Meetings, corporate events need to flourish

I shared a short video clip featuring Dr Patrick Dixon, author of Futurewise, with my students this past week. Dr Dixon was speaking on the topic, "Future of Corporate Events, Travel and Conferences". With the advent of advanced telecommunications technologies and the current great need to trim and manage costs, real-time communications across the globe via fibre-optic cables seem to be replacing the good old "let's meet tomorrow" route. However, Dr Dixon's view is that even with such advances, the need for face-to-face meetings will not disappear. There will be times when companies will need to gather people (staff or business partners or customers) together for such events.

This is something I believe in. As much as we talk of corporations and organisations, we must not forget that such entities are run and managed by people. People are not machines; people are beings with souls and spirits. We thrive on emotional and physical contact - the need to trust and be trusted; the need to convince others of our point of view; the need to shake the hand of a customer as a means of "sealing the deal"; the need to converse with a "real" person vs across communication cables. So......companies will continue to organise and host meetings; business executives will continue to attend seminars, conferences, talks etc.

Given the current downturn in most economies today and the failure of institutions which were meant to be foundation stones on which economies were built on, TRUST will come to the forefront when companies deal with each other or deal with their customers. The "face-to-face" encounter is an important element of this trust-building process.

Meetings will live on!

Benjamin Cassim
Temasek Polytechnic