Another year, another meeting. A reality of the credit unionindustry is that it is chockablock with conferences, conventions,and more, from CUNA's sprawling annual Washington GovernmentalAffairs Conference in late February through the California-Nevada Leagues'shindigon the West Coast toward year end. 

But meetings today are different than they were even 10 yearsago and, in a few years, they may be different still as technology,the economy, industry needs and more conspire to trigger changes inwhat works and what doesn't.

Industry experts are ready to offer insight into what'shappening with the big meetings that typically involve paying a feeto attend and travel to an out of town hotel or conferencecenter. 

“Attendance is trending up,” said Todd Spiczenski, CUNA vice president, center for professionaldevelopment.

“The worst year was 2009, it's headed up since,” said FredBecker,CEO of NAFCU.

Attendance was down in 2009 because the industry's finances wereunder assault–mortgage defaults coupled with the failure of manycorporate credit unions severely constrained spending. Better timesmean more attendees, said Becker, who indicated attendance at hisassociation's national events has been inching up, year onyear.

Finances, though, remain critical in credit union industrymeeting planning, said Becker, who indicated that the focus is oncheaper locations. “We have not been back to Hawaii,” where NAFCUlast met in 2007 at its 40th annual conference. Closer in destinations,with more modestly priced hotel accommodations now are the norm,said Becker.

Busy schedules also are a 21st century conference norm asorganizers strive to give attendees good value for their admissionfees, but, said Becker, organizers continue to have to allow timefor attendees to “interact with their peers. That's often a benefitof attending.”

Another trend that is changing the make-up of many credit unionconferences: There now are more nonindustry speakers, said SamanthaPaxson, a CO-OP vice president who organizes the CUSO's annualTHINK Conference. For THINK 2013,scheduled for spring in Chicago, Paxson indicated that speakerswill include Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker as well as executives from Lego and Dunkin' Donuts. “Ourindustry is hungry for fresh content,” said Paxson, who elaboratedthat CO-OP sought to feature speakers who will share ideas aboutachieving greatness in other businesses but that might applysmoothly to credit unions.

In that vein, frequently industry talker John Moore, a onetime Starbucks executive, said that a trend he haswitnessed is a shift toward what he called TED style talks, which hecharacterized as taking around 20 minutes with a focus on a bigtakeaway idea or two. “Many conferences are bringing in morespeakers to say less,” said Moore.

To attendees, that might seem in fact like more ideas in aconference–at least more big ideas– and it also makes for a muchfaster paced event. “The audience has to be prepared to be hit witha fire hose of big ideas,” said Moore..

Big names also are a draw, said Aaron Steinberg, who has chairedthe annual National Directors'Convention, which recently has been in Las Vegas where it againwill be hosted in August 2013. One recent year the confab featureda show by FrankieValli, another year it was Smokey Robinson. “We believethis helps with attendance,” said Steinberg who declined to provideinformation regarding fees paid to the headliners.

More technology at meetings also has emerged as atransformational theme, said Paul Gentile, CEO of the New Jersey Credit Union League. He pointedto smartphone apps that are often distributed in advance of aconference and help attendees plan their time at the event, barcodereaders at exhibit booths so exhibitors can keep precise tabs onwho stopped by, and transponders that let attendees vote on pollquestions.

Technology also is allowing more to access meetings, sometimesby not actually physically attending them, said CUNA's Spiczenski. “Technology is allowing us to reach credit unionsand staff who before we might not have been able to reach.” Betweenwebinars and videoconferencing, suddenly, much of the content ofmany meetings can be more widely distributed, often at very lowcost.

More attendee feedback is also reshaping events, said Steinberg.“We get evaluations for everything and I read it all. I alsointerview some attendees to solicit their opinions.” That hasbecome typical as event organizers acknowledge that it's theattendees who decide an event's success or failure and taking theirpulse, on everything from breakfast buffets to individual speakers,has become standard.

Emerging trends include building in a significant charitablecomponent, said CO-OP's Paxson. She added that as much as ahalf-day of the 2013 THINK event will be devoted to activities thatsupport charities.

Another trend fingered by Grant Sheehan, CEO of the National Coalitionof Firefighters Credit Unions, is more family involvement. Hisorganization's 2013 event, to beheld this fall in Boston, will attract 110 to 120 attendees.Sheehan said at least half will bring a spouse or significantother.