MBM COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS AND MEETING PLANNERS BLOG

Stunning New MBM CyberSet® Webcast for Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics Saves Lives

2010-11-19T21:26:00.029-06:00

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Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating deaths and suffering caused by asthma, allergies and related conditions, recently launched an innovative program that pairs allergists with volunteers in 150 communities across the U.S. Volunteers involved in the Anaphylaxis Community Experts (ACEs) program, created in partnership with the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI) and sponosred by Dey Pharma, LP, conduct educational sessions about anaphylaxis - a life-threatening allergic reaction. But before volunteers could help save lives in their communities, they needed training.

AANMA's challenge: How to train an entire network of allergists and community volunteers scattered across the country?

AANMA President & Founder Nancy Sander turned to MBM Productions International to brainstorm ideas. First they considered an in person meeting of medical professionals from the 150 communities involved in the program. They abandoned this option though when they realized that such a meeting could cost $2-3,000 per person.

The solution: Webcasting. But AANMA and MBM agreed that they wanted something that went beyond ordinary Webcasting. The production would be much more than merely slides with a voice, a method that couldn't properly relay the complex information or engage the audience. Instead, AANMA opted for an interactive live video streaming Webcast from MBM Consortium studios, Answer Media. During the video Webcast the panel of experts engaged the audience face-to-face, answered live questions from the audience and even certified the viewers, ensuring that every ACEs volunteer is qualified to help conduct educational programs about anaphylaxis in their community

The result looked just like TV. The Webcast was shot on a virtual set known as a CyberSet®, and branded to the ACEs program. The video Webcast production was similar in cost to a simple slide-and-voice Webcast and 85% less than the cost of an in person meeting.

How do we know MBM's Streaming Video Webcast with AANMA was a success? The 150 participants asked more than 200 questions, a good indicator that they were engaged during the hour long broadcast.

To learn more about how to Webcast a meeting and how to create a Streaming Video Webcast such as this for your company or organization, visit MBMProductions.com. Contact us to learn about how to Webcast in Chicago at MBM Consortium Company TV studios, Answers Media (the original home of The Oprah Show) or call upon MBM to Webcast from anywhere around the world using our crews located on every continent.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing in Pharmaceutical Webcasting, Financial and Insurance Webcasting, Healthcare Webcasting, Live Surgical Webcasting, Automotive Webcasting, Technology Industry Webcasting, and other industry specific Webcasting, as well as pharma meeting planning for in-person meetings and full service turn-key AV production.

Virtual Meetings and Streaming Video

2010-11-19T21:25:00.012-06:00

Power Your Meeting With a Brick

How MBM and VBrick are Creating a Brave New World in Meeting Planning and Webcasting by Thinking Like Broadcasters

When virtual meetings first came on the scene they were met with concern by some meeting planners who felt that they would jeopardize the in-person meeting business and by others who felt that all you needed for a virtual meeting was a slide and someone to narrate it.

Both viewpoints proved to be inaccurate.

Clearly, in-person human interaction will always be a part of our world, though it is certainly not the only form of communication that can be considered a meeting. The official definition of a meeting is 'an encounter.' And that's why slides and a voice, only minimally served the needs of meeting planners, as the 'encounter' between two human beings doesn't happen very effectively when simply staring at a slide.

Enter true crisp HD interactive video.

Enter MBM Consortium company VBrick, creators of MBM's Webcast video streaming platform that finally brings the promise of video interactivity to the business of meetings and meeting planning.

MBM Consortium company VBrick Systems, Inc. has dominated the market of video streaming, becoming the nation's #1 IP video streamer. Their video network and their proprietary hardware manufactured in Wallingford, CT. with it's legendary security and reliability has attracted such notable clients as all four branches of the military, 104 of the 120 federal agencies, the Department of Defense and hundreds of corporations and educational institutions in 56 countries around the globe.

But a secure video streaming solution is only one-half the story. The other half is the content of the video Webcast itself.

