CEMA Newsletter: April 2023
Opening Letter
Gary Murakami
Vice President of Sales & Industry Relations
Teneo Hospitality Group
With the advent of spring (and my birthday month of April), I always look forward with anticipation to see signs of the changing season and longer, warmer days with a renewed feeling of hope and an expression of gratitude.
Gratitude has manifested itself in different ways — Amid what sometimes appears insurmountable personal challenges and obstacles this year, managing care for an aging parent that is very ill and the emotions surrounding it, one aspect of gratitude I have found is my appreciation for my industry family, including my CEMA one, to provide a community with the power to heal and the strength to support. The power of community is never lost on me, and our CEMA one has come through time and time again.
I often reflect that our meetings & events and event marketing community provides not only professional support but also personal as well. Lifelong friendships and partnerships are created, and these relationships continue to strengthen over time.
Spring is a time of spiritual growth and appreciation — I reflect with gratitude this month and now every month even more on the power of our community and invite you to continue this journey with us here at CEMA. As a proud advisory board director, I can personally share the impact and amazing support of our organization and our community. Hopefully, I will see many of you and connect at Summit around the corner in Salt Lake City.
Member of the Month
Kellie Mayrides, CMP
Client Success Manager, Event Strategy Group
According to her mother, Kellie planned her own 10th birthday party complete with a scavenger hunt, an elaborate obstacle course with prizes, and a bicycle decorating contest, followed by a parade around the neighborhood. It would seem she was always destined for the events and meetings industry.
She now has nearly 20 years of experience working on events on a national scale, in roles as varied as destination management, non-profit event planning, and hotel and venue sales and marketing. She currently works for Event Strategy Group, a full-service event, trade show and incentive program production agency, collaborating with clients to plan, manage, and optimize their event marketing strategy. Kellie is a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP), serves on the Board of Directors for MPI Philadelphia Area Chapter as the VP of Communications, and as co-chair of the chapter’s CMP Study Group committee. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband, daughter, and two dogs.
Newsletter Sponsor
With operations globally and throughout the U.S., ITA Group designs events that meaningfully connect with attendees. Since we opened our doors over 60 years ago, our employee-owners have remained passionate about getting to know brands and their audiences. We use event data to inform decisions, then consistently deliver small thoughtful touches and big unforgettable experiences.
Get to know ITA Group here:
Main Articles
As we’ve shared previously, the Event Leadership Institute has joined the PCMA Global Community, which gives CEMA members new benefits! Current CEMA members, at no additional cost, now have access to ELI’s extensive content library of 260 video modules and webinars, and a 20% discount on 17 facilitated and self-paced certificate courses.
This month’s featured resource is:
- Using Empathy Mapping to Understand Audience Behavior — this on-demand session features Naomi Clare Crellin at StoryCraft Lab. Listen as she explains why developing empathy is at the very foundation of design thinking, and how developing a deeper understanding of your audiences helps you create the best solutions to meet their needs.
Check out the full article by logging in here.
If you have any questions about your new benefits, please get in touch with the Event Leadership Institute at info@eventleadershipinstitute.com.
March CEMA Connects and the “Gumby Model”
Thanks to Sara Straw, Director of Strategic Events at RingCentral, and Richard Steinau, Senior Vice President, Bellwether for an insightful March CEMA Connects. We heard how Sara and her team used “The Gumby Model” — be flexible and adaptable — to deliver exceptional results despite considerable obstacles like limited time, minimal budget, and a lot of new people in critical roles.
Despite a major setback — two months before their annual Revenue Kickoff (RKO) event, RingCentral had layoffs that included the highly respected leader of their events group — at the conclusion of the RKO event, the feedback among executives and attendees was unanimous: “Best RKO Ever!”
Sara shared that her team made it happen by putting the audience first and dealt with “serving caviar with a sardine budget.” She discussed the 7 Key Takeaways that provided the agility and focus to overcome layoffs and leadership changes. She answered many salient questions reflecting challenges that all CEMA members are currently facing; in particular, “How do you approach the C-Suite to give them a realistic viewpoint regarding budget?” Megan Warzeniak, Business Development Strategist at streamlinevents, inc.
