Found 217 Opinions
Viewing all Opinions
After months of lockdown, many countries are just now gradually reopening events. This is not just countries that have suppressed the pandemic, but also many where the situation remains uncertain during a second wave of cases. So how do events look in a COVID-19 world? From Rod Kamleshwaran of the Iceberg partner GainingEdge via LinkedIn…
Associations are perfectly placed to reshape the world emerging from lockdown. They are repositories of expertise and best practice. They are trusted curators of information. They connect people all around the world and provide lifelong learning beyond university. But is this an opportunity they will grasp? From Association Meetings International…
COVID-19 has forced a rethinking of travel. Many conferences have been cancelled. Some have gone virtual. This analysis looks at actions that might reduce conference travel emissions by up to 90 percent, including holding a conference biennially in accessible locations, plus having both regional hubs and more virtual events. From Nature…
When ASN (the American Society for Nutrition) decided to switch its live event set for late May in Seattle to all-virtual just sixty days before the meeting, the organising team of ten didn’t know what to expect from the pivot. Nutrition 2020 typically draws 3,500 delegates, but about 30,000 attended the virtual version. From PCMA…
The Iceberg has just hosted a webinar built around the JMIC Manifesto for Economic Recovery Using Business Events. This review says the packaging may have been “inflated”, but that the content was “laser-focused”, and that the main speaker Prof. Greg Clark (left) was “supernaturally articulate”. How unified is the sector? From Association Meetings International…
Iain Bitran, Executive Director of the International Society for Professional Innovation Management, shares the challenge of transforming a physical conference into a digital meeting. In just eleven weeks and with around 400 contributions, the XXXI ISPIM Innovation Conference succeeded in “Innovating in Times of Crisis”. From Boardroom…
Martin Sirk, of both Sirk Serendipity and Global Association Hubs, an Iceberg partner, has thoughts on how some countries will be more successful at reopening business events than others. International events can only reopen at the pace of the slowest participating country to get their COVID-19 under local control. From Association Meetings International…
Iceberg partner IMEX Group has just been forced to cancel IMEX America 2020, after the cancellation of IMEX Frankfurt earlier this year. IMEX CEO and also Iceberg ambassador Carina Bauer explains how the decision was taken, and reflects upon politicians’ appreciation of the value of events. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
The many contributions on video for The Iceberg webinar about the JMIC Manifesto for Economic Recovery Using Business Events included one from Martin Lewis, former Managing Editor of Iceberg partner CAT Media, and Iceberg ambassador. The photo is of Martin in lighter mood at the 32nd M&IT awards last year. But in this longer extract from his…
Jane Cunningham (second left) is Director of Community Engagement for Iceberg partner BestCities Global Alliance, and Global Ambassador for the Joint Industry Meeting Council. In this new Deep Dive podcast, AMI Editor James Lancaster asks Jane how associations and destinations best collaborate. From Association Meetings International…
Mark Taylor, Chief Executive of the QEII Centre in London, believes the meetings industry’s recovery from the impact and threat of COVID-19 could see it become even stronger. The venue has had an interesting journey, with one delegate in early February diagnosed with the virus just after attending. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
As so much of the business events world pivots to virtual meetings in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, what does that mean for the skill in presentation demanded of those who are speaking? Roy Sheppard is a conference MC, a facilitator, an interviewer and an online course creator, who first worked with the team…
Associations have long advocated for their members’ interests before governments and other institutions around the world. Now COVID-19 has completely revolutionised this function. As policymakers react to the crisis in real time, the advocacy associations do on behalf of their members has never been more urgent. From Boardroom…
Prior to the UK outlining plans for lifting lockdown in the hospitality industry, Jennifer Houlihan, Events and Operations Specialist at Dotted Lines, took an in-depth look at how meetings could start to come back and spur post-COVID-19 recovery. She discusses pre-event, onsite and post-event planning issues. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
Asia’s business events industry has the potential to rebound faster than that of other continents, but being able to conduct business safely is important. So said the panellists at a Global MICE Situation in the Time of the Pandemic webinar, among them regional managers from the Iceberg partners ICCA and UFI. From Meetings International…
In April the event agency Freeman joined up with eighty other industry leaders to form Go LIVE Together as a response to COVID-19’s impact on live events. One month on Freeman CEO Bob Priest-Heck discusses the importance of advocacy, the status of government funding, and hopes for the future of the industry. From BizBash…
Powered by 