The model for properly produced virtual meetings sits in every living room in the world - your TV. If you think like a broadcaster, you'll produce great virtual meetings and Webcasts. There's no reason to accept anything less than the look of TV for your next virtual meeting or Webcast.

MBM Productions International combines the magic of Virtual CyberSets® to brand the look of a virtual meeting, and then sends that broadcast along VBrick's secure platform to produce the next generation in Virtual Meetings and Webcasts. Why take such care when producing a virtual meeting? To simply look great? Not at all! It's done to be effective. And effectiveness is easily measured: simply count the number of questions received into the Webcast. A well produced Webcast should bring in dozens if not a hundred questions for each 100 viewers. And being effective means that your next virtual meeting will communicate your message, save you money and ensure that the funds you do have will be stretched to their maximum and available for when an in-person meeting is mandated.

WHAT MEETING PLANNERS CAN LEARN FROM TV
In the 1950's TV producers thought that creating a television show was the same as theater - simply stage a play and point a camera at it. That lead to shows like "The Honeymooners" where a static camera viewed static people acting on a static stage. TV producers quickly learned that 'moving pictures' were different than theater and today we have movies like Avatar and The Bourne series.

Compare the evolution of TV to Webcasting: Meeting planners originally thought that producing a virtual meeting was like a live meeting. All you have to do is point a static Webcam at a static person staring into their computer. Or more commonly have the presenter merely narrate a static slide (Webex style) and that would equal a meeting.

But that is now proving to be as misguided a notion as early TV.

The meeting planning industry is learning that virtual meetings are different than in-person meetings and that they demand true video production. They understand that meetings don't yet have to look like the movie Avatar, but they must be more TV like to truly engage an audience. They are learning that to produce truly effective Virtual Meetings and Webcasts, meeting planners must think like a broadcaster.

Click the following link to take a behind the scenes tour of Virtual CyberSets® or click here to watch a TV like broadcast. Visit MBMProductions.com to learn how to Webcast a meeting in Chicago from our TV studios (the original home of The Oprah Show) or from anywhere in the world, using MBM crews located on every continent And visit MBMProductions.com to learn more about in-person meeting planning technology for Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Financial, Automotive, Technology, Insurance, Manufacturing and other industries.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production house and a communications company providing worldwide services to a vast array of global clients.

What's the Difference Between a Green Screen and a Virtual Set? A lot!

2010-11-19T21:20:00.011-06:00

Green Screen or Virtual Set?

The most common phrase when one sees a Virtual Set is to say, "I've seen that, it's a green screen." It's actually not a green screen. Here's the important distinction: A green screen is like the weather map, a person stands in front of a green screen, they are "keyed out" of the scene (meaning cut out from the green background - which is why the background is mono-chromatic in the first place), then in place of the green a new background is inserted, like a weather map. But it never feels like the person is in the weather map, just in front of it.

A Virtual Set uses the same green screen to cut out the people from the background, but that's where the similarity ends. With a Virtual Set a sophisticated CAD program is used to create a 3 dimensional environment, a room for instance, and the people are then placed inside that room, creating the illusion of true 3-dimensional reality. This is accomplished with the help of tracking computers that create a 3-dimensional grid in the room thus tracking each person's movement and filling in the virtual environment around them. MBM's Answers Media has the only 3 camera, high definition Virtual Set in America.

View a CyberSet® Broadcast or take a behind the scenes tour and learn how the magic is created. To learn more about how to Webcast a meeting and how to create a Streaming Video Webcast such as this for your company or organization, visit MBMProductions.com. Contact us to learn about how to Webcast in Chicago at MBM Consortium Company TV studios, Answers Media (the original home of The Oprah Show) or call upon MBM to Webcast from anywhere around the world using our crews located on every continent.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing specializes in Pharmaceutical Webcasting, Financial and Insurance Webcasting, Healthcare Webcasting, Automotive Webcasting, Technology Industry Webcasting, and other industry specific Webcasting, as well as pharma meeting planning for in-person meetings and full service turn-key AV production.

