Meeting and Event Safety and Security

Attendee and employee safety and information security may be the most important concerns you have for every meeting/conference you sponsor, but there are hundreds of other details to consider as well. There's no doubt you have a plan to cover all these concerns, but this week's articles might provide some additional information you can use to tweak your current plan.

If not handled deftly, security issues could lead to incidents that prove both embarrassing and costly to the hosting company. (Item #1)     Maintaining security and privacy for high profile meetings is vital whether it is a shareholder meeting, political fundraiser or internal executive meeting. (Item #2)     The level of security you impose at any conference is parallel to the sensitivity of the information presented. (Item #3)    

From ensuring safety of attendees to protecting personal and group property to safeguarding an organization's reputation, risk management of host venues takes many forms for planners, whose job is to think of everything. (Item #4)     Consider these 7 ways to keep your employees safe - before, during and after your corporate event. (Item #5)     Here's a checklist to implement, well in advance of your event, which will aid in effective planning and the achievement of an acceptable level of risk reduction. (Item #6)    

As always, I look forward to hearing about your concerns with regard to business continuity. If there are any topics that you'd like to see covered, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Securing Your Next Big Meeting or Conference: 5 Tips on Event & Site Security

Conferences, meetings, and tradeshows can be a great way for organizations to showcase themselves to the public, discuss important issues, and boost employee morale. However, high profile events can present operational and reputational risks if they are not conducted effectively. Security issues, in particular, can hamper operations and raise challenges to event organizers.
http://www.imgsecurity.net/securing-next-big-meeting-conference-5-tips-event-site-security/

2. Keeping High Profile Meetings Safe and Secure

Before the advent of smart phones, planting covert listening devices was the most popular way to illegally record content from a private meeting. Today, with an estimated 130 million smartphones in use in the United States, every user has the potential to be a covert meeting operative with their own Wi-Fi receiver, camera, audio recorder, keyboard and computer at their disposal. The theft of intellectual property costs American businesses billions each year.
http://www.disaster-resource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2247:keeping-high-profile-meetings-safe-and-secure&catid=8:facility-issues

3. Secure Lines: Protecting Your Meeting Content

When Mitt Romney's now-infamous statement that 47 percent of voters are too dependent on the government was secretly recorded at a private fundraiser in Florida, it was more than just a turning point in the 2012 presidential election. It was a lesson to all CEOs and meeting owners on the importance of taking proper precautions to keep any content discussed at meetings and events secure.
http://www.successfulmeetings.com//strategy/meeting-strategies/secure-lines--protecting-your-meeting-content/

4. The Art of Security at Meetings

Have you heard the one about the women in high heels running down a hotel lobby with stolen flat-screen televisions and a blue Rubbermaid bin full of event supplies? One conference director wishes she hadn't. That was the story a venue's security team was telling her after high-priced equipment and other meeting materials went missing during a meeting in Las Vegas. Days earlier, the same venue informed the director that the lockable storage room she'd arranged for had been sold out from under her, and her team would need to use an airwall closet that couldn't be fully secured to store valuables.
http://www.collaboratemeetings.com/feature/the-art-of-security-at-meetings/

5. Seven Ways to Keep Your Event Attendees Safe -- Practicing Good Risk Management

At a recent MPI conference, the author heard a lot of concern about ensuring the safety of employees at company meetings. That got him thinking about ways meeting planners can practice good risk management. After all, as much as we'd like to think that our meetings will go off without a hitch, all kinds of things can -- and do -- go wrong.
https://www.lanyon.com/Lanyon-Blog/August-2015/7-Ways-to-Keep-Your-Event-Attendees-Safe-%E2%80%94-Practic.aspx?type=blog

6. Preparing for Terrorism and Unrest

Managing a venue's risk profile will ensure you understand the types of hazards and your vulnerability to disruption, as well as what resources you need to mitigate their impact. While the focus in on intentional, human-caused events, planning for natural disasters, technological glitches, and human error is also valuable.
http://www.meetings-conventions.com/Resources/Planner-Basics/Checklist/Preparing-for-Terrorism-and-Unrest/