Beginnings

Dani Rickert joined our staff full time in June, immediately after receiving her degree in Hospitality, Tourism and Events from Metropolitan State College of Denver.  You may have heard Dani’s name before that – she started with us in January as an intern.  Immediately after coming on full-time, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the Future Leader’s Forum at Meeting Professionals International (MPI) World Education Congress.

Certification

Andrea Brennan is now a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP).

Leadership

Devon Binder, CMP, CMM, is serving as the President Elect of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of MPI.  She will begin her term as President in July 2012.

Involvement

Steve Kinsley’s role on the board of Junior Achievement took him to Washington, D.C. in September to meet with Colorado Senators and Representatives.  While he was there, he received a national award from JA Worldwide for Exemplary Leadership and Support of JA’s programs.

Emily Lee’s Molasses Cookies

Ingredients

¾ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add molasses and egg, blend well.  Add all remaining ingredients to molasses mixture.  Mix well.  Chill cookie dough.

Roll dough into small balls and roll them in granulated sugar.  Bake on greased baking sheet 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees.

“Ticky‐boo” … “Hootie‐hoo!” … “Toodles Poodles!” Carla Hall’s signature catchphrases reflect her whimsical approach to life. “It’s all about having fun,” she says, belying the thoughtfulness with which she approaches her profession.  We asked her a few questions about team building, Top Chef, and some of her favorite things.

1.       What do you see as the key to a successful team building event?

Finding the various ways everyone can participate. For instance, in the last event the participants could cook, work on the marketing strategy or design the label.

2.       How do you work with the many personalities in a team building event to ensure all are active participants?

I make sure to walk around and actually have as much face time with all of the participants as possible. I try to share my excitement about the exercise.

3.       What was your favorite part or memory of being on the Bravo network show Top Chef and Top Chef All-Stars?

Seeing myself through the lens of another. The experience was rewarding both personally and professionally.  I really got to see what my strengths and weaknesses were.

4.       Can you share the best advice you’ve ever been given?

The best advice I’ve been given is to like whatever I am doing. That advice was given to me by my grandmother.

5.       Where is your favorite vacation spot?

Bridge of Cally, Scotland in the Fall at a friend’s Estate. Plenty of Rolling Green Hills to just look at or explore.

THE CHALLENGE: The client hosts a 2-day networking and education event for 50-100 of their top clients to learn about best practices in their respective industries. Attending the event are senior executives for industry leaders such as Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks and Marriott. The participants’ expectations for this annual event are that each year surpass the previous in creativity, networking opportunities and education, as well as incorporating the destination’s culture and local flair.

The 2011 event was scheduled at the Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Our client needed Kinsley’s experience to develop an event that would provide their customers and executives with a memorable experience that allowed them to network in a relaxed environment.

THE SOLUTION: North Carolina is known for barbeque, so Kinsley created a BBQ sauce teambuilding event. To foster friendly competition and add to the excitement before the event, the participants were encouraged to bring their own “secret” ingredient to use in their award-winning sauce.

To facilitate the competition, and to judge the entries, Kinsley brought in Top Chef All Stars Fan Favorite Carla Hall. Carla, cohost of the new daytime series “The Chew,” is known for her southern-style cooking, as well as for her fun and quirky personality. Participants received a BBQ apron signed by Carla, and the How To Cook Like a Top Chef cookbook.

Challenge participants were divided into 12 groups of seven, each with its own distinct team apron color. Teams gathered around one of twelve work stations equipped with propane burners, paring knives, cutting boards and other necessary BBQ tools. Set in the center of the action was the Ingredient Table which included over 40 eclectic ingredients and seasonings from which to choose.

The challenge began and the 45 minute clock started ticking down, as it does on Top Chef. Half of the team worked on the sauce while the other half worked on the logo and branding of their sauce. Carla counted down the clock and teams scurried to get the last bits done before time was called.

All the sauces and tasting items were placed on the formal Tasting Table. The feisty and opinionated crowd watched as Carla and the three other judges smelled, tasted, savored and savored again, each of the 12 sauce creations, using proteins the teams chose to showcase their sauce. The secret ingredients were revealed, including tequila & dark chocolate. The awards went to the Best Overall Flavor, Most Creative Use of Ingredients and Best Product Name & Branding. Following the awards it was off to dinner with the 12 BBQ sauce creations in tow for tasting during dinner.