Stunning New MBM CyberSet® Webcast for Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics Saves Lives

2010-11-19T07:57:00.015-06:00

Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating deaths and suffering caused by asthma, allergies and related conditions, recently launched an innovative program that pairs allergists with volunteers in 150 communities across the U.S. Volunteers involved in the Anaphylaxis Community Experts (ACEs) program, created in partnership with the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI) and sponosred by Dey Pharma, LP, conduct educational sessions about anaphylaxis - a life-threatening allergic reaction. But before volunteers could help save lives in their communities, they needed training.

To learn more about how to Webcast a meeting and how to create a Streaming Video Webcast such as this for your company or organization, visit MBMProductions.com. Contact us to learn about how to Webcast in Chicago at MBM Consortium Company TV studios, Answers Media (the original home of The Oprah Show) or call upon MBM to Webcast from anywhere around the world using our crews located on every continent.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing in Pharmaceutical Webcasting, Financial and Insurance Webcasting, Healthcare Webcasting, Automotive Webcasting, Technology Industry Webcasting, and other industry specific Webcasting, as well as pharma meeting planning for in-person meetings and full service turn-key AV production.

Virtual Meetings & Events - Think Like a Broadcaster and You’ll Find Success

2010-08-02T23:40:00.021-05:00

Up until recently, one could argue that for millennia meetings haven’t changed very much. When I see most in-person meetings, what strikes me is that just like in ancient Greece, we walk onto a stage, head for dead center and orate from a lectern. For a long time now, I’ve wondered why we keep doing this.

Early in my career, in the 1980’s, because of the needs of some high tech clients, I was challenged with breaking out of that mold and broadcasting my meetings rather than presenting them in person. And in those days, well before the Internet was invented, broadcast meant via satellite. The now quaint sounding term for that type of transmission was “closed circuit television.”

For me, because of my production background, broadcast was natural. Imagining the “scene” as it would ultimately appear on a screen was my normal way of looking at communication. Live meeting production was where I had to think differently and put on my theater hat. Live meetings are the business version of theater and virtual meetings are the business version of television.

These days, of course, “television” (meaning all types of professional video) isn’t limited to the big three broadcasters or even to TV at all. Video streaming is ubiquitous, on the Internet, on smart phones and even on gaming consoles. So one would think we’d be, as a society, way ahead of the curve in creating sophisticated TV like business productions and virtual events. But when I observe the vast majority of virtual meetings what I see is the same mistakes made as were made in early 1950’s in TV. In the 50’s, TV producers modeled what they produced after theater, just as virtual events today are often modeled after live meetings. They surmised back then, they could simply stage a theater production and point a camera at it. Watch old black and white footage of the Honeymooners and you’ll see what I mean. It was “deadly” to watch because it was static and didn’t take advantage of multi-camera angles and editing that we now understand is imperative to create a proper broadcast. Eventually, TV evolved into more sophisticated productions.

Today, in the world of virtual events the same 1950’s mistakes seem to be happening all over again. There is the thought that one can simply transmit a slide over the Internet with a synced voice and it’s a meeting. Add a tiny talking head via video or clip art embedded into a drawing of a virtual trade show and the thinking is that creates an engaging virtual event experience. Putting aside the sync problems, which are commonplace as platforms struggle to combine all of these disparate elements, most importantly, this type of virtual event is exceedingly un-engaging to watch, compromising the effect of the virtual experience and ultimately driving people back to rely heavily on travel and live meetings. And most ironically, it’s completely unnecessary as all of the tools to produce engaging video production are at our disposal if we would just take advantage of them. Combine that engaging transmitted video with an in-person meeting and we create ‘the hybrid meeting” - the best of both worlds.

