Our friends in Canada The Conference Publishers are celebrating their 25th anniversary. Canadians seem to go to greater lengths than Americans to record their deliberations for future reference. As meeting coverage professionals, we endorse this approach, but possibly for different reasons.
In observance of their 25th , The Conference Publishers held a focus group among fellow meeting coverage professionals (PDF). When the discussion turned to “How do you define ROI?” one participant answered: “ROI is the objective defined by the stakeholder, and every stakeholder is going to find a different answer.”
Canadians can consider ROI in any way they want, of course—nobody blames them for setting off the global financial crisis. In our experience, however, Americans need to achieve benefits from meeting and conference coverage that come down to dollars and cents. Here are a few of those benefits:
- During meetings, attendees can participate more fully when they don’t have to worry about taking notes. It’s not a good use of time when everyone is doing it.
- After meetings, there is far less room for disagreement about what was decided. Again, less time is wasted trying to reconstruct a discussion.
- Those who can’t attend can get up to speed by reading a summary or watching a condensed video podcast. No wasted time reading a verbatim transcript or watching a gavel-to-gavel video.
- At the next meeting, less time is wasted rehashing what was discussed before, since everyone in the room is working from the same record of events—both those who attended last time and those who didn’t.
In short: time is money. Organizations spend a great deal to get people together for meetings, and can get a lot more out of that investment if they can a) use their meeting time more efficiently and b) make it easy for participants to turn decisions into action.
A word from our sponsor. To make that second benefit even more tangible, we’re offering a new low-cost introductory service to help clients get the most from their meeting coverage. After a meeting Magnificent Publications will deliver your summary, transcripts (if you want one), and/or podcasts, as always. Then we’ll also work with you to write a memorandum explaining to your members or staff exactly what they need to do next, based on the decisions reached in the meeting. Pricing is negotiated based on staff time you’ll save. To learn more, inquire at info@magpub.com.
