Plan Your Meetings

Planning in a global world

 Send to a friend

A conversation with MPI’s Bruce MacMillan
By Kristi Casey Sanders

“Like many people in our industry, I didn’t go to college looking for it,” Bruce MacMillan says of his lifelong career in tourism and the meetings industry. In December, MacMillan leaves his post as president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Tourism Toronto, the Toronto Convention and Visitors Association, to become president and CEO of Meeting Professionals International (MPI). Plan Your Meetings spoke with him about his plans for MPI, and the challenges and changes planners face.

PYM: The press release announcing your appointment called you a “proven change agent.” What is it that MPI wants to change?

MacMillan: Change isn’t just about moving from point A to point B. There are a lot of changes going on right now in our industry. … Instead of following change, you want to lead change. If the change going on outside your organization is greater than the change going on inside your organization, then you’re not going to be successful.

Right now, we have a very strong North American base, but we’re seeing a lot of growth outside, in our European chapters. The meeting industry is growing in places like Asia and Dubai and Central Europe.

We are a global organization; we have an opportunity to grow our base in these areas. The meetings and convention industry will be different as a result of it, but right now, we’ve been just reacting to it.

Our business is based around the association model. … And that may change because, [for example], in Central America, they have no concept of what an association model is. We need to be sensitive to individual changes culturally; our type of structure needs to get reexamined, to see if that’s what we need to be successful.

PYM: If they don’t respond to the association model, what models do they respond to?

MacMillan: That’s the question. Part of our outreach has to be asking those questions and finding out. No one’s done that yet.

PYM: You said that much of your member growth is coming from overseas. If those members don’t recognize the association model, why are they joining MPI?

MacMillan: They recognize the value of MPI’s brand. … The reality of MPI is that we are the largest global organization dedicated to the success of the meetings industry and our members.

PYM: Going back to how much has changed in the industry. What do you find are the most exciting areas of change — challenges meeting planners are looking at now?

MacMillan: We’ve all read the book “The World is Flat.”* Now when meetings are planned, the number of international attendees is skyrocketing. These attendees have different contexts about professional engagements and social engagements, and we have to understand that from a cultural perspective and from a learning perspective.

Also, technology. There’s a lot of new technology and it allows existing meetings to be more efficient; it also helps on a follow-up basis, whether it’s using a blog or a follow-up e-mail. But you need to know what’s the best method that works for your meeting attendees.

PYM: How does MPI help meeting planners meet these challenges?

MacMillan: One of our cornerstones is networking. Also, we offer education. … It’s a place you will meet people where you can discuss business relevant to you, and talk to people in your industry who are from where you are looking to focus on, but haven’t been to yet.

PYM: How are you planning to change MPI from an organization that reacts to change to an organization that leads it?

MacMillan: My first 60 to 90 days, I’ll go out to our members and our partners and ask them, “What does a successful meetings industry look like to you? What does it look like in the next three to five years?”

Our role is to find these elements of success and find out how it’s done, what technology’s employed, what the impact of China is, and I don’t feel that anybody has asked that question yet. There are huge new trends going on. We’ve beaten the attrition clause to death, but there are other trends. For example, many advertising and marketing agencies have opened up meeting and convention departments to better service their clients. Nobody’s talking about that, but I know it’s happening.

PYM: What does a successful meetings industry look like to you?

MacMillan: Part of it is understanding that in the growth of any kind of global economy, meetings, events and conventions are going to be important.  A meeting and event professional can’t take the same approach to a meeting in New York City as one in Paris or South America. It’s about what the attendee wants. If you have attendees from the U.S. and France and Mexico, they’re all going to go to the same meeting, but there will be something different for each of them.

We need to understand … what globalization means to the business of meetings, and I don’t think we’re there yet. It’s the same for technology. It didn’t mean the end and will never mean the end of meetings. A lot of people said it would with videoconferencing … but there are more meetings now than ever before. Face to face meetings will always be a part of human commerce and human living.

But have we kept up? … No. I don’t think we’re there yet.

*“The World is Flat” by New York Times “Foreign Affairs” columnist Thomas L. Friedman is his account of the changes taking place in our time as advances in technology and communication expand global commerce and wealth in countries such as China and India.