For Industry Groups, Ensuring Annual Conferences Stand Out Among The Rest is Priority One

LAS VEGAS – Given the plethora of credit union conferences held each year, deciding which one to attend, which one will have relevant content that can be utilized back at the credit union and whether the travel and registration fees are really worth it all has become a growing concern for management. If those decisions are hard to come by, just imagine the team of coordinators who face the challenge each year of making that annual meeting attractive enough to get repeat attendees. With 1,900 attendees at the 2003 National Directors Conference & Expo, it is easily one of the biggest draws each year. Even though Las Vegas has been the host city for a number of years and that’s not likely to change in the near future, it doesn’t make it any easier to come up with an agenda that is relevant and applicable, said Mike Matthews, manager of conference operations for the National Sponsor of Credit Unions, which publishes The CEO Report, Board Notes and the Annual Credit Union CEO Salary & Benefits Report, among other publications. “Time is valuable and each year we ensure that when attendees arrive here, their time is not wasted,” Matthews said. “We recently went over the evaluations and they consistently said this year’s conference was the best one yet. So, next year, we have to top ourselves.” Since 1978 the NCCU has been putting on the conference in Las Vegas. It’s designed for directors and CEOs to get step-by-step guidance on strategic planning, CEO evaluations, lending, financial management, and leadership from speakers in the credit union movement. Matthews said he’s so confident that attendees will leave the Directors Conference with strategies needed to expertly contribute to the board that if directors aren’t satisfied, NCCU will “promptly return your entire registration fee, no questions asked. You can’t lose.” Planning for the 2004 meeting actually started two months prior to the start of the 2003 meeting in August. At this preliminary point, Matthews said the main concerns are finding a location in the city that will accommodate a large number of people and discussing a marketing campaign. “Marketing is an ongoing process, always being updated and we’re moving more and more online,” he said. Matthews and his team of 15 coordinators typically have an idea of what the budget will be for all of the meeting’s expenses but depending on the hotel or conference center, food and beverage costs fluctuate each year. Some hotels will provide a discount on those items depending on the number of rooms reserved by a certain date. While Matthews would not say what percentage of attendee registration fees covers the expense costs, they do have a good idea between 60 and 90 days prior to the start of the Directors Conference of who will attend. Indeed, by the end of the 2003 conference, more than 1,200 attendees had indicated they would be back next year, Matthews said. The shear number of speakers for general and breakout sessions means handouts and other PowerPoint materials must be in hand 45 to 60 days prior to the conference. Attendees get a course book in addition to other take-home information. “For the most part, we get presentations in plenty of time. Sometimes there is a speaker on the agenda who may be hard to pin down because of their travel schedule, but we’ve had a good track record of getting material on time,” he said. While attendees leave with a “wealth of information to take back to the credit union,” Matthews said they would be remiss to not include a spouse tour and other leisure activities. This year’s draw was Madame Tussaud’s Celebrity Encounter Wax Museum, showcasing more than 100 wax figures of the famous and infamous. Another unique diversion featured an Elvis Presley impersonator accompanied by a live band, where many danced the night away on a large ballroom dance floor. When the last attendee has left the building, the outcome of the year or more planning is gratifying and instantaneous. “The attendees are a joy to work with and when you see their faces, their satisfaction, all the hard work makes it worthwhile,” Matthews said. Back to the Drawing Board With its new name and direction, CUNA hopes its Future Forum breaks the mold of what an industry conference has come to be, including eliminating the stuffy `symposium’ and replacing it with a roundtable for “a voicing of ideas… a venue for discussion…and a platform for exploring new directions.” “We recognize credit union executives and board members are very busy, and if they’re going to take time away to attend a conference, it has to be worth their while,” said CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica. “With that in mind, we’ve spent months retooling our annual conference to feature the kind of innovative programming, idea-sharing and expertise that credit unions tell us they want and need.” CUNA decided to revamp its symposium structure in part because of an uncertain economy and ongoing competitive challenges have resulted in boards seeking out CEOs who have the confidence to jump in to the swing of things and steer credit unions in choppy waters. For any large CUNA meeting, including its Governmental Affairs Conference, the planning starts with a learning event team that puts together a curriculum based in large part on evaluations completed by attendees. An agenda consisting of the industry’s hot