Mike interviews Maarten Vanneste Author of Meeting Architecture at PCMA Dallas 2010

Extra Update Interview with Maarten Vanneste Author of Meeting Architecture

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Mike interviews Maarten Vanneste Author of Meeting Architecture at PCMA Dallas 2010. I apologize for the low volume on this podcast in advance.

More about Maarten
His company– Abbit
His Book- Meeting Architecture

Even more on Maarten–>

Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media

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Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. I am here at PCMA in Dallas with Maarten Vanneste and hi Maarten.

Maarten Vanneste: Hello, how are you doing Mike?

Mike McAllen: It’s nice to be in person.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: We had on different side of the world.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes with the last one was over the phone.

Mike McAllen: Yes, yes. So, I was thinking why don’t you tell us little bit about what’s going on with Meeting Architecture, what exciting stuff is on horizon, why don’t we go for that. I think most people know what Meeting Architecture is if they are – well actually give a quick, quick background of Meeting Architecture.

Maarten Vanneste: Meeting Architecture is a future new discipline for the meetings industry, where we envision a profession that focuses on what we called the content side of meetings which is all about the learning and how people interact and how they get motivated and how they network and so the a meeting architect would manage that side of the meeting as a discipline. It could be a meeting planner with the certificate in Meeting Architecture but it could also be a specialist meeting architect and it’s like the master, you know, the word meeting architect it means master builder but then really focusing on the, let say the substance of the meeting and where meeting effectiveness is created.

So, it’s a bout a lot of things, of course things like technology that also different signs is like sociology and neuroscience and learning techniques and meeting designs and formats and using you know, using actors and you know, there’s hundreds of things that are in our current curriculum that is 12 pages and it’s just topic, so it’s a very – a very big area, a very big you know, multidisciplinary discipline actually.

Mike McAllen: Yes and I think that’s very important now when you’re here, well we’re here at PCMA. They’re talking all about engagement and collaboration, the big words and it’s all this things that need to be more and also the economy of course.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: So this is the perfect time to infuse this because when you get to site, it’s not just about putting beds and heads and food and beverages. It’s about what they’re doing when they get there. So, I think it’s a great discipline and I’m very excited about it myself.

Maarten Vanneste: Of course beds and heads and you know, catering and travel is essential and without it you cannot have an international meeting, you cannot have face to face meetings without people travelling. So, it’s always going to be essential, it’s always going to be fundamental but as you see what it’s really about is what happens on the content side, it’s about communication, it’s about people learning from each other, it’s about meeting other people and starting projects and so like changing behavior of people, so that’s a number of things that are very, very important and they’re really all about the effectiveness of meetings.

So, we believe that there is going to be a discipline for this and so it’s now been a little over a year that the book was published, Meeting Architecture as manifesto, the book and since then you know, a lot of things have happened and we now have this paper which was written by you know, about 40 industry leaders and based on that paper we have, you know, setting up and not for profit like maybe the meeting is going to call you know, we’re going to call it the Meeting Architecture Institute or something just – and not for profit institute or organization that’s going to focus on developing the educational components for associations like PCMA and all he others MIP etcetera.

Mike McAllen: Fantastic idea.

Maarten Vanneste: And so we hope that we get there buy in because it’s – as you say it’s a great time now because – because of the crisis, you know, the industry has you know, kind of – you know they’ve reached out to each other and they started a couple of very powerful industry wide projects, not just everybody on their own. So, that’s a great time I think also to lunch an idea like Meeting Architecture and you know potentially even a certification in meeting architect or meeting professionals and so all this organizations then could contribute and could be adding educational components to their conference and to their educational offerings, so that their members can get their credits to add to their certification in Meeting Architecture.

So, that’s a – that would be a great thing and that’s what we’re going to work on in the coming few months and we will propose a business plan and probably at IMAX in Frankford in the end of May to – people like Bruce McMillan and Deborah Sexton and all the other people that are in Frankford at that time from the industry associations. So, what we can – what we hope for is their buy in and their supports because obviously this is a huge project and we will be – we will be inviting many, many disciplines and sciences and professions and we will creating a knowledge based in textbooks and all that stuff for students and for meeting professionals to learn from. So that’s – it was a lot of work and we need to – we need to have a member of fulltime stuff, you just have to make that happen and it’s going to be, a lot of committees and lots of people writing chapters of books and you know, all this things that need to be happen.