A successful team-building event will be memorable for those involved. For our BBQ event, the keys were:

• Experiential interaction – active participation as opposed to passive observation;
• Personal takeaways – experiences to share with family and friends. Interaction with and learning from a celebrity;
• Creativity – injecting personality and fun through the opportunity to bring a secret ingredient.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” So, keep playing and find a way to inject fun into meetings with team building events.

Are you now craving BBQ? Below are a few fun links to get you started:

http://bbq.about.com/od/barbecuesaucerecipes/tp/10barbecuesauce.htm

http://www.foodnetwork.com/grilling-central-barbecue/package/index.html

http://www.bbqrecipesecrets.com/bbqsauce.html

http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,homemade_bbq_sauce,FF.html

For this month’s recipe, we’re introducing everyone to a dear friend of ours, Nancy Buchanan.  She writes a fabulous food blog called A Communal Table.  It’s a menu journal, i.e., great place to talk about (and play) with recipes and menus. 

This chicken recipe is easy and very flavorful.  If you get a chance, drop Nancy a line and mention that you heard about her blog from Kinsley.  It might earn us an invitation for dinner at her house!

QVC channel? No interest. Nordstrom’s half yearly sale? Oh please… I avoid it like the plague.  But put me into a grocery store and it’s all over – I have no willpower. None. Something interesting in aisle nine? into my cart it goes with a speed that rivals the Housewives of Beverly Hills at a Christian Louboutin sale.  The remorse of course doesn’t set in until I get home and start unpacking my bags  and the inevitable question comes up -  “what exactly am I going to do with this?”

Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem with my latest impulse purchase -  a bag of  Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Medley. A mix of brown rice, black barley and daikon radish seeds may sound a bit unusual, but I could think of numerous ways to use it. In fact, I had a hard time deciding exactly what recipe I was going to make with it first.  With the brown rice and daikon radish seeds, asian style dishes are the first to come to mind. But, nah. That was too easy. Nope, I had to try something a bit different. So, I made a simple pilaf with chicken stock, sauteed leeks, dried cranberries and thyme. And it was good, very good. Topped with an Apricot Glazed Chicken, it’s a simple and easy weeknight dish with an added bonus…the leftovers (with a bit of tweaking) make a perfect brown bagged lunch the next day!

Apricot Glazed Chicken with Cranberry Rice Pilaf

I used the Brown Rice Medley from Trader Joe’s. If you can’t find this in your area, you can substitute parboiled brown rice or a brown and wild rice blend instead.

Ingredients (serves 4):

Chicken
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 ½ teaspoons dijon mustard
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, rinsed and patted dry
salt and white pepper to taste

Rice Pilaf
1 cup Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Medley
2 ½ cups low sodium chicken stock
1 leek, washed and sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup dried cranberries
2 teaspoons dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Pre heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In  a small bowl, combine the apricot preserves, balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.
3. In a large saucepan heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil over medium high heat. Add the leeks and saute until the leeks are bright green and tender – about 3 minutes.
    
4. Add the rice, chicken stock and thyme. Stir to combine. Cover the saucepan and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately 35 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Remove saucepan from the heat and stir in the cranberries. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes.
5. While the rice is simmering, line a rimmed sheet pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
6. Place chicken breasts on the prepared sheet and brush with the glaze. Place into the oven. Baste the chicken with the remaining glaze after about 15 minutes into the cooking time. Continue to cook  until the chicken is done and has reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees – about 20 – 25 minutes. Remove from oven.
7. Serve with the rice pilaf.

Notes:

This makes a great base for a “leftover lunch”!  For lunch, I doubled the glaze recipe and saved half for the next day. To the reserved glaze, I added about 3 tablespoons olive oil to make a dressing. I tossed a handful of baby spinach with the dressing and then stirred some of the dressing into the leftover rice pilaf and layered the pilaf over the spinach and topped with some of the leftover sliced chicken for an Apricot Chicken and Spinach Salad.

The source of this recipe is A Communal Table at www.acommunaltable.com.