So what should we do in the world of virtual events, Web streaming and online meetings these days? We should learn from and take advantage of the technology that TV and the movies has given us and used for decades. For one, we should abandon the notion of syncing a static slide to voice and a video talking head. There’s no reason to do that. With sophisticated video Web streaming technologies and production “capture” technology (HD cameras, portable lighting systems, etc.) we can create engaging video for the business world, and stream it full screen over relatively modest bandwidth. But this new era of virtual communication demands that anyone involved in the creation of a virtual event must be a video production expert, a meeting planning pro and an IT guru well honed in the science of streaming video over the Web.

There is another lesson of what not to do that we can learn from the early days of television, and it’s about live verses on demand. In the world of TV, even TV news, live is a choice of last resort. No one in TV chooses live unless they have to, as it increases risk, both technical and human. And on the Internet, well over 90% of all video is consumed on demand. Especially in the world of business, minimally for legal reasons to limit risk, we should review every word and every single piece of data before releasing it to the masses. Therefore, except in rare cases and for good purpose, we should pre-record everything we can, every presentation, every word uttered. In the world of pharmaceutical virtual events, this couldn't be more imperative. The only element, which should be live, is Q and A. With sophisticated platforms that can be achieved with a technique referred to as “SimLive” - the combination of pre-recorded presentations blended with live Q and A.

The viewer need not even know the presentation is live or recorded unless one wants to express that. Every day on TV news the limiting of live reporting is a practiced technique. Live news stories include taped sections with the actual live portion being a small element of the segment. Pre-recorded means less risk, more control and lower cost. TV learned that lesson years ago.

I remember when The Tonight Show was live and all the problems that ensued, then soon afterward it went “live to tape” to reduce risk and increase the effectiveness as they could edit and re-do sections they weren’t happy with. One can learn a lot from early TV as we create new axioms in the business of Virtual Meetings and Events - Think Like a Broadcaster and You’ll Find Success.

Meeting Spend Management Software | Top Ten Solutions To Commonly Asked Questions

2010-02-05T17:19:00.002-06:00

One of the most talked about subject matters at all corporations is how to control meeting and travel spend and specifically, what software to use. Below is a “Top Ten List” of meeting spend management questions that come across my desk at MBM and some food for thought on how to find solutions in this ever growing field of complexity as our industry searches for the right answers.

1. What meeting spend management software should I use?

Custom vs. Customized

This is the most common and most complex question, so I’ll spend some time answering it.

Not too long ago, the biggest buzz in the meetings industry wasn’t spend management software, but online registration software. Application Service Providers (ASP’s) sprang up everywhere trying to be the company to capture the market, to charge a per attendee fee or no fee at all so as to attract millions of users to their site for future gain. Everyone it seemed wanted to get in on what was perceived as the lucrative ASP model of licensing (essentially “renting”) registration software to millions of users via the web. Eventually this turned into what so many Internet models turn into and that is a commodity with a small group of companies providing a low cost web based service to millions.

Our industry then turned to browser available meetings management software again with ASP’s vying to become number one in that space. That was more difficult as meetings management is a much more complex proposition than online registration, harder to commoditize. No one has come out the clear winner in that space.

Now the buzz is understandably, given this economy, all about meeting spend management software, which is yet another increase in complexity, far beyond online registration. While online registration and certainly meetings management can be complex for sure, spend management adds in the complexity of financial accountability, accounting standards, the need to coordinate with other well established financial software tools in place at public companies that may be controlled by government regulation and oversight, a far cry from online registration. And the level of intricacy in this software space is still evolving. Yet nonetheless meeting spend management software is the buzz everyone is talking about with software makers and meeting companies scrambling to create the next off the shelf or ASP product that will become the template leader, as popular as PowerPoint, to the meetings spend management industry.

But, I believe, the difficulty in trying to create this holy grail of spend management software is the template approach. While every ASP and off-the-shelf provider touts their ability to customize their software to the needs of each situation, they begin with the premise that tailoring a pre-created product as opposed to creating a custom product is the ideal route to take, or even possible. The difficulty with the concept of customizing spend management software rather than creating software anew, is the enormous complexity that exists within each corporation due to their other existing financial software.

