix with actual planners.
NorCal reception.
I ate a lot at the reception not realizing there was even more food to come. NorCal has a ton going on! I talked about Twitter with a lot of people. There’s definitely demand for another Twitter webinar if Jessica Levin will oblige.
Opening Reception.
Dallas went all out to impress the meeting planners. Did you know hockey has cheerleaders? They do in Dallas. I met all my social media and #eventprofs friends finally.
Other notes:
I have a hot tip for amazing cheese burgers: Twisted Root. The PCMA staff picked this up as a tip from the visitors bureau, tested it, and loved it.
I asked a lot of my questions from yesterday’s post, “Things I don’t understand.” Turns out those were things that nobody understands, especially the fragmentation of suppliers. It’s amazing that the average planner can’t say who the leading online registration provider is.
I heard great things about this upcoming webinar for March 3, Using Social Media in Meetings.
I think it’s fun how much pull the meetings industry has when they come to town. Lots of people give us freebies. One of my favorite scenes from the day was a bus load of folks returning from a successful Neiman Marcus shopping trip with massive discounts.