Carol Krugman has been organizing international meetings for over 30 years, as a corporate marketing manager, association executive, senior manager in several marketing and communications agencies and president of her own international meeting management company. She currently teaches undergraduate courses in meeting and business events full time as a member of the Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Events Management at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. 

Professor Krugman has successfully implemented programs in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East, as well as in the US and Canada.  Named one of “The 25 Most Influential People in the Meeting Industry“ by Meeting News in 2004, she has co-authored two books, Mexico: A Planning and Information Guide, and Global Meetings and Exhibitions, a textbook on international meeting planning published by John Wiley and Sons.  She is regarded as one of the industry’s top experts in cross-cultural planning, international operations and risk management.

1. In your book Global Meetings and Exhibitions, you speak to the trend of formal education versus learning through hands-on experience.  How has this thinking evolved over the past five years?

For most planners of my generation, who started in this business 30+ years ago, there was no real formal education in meeting planning. We did our best to figure it out, made mistakes, tried to learn from them and occasionally got some guidance from more experienced colleagues.  When professional associations such as MPI and PCMA began offering continuing education courses, it provided an opportunity to expand the learning community to peers and experts from around the world.  But meeting planning, per se, was not taught at the university level in any consistent manner.  Even today, if you look at all of the academic institutions offering courses in meeting planning, some are in Hospitality departments, others in Business departments, still others in departments with names like Recreation and Leisure. But the big change that I have seen over the past 5 years or so, is that a BA or BS is now a requirement for most of the meeting planning positions posted on industry association job boards. The professional community and academic community, which have been running on separate tracks for at least 2 decades, are now working together to prepare the next generation of professionals.  We finally have consensus on a body of knowledge that can actually be taught, so that graduates of programs such as ours at Metro State, enter the profession with a foundation upon which to develop their experience. This is nothing short of a paradigm shift for our profession.

2. In what major ways do multinational / multicultural events differ from those with a domestic orientation?

When we are at home in familiar surroundings, with people who speak our language and both think and react just like us, we tend make a lot of assumptions and take shortcuts in our planning.  This just doesn’t work overseas.  When working in a country that is unfamiliar, where you may not speak the language and have little knowledge or understanding of the local culture or business practices, you cannot make any assumptions about anything.  Depending on where you are, many components that you take for granted at home may be different – from meal times, to electrical power to service standards to the way your attendees learn and react to certain programming.   If you try to recreate a US based meeting outside the US, you will be impeded by the extra layer of complexity inherent in multinational, multicultural situations.  If you or your attendees want everything overseas to be just the way it is at home, then stay home.

3. What initially attracted you to a career in the hospitality industry?

I wasn’t attracted to the hospitality industry at all, mainly because I didn’t know that it existed.  I fell into meeting planning by accident. As a marketing manager in a multinational pharmaceutical company, organizing meetings was a part of my job. This was in the early 1980’s and there was no such thing as a professional meeting planner in the company at the time. As time went on, I realized that the only part of my job that I really enjoyed was all that meeting planning “on the side.”  I loved being able to take a project from beginning to end and actually see the results in real time. There is something intensely satisfying about bringing all the pieces together into a coherent whole and orchestrating a successful program on time, on target and on budget, anywhere in the world.

4. What would people be surprised to know about you?

That within this 5 foot tall (and wider than it should be) body, lives the soul of a lithe, slinky, 5’9” Argentine tango dancer.

5. Can you share the best advice you’ve ever been given?

However bad you may think it is, if there’s no blood on the floor, no one died and no one is on the way to the emergency room, you can fix it.

6. One final question. What comes to mind when you think of Kinsley?

Allison and Steve – The Ultimate Power Couple.  Excellence in meeting management, exemplary service to the profession, and a group of real pros who are having way too much fun!

Rebecca Frisch wrote the piece for About.com’s Conventions and Hospitality Guide as guidance and inspiration to planners of all experience levels.  Some of the questions addressed include: 

• What should be the first steps toward a career in event planning?
• Are there outside-of-the-box ways to pursue an event-planning career?
• Do you need to have a certain personality to succeed in event planning?
• What’s the reality of event planning?
• How can veterans of the industry retain their passion?
• What’s next for event planning?