topics quickly starts to take shape, said Todd Spiczenski, assistant vice president, learning events at the CUNA Center for Special Development. “The name change means there is revamping of the entire curriculum and on-site experience,” Spiczenski said. “Planning for the future means having the experts and the knowledge to take credit unions to the next level.” Input from CUNA’s many instructional design managers on what’s pressing in lending, marketing, human resources and so forth are critical starting points, Spiczenski said. Experts from CUNA’s six councils (CFO, lending, COO and operations, marketing and business development, technology, and human resources/training and development) are also called upon to offer timely issues for the curriculum and lead breakout sessions. Because attendees want to know what’s going on outside the industry, Spiczenski said learning event team members attend meetings outside of credit union land to gauge more pressing issues and identify potential key speakers. “Once we identify the curriculum, we try to find the speakers as soon as possible because we want to have the marketing piece out six months before the start of the Future Forum,” Spiczenski said. “By May, we have 90% of our instructors.” This year’s Forum has more than 20 breakout sessions and nearly 30 speakers including Kevin Carroll, a creative marketing director at Nike, Inc. and Marcus Buckingham, senior consultant at the Gallup Organization. While the agenda comes together, Vicki Schmitz, director of meetings and special events, assembles her 12-member team on the ancillary services including the on-site experience, guest tours and all the logistics of the entire experience. The first piece involves picking the destination and a facility that has at least 50,000 square feet for the exhibits, Schmitz said. Last year’s Forum took place in Orlando and this year’s meeting crisscrossed out West to Reno. Next year’s meeting will be held in the Eastern region of the country. Other considerations in choosing a locale include whether it’s a first tier city, – the ease of flying in from around the country – and the overall appeal of the city. Schmitz will send out a request for proposals to different properties, review the proposals and then make recommendations to CUNA’s management team. Some cities are more expensive than others including San Francisco and destinations in Hawaii, Schmitz said. Still, “we have a basic budget going in, we know what we’ve paid in the past and have a good idea of what attendees are willing to pay,” Schmitz said. “Depending on the hotel and city, food and beverage prices will fluctuate.” Putting together a guest/spouse tour starts with a call to a destination management company to get suggestions on popular spots. For Future Forum, nearly everyone agreed that Lake Tahoe would be an ideal excursion, Schmitz said. CUNA realizes that many attendees bring their spouse and often their entire families. With that in mind, this year’s Forum will feature a KiddieCorp program for children ages 5-12. While mom and/or dad are attending breakout sessions or an evening out on the town, KiddieCorp will provide arts and crafts, music and movement, financial education games and other creative activities. The kids program is new and may take some time to build, Schmitz acknowledged, but “it’s another way to set us apart from other conferences.” “We recognize that there is a lot of competition and there is limited travel and training in credit union budgets,” she added, “This year’s Forum offers a different and unique experience by offering more interactive activities and getting the audience engaged. We want the experience to be well worth the trip.” For the first time in its history of annual conferences, NAFCU hosted a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox this year. Nearly 1,300 tickets were bought for attendees, but an additional 500 were purchased when attendance figures came in higher than expected. Nearly 2,200 attended NAFCU’s annual conference and exhibition, making it the fifth largest crowd ever. It’s that type of extracurricular activity that supplements NAFCU’s content-rich sessions, describing itself as “trendsetters” and the paramount reason the annual confabs are sold out each year, said Sara Romanick, NAFCU director of education. “Fred Becker looks at the evaluations, each year we try to improve and we’re confident that our education programs are the number one programs,” Romanick said. Indeed, at the conclusion of this year’s meeting, attendees completed an online survey and Romanick said 87% of delegates gave an “overall excellent” review and 89% would recommend the meeting to others. Like most industry groups, NAFCU seeks out first tier cities and facilities that will accommodate potentially thousands of attendees. In-depth research is done on potential sites and Becker is heavily involved in the final choices, Romanick said. Each year, NAFCU rotates between East and West coasts and while some cities are more popular than others, for instance, Seattle, Boston, Nashville and Denver, the attendee numbers “don’t vary much” from city to city. Vancouver was such a hit in 1997 that NAFCU’s meeting will be held there again in 2004. “Our programs are driven by the needs of our members,” Romanick said. “Everything in the industry is changing and we need to know how to respond to those changes.” -See next page for related sidebar. [email protected]