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PORTUGAL – ICCA’s Iberian Chapter Congress experiments meeting design
The MindMeeting team, composed of meeting designers Mike van der Vijver and Chema Gómez, thought to detail every step of the event, which this year took place in Marbella.
“The Wisdom of Crowds” is a book by James Surowiecki that became a cult manual for many managers. The basis of the book is the idea that groups often reveal a superior intelligence than the experts. It was precisely this that was in the mind of the authors of this year’s ICCA’s Iberian Chapter Meeting programme: the sum of the experience and knowledge of all those who would participate was superior to any guest speaker.
The event had no speakers, but had two special guests, Raphaela Verri Rock, from Novartis, and José Antonio López Trigo, from Spanish Society of Geriatrics. Divided into groups, the delegates had to make a bid to one of two events, the sales meeting of Novartis, and the International Congress of Geriatrics. The exercise was evaluated by the two guests, who gave several clues about what was important to them as decision makers of an event’s destination. Some of those tips concerned the importance of “selling” the destination with passion, the importance of giving ideas in terms of the event content. They also mention how vital it is to ask the right questions when you are given a briefing.
Another exercise was held in the gardens of Gran Melia Don Pepe, in a semi open space format, and brought together small groups around specific issues like international media, cooperation between destinations, sponsorship challenges, the future of medical congresses, internationalisation of medium scale cities and the type of conferences that are growing at the moment. In the end, delegates met again in the congress centre and made the debriefing of each of the discussions.
The day ended with a “Supply and Demand Market of Best Practices”. Each participant wrote what they were looking for and what they offered and, as in a market, people started to connect. The feedback of the delegates majority was very good. Also part of the event, there was a CSR Activity and an orientation game to get to know the city of Marbella.
The congress that gets together the ICCA Iberian Chapter family was attended by 80 professionals. It took place on 30th March and 1st April. The next destination will be Madeira in 2017.