Greg Economou was recently named the 2014 Arena Management Conference keynote speaker. He is the executive vice president and chief revenue officer for dick clark productions. His keynote address will focus on creating, promoting, and maintaining your brand, as well as his experiences with creative revenue opportunities within a venue in areas or ways that you may not have thought of previously.

We’re excited to have Economou join us for what will be a great conference for arena managers. In addition to the keynote address, attendees will learn, among other sessions, about how mobile technology is affecting the guest experience and building operations, best practices for in-house promoting, and how to make the process from booking to load-out go smoothly and positively in their venues.

The 2014 Arena Management Conference takes place in Long Beach, California, September 14-16. Register now!

Finding a mentor in this industry is a good way to achieve success. Finding one, though, is not the end. You have to engage and integrate the mentor’s experience into your working life.

To understand your mentor better, speaker and author Bert Gervais (“The Mentor Guy”) offers 10 questions to ask. Here are the top five to get you started.

1. How do you spend most of your time?
“Ask this question for one reason only—making a connection while showing you care.”

2. What would you do if you were me?
“Don’t waste your time looking to impress your mentor with how smart you are.”

3. How can I help you?
“When you communicate that you are genuinely willing to give, you will set yourself miles apart from everyone else.”

4. Is this where you thought you would end up?
“This question usually draws out a hearty laugh, as few people shoot from point A to point B exactly as planned.”

5. What used to be your biggest weakness?
“This whopper will tell you right away if someone will make a good mentor.”

Please visit YouTern.com for the final five questions, and please share with us in the comments section any additional questions mentors should be asked.

(photo credit: Jeremy Wilburn via photopin cc)

Congratulations to the Oregon Convention Center (OCC) on reaching another sustainability milestone. The center achieved Level Four certification for the ASTM Standard pertaining to the evaluation and selection of venues for environmentally sustainable meetings, events, trade shows and conferences. The venue standard is one of nine standards introduced by the meetings, conventions, exhibitions, and events in industry in 2012 to provide event planners and suppliers with specifications for producing events in a more sustainable manner.

“We are proud and excited to be the first convention center to attain Level Four of the ASTM Venue certification,” said IAVM member Scott Cruickshank, executive director of the OCC. “Certification to the industry’s global standard at its highest level is further evidence of OCC’s ongoing commitment to sustainability.”

The OCC earned LEED Platinum re-certification earlier this year, and was also home to 2014 VenueConnect in July.

“This is great news for the Oregon Convention Center and all of us working to make Portland a more sustainable destination choice for convention planners,” said Jeff Miller, president and CEO of Travel Portland.

Check out this video featuring IAVM members Cruickshank and Directory of Operations Matt Uchtman to learn more about the OCC’s sustainability efforts.

We really need your professional expertise, if you can contribute some of your time at one of IAVM’s upcoming conferences. As you may have heard, we are launching a new credential, the Certified Venue Professional (CVP), targeted at the mid-level professional and above. While the Certified Facilities Executive (CFE) credential will continue to be our highest level of achievement, the new CVP will fill a gap our members are telling us exists for them, and will give members who are working up their career ladder another way to show they possess the knowledge and skills needed to advance.

To that end, we are seeking venue managers with a minimum of three years of practical experience and knowledge to contribute to the development of a Competency Standard, which will define the skills and knowledge required of competent venue professionals. Our Certification Board is planning to allow points toward your designation if you participate in either of these focus groups, as well as demonstrating leadership and networking with others in the industry.

Any additional costs incurred to participate would be at your own expense, due to a limited budget for this project, but at most that should entail one or two extra hotel nights, if you are already attending one of these conferences. The focus groups are scheduled for September 17-18 at AMC and October 1-2 at ICCC, both from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

If you are able to participate in either of the focus groups, please let Michelle Johnson know and she will make sure and reserve a spot for you. And thank you in advance for making a difference, especially to our young professionals.

“This business is about relationships” is a common phrase you hear in this industry, and it’s true, especially when you’re talking about human-to-human interactions. Consider, though, the relationship of a building to its location and citizens.

That was the main theme in an insightful article by Michael J. Shapiro in the July issue of Meetings & Conventions. Shapiro spoke with several architects—some of whom will be speaking at the upcoming International Convention Center Conference (ICCC)—about trends and philosophies of convention center design.

For example, Michael Lockwood of IAVM Allied-member Populous sees an increased focus on guest experiences.

“People’s expectations are higher. They are no longer willing to downgrade their experience to go into a building to have a meeting,” Lockwood said. “If anything, your convention experience should be on par with or better than a hotel experience, or a sporting event—or going out to a great district in your hometown.”

Mark Reddington, a principal at IAVM Allied-member LMN Architects, feels that convention centers are increasingly being integrated into the “urban setting in which they exist.” This manifests itself with the addition of retail, restaurants, and public plazas. For example, the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, plans to have sidewalk cafes as part of its plaza by late 2015 (read more about the plans on the Houston Chronicle website).

Finally, IAVM member Robert Svedberg, a principal at tvsdesign, said that convention centers should tell stories through their designs. For instance, consider Nashville’s Music City Center.

“The Nashville facility’s wavy roof recalls both the rolling hills of the region and the lyrical flow of music, conceptually speaking, Svedberg explains,” Shapiro wrote.

Please visit Meetings & Conventions to read the whole article.

And if you’re interested in hearing more from architects featured in the article, then please attend ICCC in Vancouver, British Columbia, Oct. 2-4, 2014. Lockwood will participate in a session about five new convention center projects, and Reddington will be part of a panel focusing on the Vancouver 2020 plan. Early-bird registration ends August 22.

(photo credit: colink. via photopin cc)