Click here to check out the entire conversation in its entirety online.  And feel free to pass this column along to anyone who might benefit from it.

Written by Allison P. Kinsley, CMM, CMP

What gets better over time?  Fine wine.  Friendships.  A conference? 

Ten years ago, a financial services firm had a vision of a client recognition event.  It began with a modest goal of 75 people…and is now the premier conference in their industry and closing on 700 attendees.  In a meetings climate recently overshadowed by dark clouds, we’re delighted to spotlight and celebrate a success story:  the 10th anniversary of the Matrix Get Connected conference.

Here are four key factors that have contributed to their success and have made this event a Perfect Ten in our eyes.

1.  Know Thyself

Right from the start, the persona of the Matrix conference was crystal clear.  This was a client appreciation event with a Colorado flavor.  Mountain-based and relaxed.  And Matrix’s way of saying “thank you” was to gather everyone in that setting and provide a platform to network.  It wasn’t really about traditional classroom education, but instead, it was about getting people together to share an experience.

As planners, we’ve all heard about the importance of “white space” in a meeting – that mythical unscheduled time for interaction.  Clint Stanley, Vice President of Sales for Matrix, has been with the company for all 10 conferences.  He gives credence to the power of unstructured time at Get Connected.  “If you look at the outdoor seating that we always have, there are some high power meetings going on at every one of those tables typically.  Between sessions.  After sessions.  In the evening.  In the morning.” 

That unstructured time was stretched across entire afternoons during which participants could choose to fly fish or river raft, golf or explore abandoned gold mines.  The key was to allow non-session interaction time…and to trust that participants would put it to good use.  Matrix wanted to take people away from the everyday (and for many, ballrooms have become everyday!) and bring them together in an out-of-the-ordinary environment.

Of course, the selection of a meeting location had to support the networking objective.  Keystone Resort & Conference Center has been a perfect fit for all ten years of Get Connected.  We’ve all been to meetings in busy locations where it’s hard to keep people’s attention due to the many distractions.  At Keystone, however, Matrix gets to orchestrate the distractions.

2.  Brand It

Sure, they could’ve called it the Matrix Financial Solutions Annual Conference.  But do you think that name would truly engage their key constituencies? 

Instead, Matrix purposefully branded their conference as Get Connected.  It’s a moniker that’s both memorable and sincere to the event’s essential truth.  Think of your meeting’s brand as its personality.  When done right, it can make lasting impressions and enjoy great staying power. 

3.  Fresh Content

Many meetings will go through burn out, or as I like to call it, sameness kill.  Attendees complain a lot about static meetings.  So after ten years, what keeps this one alive and relevant?

The networking environment was in place.  Matrix added a focus on providing meaningful education to their attendees.  It’s a key ingredient that keeps people coming back…and especially in down economic cycles.  “We really want to be on the cutting edge in what we deliver,” says Stanley.  “In a very fast changing industry where regulation is ever-changing, it’s very important to give our attendees information that will benefit them over the next year.”

But where do they continue to find compelling material?

• By bringing industry experts who can shed light on the next 12 months
• By rolling out new services to help their clients grow their business
• By holding Q&A at the end of each discussion, tracking that feedback and integrating it into ongoing products and subsequent conferences

4.  Reach for New Audiences

Five years ago, Matrix decided that it wanted to tap into a whole new customer segment.  They had been known as a top-notch service provider to the retirement industry, third-party administrators and 401K record keepers.  But they really wanted to expand their base to include investment advisors.  Good financial advisors preach about the necessity of portfolio diversification.  Shouldn’t the same principles hold true for your attendee base? 

To assist them in achieving traction with this new channel, they developed Matrix U as an integrated part of the Get Connected conference.  It focused on educating financial advisors in the way that Matrix does business and the way regulation in DC is pushing the industry.  As a result, Matrix tapped into a whole different group of attendees that stimulated organic growth for the conference.

Having been involved from the beginning, Kinsley has been able to watch and assist with the evolution of this event.  As you can imagine, we are especially proud of the conference’s continued success and growth.  Congratulations to the entire Matrix Financial organization on a Perfect Ten.  Here’s a toast to another decade of excellence!

