For meetings industry professionals keen to extend their learning or who missed out on key seminars and workshops during this year’s IMEX, the show’s organisers have made 53 presentations available for free download on the IMEX website (www.imex-frankfurt.com/seminarpresentations10.html), including all the German language seminars, which were organised by IMEX founding partners, the German Convention Bureau (GCB).
For the first time a selection of six IMEX presentations were also recorded by webcast service company, Multiwebcasts. The company specialises in transforming regular webcasts into content-rich online educational activities. Available webcasts include: “A clear pond has no fish – Is transparency the enemy of profit” – by Roslyn McLeod, Managing Director, arinex pty ltd and Philippe Fournier Vice President of IAPCO and Managing Director of MCI, Paris; “The impact and implications of the Iceland volcano eruption”, by Martin Sirk CEO of ICCA; and “Emerging Destinations – How to establish and build a CVB.” This DMAI presentation was extremely popular and attracted a standing room only audience of over 100 people during the show.
A Women’s Forum session entitled “Develop your personal branding” and presented by Mary Power, Executive Director of the Human Resource Certification Institute is also available as a webcast. In addition, Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future Research, can be seen presenting the first phase findings of groundbreaking new research study, Convention 2020 – The Future of Meetings, Venues and Destinations. For those interested in extending their cross cultural education, a presentation by Michael Gates, Managing Director of Richard Lewis Communications, IMEX’s Cross Cultural Partner, can also be viewed as a webcast – “Getting competitive advantage from culture in the meetings market”.
Each of the webcasts is quick and simple to view and does not require any special technology other than Adobe Flash Player.
For the second year running IMEX hosted buyers and visitors could save any of the more than 200 seminars and exhbitor events into their online show diaries, enabling them to plan their time better and make the most of the show’s extensive educational programme. All IMEX education sessions are provided free of charge and with no need to book.
Drop-in 30 minute ‘Power’ sessions on the IMEX Corporate Responsibility Centre also proved a major success at this year’s show. Managed by the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC), the Centre aims to give both exhibitors and visitors the chance to increase their awareness and knowledge of environmental and social responsibility.
Speaking about a growing demand for green meetings information and education, Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group said, “Although IMEX has been promoting environmental education and awareness through a number of initiatives, such as our Green Awards, for several years; this year there was an increased desire to both find out more and actually do more in terms of green meetings and specific environmental targets. Our Power sessions were the perfect solution – half-hour bites of information from experts who understand how daunting it can be to even make a start in this area.”
A total of 10 CSR Power Session presentations are available for download or reference on the IMEX website.
As a result of its own environmental and waste reduction objectives, IMEX 2010 reduced waste output by 30 tonnes compared to 2009. Paper waste was reduced by 8 tonnes and cardboard waste by 7.5 tonnes. Both measures were helped by the new IMEX Green Ribbon Scheme which incentivised exhibitors to minimise paper usage during the show as well as encouraging them to ship unused print materials back home afterwards.
