Imagine strolling into an education session where aromatherapy is spreading a pleasant smell around the room. Or finding an unusual room set you’ve never seen before.

These are just two of the many “Xperiments” that will be tried at the upcoming PCMA 50^th Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, January 8-11, 2006.

“One of the responsibilities PCMA has to the meetings industry is to try new things that our members may want to use at their own meetings,” explained PCMA President & CEO Deborah Sexton.

“The PCMA Annual Meeting can serve as laboratory for new ideas, and that’s part of what we will do in Philadelphia.”

Some of the Meetings Xperiments include:

• Organic food selection
• RFID (radio frequency identification) usage
• Mission Possible: The PCMA Un-Show
• Conversation Pods
• Remote speaker session
• Education session room sets
• Aromatherapy

The ideas for these experiments came from members through a Call for Ideas that PCMA conducted in July 2005.

All the educational sessions or networking activities where a Meeting Xperiment will take place will be identified with a special logo in the program book and on signage in front of the room.

Evaluations and feedback on each Xperiment will take place after the session or activity. Participants will be asked, “Was this experiment successful? Would you implement it in your own meeting? What would you do to improve the concept?”

After the PCMA Annual Meeting, comments will be summarized and published in upcoming issues of Convene magazine.