Meetings & Events

At today's meetings and events, the security of your content is as important as the safety and security of your attendees. You still need to take all the usual steps of creating a plan, assessing the risks, and testing that plan. What's newer, however, is the critical need for security of any intellectual property at events. This week's articles provide good information on every type of security needed at your event.

Meeting planners for any kind of company or association can learn valuable lessons from their peers in the insurance business. (Item #1)     Here's a checklist detailing safety, contingency and disaster preparedness for the meetings, events, conferences and conventions. (Item #2)     Keeping attendees safe, and ensuring proprietary information stays out of the public domain must be part of any solid strategy for any meeting or event. (Item #3)    

These five tips can improve event security and site protection and security's role in event planning. (Item #4)     Here are nine questions to ask with regard to risk management and planning for meetings and events. (Item #5)     With the right precautions and participation from attendees, planners can greatly reduce the threat of theft of intellectual property. (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. Preparing for Disaster: What You Can Learn From Insurance Companies' Meeting Continuity Plans

Whether a small agency or a global giant in the insurance industry, when it comes to contingency plans for meetings, insurance companies can draw from a wealth of best practices. The industry wrote the book on disaster preparedness, notes Tim Brown, CEO of Meeting Sites Resources (MSR). "Insurance companies already have a mindset of being disaster-prepared in terms of all the different companies they insure and the coverage they offer," he says. "Because of that, they have to have their own crisis management plans in place for when -- not if -- these incidents take place."
http://www.successfulmeetings.com/strategy/meeting-strategies/preparing-for-disaster--what-you-can-learn-from-insurance-companies--meeting-continuity-plans/


2. Safety and Security Checklist/Questionnaire

If you don't have a safety and security checklist for your meetings and events, this document from Joan Eisenstodt will serve you well. It covers all the areas you should be looking at as well as many you may not have thought about.
http://www.meetingsfocus.com/ArticleDetails/tabid/162
/ArticleID/17858/Default.aspx


3. 10 tips for offsite meeting security

When an organization hosts an offsite event, whether it is a small meeting, or a massive industry conference, it also presents an opportunity for the security department. "In these situations, security can really shine, or really stub its toes," said William Besse, Vice President of Consulting and Investigations with security firm Andrews International. "These offsite events aren't a time when security needs to be dozing. They need to be on their game."
http://www.csoonline.com/article/2130779/fraud-prevention/10-tips-for-offsite-meeting-security.html


4. Securing Your Next Big Meeting or Conference: Five 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. If not handled deftly, these issues could lead to incidents that prove both embarrassing and costly to the hosting company.
http://www.imgsecurity.net/securing-next-big-meeting-conference-5-tips-event-site-security/


5. The Sense of Security--Risk Management and Meeting Design

Risk management is a critical part of the design process. Risk management means understanding what guidelines need to be followed and what rules need to be adhered to. Risk management connects to design, because it establishes a carefully orchestrated chain of command as well as a sequence of events that is vital to the success of the event.
http://meetingsnet.com/risk-management/sense-security-risk-management-and-meeting-design


6. 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 Boca Raton, FL, 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 the 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/


Quote of the Week:

"Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning."

-- Winston Churchill

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Attainium Corp
15110 Gaffney Circle
Gainesville, VA 20155
www.attainium.net