Mike McAllen: It is really important because you don’t see anything about like engagement for audiences or the architecture portion of it in – when you come to trade show or one of this industry events, it’s – when you work in that trade show there’s not really that this new companies that come up with this cool ideas, there’s no more really for them to you know, engagement tools that you will have.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: Or even fun things like you said, like corporate theater kind of thing but you know there’s no real way of people to find out this stuff.

Maarten Vanneste: No.

Mike McAllen: And that would be a great part of this whole discipline to say, okay I’m going to have this meeting, this architecture would know, hey this could be a perfect situation for having some more pop out of the crowd or you know, there’s so many ways of engaging.

Maarten Vanneste: Absolutely.

Mike McAllen: And there’s nothing out there really and they turn to companies like myself for – like production company to say, hey, you know, and I have to go out and search for that stuff constantly but it would be great if there was a …

Maarten Vanneste: Market place.

Mike McAllen: … market place and a discipline to say, okay I know that you know that would bring that out because it would be okay. Now that group of people, Meeting Architecture would get together that would say, you know, people would start sharing ideas, this is what you know. It’s just fantastic.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes absolutely.

Mike McAllen: I’m all on board with it.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes this is – this is one of the great effects I think that we will have and another effect is going to be that you know, I was just talking to somebody from PSAV, Greg Van Dyke and we were talking about how, you know, research needs to be done to prove for example the real value of using, you know, lighting in the production for example but it could also be research about you know, the effect of the size of a meeting on the quality of the network, you know, there’s hundreds of topics that we could do a research and obviously if you have students that go to school and they become a master in Meeting Architecture, what they have to do is research and what they have to do is write a thesis.

Mike McAllen: Write a paper, yes.

Maarten Vanneste: Write a paper and they will – they will create tons of knowledge that’s going to increase step by step the quality of – and the effectiveness of what we do and they will create that proof and it’s not going to be like we’re trying to do today with the industry, just explain the value of meetings to people but how do you explain the value of meetings if you don’t have any proof.

Mike McAllen: Yes.

Maarten Vanneste: So, that’s going to change as well when we – when we really zoom in and we really invest into Meeting Architecture.

Mike McAllen: Yes, it’s very interesting. There’s a lot – a lot to this, it does branch out so much and then now – most of the people that I speak to around RH or – they’ll talk about how they got into the business and most people fall into it.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: And so this is an interesting thing because it really – it something, a meeting planner not necessarily – I’m generalizing but not necessarily a female kind of a role but in the past there’s usually female with the roles as meetings planners.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: And I’m generalizing again, kind the going out but saying that, you know, its kind the – this is more of masculine discipline.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes, it might be.

Mike McAllen: Like AV kind of you have AV side are usual man.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: Not always of course but techies but it’s kind of a …

Maarten Vanneste: It could be.

Mike McAllen: … it’s a kind of a more of a mix.

Maarten Vanneste: It could be. It could be restoring the general balance in the industry.

Mike McAllen: Yes.

Maarten Vanneste: Because you know, when you go – when you look at the membership of most industry associations, I think 46% or 47% — no, no 70%, I’m sorry 74% or so is female and so that’s the hospitality aspect of it and I think it’s kind of you know, a natural thing and I think you might be right that it may restore the general balance a little bit and which doesn’t mean that obviously you wont have any female meeting architects but you know, it might be indeed play in that sense.

Mike McAllen: Yes and I was speaking to Eli Gorin. Do you know him? He is in Miami. He is a – I don’t know exactly what is but he was – he is meeting planner there. He works with Latin America mostly, a very fun nice guy.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: Smart guy but he was talking about how he keep pushing that too, that I was educated and I chose this profession, you know, where a lot of people before fell into it. So it is – this is the way of the future is, more education behind meetings because of course how much people are spending on them. I mean massive amounts of money and then with all this like AIG kind of things going on that you know, slum down and you’re going to prove the ROI.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes.