“While you’ll occasionally find me dabbling on Facebook, my time is primarily invested on Twitter and LinkedIn. Twitter is like a 24/7 cocktail reception. I can always find like-minded people who are interested in micro-blogging on any given topic. And because it’s a true social messaging platform, it’s perfect for sharing knowledge and making new connections. LinkedIn has also become an invaluable online community for me. Through our company’s LinkedIn group, it’s now incredibly easy to facilitate social networking and meaningful discussions on a wide range of topics.”

Click here to read the article in its entirety online.

David Nour is the thought leader on Relationship Economics® – the quantifiable value of business relationships.  He has pioneered the phenomenon that relationships are the greatest off balance sheet asset any organizations possesses, large and small, public and private.

Nour’s consulting clients include HP, Cisco, Chubb Insurance, Assurant, and over 100 marquee organizations focused on driving unprecedented growth through a unique return on their strategic relationships.  He is the author of several books including the best selling Relationship Economics (Wiley), ConnectAbility (McGraw-Hill), The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Raising Capital (Praeger) and the Social Networking Best Practices series.

Nour delivers 50 keynotes annually for global corporations, industry associations and academic forums.  Learn more by “googling” him.

1. Do face-to-face gatherings still matter in today’s digitally connected world?

More than ever!  Beyond your educational foundation and professional pedigree, your biggest asset is your ability to engage and influence others – often without authority!  F2F gatherings allow us to connect, engage, and influence – what others think, perceive of value, and choose to act upon.  Digital relationships are important, but email is one-dimensional; phone conversations are two-dimensional because of tonality; in-person is three dimensional and far more impactful.

2. What are the biggest opportunities that you see for the meetings industry in the year ahead?

Raise the bar on their Return on Objectives and Return on Influence!  Respectfully, meetings are a means to an end; that executive has an agenda, a set of strategic objectives, a strategy, and critical business goals she is trying to achieve.  As I wrote in a recent article, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu!”  Elevate your perceived and actual role to one of a strategic thinker and provide the executive with options to accelerate reaching their objectives.  It may be an in-person meeting, followed by a series of digital town-hall meetings or no meeting at all!  When you reduce your agenda and elevate theirs, it also enhances your return on influence – both within as well as external to the organization.  I love working with intelligent, creative, sharp meeting professionals who proactively collaborate with a broad base of relationships around them.

3. You recently penned an article exposing the flaws in professional certification processes.  As professional acronyms are prevalent in the meeting planning world, can you tell us a little about what you discovered?

Here are my three problems with some – certainly not all, professional certification processes: 1) They are often developed more for the credibility of their designating organization than the recipient as evident by completely inept board members of many of these organizations; 2) They are often a checklist of hoops the recipient has to jump through, many of which provide little to no value to the end customers the recipients serve; and 3) the organization does very little to educate the market as to the fundamental differentiation and unique value the end customer can only get from the certified recipient.  On the other hand, if the certification involves extensive customer-centric education, rigorous testing over some period of time on a multitude of relevant subjects, proof of quality output (vs. input), and it is governed by an accredited body, I’m all for it.  Few argue with JD, MBA, CPA, or PE accreditations.  It’s the QRZ, DQT, JTX, and the Zippidie Do Da ones that bother me!

4. Where is your favorite vacation spot?

Hard to pick one; I love Jackson, WY, Sea Island, GA, and Bermuda.  I’m heading to Casablanca, Lisbon, Barcelona, Amman, Petra, Cairo, and Jerusalem all this December – ask me again when I get back.

5. Can you share the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Again, hard to pick one – we’re all products of the advice we take!  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Throw away your stopwatch and get a compass.
• Improve by 1% a day and in 70-days you’re twice as good.
• Your focus determines your direction, which defines your destination.
• Your priorities determine your capacity.
• Readers are leaders and leaders are readers.
• Become an object of interest and those who matter will seek you out.

6. One final question. What comes to mind when you think of Kinsley?

“Power Couple of The Year” – the first time I met the dynamic duo several years ago, they were awarded something by that name.  That’s what I call them every chance I get and having heard of their great success, they’ve certainly earned every accolade they receive.