PCMA Launches Its New Strategic Plan

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 1/24/2005

Honolulu—It was not just the usual changing of the guard when Michael Payne handed over the chairman's gavel to Gregg Talley Jan. 12 at the Professional Convention Management Assn.'s well-attended annual meeting in Honolulu.

According to Payne, executive vice president and managing director of SmithBucklin, and Talley, president and COO of Talley Management Group, it was the dawn of a new era for PCMA.

For three days, the pair — along with association President and CEO David Kushner — had been selling members on a new strategic plan for the organization, which was kicked off when Talley took the reins of the board of directors.

This will be a busy year for Talley. He's charged with getting the ball rolling on initiatives in education, advocacy and research, as well as collaborating with other industry groups to accomplish PCMA's goals.

For Talley, work on the strategic plan began a year ago, when Payne asked him to lead a task force to formalize a new direction for the association. PCMA revises its strategic plan every three years, but this time was different. Since the last review, an economic downturn, Sept. 11 and a national travel slump had dramatically changed the meetings industry.

Also, Payne said, the old plan sought to do away with committees and activities that weren't accomplishing much. This, along with the intervening socioeconomic circumstances, "gave the sense that there was an opportunity to change focus and direction," he said.

With that in mind, Talley — working with an independent consultant and a group of volunteers — began hammering out the new direction. Soon, they split into three groups to focus on education, industry issues and advocacy, and market position. By June, they had a framework to present at the association's Leadership and Governance Conference in New York.

The new plan reinstates the focus on volunteerism, and institutes a few new committees to carry out its initiatives. Although they are encapsulated in the "education, advocacy, research" motto, these initiatives cover a broad-ranging set of objectives.

For starters, the plan aims to reorganize and brand PCMA's many educational opportunities so that they focus on the group's various niches: association vs. corporate meeting planners, entry-level vs. executive-level planners, and so on.

Improving tools and technology, another goal, is meant to enhance not only education but the membership experience in general. At a Jan. 11 town hall meeting, scheduled to discuss the strategic plan, Kushner cited a forthcoming upgrade to MEI, the association's membership software, as one way of achieving that goal.

The strategic plan also calls for growing the membership by "getting everyone from every company," as Talley put it at the meeting. He added that there were membership expansion opportunities outside PCMA's traditional demographic, such as third-party independent meeting planners and exhibition managers.

"Many planners wear both (meeting and exhibition planning) hats, and we think that's an opportunity, because we're in a position to offer them better education," Talley noted.

The plan also envisions beefed-up research on current issues, to be used not only to enhance PCMA's educational offerings, but also to position it as an authority to the media and others.

Talley, at the town hall meeting, added that one of the advantages of "more targeted, high-level research" is that "there are people out there who are willing to pay for it."

Advocacy will also take the form of position papers on topics like the current problems visa restrictions are creating for meeting planners, and the value of face-to-face meetings in the U.S. economy.

Partnering with other industry associations is another goal of the strategic plan. Both Talley and Payne said they'd like to reach out to groups such as Meeting Planners Intl., the Intl. Assn. of Convention and Visitor Bureaus and the American Society of Assn. Executives.

They pointed to a joint effort with MPI as an example of the type of outreach PCMA plans. On Jan. 6, the PCMA-MPI Multicultural Education Program released its Meeting Multiculturalism toolkit, a set of research, advice and templates meant to help meeting planners develop ad campaigns to reach untapped markets.

Talley said if he had to summarize what's different about the new plan, he'd put it this way: "Outward focus, versus the internal focus of the last five years." The organization is done rebuilding its infrastructure, he said, and it's financially stable. It's ready to take on the world.