One of the highlights of IMEX in Frankfurt this week has been the release of a "taster" of the "Convention 2020" research by Fast Future Research, focused on the future of Exhibitions, Meetings, and Events.  The July 2010 report will highlight key drivers of changes and challenges that will face the meeting and event industry in the future.  We were glad to get a sneak peak at the material. Here are a few highlights of the interesting topics that will be covered in the report that comes out in July.

Generational changes:  With five generations in the workforce, and Generations X and Y making up nearly 70% of the global population, meeting planners and sponsors need to adjust to generational changes more than ever.  For example, generation Y is said to have less of an attention span and less tolerance for human error, therefore meeting planners must really step up their game in order to deliver virtually flawless events.  It looks like meeting planners are going to need all the help they can get! There is also a surge in numbers of meeting and event planners and so the levels of professionalism and work ethic are bound to rise.

 From CRM to ERM: just like businesses embraced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, will the industry adopt similar concepts for Event Relationship Management (ERM) to deliver a deep understanding of the individual's event experience?   Will virtual events technology, videoconferencing, and mobile solutions make hybrid events a commonplace reality, as well as increase the number of pure virtual events dramatically?  Personalization through technology will become a fundamental expectation for tomorrow's event attendee: what will the experience look like and is it all about technology?   How do events, and technology, facilitate the social interactivity? Quality of networking was expressed in the previous report as the number one driver for attending  events in the future, so how will technology facilitate that?   Challenges include collecting, managing, analyzing, and exploiting the data and knowledge generated from events.  These are all themes that are very much at the core of our thinking at Certain.  

 Shift of the meetings and events industry into a more sustainable business. I was hoping to read that this will be covered in the July report, and my hopes were confirmed:  the report will explore the industry targets for driving down events' environmental footprints, and discuss the responsibility/rewards model for making changes actionable.  Certain has been promoting ideas for how technology can help reduce the carbon footprint of meetings and events for a while now and I am glad that others are now following in our footsteps. You can learn more about our greener events initiative at http://www.certain.com/greenerevents. 

To learn more about how event management software can help you streamline processes and bypass many of the industry's future challenges, please visit our website at www.certain.com

 I am definitely looking forward to reading the July report. I hope you will to. To read the preview published by Fast Future Research, please visit http://convention2020.meetingsreview.com/phase1report