Prevue March-April 2014 - (Page 14)

bureau buzz Montreal's Creativity Boot Camp C2MTL combats workplace boredom with 'out of the buzz' thinking C2MTL 2013 @ Agnieszka Stalkoper W hether you're a fan of BuzzFeed or not, the success of the hugely popular website boils down to how it deﬁnes and exploits a rapidly growing demographic: "The Bored at Work Network." These are people who spend half their work time working, and the other half scanning social media and the web. Due to the inﬁnite distractions inherent in today's digital era, and the staggering loss in productivity as a result, companies are seeking ways to keep their most creative, mediasavvy employees focused and engaged. U.S. planners are addressing this at the most innovative conferences in the country, like SXSW in Austin, Oracle's OpenWorld in San Francisco, PopTech in New England and TEDx/BarCamp "unconferences" everywhere. They focus on integrated, spontaneous and crowdsourced "transmedia" content, combining tech, media, business and the arts-shared live and virtually-over a connected array of communication vehicles ranging from tweetups to live streaming concerts. In Canada, Tourisme Montreal and Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil collaborated to produce something similar at the ﬁrst C2MTL conference in 2012. It's a business showcase for commerce and creativity, combining corporate intelligence and artistic innovation in "a creative sandbox." Think of it as Burning Man for the businessman. "Our goal was to reinvent the business conference by stimulating attendees not just with speakers, but exhibitions, multimedia, conceptual venues, projections, workshops and parties," says Jean-François Bouchard, president of Montreal's Sid Lee creative agency, which spearheaded the development of C2MTL. "We also saw this as an opportunity to bring together the C-suite from all business sectors and industries, in what could become something of a global innovation summit in Montreal." Emmanuelle Legault, VP of marketing for Tourisme Montreal, believes that the lessons learned at C2MTL and the rise of research around Millennial work habits sparked the DMO into action on a variety of fronts. Today, Tourisme Montreal has one of the most multi-pronged digital platforms of any destination marketing organization. The meeting planner portal is the ﬁrst of its kind, launched in early 2013. "Initially, we were surprised by how many Millennials are trying to break into the meetings market," Legault says. "They utilize social media, read blogs and don't want to read advertorials." "So that's why we decided last year that we should start a new blog and try to bring added value to our consumers-you know, bring them to our content. That gives us a chance to engage with them, because meeting planners are always so busy and often difﬁcult to reach sometimes as a DMO." The investment is starting to pay off. "What we're seeing is a lot more time spent on the blog and a lot more comments than we used to get, so we're starting to engage with them," explains Legault. "The fact that we took an approach that's more content oriented and provides more added value to them, allows us to always be on the top of their minds. And then when they do have a question, they are contacting us to get more information."-Greg Oates tourisme-montreal.org 14 | prevue magazine 14-15_BBuzz.indd 14 2/28/14 4:57 PM http://www.tourisme-montreal.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Prevue March-April 2014

Planner's Pick: Dallas
Fresh Meets: Marriott Hotels
Bureau Buzz: Montreal
Good Business: Sandals Foundation
Sea Shores: State of the Cruise Industry
Incentives, Golf + Spa
Special Section: California
Florida
On Location: Loews Don CeSar St. Pete
On Location: Chic Outlets
On Location: New Zealand
On Location: Los Cabos
On Location: Scottsdale
On Location: Aruba Hyatt Regency
On Location: Dolce Silverado
On Location: St. Croix
On Location: Hilton Bomonti Turkey
On Location: Aruba Marriott
Checkout: Conrad Pune, India
Meetings, incentives and Corporate Events, Club Med 2014 Edition

Prevue March-April 2014