Biomed Roundup: Quality Presentations — The Key to Successful Society Meetings
Society meetings are the heartbeat of a local or state biomed society, providing opportunities for colleagues to share experiences and renew acquaintances. But perhaps nothing can make or break a society meeting more than the vendor presentation. BI&T recently asked biomed society leaders how they keep their members engaged by securing quality speakers at meetings.
Leaders agree that presentations should be technical and educational, so that members can apply the new information they learn to their own jobs.
Says Brett Pirtle, CBET, secretary of the Southeast Texas Clinical Engineering Society (SETCES), “our vendors don’t give sales pitches at our meetings because our members don’t want that. Instead, we ask our vendors to talk about real trends in the industry and to provide practical tips and demonstrations.”
To ensure that vendors deliver truly educational presentations, Dave Scott, CBET, president of the Colorado Association of Biomedical Equipment Technicians (CABMET) asks his vendors to show him an outline of what they plan to discuss. “We usually try to have an engineer from the presenting company give the presentation, rather than a sales person.
“Sales people are invited, because it’s good for biomeds to know their local sales people. Sometimes questions are best directed to sales people. But we are a professional association and we want an educational presentation.” When the guidelines for presentations are established up-front with the vendors, they typically have no problem following the rules.
According to Pirtle, one of SETCES’ most popular meetings was an open house showcasing the electronic intensive care unit (eICU) of the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. “We also plan to have a vendor present about wireless site surveys,” says Pirtle, citing widespread interest in the topic.
Perhaps one of the surest ways to secure quality speakers at society meetings is to have robust member participation, as vendors want to speak before large, captive audiences. Scott notes that CABMET has “a list of vendors that are just waiting to talk to us — and sometimes they have to wait up to a year.”
SOURCE: BI&T March/April 2007