Q&A

Meetings South recently caught up with MPI International Board of Directors Chairman Hugh K. Lee at the association's World Education Congress in Denver. Following are some of the new chairman's observations regarding the meetings industry and the direction of MPI.

Meetings South: What in general is your emphasis going to be during your tenure?

Hugh K. Lee: I want to know the specific questions. That's my job this year—I want to drill down so that we know exactly the programs and services that need to be done, or created, so we know how it's going to impact [the industry] and how it's going to help the meeting professional.

MS: At your "town hall" meeting [at the Denver WEC] you said the "old world was last year." Is it hard to develop a strategic plan in an industry that is changing so much?

HKL: We can't take the traditional five years to come out with a white paper on say, what's the role of senior stakeholders, purchasing, whatever it happens to be. [MPI President and CEO] Colin [Rorrie] has a great idea: Let's go out and look at some of our key committees, like the Corporate Circle of Excellence, and now let's say, "You know what? We need a policy paper from you on this; let's turn it out quickly." That's a change. People don't always like changes. You're going to have to trust the fact that 'a,' this committee can do that, and 'b' is that we're going to have to say, "We're going to have to ask more of you, too, and we need to get it done quickly." I think that's the challenge of a lot of other associations, and I think that's one of the unique aspects of Colin's leadership; he's willing to look at a traditional organization and say, "We've got to get faster. How are we going to do it?" And it may not be perfect, but we've got to come up with that answer.

MS: You've said MPI has to look at partnering with organizations that may not be traditionally associated with the meetings industry. Can you expand on this?

HKL: I think if you look at the strategy and you say to yourself, "Alright, under career paths, what are some of the areas that the industry itself hasn't developed?" Probably one of the areas, as you move upwards, is the upper skills, because I clearly think MPI has a running rate of high success at the introduction- and medium-level meeting professional skills— we know that cold, we have the business model, we get high ratings. As you begin to move up, though, there are areas that we're going to have to develop.

Let's take, for example, branding. How do you brand a conference? In the Leadership Academy, in the past—in the old world—an association would typically bring in somebody from their group; somebody from their membership to talk about branding our membership. Well, we take a bold step and say, "You know what? We're going to bring in outside people. We're going to bring in somebody like [marketing consultant] Jim Taylor and his [Organic Institute], or we're going to bring in somebody else. If we're going to measure the economic value within a world market, maybe we're going to have to start working with a WTO [World Tourism Organization]. If we're going to start talking about strategic skills under Business Skills for Life, you know what, we're going to have to start developing some new relationships with the academic world. Maybe we start talking to a Harvard Business Review. Now, when you think about influence and strategy, too—senior stakeholders—I don't think it's a big stretch to figure out that we're probably going to have to start some relationships with a supply chain management institute.

These are new worlds for us—reaching out maybe to the training industry. Those are the issues we need to address. In the marketplace area we probably have to start talking to some of these CTO organizations—technology organizations—because the market's changing.

MS: What trends are you noticing?

HKL: Revenue is up for everybody. If you want to look at trends that are challenges—and those challenges will remain—lead-time is definitely shorter than ever, and will continue; focus on costs, and therefore ROI, will continue, and that's a definite.

MS: Do you think meeting planners are starting to catch on to the importance of ROI?

HKL: I have been a big supporter of the ROI program, and I think MPI has done a lot in that area for the last seven years to bring it into focus. What's happened is the economy has brought it sharply into reality—Are they beginning to embrace it? They've certainly embraced the need, because the world has been brought into sharp focus for them. Are they beginning to execute on it? Absolutely. They're talking about execution plans and 'how do we share this, what are the tools.' We've developed the actual tools for them to begin to generalize for their own companies. My guess is that within the next two years you're going to see a big jump in the curve of adoption of that, if for no other reason than they have to do it to survive.

MS: What is the direction of MPI?

HKL: I think you will find that MPI has been, but will be to a greater extent, in the business of communicating trends to our members. I think you'll find that we're going to accelerate what we do, and that we are accelerating what we do—not that what we did was bad before, or was slow; we're just fast and we have to get faster. I think you're really going to see us push dramatic changes in the industry because it's needed, because the world around us has changed. At the end of the day you're going to see execution at a higher level. We're at the perfect place to be able to leverage and build for the future, and I really see that as a mandate.

In life there are few times when you can mobilize the forces and be in a position and have a need to make a difference, and MPI is there. We have the resources, there is a need, we have the strategy—I believe we have a mandate, therefore, to make a difference.