Mike McAllen: The Meeting Architecture is one way on getting that rolling

Maarten Vanneste: Probably Meeting Architecture if it becomes a real discipline and you get students that come out and you have certification, you will have people that really understands and also know how to explain this and know where to go to find – find the proof and it’s going to be, one of the effects of the creation of the discipline is that we probably will never have another perception crisis like this one base on the AIG and this …

Mike McAllen: All of the topics, yes.

Maarten Vanneste: … these stories, so I guess – I guess that’s going to help because you know, within AIG there will be one or two or more meeting architects working and they will be the people to go to when you’re in trouble and you have to explain what the value of meetings is and I guess that’s going to be solve also by this discipline.

Mike McAllen: Yes, which will be good for a business as a whole in general, this companies won’t be having meetings that aren’t doing anything, you know, it’s going to be good for the bottom line for everybody in the end.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes and as you say the cost of the meeting is huge, you know, just flying in people and putting heads and beds and you know, that is huge cost and I think what we are doing with Meeting Architecture also is adding a little cost but increasing a lot of value. It’s like when you build the convention center, it cost – how much does it cost to build a convention center.

Mike McAllen: Yes, millions.

Maarten Vanneste: It cost millions and millions and so the price of an architect is like cost to nothing compare to the cost of construction. It’s going to be the same thing with Meeting Architecture. I mean there – obviously there’s going to be very expensive and exclusive meeting architects.

Mike McAllen: Right.

Maarten Vanneste: But there’s going to be you know, the average meeting architect will have a very small percentage of the cost of the meeting to be able to increase the effectiveness and to really work on the effectiveness both in analyzing objectives as a first phase in designing the meeting as the second phase, in executing the meeting because you know when you’re an architect you make plans to build the construction and you go onsite and you look at what’s happening and you have meetings with the people that are onsite to make sure that they understand the plan and they’re doing a good job and then ultimately if everything is done, if the convention center is built, the architect will also measure up everything and see if the quality is right before – before really delivering the final – do the final, official delivery of the building. The same thing will happen in meetings, this whole process is going to be carried or executed one person, the meeting architect and the cost of that is going to be you know, very limited compared to the cost of the meeting itself.

Mike McAllen: Interesting, so what’s – what’s on the horizon here? You know you are all at the meetings – you are all at the meetings now a days, pushing Meeting Architecture which is great but what’s – what’s some stuff coming up?

Maarten Vanneste: I think the most important thing that’s – that’s coming up is the creation of not for profit organization and the business plan for the coming two years. The business plan will be purpose to the industry associations and that’s going to be their next big step because we need the support of the associations and once we have that, we can move forward and rise that investing in research and in development of educational components that we can share with the industry associations again for their conferences. So, I think that’s going to be the major next step is probably in end of May in Frankford at IMAX where we will meet all these people.

Mike McAllen: Very cool and then last night I meet this young woman and I can’t – she was student. It’s a great here at this PCMA, there’s so many students and the energy is so high with their around, I just felt – I feel it more from you know, a lot of us who have been in business for a long time we’re kind the trudging through but they’re all firing through and asking questions, when I meet this young lady and I which I couldn’t remember.

Maarten Vanneste: Renee Deyoung Anderson?

Mike McAllen: Yes, she was just on fire with Meeting Architecture.

Maarten Vanneste: Yes, yes.

Mike McAllen: Which is nice to see, here you got the youth coming in and they’re going – they understand.

Maarten Vanneste: She’s helping me with the dinner tonight. We have this some Meeting Architecture dinner where we have much more conversation with people from different backgrounds to you know, really shape our own thinking and because there’s a lot of thoughts and ideas that need develop and so we have this dinners where were discuss with those people and she’s helping me with that dinner here in Dallas, so she’s all fired up for Meeting Architecture, absolutely.

Mike McAllen: That’s great, yes, yes. Yes, we’re all be at the dinner tonight too, so I’m looking forward to it. Alright Maarten until we talk again. Thank you very much.

Maarten Vanneste: Thank you Mike.

Mike McAllen: Great doing it face to face.

Maarten Vanneste: Absolutely.

Mike McAllen: Face to face meetings was all about.

Maarten Vanneste: Absolutely.

Mike McAllen: Okay.

Maarten Vanneste: Bye-bye.

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