How to Avoid Intellectual Indigestion

(Think Smorgasbord, not hot-dog eating competition!)

The most common criticism of Business Events World (BEW) is that it’s excessively long with far too many articles and reports to digest. This is like believing you need to eat your way through every dish when faced with a heaving, multifarious buffet table, or that your taste, appetite and nutritional needs are the same as every other diner’s.

BEW is not a traditional newsletter, even though it does contain some fascinating News stories; it’s simply the most recent compilation of The Iceberg’s ever-expanding repository of knowledge and know-how to help advance strategic thinking and support advocacy work in our field of business and professional events.

Every reader will have a different challenge that they’re working on, from redesigning their organisation’s business model to persuading policymakers to invest more in meetings infrastructure, from optimising their subvention policy to improving how they measure the societal and economic impact of the events they organise or host. There are over 50 articles, reports and case studies here that support these and dozens of other strategic objectives, so quickly browse the short descriptions, work out which items match your intellectual appetite or business imperatives, and load up your plate with that selection!

What’s on the menu this edition?

Under Features you can find out how Maharashtra (home state of Mumbai) and Botswana are embracing the strategic economic potential of business events, with great lessons for other ambitious emerging meetings destinations. CityDNA and CityNationPlace offer up different takes on how city marketing and branding are evolving; Canadian, Malaysian, Austrian and Australian impact strategies are deconstructed; and lessons are offered from the worlds of fashion, gin-distilling and the NBA!

Our latest Case Studies provide invaluable impact recipes from international events for geographers in Dublin, senior athletes in Gothenburg, HPV experts in Edinburgh, pharmacists in Copenhagen and AI specialists in Zurich, plus there’s a great demonstration by Koelnmesse of how to quantify the carbon efficiency of tradeshows.

There’s a particularly mouth-watering Reports & Research selection in this edition. Dive deep into sustainability with the first full-cycle report from Net Zero Carbon Events and the annual rankings from Global Destination Sustainability Index; enjoy a bird’s-eye view of the state of the market with EIC’s Global Events Barometer, Northstar/Cvent’s PULSE Survey or (for incentive specialists) SITE & IRF’s Incentive Travel Index. There’s also some fascinating research from McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University in the USA, quantifying the ways in which in-person scientific meetings foster community building and collaboration. And for marketing and communication specialists, we strongly recommend sampling the extensive data-presentation resources at “Information is Beautiful”.

For those who relish a little spice, our Opinions section offers controversies, passionately held viewpoints, and carefully argued positions: on the importance of fast-approaching ISO standards for business events, the need for much stronger academic and business integration, why a global tourism backlash could be our best advocacy opportunity, and a lamentation on government failures of imagination when it comes to our sector. Throw in valuable insights on corporate event thinking, engagement vs participation, and sprinkle with some industry heavyweights’ predictions from panel discussions at IMEX America.

Finally, don’t forget the best piece of advice for getting the maximum satisfaction out of a smorgasbord: you can always come back later to pick out a different selection of tasty morsels.

Bon appétit!

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