Solution Rooms tap unexpected knowledge source

Meeting Professionals International (MPI) will present, for the first time at World Education Congress (WEC), the Solution Rooms, held July 23‐26, 2011 in Orlando, Fla. WEC gathers a global audience with dozens of years of experience in fields that span the business world.

The Solution Rooms gather the collective wealth of knowledge from attendees as well as of business experts who will serve as moderators. The Solution Rooms, as designed for WEC, will be customizable based on attendee need. Attendees will find an open environment, facilitated by concurrent session speakers, where they can address their greatest challenges with peers facing the same situation.

During the event, one room will be open to all professionals seeking advice through multiple conversations with peers. Other days will have multiple rooms, broken out and organized by topic during concurrent sessions, allowing specification in learning content.

“The people in our industry are passionate lifetime learners, always willing to impart wisdom with those around them,” said Diana Rogers, director of programs at MPI. “Whether a novice or an expert, they have some best practice or latest tool to share, and the Solution Rooms at WEC are the platform to share while learning something new to bring back.”

The concept of the Solution Room debuted in February 2011 at EMEC Düsseldorf, where more than 200 European professionals gathered, broke into subject matter groups and shared their greatest professional challenges. The rich conversations and energy from the group carried outside from the room through attendees who called the session the “best of the conference.”

The energy was not lost after the event, with attendees implementing practices that changed their professional performance. According to Fiona Pelham with Sustainable Events Ltd, the EMEC Solution Room allowed her question to be answered by a wide range of people within the industry.

“The Solution Room was unbelievable,” said Pelham. “It offered me the insight that there are actually things that I have learned throughout my studies, which some people in the industry do not know. My knowledge is of value to the industry.”

In addition to bringing crowd-sourced content and supporting learning from within the industry, Solution Rooms will also feature technology that supplements the session experience. The multitude of shared information will be sourced from inside the room and shared via social media and projected as live stream.