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As the CEO of a meeting planning company, I’m charged with the safety of every attendee at every meeting my company produces. Unfortunately few companies have created protocols to ensure the safety of attendees should a communicable *** breakout like H1N1 or should a terrorist attack occur.

I recently spoke about this at a major healthcare convention. I did exhaustive research and my conclusion is that all companies have an obligation to develop a thought out set of guidelines but few have done so. My research included studying the WHO (World Health Organization's) guidelines on this topic, which can be found at http://www.who.int/csr/mass_gathering/en/index.html . Their guidelines cover mass gatherings, but the guidelines need a lot of development to be relevant for corporate meetings.

Dr. Len Friedland, Head Clinical Development and Medical Affairs for vaccines in North America at GSK and whose company has developed a H1N1 vaccine concurs that the meetings industry needs a plan now. He explains that for instance, if we were in Barcelona with 10,000 attendees and we had no plan and there was a serious outbreak, companies would be ill prepared to deal with the myriad of issues that would arise. We would not in advance understand what the local authorities would mandate in terms of quarantine nor would we know any of the local laws. If we canceled the meeting, we'd not know whether it's best or worst to put large groups of people on buses and further cause the *** to spread. One can go and on about what we would not have planned, but could have planned and should have planned.

The meetings industry also needs technological solutions ready to go during a crisis. These technologies are available in the world of virtual meetings but they are far from plug and play and need professionals to design advance protocols.

Bottom line is that corporations need to work with people in my industry to develop communication strategies both live and virtual for everyday use and especially for emergency needs. During 9/11 the only communication tool that worked were ham radio. As communication professionals we have an obligation to create technological tools for our clients and to protect the safety and health of every attendee at every meeting.

For more information about this subject matter, feel free to contact me at mailto:Steve.Sulkin@MBMProductions.com">Steve.Sulkin@MBMProductions.com or visit http://www.mbmproductions.com">http://www.mbmproductions.com

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