Acting Social

As everyone knows the world is getting smaller and being able to successfully get along, understand and help each other has become increasingly important. With the Green movement, social media and the increased access to information the meeting industry can be a way for corporations to strut their stuff if they pay attention.

As mentioned by Tim Sanders at the end of his keynote address at MPI's Professional Education Conference-North America, "The only reason to hold a meeting is to save the world." Sanders as many may know him is the former Yahoo! executive and now a motivational speaker.

Sanders was referring to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) what many are calling the new meeting industry ROI. So what is CSR?

CSR is when corporations/organizations chose to look at their choices from a broad spectrum of social, economic and environmental concerns. In short it is the triple bottom line of people, planet, profit. When companies and organizations hold meetings they should be looking at how it effects the triple bottom line. 1) Are the people being educated not only from the educational conference topics but, how the corporation views and treats people? 2) All the materials, transportation, how the food was prepared did the corporation make the best use of resources, energy? 3) Did the company spend wisely does everyone at the conference need to use bottled water?

Making CSR Easy!

1. Integrate community service projects into meeting programming

2. Create a CSR task force to evaluate each meeting

3. Develop a centralized policy

4. If you are a meeting planner head the CSR Committee

5. Get Help! Give employees 40 hours a month to do something that helps people or the environment

Remember that CSR is the biggest social trend that is going to last more than a lifetime ... the planet will always need cleaning and people will always need help.