The issue of Kongres magazine you are holding is focused on knowledge and information as a basis for innovation and business success. In crisis and in a ruthless business environment the meetings professionals are becoming more and more aware knowledge affords us comparative advantages against the competition. Since September is the start of the school year, classes also begun for the regional meetings community, which eagerly paid attention to the lecture on bidding by charismatic Linda Pereira. The enthusiastic feedback of the participants demonstrates how big the gap in the market actually is and how urgently we need similar events. Knowledge is the basis for congress inventions, which turn into innovations. The winners are individual and companies, who can create, find and take advantage of the knowledge first.
Transfer of knowledge is the petrol coursing through the veins of the meetings industry. New information technology and tools are the motor.
Let’s take a look at few examples:
1. Congress destinations
The good ones are discerned from the average ones by a clever use of marketing tools and creativity. Destination organizations are top notch marketing agencies full of creativity and innovativeness as a form of knowledge. Market value of destinations is therefore higher than their book value. As a result a congress culture of a destination develops.
2. Congress organizers
Are top notch architects and engineers of congresses. Intellectual capital of congress organizers is complex and has a greater value than the material. Technology is only a tool, own know how is the essence of functioning.
3. Congress participants
Their primary motive for participation is gaining knowledge, which has become an economic and investment category. Especially important is the transfer of knowledge from the academic sphere into the economy. The hidden capital of congresses and conferences is intellectual capital, we must learn to follow and measure accurately. The meetings industry is in a way responsible for a positive commercialization of knowledge.
The maturity of the meetings industry is proven by formalization in the form of patents, licences and trademarks.
In the region we can count them on the fingers of one hand. The idea of congress incubators, which would aid in transferring and using knowledge into business, is very interesting. We don’t yet have a clear answer to the issue of unexploited knowledge potential, yet it is surely large. The success of congress destinations is based on knowledge successfully transferred into practise. The larger the investments into knowledge and its transfer, the more successful we will be in the international meetings market. The entire region of SE Europe has to become a learning meetings industry and the Kongres magazine will contribute its part by promoting good ideas and innovation.
Gorazd Čad