Any good-sized company has a complex web of enterprise software products they use in-house from SAP to Oracle, which manage the finances and systems of their corporation. For spend management software to be useful and even more basically to simply be valid, it needs to pull and push data into and from those systems. Off the shelf software that’s customized to try to make it work in every situation, I believe, simply cannot do a very credible job, or some would say, work at all. Spend management software to properly interface with complex corporate software already in place many say should (or must) be created from scratch. It is becoming the consensus that Internal software at corporations is simply too complex and unique to do it any other way.

But instead of creating software from scratch the more common approach has been to purchase off the shelf software or license ASP web based existing spend management software products and attempt to modify them to make it work. Because this modification is referred to as customization, and that term is so close to custom, the marketplace can get easily be lead down the wrong road thinking they're getting one product when they are getting another. This is not unlike the custom home market, which often uses the term custom to mean one can purchase a home and be able to change the shutters or other easily modifiable variables. That’s customization, not custom. A true custom home is a product designed specifically for the needs of an individual consumer.

When customization is chosen over custom in spend management software, the procurement department of a corporation is often left with software that is deficient; that “can’t do this” but “can do that.” Or they are left with software that relies on double entry systems where employees have to, using spreadsheets, correlate reports from various pieces of software, a situation that would not pass any accounting standards. Ultimately this leads to the decision to find new web based or off the shelf software, customize that and the cycle begins again with software ultimately dubbed deficient.

Many believe that the way to break this cycle is to create custom software from the ground up. To some that sounds like a daunting task, only available to mega companies and in any case, enormously expensive even for them. The actuality couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Due to a whole range of changes in the software industry relating to “rapid application advancement” (simply put, creating software more quickly), custom software is an extremely doable task, not only for mega companies but also even for small companies. Filemaker Pro, Salesforce.com, Adobe® Flex™, Web/PHP and other software creation platforms now make designing software a simpler, less expensive and easier process for engineers.

And there’s another realization beginning to emerge. When a company uses web based software or desktop software that they don’t own, that is analogous to renting, there’s a continual never-ending licensing cost. That’s how software-licensing companies make money. But when one has software created specifically for their company, they own it. It’s theirs. It literally gets put in the asset column of their balance sheet rather than the expense column of their profit and loss statement. And that's an advantage that a procurement executive, more than anyone else would immediately see the benefit of as their job is to recognize and assess long term value.

The morale of the story is this: Years ago, the tools did not exist to create customized software, let alone custom software. But just like everything in our world, customization is now so much more possible because of the digital age. Because of computer software control of hardware mechanisms, I can go to the mall and get hundreds of customized consumer products from personalized engraved jewelry to "one-off" teddy bears with my children's name emblazoned on them that were impossible to produce except at large factories just a decade ago. This same ability to customize became true for the same reasons in the B-to-B software business. And now, custom software is something any company can and I believe should strongly consider when determining what solution will best fill their needs in the complex world of spend management.

2. How do I validate savings?

As this industry becomes more sophisticated, CFOs and CEOs will demand more and more accountability and alignment with standard accounting procedures when it comes to showing savings and ROI in the meetings spend management procurement category. Simply having vendors fill in undefined and unverifiable data is not going to pass accounting muster. This means that spend management software must be created to the same standards as all accounting software, interface with internal enterprise software savings and have data which is verifiable by audit.

3. How do I prove ROI?

My philosophy (and my company’s) is that meetings should make you more than they cost, otherwise they shouldn’t be held. But the first step in proving ROI is to prove “I”, in other words one’s investment, the cost of the meeting. This is not as easy as it might seem. Costs are not always borne in one place and there are overhead and internal costs, which need to be amortized across all projects. Cost reports must meet standard accounting principles otherwise they will eventually get kicked out of a CFO’s analysis, especially for a public company. So the first step in proving “R” is to validate “I” and that can only be done with customized spend management software that meets all accounting standards. Then the return quotient can be calculated; the subject of a future blog and a niche industry in its own right.

