Training platform for the MICE industry

Practical and goal-oriented

What should a platform of this kind achieve? Should there be one or several of them? Who should it be aimed at? And what possibilities are there of addressing the MICE industry audience by analogue as well as digital means? These are just some of the questions that the experts will discuss at their two-day conference. It's already clear that it will be a hybrid: analogue platforms in the form of expert meetings will enable participants to swap ideas and exchange views on particular questions directly and several times a year. At the same time, though, participants need to be networked via a digital platform in a way that facilitates constant exchange and debate and hence ensures continuous further development. It's not just a matter of creating momentum but also of practically implementing certain topics in a goal-oriented way. Generating new ideas is every bit as important here as further developing and building on existing content.

Mice Lab as the basis of a training platform

The results of the expert conference will then be considered on 18 June in Singen (municipal hall) in an open dialogue with around a hundred participants. The final point on the agenda will be the elaboration of a project plan that can serve as the departure point for the development of the training platform. In 2013 and 2014 the Mice Lab evolved a long way from being purely a think-tank devising theory, instead becoming the innovative basis of a training platform for the MICE industry.

The research project on the "congress of the future" was initiated in 2013 by Netzwerk BodenseeMeeting. Its aim is to collect creative ideas for the conception of meetings, incentives, conventions and events – MICE for short.

In addition to Gerhard Stübe, director of Kongresskultur Bregenz, the following experts are among those expected to take part in 2015:

• Petra Bauer-Zwinz (managing director, Austrian Convention Bureau)
• Gabriele Schultze (journalist, editor of the magazine "TW Tagungswirtschaft")
• Sophia Stepf (dramaturge)
• Stefan Luppold (professor, department head at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University DHBW Ravensburg, author)
• Reinhard Kahl (journalist, congress organiser, founder of "Archiv der Zukunft")
• Wolfgang Himmel (managing partner of Translake, coach)
• Tom Ritschel (coach, college lecturer)
• Christoph Brosius (game designer, partner in "Die Hobrechts")
• Michael Gleich (initiator of "der kongress tanzt", partner of Netzwerk BodenseeMeeting)
• Iris Müller (managing director, Meersburg tourist office)
• Florian Klein (director, St. Gallen Convention Bureau)
• Reinhold Maier (head of marketing, Singen municipal hall)

(cw)
Title photo: © Lucas Breuer, workshop during the 2014 Mice Lab at Bregenz Festival House