members.
“Attending WEC really helps me
both professionally and personally,”
said Jill Mendoza, CMP (MPI Rocky
Mountain Chapter). “I’m able to
attend the sessions that can really
help me in my day-to-day work life
and help me streamline my practic-
es and then also, as a third-party
meeting planner, I’m able to take
back some practices that I can
share with my clients and help
them establish their events.”
“If you’re not attending WEC, you
are not getting the most out of your
membership,” added Joey Allen
(MPI Oklahoma Chapter). “It’s just a
huge part of what MPI is to our
industry and to the culture. Not
being here, I think, is shortchanging
yourself, your employer and the
people that you do business with.”
See more member feedback in
Conversations (Page 14).
Thank you Jill and Joey, to everyone who attended WEC 2015 and
to all of our sponsors (see Page 90),
including host city partner San
Francisco Travel, for your support.
With all that, you don’t want to
miss WEC 2016. Registration is
now open at
www.mpiweb.org/
wec16.
There was another announcement at WEC that will impact the
way we provide news and information to you. The Meeting Professional will soon be available in a digital
format, and we’ll also be delivering
curated digital newsletters with
relevant industry news and updates. I’ll be telling you more about
these projects in future issues of
The Meeting Professional.
Until next time …
Rich Luna
Editor in Chief
rluna@mpiweb.org
8 THE MEE TING PROFESSIONAL SEPTEMBER 2015
ENGAGING AND
EMPOWERING
THERE WAS NO SHORTAGE of plaudits from our members when
asked to describe their experiences at the World Education Congress (WEC) in San Francisco.
Invigorating. Inspiring. Engaging. Empowering. Thought provoking. Fun.
Yes, yes, yes and yes!
The euphoria from early August
has hardly dissipated as we regroup to dissect what worked in
San Francisco and areas for improvement. After all, we’ll be gathering again in nine months at WEC
2016 in Atlantic City. But before
we shift all our attention to the
other coast, here’s some insight
into what was WEC 2015.
• There were more than 2,500
registered attendees, a 25 percent increase over WEC 2014.
• About 80 percent of the attendees were MPI members with a
50/50 split among planners and
suppliers.
• There were 264 planners and
186 suppliers in the Hosted
Buyer Program, a 12. 5 percent
increase compared to last year.
FROM THE EDITOR
• There were 140 education sessions, plus keynotes, and most
quali;ied for clock hours. You
can still earn clock hours by
going to
www.mpiweb.org/
wec15 and watching videos of
education sessions.
• Attendees assembled more than
3,600 welcome kits, which will
be given to patients—including
infants, toddlers, young kids,
teens and new moms—at UCSF
Benioff Children’s Hospital in
San Francisco.
• We introduced the new MPI
Academy and Professional Development Roadmap (see Page 28),
designed to provide multi-faceted learning opportunities for
meeting professionals at all
levels, as well as the Experiential
Event Series, in which MPI is
partnering with high-pro;ile
events in key areas such as
sports, entertainment, culinary
and mega-events to provide
unique, intimate education experiences, including behind the
scenes tours and discussions. We
debuted two new MPI certi;icate
courses, Meetings and Events at
Sea and the Sustainable Meeting
Professional Certi;icate (SMPC).
• Attendees were active on Twitter, with more than 14,000
engagements using the of;icial
event hashtag (#WEC15), a 12
percent increase over last year.
• The MPI Foundation set a new
record for the most money
raised, more than US$270,000,
from The Big Deal, an of;icial
World Series of Poker satellite
tournament, the Not-So-Silent
Auction and Rendezvous, the
Foundation’s signature networking event (see Page 29).
• MPI raised another $200,000 at
the President’s Dinner, which
will be used to enhance the
platforms and content of education delivered by MPI to the
entire meeting and event community.
All that said, the real endorsement of success comes from our