4. Who should control spend and savings data?

Clearly, this must be the client, not the vendor. The company wishing to acquire the spend data must control the spend data. To do otherwise is a conflict of interest. All too often, the norm is that the vendor supplying the very services that are essentially being audited by this spend management software controls the inputting of the spend data. This breaks all accounting principles. The only way for this to occur properly is for data to be pulled and pushed in and out of the company’s financial software that pays out money to the vendors. This must happen automatically or it will not live up to standard accounting principles. Savings data, as opposed to spend data, needs to be entered often by the vendors as they are the ones who know that data as they are the ones creating that savings. But that data too, must be verifiable and created in such a way as to pass all accounting audit standards. Savings data must be entered against standardized and pre-defined benchmarks, which remain the same from year to year to judge savings year over year. Spend management software will eventually evolve and be no different than any other financial software in a corporation, so robust as to be able to be included in the financial statements of public corporations. But this will take time to standardize as the meetings industry develops more sophisticated spend management software.

5. How do I expand this service to my entire corporation?

Over the years I’ve seen the industry change, from a lack of interest in spend management software to a mandate that spend management programs be instituted. But even with a mandate I notice many loopholes. Often spend management programs will be limited to a department, a division or national operations only. Rarely do I see a system that is truly worldwide, mandated and tied directly into a P.O. system. In other words, for a spend management system to truly work, money should only be able to come out of the corporation if the money goes through the spend management system. For this to work, the spend management software must be fully integrated with the existing enterprise software whether it be Oracle, SAP or the like.

See point 1 above and it becomes clear that custom software, not customized software is the only practical way to get that to happen. Oracle, SAP and other software are extremely sophisticated and intricate. To interface with it, custom software must be designed. Only then can data be pushed and pulled from and to those enterprise systems. Design a system like that at your corporation and your CEO will then be able to mandate it across an entire international organization because it will be integrated into the processes of your corporation. At the touch of a button, you’ll then be able to know exactly what was spent, as it couldn’t have been spent without being captured by your spend management program. It will only be then that you will truly know what you’ve spent at your company, not only for meetings, but if expanded, for any and every expenditure. This is the procurement holy grail that I hope to personally ignite.

6. How do I gain compliance within my corporation to utilize the spend management system?

By following the points laid out in number 5 above and integrating spend management worldwide into your corporation. Compliance will then be a non-issue as it will be the only way employees will be able to acquire funds to spend.

7. Can spend management software handle vendor contract tracking?

Not only can it, but it should as the two issues are inextricably intertwined. If the terms of a contract are not known or being followed, spend is not being managed, rebates may not be occurring, discounts may not be happening, etc. Again, though, custom software, not customized software is necessary as the situation at each company will be far too individual to be accommodated by software, which is merely tweaked as opposed to created for you.

8. Do meetings need separate spend management systems?

No. Meetings may have unique needs, but so do all procurement categories. A spend management system should be created for all spend in a corporation. But again, custom software is necessary, as each category will have unique needs at each company. The aggregate of all categories therefore is that much more unique and complex.

9. How much can I truly save with a system in place?

An untold amount of money can be saved when a true custom spend management software system is in place, which lives up to accounting rigor and audit. Too often soft savings is reported instead of true hard savings. With an auditable custom software system in place, created specifically for your company, millions upon millions can be saved routinely. The industry has not seen anything close to the savings possible as most savings “proven” currently are not provable and are merely soft savings that would not hold up to any accounting inquiry.

