I guess I should have realized this before, but I admit, when I was sitting in my Operations Management class last night (OPMA for short), the first class of the fall MBA term, I had a small revelation: Event Management is just specialized Operations Management. For those who don't have a clue what I mean by Operations Management, I fall back on my prof's definition: "The function that manages the conversion/transformation of inputs into outputs (services/goods) that are of value to customers". For those of you who are now even more confused, here is my translation regarding events.
We take things (food, paper, tchotchkes) and people (attendees, staff, speakers, exhibitors) and transport them. The transformation here is locational, and the challenge for sustainable event professionals is to not only get them there on time but to get them there efficiently, with the least use of scarce resources like fuel, time, and money. This efficiency is the key to sustainability. For example, by choosing locations closest to the majority of people travelling to the event, you cut down on the amount of fuel used to get there (and carbon emissions), the cost of the ticket, and the time of the people travelling. This same sentiment applied to things is the beginning of creating a sustainable supply chain.
The sustainable supply chain also includes social elements (like Fair Trade or minority-owned businesses) but is also concerned with efficiency. That is why the mantra of "buy local" is so important to sustainable events. Once again, you are using scarce resource efficiently to reduce travel time and use of fuels. You are also, of course, stimulating the local economy while getting fresher produce, among other things.
The industry provides venues, and here the activity is building and retrofitting and the transformation is a physical one. LEED buildings are the main example of this. The value to customers includes buildings that enhance future transformations, such as the ability to learn, health of attendees, and of course the efficient use of scarce resources such as energy.
Events are often used to create other transformations -- data to information (for example, the use of social media and virtual meetings) information to knowledge, and knowledge to application (for example, learning how to create a sustainable event and applying these concepts to your next event). It also creates "remote to real transformations" -- by which I mean that someone's electronic or remote presence is transformed into real, personal relationships via a face-to-face meeting. Yes, I just made that phrase up, but this is the intrinsic power of face-to-face. Research I did in collaboration with Ottawa colleague Mitchell Beer in designing a hybrid meeting strategy for a client only reinforced this concept for me.
Operations management impacts all areas of logistic meetings design, but also impacts on organizational strategy. The sustainable events operational strategy should specify how the organization will employ its resources to support its sustainability strategy. This brings sustainable events to the boardroom as a key player in any CSR strategies.
It also means that we can learn from existing OPMA strategies how to better create and position sustainable event strategies. More to come.
Elizabeth, for a great example of "remote to real tranformations," I would point to EventCamp Twin Cities, a hybrid event September 9 that consisted of a primary participant group in Minneapolis, local nodes in Dallas and in Basel, Switzerland, and about 200 registered participants online. I summarized some of the takeaways from ECTC on MeetingsNet this week (http://bit.ly/aYByvp), but that was just a quick snapshot of some very good, detailed material (http://eventcamptwincities.com/live/). EventCamp will be rolling out a bunch of post-conference content over the next several weeks.
ReplyDeleteAn important point for all meeting professionals, but even more so for sustainable meeting practitioners, is that the flow from information to knowledge to application takes place at two levels. As you point out, we're constantly learning (or if we aren't, we should be) how to make events more environmentally and economically efficient. But that efficiency still has to be filtered through the results we help *our clients and their participants* generate once they get onsite. As a deliberately implausible illustration:
* If a meeting cuts its carbon footprint 80% but sends participants home with no new knowledge, ideas, or action items, the remaining carbon output was wasted.
* If a meeting is truly and measurably carbon neutral and meets its primary objective, but that objective is to reach consensus that the Alberta tar sands are a legitimate, environmentally friendly energy source...that would still not be a sustainable meeting. (And we would need a new measurement standard to track the pernicious impact of too much hot air in an onsite gathering.)
* If someone in our industry designed a successful meeting that made no effort to cut its carbon footprint, but spent two weeks mapping out a practical, affordable agreement for the world's 100 biggest emitters to reduce *their* footprint by 80% in 15 years...to my mind that meeting would be a finalist, if not the winner, for the grandparent of all sustainable meeting awards.
I think this is the point where meeting design connects with sustainable meetings. Making that connection work, then making it visible to clients, may be one of the biggest emerging opportunities for our profession.