News and Press Coverage

January 22, 2010

Crowdsourcing Designed to Meet New Attendee-Centric Event Demands
What is crowdsourcing? Crowdsourcing is the process of defining a problem or task, putting out an open call to your community of attendees, and providing them with an opportunity to participate in the creative problem solving in exchange for some level of incentive or recognition. Crowdsourcing leverages mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies.

Contributed by: Jon Wollenhaupt , Vice President Excel Meetings and Events

Read the full article at Event Solutions

Smart Meetings

January, 2010

Itzza Phoenix Pie! Blog posting by Associate Editor Talia Salem

The Phoenix Made to Order Media Reception in San Francisco offered a different type of team-building activity and networking session and it was organized by Donna Valentine, CMP of Excel Meetings and Events, a full-service, San Francisco-based meeting and event planning company that has been working with the Greater Phoenix CVB for years.

Read the full posting on digg.com - Please digg it!

Meetings East, June/July 2009
Corporate Meetings

Taking Stock by Maria Lenhart

"Because of the uncertain economic outlook, attrition charges are becoming a more important part of hotel negotiations than ever, says Donna Valentine, CMP, president of Excel Meetings and Events in San Francisco.

“Clients are worried about booking a meeting that may have to be canceled if things get worse,” she says. “That’s of more concern than getting the best room rate.”

Valentine is among several independent planners who say they are seeing an upturn in corporate business.

“Corporate clients are outsourcing more as they are cutting back on management staff,” she says. “We’ve been extremely busy since the holidays. It’s not a bad time for third parties.”

Read the full article at Meetings Focus

ROI for Dummies

by Jack Phillips and Jon Wollenhaupt | Published in October 2007

Imagine your most important annual meeting is coming up in three months. This meeting is strategic, expensive, high-profile and has senior management’s involvement. Now suppose that you are asked to evaluate this meeting to determine how it is contributing to the company’s business goals.

In addition, you’re asked to report your findings to company management across multiple departments. Your findings will help determine if that meeting receives funding next year or not. How would you proceed? What approach should you use?

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Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof speaks at the Women's Funding Network Annual Conference in Atlanta.

Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing Agency Dale E. Bonner

Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing Dale E. Bonner addresses California's small business leaders at the Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship in
Los Angeles.

California Lt. Governor John Garamendi speaks on building the state's intellectual infrastructure at the California Community College Economic Workforce Development annual conference in Newport Beach, CA

Event photography by Jon Wollenhaupt