10. How do I begin such a program and how do I know where to turn?

We firmly believe it begins with the commitment to design custom software, created specifically for your company as opposed to customized software. That’s why we designed The MBM Consortium as both a custom software company and a meeting planning corporation. MBM Productions Int’l provides the practical knowledge of meeting planning to strategically design a meeting spend management system and Soliant Consulting, an MBM Consortium Member, has the coding prowess to bring meeting spend management software to reality and integrate it into your company’s enterprise software systems. Whether a company calls on MBM or not, that’s a personal choice. But we firmly believe that regardless, CUSTOM software is a mandate to move our industry from meeting spend management software programs that sound like they’re saving money to meeting spend management programs that actually save money, proven by auditable accounting inquiry.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial, automotive, manufacturing, food, insurance and technology industries.

Social Responsibility: Good for the Planet...and Incidentally...Good for Business

2010-01-05T00:07:00.001-06:00

Time and time again, my passion to help has led me down a road I would have never dreamed I'd be traveling. Many years ago I was on the board of a not-for-profit organization along with a friend, a well known publisher. The not-for-profit's stated mission was to help needy organizations by supplying, at absolutely no charge, advertising and communication campaigns worth millions of dollars. It was a noble mission, a noble organization, or at least I thought.

For while serving on that board, I noticed that something was awry. Something didn't feel right. I investigated a bit and found that there was corruption that needed to be uncovered. So I went to my fellow board member, who, as a well known publisher and editor of a famous magazine, was able to print my findings. And in one day, that not-for-profit organization's nefarious dealings became known and eventually the organization ceased to exist.

What happened next I could have never planned.

Feeling somewhat responsible for the demise of a good idea, I created my own not-for-profit whose goal was to accomplish what that ill fated not-for-profit was supposed to be do. And for the next decade or so, "Advisers USA" (which I co-led) supplied millions of dollars of free advertising and communication campaigns to organizations in need. We helped reduce the levels of infant mortality in Illinois and later helped feed millions of hungry people nationwide.

Post Advisers USA and post a personal tragedy that resulted in the loss of my identical twin babies who were never born, I devoted myself to helping educate the youngest of children in the world. My goal was to develop a center where (as the plaque now says), would allow other children, "to run jump and play as my babies never had a chance to." I saw a great need for education in my community and began a school under the banner of Gymboree Play & Music Hawthorn Mall, Vernon Hills, IL. Besides being the CEO of MBM Productions Int'l, I'm also the CEO of ChildKorp, Inc. which continues to this day, to run that school and hopefully in the future, to run my next dream, a Montessori school in my community.

Due to the loss of my babies, I devoted myself to learn more about ART (assisted reproductive technologies) and created a film entitled "The Art & Science of Making a Baby" which has helped thousands upon thousands of people as they struggled through many of the same issues I struggled with. That film has become an important piece of media in the world of fertility medicine.

My pro-bono life then turned from medicine to civics, where during this last presidential election, like millions, I wanted to become involved. That was the phenomenon of that election. Regardless of your political affiliation, we must all marvel at the outburst of civic involvement that gripped this nation.

Being a filmmaker by profession I chose to become involved, naturally, by creating a film. I had no idea when I created that video that on inaugural day it would become #1 on Google in the non-profit category, that I’d be interviewed by the press and invited to inaugural events in D.C. where my film would be played or that it would rack up over 100,000 video views and over 15 million impressions. I created my film because I cared for our world, because I wanted to make a difference. That video continues to make a difference today, being played around the world and I'm told still inspiring millions.

What do all of the above stories have in common? I didn't create any of the above projects to help my business. I created them because I cared for individuals, for life, for our planet, for our society. Because I have this notion that I'd like to leave this planet just a bit better than I found it. That if I don't do that, that my life would be for naught.

Incidentally, and that is the key point, incidentally, every project I worked on did end up also helping my businesses as well. But that was not the agenda. Though by immersing myself into new territories it broadened my horizons, introduced new people to MBM's capabilities, it allowed my company to tackle new projects, develop new technologies and gain new skills and insights.

Each project helped my business simply because more people in the world were then exposed to my company’s ability to create corporate and communication projects, meetings, productions and the like. But the key is, that was not the goal of any of these pro-bono projects. The goal of each project was simply to help. And that's why, I believe, each and every project became so successful. There was no agenda.

