I still remember exactly how things unfolded on October 5, 1984, the day The Conference Publishers was born.
I had been in my job for 3½ months, after reluctantly leaving Canada’s Parliamentary Press Gallery and a career in freelance journalism. I had joined a small policy consulting firm as its publications director, hoping to spend all my time on research and writing, rather than half of my time selling stories in an increasingly fractured market. (I also figured it would be reasonable to expect, y’know, a regular paycheque.)
It didn’t work out that way, and to this day, there would probably be some disagreement about whether I quit or was fired. I still think I got the first word in edgewise. Either way, I got home around mid-afternoon. It was a gorgeous, crisp fall day. The sun was streaming into our breakfast nook. Our wise old grey cat, Doorknob, jumped up on the table. I remember thinking, “I can do this,” even though I had no clue of what “this” would turn out to be.
Adrian, now a 27-year-old software designer and systems administrator, was in day care. Karen, now our managing editor, had just gone back to school for her social work degree. Our mortgage was at 13½%, and we had just lost 100% of our household income.
Business plan? What business plan? Around 3:00 PM on Friday, October 5, I began calling clients.
At that point, I knew as much about running a small company as a toddler in day care knows about geometry or physics. Probably less, actually: by age two, we know the world exists in three dimensions, even if we don’t have the words to say so, and we’ve had lots of experience with gravity. Operating initially as InfoLink Consultants Inc., we set up shop as a writing and editing firm, tried to dabble in policy research, carved out specialities in health and sustainability (though we didn’t call it sustainability in those days), organized small workshops and seminars, and gradually noticed a niche in conference reporting.
When a client asked if we could produce a report for her two-day meeting, I realized it would make sense to deliver printed copies as the final session concluded, in time for participants to bring them home. In an era long before the Internet, their other option was to wait weeks or months for documentation. Looking at the topic and purpose of the meeting, you only had to connect a couple of dots to see that rapid delivery of a finished report could help a group of isolated Aboriginal nurses save lives.
After that, it took a decade or more for the company’s business model to take shape. I had noticed some prospective clients who seemed to spend an awful lot of time organizing meetings. Many of those meetings seemed to take place in hotels and convention centres. But I had no sense that there was any such thing as an organized meetings industry.
Then a client arm-twisted me into joining his professional association, Meeting Professionals International (MPI). Suddenly, a whole new world opened up, and we began reshaping the company to meet the opportunity.
Around that time, I remember our office manager, Deborah Arnold, quoting baseball great Yogi Berra: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” We’ve been doing that ever since. It hasn’t been the steadiest path or the easiest one, but after more than 3,000 meetings, more than 200 communities, and projects in 15 countries, we haven’t lost our sense of wonder. Every time a conference chair calls an opening general session to order, there’s a possibility that something will change, some problem will be solved, someone’s life will be better, because a group of participants decided to meet.
Lately, the forks in the road have been coming along at a faster rate. The whole concept of meetings is in transition, and we’ve introduced a batch of new products—from content capture sites like the Green Meetings Portal, to new revenue models for virtual attendance—that place content at the centre of the meetings mix. In the next few months, we expect to roll out a cluster of services that will help our clients, and their decision-makers, understand the forces that are reshaping the industry.
But I don’t want to get too far down that road without acknowledging the people who brought us here. I think of early colleagues who helped build the culture and many of the in-house systems that shaped the company. Savvy business advisors, Emmett Hossack and John Chapman, who’ve helped us withstand a crashing economy. And the peerless staff and diligent freelancers who make us shine every day.
So many clients have become valued colleagues, and some of those colleagues have become life-long friends. So very many people have been so important to our first 25 years, and it’s been a privilege to be a part of that community.