Association Forum's Holiday Showcase Wraps Up 25 Years
CHICAGO (February 7, 2014) - Association Forum’s 25th annual Holiday Showcase® held on Dec. 17 at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency Hotel offered a host of unique opportunities to connect association and meeting professionals with the supplier partners that serve the association and meetings industries.
Often proclaimed as the Midwest’s No. 1 meeting sites and business services trade show and education event, more than 2,400 association industry and supplier partner professionals registered to attend the four hours of education sessions, exposition and sold-out lunch and keynote address.
The newly added Association Forum CAE Recognition Breakfast celebrated the most recent class of members who achieved the CAE credential. Also new was an honors and awards reception to recognize and congratulate the inaugural class of the Association and USAE’s Forty Under 40® Awards honorees.
"The 25th annual Holiday Showcase continued its tradition of offering unique opportunities to obtain business solutions and new contacts,” said Association Forum’s President and CEO Christie A. Tarantino, FASAE, CAE. “Attendees took part in education and the exhibition to discover ideas, products and services catered to their specific job needs, while exhibitors and sponsors built relationships and accomplished important business objectives with desired association professionals.”
Education and Solution Sessions
The morning education programming ran the gamut of association management topics and education delivery formats. Topics spanned from corporate social responsibility to negotiating hotel contracts to simulation-based education to harnessing “big data.” Also, four solution sessions showcased business service supplier products covering mobile apps, event technology, member communities and floor plan management software.
Highlights from one very popular Education session, Accountability at Work: Three Skills for Resolving Violated Expectations include:
“When you have spiritual turnover (staff is physically there, but their spirits have left the building), the results are low member retention, high staff turnover, reduced quality of services and low morale.”
“You increase compliance and commitment through understanding, not by exerting power. Two main causes for accountability issues are lack of motivation and ability. Motivation issues are often a difference in priorities – they don’t care what you care about. You can exert influence and get them to agree with your priorities by explaining consequences.”
“When addressing accountability, start with what the problem is and the facts. Then explain what you expected (describe the gap) and list what you observed. When people become defensive, speak from your heart. This is how you create a safe environment. Explain your intentions and motivation (e.g. “I want us all to work well together” or “I want to support you and make sure we deliver for the customer.”)
The Solution Session, Top 5 Tech Tips for 2014, focused on determining mobility opportunities, adopting cloud services, tracking meaningful metrics, integrating core applications and addressing the post-Windows XP world come April.
- Regarding mobile devices, presenters suggested that associations should determine if their organizations can perform a “remote wipe” if a personal device is stolen or an employee leaves the team.
- In terms of metrics, associations should learn if they have the right types of reports they need to run their organizations effectively, if the right people have access to the right data and if processing the data is a cumbersome or efficient process.
- For integration of systems, it was suggested that associations review their AMS, member financial transaction needs, account software, reporting and analysis capabilities, budgeting and forecasting tools, member portals, marketing automation and other systems to determine how to reduce complexity and work more efficiently.
Keynote Address
During lunch, sponsored by Visit Orland and the Orange County Convention Center, attendees were treated to headliner Chester Elton, co-author of several successful leadership books including New York Times and No. 1 Wall Street Journal bestsellers’ All In, The Carrot Principle and The Orange Revolution, who discussed key traits found inside the world’s most stellar teams (Zappos, Starbucks, Disney, Apple, Google, Southwest Airlines) and what makes them the most respected and innovative organizations. He also explained how associations can apply those companies’ successful principles to create a culture that drives big results.
“There are only two questions you should ask a good leader: How is your culture and how are your people,” Elton said. “The most successful organizations have two key differentiating qualities: an enviable culture and people who are engaged, enabled and energized. Your people differentiate you, and recruiting and retaining the right people is how you will move your organization.”
He also challenged leaders to recognize staff often and to be specific and sincere in their praise. “General praise has no impact,” Elton said. “And too often, employees are recognized when they make a mistake, not when they do something great.”
Elton also shared some unique ways to recognize employees: do their least favorite tasks, remember and recognize special dates (work and personal anniversaries, birthdays, other milestones), take them to lunch, provide a coveted parking space, write a letter to an employee’s family of how much that employee is appreciated, or give an employee three handwritten notes each week for three weeks acknowledging a job well done.
Expo Hall
Participants then explored the 320+ booths in the exhibit hall for an afternoon of business-to-business browsing and doing business with more than 620 exhibiting companies. The four hour show concluded with three grand-prize giveaways of vacation packages to Detroit, Mich. and Midway, Utah with one buzz worthy year’s supply of shoes from DSW and a gift cards to famous retail stores all headquartered in the city who donated the prize – Columbus, Ohio. In celebrating our 25 year history, we recognized more than 30 exhibiting companies who have supported Holiday Showcase show since its inception.
Holiday Showcase Happy Hour
Attendees and exhibitors continued their conversations, toasted the season and enjoyed a live band during the festive Holiday Showcase Happy Hour sponsored by Positively Cleveland as the Title Sponsor and GES, Mexico Tourism Board, Nashville Music City and Niagara Falls as the Supporting Sponsors.
Giving Back
Throughout the day, Holiday Showcase attendees assisted ChildServ®, a local nonprofit assisting at-risk families, by providing much-needed essentials. With the help of sponsor Tourism Vancouver and the Vancouver Convention Centre, hundreds of disposable diapers and generous cash donations were collected.
Sponsors
Tarantino added that Holiday Showcase 2013 was a success due to the support from its generous sponsors:
Platinum Sponsors:
Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau
Visit Baltimore
Visit Orlando and the Orange County Convention Center
Gold Sponsors:
Choose Chicago
Silver Sponsors:
Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau
Mexico Tourism Board
Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau
Positively Cleveland
San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau
Tourism Vancouver and Vancouver Convention Centre
Visit Indy
Bronze Sponsors:
AAG
Destination Reps
GES – Global Exposition Specialists
Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau
Niagara Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau
Sikich
Sonoma County Tourism
Visit Denver
Event Sponsors:
ABCOM
Analyitcs8
ASI
BrightKey
CadmiumCD
CommPartners
Core-apps
Cvent
ExpoCad
Infinite Conferencing
InSight™
Map Your Show
SmartSource
YourMembership.com
Holiday Showcase 2014
Holiday Showcase 2014 will be held on Dec. 16 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Attendees and exhibitors can look forward to some new experiences as key enhancements are currently in development. For information on exhibiting or sponsoring Holiday Showcase, contact Christy Spahn, director of sales and sponsorship spahn@associationforum.org or 312-924-7074. For information on submitting a proposal to be a Holiday Showcase education program presenter, contact Kerri Leo, sr. manager, education and program development leo@associationforum.org or 312-924-7021.
About the Association Forum
The mission of the Association Forum is to “advance the professional practice of association management.” Founded in 1916, the Association Forum serves 47,000 association professionals whose efforts serve more than 37 million members and generate $22 billion in global annual expenditures. Visit www.associationforum.org.
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For More Information:
Jemilah Senter
(312) 924-7030
senter@associationforum.org