How does one make sense of our world these days?
Just a few months ago, as we rang in 2020, it would have seemed unfathomable that three months later virtually every aspect of our lives would be impacted in ways we never imagined.
Who would have thought that when the World Health Organization was first alerted on New Year’s Eve to the novel coronavirus out of Wuhan, China, it would result in such worldwide upheaval and drastic changes in our personal and professional lives?
Rather than sending our children off to school and going to stores to see fully stocked shelves, we instead find ourselves checking our stock of toilet paper, confined to our homes for all the right reasons and facing a seemingly uncertain future.
Through all of this so far, I will tell you I have never been more inspired that our business will survive and help drive the economic recovery.
Rather than bringing people together for face-to-face meetings—it’s what we do best—we have had to cancel, postpone, pivot, adjust and pray a whole lot that the end of this saga will come quickly so that we can get back to the work we are so passionate about.
Through all of this so far, I will tell you I have never been more inspired that our business will survive and help drive the economic recovery.
As part of our 13-page “Special Report: Novel Coronavirus” in the April issue of The Meeting Professional, we focused on relevant content to help meeting industry professionals cope with the fallout and also captured the voices of MPI members discussing how they are getting through the coronavirus pandemic: focusing on all that’s good in their world, being more mindful, acknowledging the compassion shown by others, recognizing peers, moving (taking walks, clearing space for yoga) and reinventing their business model. See what professionals Janice Cardinale (MPI Toronto Chapter), Alessia Comis (MPI Iberian Chapter), Monica Grinage-Prince (MPI Houston Area Chapter), Heather Hansen O’Neill (MPI WestField Chapter), Leonard Hoops (MPI Indiana Chapter) and Sarah Soliman Daudin (MPI Greater Orlando Chapter) shared with us. And we’re sharing more member voices with you on mpi.org/blog and in our e-newsletters.
Related Webinar: Crisis Communications - Coronavirus Edition
This month, I made the editorial decision to ask Paul Van Deventer, MPI president and CEO, to be on the cover of The Meeting Professional as he, and many other industry leaders, have stepped to the forefront to support our members and our industry. Read his message here.
Our content related to the novel coronavirus focuses on force majeure clauses, cancellation insurance, preparing for and managing a health crisis, crisis communication plans, taking meetings virtual and more. There’s a report from our friends at the IMEX Group on the impact of canceling IMEX in Frankfurt and how the organization is turning its attention to IMEX America this fall, and we also share results from a survey of meeting professionals who project the impact of the pandemic on business over the next 12 and 24 months. Come back next month when we publish results from our quarterly economic report, Meetings Outlook.
Our mission at The Meeting Professional has not changed. We will provide news and information, tools and best practices from our members and the meeting industry community in the pages of the magazine, in our e-newsletters—MPI NewsBrief, MPI NewsBrief Weekend, MPI Pulse, MPI Pulse Canada and MPI Pulse Europe—on MPItv and in our newly launched podcast. I encourage you to go to mpi.org/TrustedResource for updates and resources. And our education team is working to deliver relevant education resources including the “Coronavirus Dialogue Series” and on-demand opportunities at academy.mpiweb.org.
As a courtesy to all of our meeting industry colleagues, we are temporarily opening the pages of The Meeting Professional to non-members. We are all in this together and will come of out this together.
Stay strong, friends and colleagues.
Until next time…
Rich Luna
Editor in Chief
rluna@mpiweb.org
