Association industry education leaders Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) will partner throughout 2020 to deliver collaborative educational programming and projects around key meeting industry topics including experience design, the associations announced Monday.

The agreement positions the associations as thought leaders and education providers in experience design, with an emphasis on developing and certifying expertise among association meeting professionals around the needs and motivations of attendees, an integral component to events.

The initiative will result in joint education around experience design at ASAE’s Xperience Design Project (XDP) event, bringing together ASAE’s essential elements of experience design education with the added benefit of working towards MPI’s certificate in experience design.

The collaboration will also lead to other education programs at select industry events throughout the year, including MPI’s World Education Congress (WEC) and ASAE’s Annual Meeting. These joint initiatives, the associations said, will support MPI and its association members as well as ASAE’s planner members.

“As ASAE combines efforts with MPI, both organizations will reach a broader and more diverse group of association meeting planners to leverage educational opportunities and relationships with industry partners in the experience design space,” said Susan Robertson, interim ASAE CEO. “ASAE and MPI are excited to join forces through the power of partnership and member engagement. The partnership allows MPI to share resources and best practices with the ASAE team, who have established themselves as leaders in the association industry.

“This collaboration promotes a larger context for business events industry professionals by combining resources and insights in ways that build on the value that we provide to our members while extending our reach. This partnership exemplifies these efforts.”

Annette Gregg, CMM, MBA, senior vice president for experience at MPI, said best practices in experience design are creating meetings and conferences that are immersive, authentic, personalized and experiential.

“XDP and WEC infuse these elements throughout the programs,” she said. “Much like the planner members of MPI, the planner members of ASAE are challenged to create impactful experiences for their audiences, leveraging the business needs of their organizations with the trends in how audiences engage and learn. This MPI and ASAE partnership will bring a more robust collection of tools for these planners to use as they craft their own conferences.”

MPI will collaborate on the education lineup for ASAE’s XDP, May 19-20, at Gaylord National Harbor, MD.

ASAE will offer education for attendees at MPI’s signature event, WEC, June 6-9, at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Conference Center, in Grapevine, Texas, while MPI will provide education on experience design at ASAE’s annual conference, August 8-11, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

The two associations will collaborate on possible key programs during IMEX Association Day in September at IMEX America in Las Vegas.

Robertson cited a number of trends that are fodder for the joint education initiative, including:

• The enhancement of the meeting experience through the use of technology such as RFID and Beacons to better understand attendees’ preferences.
• Providing opportunities for more face to face time and networking, for input through real time feedback and polling, and the opportunity to use unique spaces and to use space differently.
• The idea of silent conferences that use one space with multiple speakers on the same stage and engaging audiences through personal headsets.
• The trend for wellness will continue and the push for healthy food and mindfulness breaks will become more the norm versus the exception.
• More festival-like atmospheres to be part of the design of future events to increase engagement and experience enhancement.

“The trend for attendees to have more control over their own agenda and choices at a meeting will continue to increase,” Robertson said. “Designing the experience and making it memorable as well as valuable will engage attendees and increase the probability that they will return to your event or your organization in the future.

“This collaboration will elevate the roles both organizations share as leaders in experience design and will focus on developing and certifying expertise among association meetings professionals in tailoring events to the needs and motivations of attendees, a crucial element to all events.”

Gregg said about 1,500 of MPI’s 17,000 members work for associations and a significant number of ASAE’s members are professional meeting planners.

“The partnership will leverage each association’s education and tools to help make these planners more successful,” she said. “We truly believe we are better together. The more alignment between associations in the meetings and events industry, the stronger our voice is. We have successfully worked alongside ASAE for years, and it’s time to formalize this partnership to elevate the live events industry. The partnership will evolve over time, and we will continue to seek vehicles for collaboration.”

MPI is the largest meeting and event industry association worldwide with a global community of 60,000 meeting and event professionals including more than 17,000 engaged members and its Plan Your Meetings audience while ASAE is a membership organization of more than 46,000 association executives and industry partners representing 7,400 organizations and is the premier source of education, community and advocacy for association professionals around the world.