Last week the 47th ICCA Congress&Exhibition was held in Victoria, Canada. Comprised of global meeting, event and conference organizers, it was an opportunity for me to get to meet our customers who use Certain Events, our Amlink event management software product.  Sharyn Ross, EMEA Sales Manager has been a member of ICCA since 2000 and introduced me to many of our European and Australian customers.  Meetings and events technology guru, Corbin Ball http://www.corbinball.com/ spoke on key technology trends for the meetings and events industry. As always, Corbin is in the know on conference and expo management software and technology.

The overall message of the ICCA Congress was on point - focus on what we do best as meeting and event professionals, do it better, and with increased value.  The tone was positive and focused on how to bring about value in these very turbulent economic times.   
 

It was wild being in Canada on US Election Night - seeing the voting results unfold on the big screen through the eyes of the BBC was a good global perspective.  I was very proud to celebrate being an American that night, along with my colleagues from around the world.

• Enable users to request more than one of a selected program item
• Enable program waitlisting in the form
• Report on and manage waitlists on the admin side
• Export and import program item lists into the application
• Allow users to peruse a lengthy program list using a search tool

I hope you'll find these latest training videos helpful!

Many Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP) have a meeting request and approval process.  What makes Certain Meetings different is that it only asks information on the Meeting Request form that the person who is requesting the meeting should be expected to know.

That may sound obvious, but existing corporate event planning software often asks the Requester to provide cost estimates, such as how much they expect to spend on food&beverage in their event.  The typical non-professional meeting planner does not have a realistic idea about how to make these estimations, and the result is that the person being asked to approve the meeting request will either receive an incorrect budget estimation or no estimate at all.

Some professional meeting planners try to overcome this issue by reviewing all meeting requests prior to their submission to an Approver, however, this process is very time consuming and can quickly overwhelm the SMMP with administrative work.

Certain Meetings solves this problem by first asking the professional meeting planners to create a set of "budget estimation rules" that relate common event information (such as the number of attendees, number of days, or number of meals desired) to cost estimates based on recent event budgets.  Then, when the Requester is completing a meeting request form, she does not have to guess at cost estimates, but will immediately receive a calculated cost estimate based on the options requested for the meeting.

That's all I'll say for now, but I'll continue this thread soon.  In the meantime, I have to close the last half-dozen defect tickets before our planned Beta release next Monday.  Today I saw the first user documentation draft and it's exciting to see a new product come together.  Here's to effective meeting management!

Meetings Technology Expo NY
Meetings Tech Expo (MTE)
When: November 12, 2008
Where: New York, NY
www.meetingstechexpo.com

Certain Software will also showcase its online registration and event management software innovations at the Meeting Tech Online Summit on November 6th in Chicago.

Meeting Tech Online Summit
Meeting Tech Online (MTO)
When: November 6, 2008
Where: Chicago, IL
www.summit.meetingtechonline.com/

The world of event management software is Certain Software's domain in 2008, having launched its full product suite with the latest Version 11 release of its top ranking events management and online interactivity products, eventsPro and eventsInteractive, in addition to its stand-out Software as Service online registration software, Certain Registration.

Certain Software's Director of Marketing, Kimberly Enright, gives some highlights on what is new with the Certain Software product family and Certain Software's excitementt for the EIBTM show this December in Barcelona, Spain.

It is true. Times are tough for the economy, and meeting and event planners are feeling the effects on their events planning strategies. What can be done while stocks are tanking and company's are locking down meeting, events, training, travel and entertainment spending? For many planners the key may lie in their events management software.


Certain Software recently put out a piece to help meeting and event planners learn about reducing costs and increasing revenue through online registration software. The whitepaper is available on Certain.com. Check it out, and see what you can do to save some money.

In our upcoming release of Certain Registration 4.16, we're proud to present you with new tools to more effectively manage program item waitlists, as well as barcodes on the registration confirmation page.

The new program item waitlisting features in our online registration software enable event planners to:       

Training solutions:

Right now you can access a New Features Video that demonstrates how these new features work. To watch the video, login to www.certain.com and scroll to the bottom of the landing page. Then click the link for the New Features Video. Coming soon are a detailed tip sheet in the Support & Services section as well as context sensitive help.

Busy, busy, busy little bees here in the Certain Software Marketing Department.  Lots of buzzing going on – we just returned from exhibiting at the ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) Conference and Expo in San Diego, CA.  ASTD attracts a large number of training program managers, session and meeting planners, program managers, etc.  Next, we’ll be at the Greenfair Silicon Valley starting this Friday in San Jose, CA.  We are a technology partner and sponsor and are supporting the Go Green efforts by educating the public on how to go paperless.  You can have a look at our Go Green best practices by clicking here: www.certain.com/gogreen

Next week is just as busy.  We are also a technology partner of HSMAI’s (Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International) Affordable Meetings and SGMP (Society of Government Meeting Professionals).  We will be exhibiting at HSMAI's Affordable Meetings West in Long Beach, CA on June 11-12 and also at SGMP’s Annual Conference being held June 11-14 in Dallas, TX. 

Certain is all around the world  – visit our event page to see where we’ll be next! 

You are doing what you can to go green right? You recycle your Starbucks cups, you buy locally grown salad greens, you paid for that carbon offset on your last flight to New York. So if you are a meeting and/or event planner, why not go paperless?

It is true. Online registration is your key to green meetings, events, conferences, symposia, tradeshows, training programs and more. No need to push paper around any more, no more mailing, no more filing. It is the easiest way to go green. Find out more after THE JUMP.

And just in case you need a visual of that wonderful, wonderful feeling you get when you go paperles....

As a meetings and events planning professional, you are no stranger to networking. Connecting people face-to-face in social settings is what you do.
But how do you network with your other planners and how to you encourage your attendees to interact before and after the events you plan?

Certain has put together a short list of the best social networking sites for meetings and events planners.

MPI GROUPSPACE
Meeting Professionals International has created the MPI Groupspace as a fantastic to for industry professionals to set up  their own networks around the topics and interests that matter to them. Each group that is created has a blog, message board, wiki library, document library and space for customizing their group homepage. Professionals can explore existing communities and create new ones.

FACEBOOK
Well known to anyone who has been online in the last few years, Facebook bills itself as “a social utility that connects you with the people around you.” Facebook is not only a great place to connect with friends, classmates and coworkers, its “Groups” and “Become a Fan of” features enable you to connect with other meetings and events industry professionals and organizations who have a presence on Facebook.

EVENT CROWD
Event Crowd is the international online community for everyone working in the world of exhibitions, events and live marketing. Event Crowd creates contacts, makes introductions and delivers business. Visitors to the site can view an activity feed of posts by users, browse best practices and view media.

CROWDVINE
Creating a community around your events is now possible with CrowdVine for Conferences. This professional networking tool helps attendees build their professional relationships and networks pre and post-event.

CERTAIN
Certain Registration is an online software available to meetings and events planners on-demand. It is designed to leverage dynamic, custom registration websites to help planners bring  people of similar interests together to meet face-to-face. As a supplement to its core product line, Certain also brings meeting and event planners best practices on everything from green meetings to credit card security via blog, white papers, articles and media accessible from its main website.