We live in a world of contrived moments, of calculated strategies, where everything is a marketing endeavor. My advice to everyone is to more often than not, simply "do." To be one's self. Help out as we can and let the chips fall where they may. Often, if one is doing the right thing, the chips will fall in one's own lap.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial, automotive, manufacturing, food, insurance and technology industries.

H1N1 A Meeting Planner Update

2009-10-10T23:03:00.001-05:00

Last week I was the chairperson of The International Symposium on Pharmaceutical Meeting Planning http://www.globalmediadynamics.com/upcoming-events/pharmaceutical-meeting which was held at the Westin Hotel in Philadelphia. I was not only speaking at the meeting on the topic of technology and our industry, but my company was charged with providing the technology as well as charged with providing the keynote topic.

I chose H1N1 and how our industry is preparing for this outbreak.

I chose this topic because as meeting professionals, our obligations and responsibilities are far greater than when I began in this industry 32 years ago. Besides the obvious logistic tasks we must solve, we are now responsible for everything from ROI to to supporting the overall communication plans of our corporation. Clearly, we're more than mere "planners", we're communication professionals responsible for a whole host of topics.

So I asked myself about how prepared are we as an industry if an outbreak of H1N1 occurred while we were conducting a meeting? I did exhaustive research on the topic and my conclusion is that we have an obligation as an industry to develop a much more thought out set of guidelines, not just for H1N1 but for any future communicable disease (or terrorist incident) and how we'd handle that situation if it occurred while we were executing a meeting.

My research included studying the WHO (World Health Organization's) guidelines on this topic which can be found at http://www.who.int/csr/mass_gathering/en/index.html

Their guidelines cover MG's as they call it, mass gatherings, but the guidelines need a tremendous about of development to be relevant and useful for our industry.

I also spoke about this subject matter with a good friend, Dr. Len Friedland, Head Clinical Development and Medical Affairs for vaccines in North America at GSK and whose company has developed a H1N1 vaccine. He concluded, along with me, the meetings industry needs a plan and we need it now.

I asked Len to speak about this subject matter at the symposium last week and he became our keynote speaker. Dr. Friedland took the audience through modeled scenarios that are more difficult than the current outbreak and it became clear to us, that, if for instance we were in Barcelona with 10,000 attendees and we had no plan, and there was a serious outbreak, we'd be ill prepared to deal with the myriad of issues that would arise.

We would not, in advance understand what the local authorities would mandate in terms of quarantine, nor would we know any of the local laws in this regard. If we canceled the meeting, we'd not know whether it's best or worst to put large groups of people on buses and further cause the disease to spread. One can go and and on about what we would not have planned, but could have planned. And being planners, we should have planned.

I followed Dr. Friedland's talk with more related discussion about "plug and play" technological solutions that our industry needs to have ready to go short term and long term during and post a crisis. These technologies are readily available in the world of "virtual" meetings, but they are far from "plug and play" if one wants true reliability, interactivity, etc. They need to be planned out, very carefully.

I'm a huge advocate of face-to-face meetings, but during times when that is not possible, especially during emergencies, there are many businesses such as pharmaceuticals, financial, government run programs etc. that must communicate information during an emergency. And if our world sees an event that is far greater than H1N1, we might have to rely on such communication tools for a long time. And we don't have a plan. So I'm on the "speaker circuit" trying to encourage everyone to create plans, to take this very seriously.

Bottom line of all of this is that corporations need to work with people like us to develop communication strategies, both live and virtual, for everyday use and especially for emergency needs. As communication professionals, we have an obligation to create these technological tools and strategies for our clients and an obligation to protect the safety and health of every attendee at every meeting.

For more information about this subject matter, feel free to contact me at Steve.Sulkin@MBMProductions.com.

MBM Productions International is a meeting planning company, an av production company and a communication company specializing pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial, automotive, manufacturing, food, insurance and technology industries.