FOCUS
Q+A
consolidate meetings,’ it sounds like you as
the planner are going to have less control,
and plus just consolidating things can’t be
a whole strategy. We threw around a lot of
names, ‘meeting centralization’ was one,
and eventually we came up with SMM. At
the time we thought it would be cool if other
people would use the term too, but we never
thought it would become as widespread as it
is now. Actually, today it’s used so much that
it’s often used incorrectly.
Where do you think that confusion
is coming from?
Here’s what I think is happening. A traditional meeting planner, 20 years ago, did
everything: procurement, menu picking,
content and PowerPoint slides—everything.
I think those roles are diverging. Planning a
meeting is a totally detail-focused, in-the-weeds kind of job. That is why I don’t do it.
I am big-picture thinker, and if you ask me
to do the details I’ll fail. So to be really good
at SMM by its very definition means you
probably couldn’t plan a meeting all that
well. Just like a good salesperson doesn’t
necessarily make the world’s best sales manager. It’s a different skill set. Some people are
great at writing content; there are people
who are really good at the procurement
piece, the buying, the sourcing. Then there
are the people who are good at the planning
piece of it. They don’t want to multitask with
contracts and negotiation and worrying
about payments. So if you go to a 7,000-
person MPI meeting or World Education
Conference, stand up on stage and tell them
all to go start an SMMP, they can’t. Not all
of them have the background in procurement, risk mitigation and contract design
to do it, nor might they want to do it. And
so I often think these folks are being sent
on a wild goose chase. The better message,
I feel, is, ‘This is what’s happening in the
industry. You should think about what you
like to do. What is your special skill set and
where do you want to go with it?’ And now
there are becoming certifications for each
specialized skill set.
And speaking of those certifications, what can you tell us about
the SMMC?
We brought together 30-plus people at
a convention last year in L.A., including
the whole NBTA Groups and Meetings
Committee, and then some MPI folks I
knew pretty well. There was a lot of debate
and it was a tough group, but they put us to
task. When you want to develop a certification you want it to appeal to a broad audience and that is certainly a balance—trying
to get it to be elite but also getting a lot of
people through it. So for the SMMC there
will be two core weeks and five electives.
We specifically tried to ensure that there is
as little crossover as possible with the CMM
(Certified Meeting Manager), MPI’s certification. Then the first revenue-generating
S ome do
n
’
t get i
t
.
A
nd th
a
t
’
s
o
k
a
y
.
