Op-Ed

An invitation to partner in the maturing narrative of business and professional events

Dear Partners and Ambassadors – Past, Present, and Future,

Thank you to all who have supported and contributed to The Iceberg movement. It has been an utter privilege to serve you and the communications sector you represent.

I hope you share the view that our efforts in curating and co-creating the storytelling of the sector have moved the needle regards the understanding, and the narrative, of business and professional events as catalysts for social, societal, and economic transformation – because the time has come to renew The Iceberg Partnerships as we offer to maintain and evolve efforts to promote and defend the sector on behalf of you all.

I believe that for The Iceberg to maintain momentum as a shared repository for storytelling – providing resources to illustrate the impacts and legacies of events to policymakers and their community investors – it is essential that our partners and their leaders in the sector verticals (association meetings, corporate events, and trade fairs especially) sign up to this collective effort alongside our destination, publisher, venue, ambassador, PCO, sustainability, consulting, and other supply chain partners and communities.

As one global industry association leader commented to me when discussing the need for such a repository; “It’s when the sun shines, James, that it’s time to invest in an umbrella and that is what you are providing – by all of us, for all of us with no preference or favour given”.

Given the pandemic, escalating climate crisis, negative footprint of business events, the inflationary and recessionary pressures aside from the war in Europe, I believe we will need to fight our corner as a solution provider harder than ever in the coming years.

Critically, we must arm ourselves with the tools and frameworks to illustrate the data and storytelling that align our communications sector to the social, economic, and sustainable development agendas of our destination investors and business & professional user communities. The carbon footprint of our sector is the largest elephant in the room, presenting an existential challenge. To achieve a shared promotion, and defence, will require far greater collaboration between the organisations and the destinations hosting them – as was beautifully illustrated by Alessandro Cortese of ESTRO and David Noack from Madrid, and endorsed by Genevieve Leclerc of #Meet4Impact at the BestCities Global Forum in December.

This will require a collaborative approach – one illustrated by the investments by partners such as the Copenhagen Legacy Lab, Meet Denmark Study, UTS Sydney’s Legacies of Business Events Study and publication of The Power of Conferences, the work of MMGY and the GainingEdge intellectual capital index, the Impact Measurement Framework from #Meet4Impact, and the GDS Movement.

This requires many voices – but one consistent message that business and professional events are critical to the solutions required to the challenges facing societies and articulated through the 17 UNSDG Goals and Targets.

To speak effectively to governments and policymakers we must first speak a common language, and second illustrate that the sector is a solution provider to their own social challenges and growth agendas.

Both the IMEX Policy Forum and the NetZeroCarbonEvents industry collaboration with the UNFCCC illustrated that the sector is capable of speaking collectively, but we must engage the users, owners, and beneficiaries of events in the narrative we share in order to illustrate value creation through the UNSDGs, rather than value consumption of our supply chains and the visitor economy alone. To this end, The Iceberg is open and inclusive to any and everyone involved in promoting the sector and the legacies of events.

We are simply the curators of your collective story within a shared repository.

Some upgrades to The Iceberg for you:

I am already in advanced discussion with various partners to use this 2023/2024 edition as a platform for 4 key initiatives which will advance The Iceberg mission to position events at the epicentre of positive change:

Case Study Programs by trade bodies whose members represent the client side – association and the non-profit sector, trade fairs and exhibitions, and corporate events. These to be delivered either in-house if research & publishing resources allow, or with Iceberg publishing partners or consultancies.

The co-creation of an ‘Iceberg Tool’ – this is a visualization of the ‘above the waterline’ economic impact or consumption economy/visitor economy, and the ‘below the waterline’ mission-led social and economic outcomes, impacts, and legacies supporting the ESG’s and the UNSDG’s. This section will include access to key tools and frameworks available from Iceberg partners so that every event has the opportunity to enjoy its own ‘Iceberg’ – imagine the content of the ESTRO Iceberg, for example which could illustrate the number of Spanish lives treated & saved through the 700m euro investment resulting from the RFP designed by Alessandro Cortese.

The Iceberg is going to offer awards to partners wishing to acknowledge great case studies/storytelling. These can be incorporated into existing award programs, or standalone, by the respective industry association partners but rather than competing with other award programs we are simply offering the opportunity for additional categories relating to the legacies of events to be incorporated into their own. This will encourage partners to source case studies from the entries they secure from within their own communities, and thus add access to greater storytelling – much as ICCA/BestCities have done with ‘Incredible Impacts’.

Finally, we have noticed that Business Events World, The Iceberg newsletter so skilfully assembled by Robert Coren is too long for modern media consumption. From 2023 we will be investing more content creation in the form of video newscasts from partner events as well as video case studies from destinations and their clients’ events. The uptake of video far exceeds the written word, it seems, so we have to adapt to consumer demand.

We will continue selecting the best of the best from our partners and ambassador newsletters and social posts and curating a ‘Producer’s Pick’ with the continued additional links to partner events, newsletters, and education as normal.

I want to end by applauding the work of all The Iceberg partners and ambassadors who have helped to shape the new narrative of our sector. I also want to thank the team who have delivered 4 years of dedication to transforming the narrative of the business and professional events sector and also to welcome a new face to The Iceberg family, the much loved and respected former CIM editor Katrin (Kate) Schmitt who will be reporting, on-demand, for The Iceberg from 2023 onwards. I would also like to take the opportunity to say a special “thank you” to Curator-in Chief, Robert Coren, for his unstinted dedication to The Iceberg cause and the creation of 100 editions of Business Events World – thank you so much Robert who will continue to support these shorter-form newscasts and newsletters featuring the best of the partner contributions.

More on these programs next year as they evolve!

Please confirm your partnership or ambassadorship for 2023 and 2024 no later than 30th November to Jen Tobitt admin@the-iceberg.org who will oversee your Iceberg profile at www.the-iceberg.org. If there is anything that you would like to discuss about your partnership, please contact me at james@frederation.com or +44(0)7836-741333.

Please also view below a few links to my ‘Producer’s Video Picks’ including the Global Industry Manifesto and some key interviews from industry leaders over the past edition of The Iceberg.

I look forward to welcoming you all to the 2023/24 edition of The Iceberg on behalf of the entire business and professional events sector.

James Latham

Founder & Producer of The Iceberg

The Iceberg and Business Events World are facilitated by The Fred Production Company Ltd.

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Partners’ & Ambassadors’ Annual Contribution

Partners*

Global Partner** (available to global industry associations and event owners): £5,500
Industry Partner (available to national or regional industry associations / industry marketing collectives / global agencies, AMCs, PCOs, DMCs, hotel groups, airlines, technology companies, and other suppliers): £3,500
National / regional industry event owners: £2,500
DMOs and Venues: £1,500
Publishers: £1,500 per publication
Global industry practitioners / agencies / AMCs / PCOs / DMCs: £1,500
All others: on request

* All partner organisations receive minimum x1 Ambassador profile plus inclusion of monthly newsletters, events, research, and educational offers within the appropriate sections of The Iceberg. These partner assets to be shared via Business Events World, The Iceberg newsletter, for all partners and ambassadors to share via their own distribution.

** Global industry associations may realise partnership by securing equivalent number of Ambassadors from within their members.

*** One event per partner can be reviewed, in video, subject to reporter hosting and video editing / reporting costs being met by the partner.