What We Learned at PCMA’s Convening Leaders Conference

This January our team spent a week in San Francisco for the annual PCMA Convening Leaders conference. The four-day event included keynote speakers Simon Sinek, Condolezza Rice, and Bozoma Saint John as well as performances by the Detroit Academy of Arts & Science choir, the SF Bay Area Theatre Company and the main event Maroon 5.

We love this conference as it’s a great opportunity to see clients and industry friends from across the globe. With a high-caliber attendee list in a very social setting we believe that Convening Leaders is a must-attend event for meeting professionals! We left California energized and full of new ideas to kick off the new decade and we share some of our favorites with you:

1. By far the most enjoyable part of Convening Leaders was seeing our virtual event platform sister company e-Attend™ generate buzz by being the official bathroom sponsor. The ‘cheeky’ posters were all over the Moscone Center featuring quotes from various PCMA members and conference speakers.
2. The best Irish bar in town is just around the corner from the Moscone Center. The Chieftain is one of the oldest bars in San Francisco (opened in 1934 just after the Prohibition repeal) giving it a rich heritage. May we recommend their “Perfect Pint” of Guinness?
3. One of our favorite sessions was led by Debra Jasper, PhD, founder and CEO of Mindset Digital. We learned that the average person is hit with an incredible 5,000 brand images and 362 digital ads every day, so our attention span for content has dropped to about eight seconds. What does that mean for digital marketing efforts? Content needs to be short, organized, and skimmable (SOS) that makes your brand feel not only credible but likeable and relatable.
4. PCMA curated great headliners this year so we quickly realized the importance of getting to the general sessions and entertainment EARLY. It can be hard to find a spot after thousands of attendees are already there!
5. Sustainability was an overarching theme for PCMA this year; the conference took big strides in reducing its conference footprint through reducing waste. We learned that through their initiatives they were able to save 932,000 gallons of water and 6,501 kg of CO₂ through eco-friendly conference badges, water refill stations and a meatless Monday meal. We wrote about sustainability playing a big role in event trends for 2020 and beyond and we were thrilled to see it incorporated into such a large stage.

We love the PCMA conference! We learn so much each year - don't forget to read our best insights from PCMACL 2022.

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