To learn more, click here for a larger image of the session’s key points and ideas mural of key points. Or click below to watch the session recording.
Do more with less and become future proof with Bizzabo
Amid ongoing global challenges and uncertainty, event professionals continue to meet every twist, turn, and surprise head-on with innovation and grit. But as event leaders are being asked to do more with less — less people, less budget, less technology, and less lead time — the need for creative, future-proof strategies is more apparent than ever.
As a follow-up to their three-part webinar series, Bizzabo shares the ultimate guide for event professionals, including resources, templates, and kits to boost ROI, cut costs, and extend the impact of every event.
Download the report
CEMA Summit 2023
“A View of the Summit”
from Karen Galatis
CEMA Summit 2023 registration has been open for a month. Planning is underway on all fronts. This year, the Summit content committee is working on the entire agenda, and taking a more comprehensive approach that better connects the content — keynotes, panels, design labs, or breakout sessions—to our Elevate Your Vision theme and messaging around Strategy. Creativity. Leadership.
We are also designing new concepts for our working sessions…so out with the old “workshops” and in with the new “design labs.” What is a design lab? A design lab will provide the opportunity for you to further elevate your CEMA Summit journey by providing a chance to discuss, interact, share industry knowledge, best practices, and case studies, associated with one of our high-level content tracks.
To top things off, we have a host of partners lining up to sponsor our many Summit general sessions, activations and networking activities.
If you haven’t registered for CEMA Summit yet, please do so here.
Plus, if you have not renewed your CEMA membership, you’ll need to do that before you can register! Send an email today to our membership manager, Lianna Bolton at membership@cemaonline.com.
Also, calling all partners who want to sponsor one of our interesting and engaging activations, etc. contact sponsorship@cemaonline.com
Save the Date
April CEMA Connects
April 20th, 2pm EDT
Special session with author Dr. Marcus Collins
Join a fascinating and fun CEMA Connects with Dr. Marcus Collins, author of ‘For the Culture – The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be’ on April 20th at 2pm EDT.
Submit your questions for Marcus by April 19th, 5pm EDT to info@CEMAonline.com for a chance to win one of ten copies of his brilliant book. Winners will be announced on the call.
“We all try to influence others in our daily lives. We are all marketers, whether you are a manager motivating your team, an employee making a big presentation, an activist staging a protest, or a teacher trying to encourage your students. In For the Culture, Marcus Collins argues that true cultural engagement is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior.”
The architect of some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last decade argues that culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior, and shows readers how to harness culture to inspire other people to share their vision.
Collins, Head of Strategy at Wieden + Kennedy, and professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan uses stories from his own life as a top marketer, from spearheading digital strategy for Beyoncé, to working with iTunes and Nike+ on their collaboration, to the successful launch of the Nets NBA team in Brooklyn, to break down the ways in which culture influences behavior. Then, he shows readers how they can do the same. With a deep perspective based on a century’s worth of data, and designed for our hyper-connected, light-speed world, For the Culture will give readers the tools to inspire collective change by encouraging us to always consider not only what culture can do for us, but what we can do for the culture.
CEMA In the News
CEMA Summit has been named among the top “Inspiring Meetings Industry Conferences You Won’t Want To Miss In 2023” by Corporate Event News. Read more here
Interesting Articles
Magnet Wall Draws Git Merge Attendees to Networking Space
NEU Project: Creating Neuroinclusive Events
Cvent covers the best ways to achieve conference exhibit success in 2023 in three steps. Read more here
We were going to include the word “easy” in the title, but we all know marketing for conference exhibits is anything but easy. Still, success with these events is of incredible importance. Events are a key marketing activity. In 2023, in-person events will be back in full-force, coined by many as the “great return.” As a marketer this is in a way a return to normal—the only catch? There’s a new normal.
The truth is, you might not be able to simply resuscitate your old school conference exhibit strategies and pick up where you left off. Event costs are rising. Budgets are shrinking. And attendee expectations have increased. What does this mean for you? Your conference exhibits will be more scrutinized than ever before.
To clearly demonstrate the ROI of your events, you must show key stakeholders how your decisions of what events to attend, as well as the strategies deployed at those events, result in new opportunities and closed/won business.