"Excellent speaker - able to go with the flow of interactivity."
- MPI Professional Education Congress

Tyra has extensive experience creating and conducting learning activities in varying formats appropriate for different groups. Presentation, workshop, and training topics include:

• The Liability of Social Responsibility
• Meeting Contract Tips & Trends
• Meeting & Event Law and Liability
• Risk Management for Meetings
• Writing a Crisis Management Plan
• Walk the Walk: Ethical Issues for Meeting & Event Professionals
• Customized topics

With many years of experience as a college professor teaching undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education courses in hospitality and tourism both in-class and online, Tyra incorporates adult learning principles into all of her learning activities. Learning activities vary with size, duration, and interactivity level and may include:

Presentations

• Best for large groups (25-150) with a duration of 1-3 hours.
• Some interaction, but more one-way communication.

Workshops

• Best for smaller groups (10-25) in half-day or whole-day increments.
• Very interactive including exercises, presentation, and extensive discussions.

Training sessions

• Customized learning activity geared toward small learning groups.
• Designed for in-house groups of staff, volunteers, or speakers in half-day, whole-day, or multiple-day increments.

General topics may be selected, but training will focus on skill development of participants and integration of organization-specific documents and practices, so no two training sessions will be identical.

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The Liability of Social Responsibility

In our litigious society, anyone can get sued for doing anything—even good things!  In this unique and informative session, participants will consider scenarios that highlight the liability issues associated with integrating social responsibility into the meetings industry.  Discuss the parameters of the food donation laws.  Explore the realities and myths of Good Samaritan laws—and find out about the less-well-known “bad Samaritan” laws.  Find out who is really protected under the Volunteer Protection Act.  You can and should do good things…but you should also protect yourself and your organization. 

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, the attendee will be able to:

•  Develop effective food donation policies and programs.

•  Communicate the limitations on personal risk to potential volunteers.

•  Evaluate the risk and responsibility for rendering aid (or failing to render aid) to those in need.

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Meeting Contract Tips & Trends

In this highly interactive session, the group will look at contract issues for hotel, vendor, and other contracts and the significance of seemingly minor changes in contract language. From the ever-present attrition concerns to the newer issues of data privacy, incompatible groups, and more—nothing is off-limits. Participants are encouraged to ask questions and share solutions. We will also discuss the ups and downs of negotiating flexible language that still protects both parties. Negotiating good contract language is only half the battle. Knowing how to manage contract liability within the corners of the document and beyond the document is truly the mark of a professional.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, participants will be able to:

•  Discuss current trends in meetings contract and how they may affect negotiations with a future contract already signed when uncertainty strikes.

•  Implement effective and timely negotiation tactics to address liability issues in hotel contracts.

•  Distinguish between "must have" and "nice to have" contract terms.

•  Adapt current contract and negotiation practices to meet new challenges.

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Meeting & Event Law and Liability

Courtroom dramas make going to court seem glamorous. It's not. In today's litigious society, liability is on the minds of meeting and event planners. Part of being a meeting or event professional is knowing what the liability risks are and what you can do to minimize the risk of liability. In this interactive session, participants will discuss the most common liability risks at meetings and conventions, including alcohol liability, injury to attendees, and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These areas of liability will be analyzed in the context of different types of events and facilities. Participants will also address less obvious, but just as important, legal risks related to intellectual property infringement, including music licensing, speaker copyrights, and more. The proper use of proactive tools like contracts, license agreements, and waivers of liability will be discussed.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Explain the legal duty of meeting professionals and what may happen if that duty is breached.

• Apply different methods of minimizing risk including contracts, license agreements, waivers of liability, and planning practices.

• Assess current practices for complying with requests for accommodations for persons with disabilities.

• Prioritize methods for managing the risk of attendee injury, including alcohol-related risks.

• Implement proper licensing procedures for dealing with Intellectual property issues arising from common meeting and event elements like music, printed materials, presentations, and recordings.

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Risk Management for Meetings

Risk management really means managing the possibilities that something may happen to affect your meeting. In this session, we will discuss various stages of risk management and steps to take from site selection and inspection all the way through to post-meeting reports. Although having a crisis management plan is important, it is only one element of risk management. True risk management includes mitigating both the probability that a crisis or disaster occurs as well as mitigating the impact of a crisis or disaster that occurs. Let's face it—even the most skilled meeting planner can't prevent a tornado from striking, a fire from breaking out, an area-wide power outage, or other major crisis or disaster. Some key risk management measures will be categorized in five general areas of risk management: having a plan, choosing wisely, using contracts and insurance to mitigate risk, calling on experts when you need them, and having a crisis communications plan.

1. Develop a risk management plan for your organization to include both crises and “every day” risks.
2. Identify characteristics of a specific meeting, event, destination, venue or activity that require additional risk management measures.
3. Implement risk management techniques in all stages of meeting planning and management from site inspection to program development to pre and post con meetings.

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Writing a Crisis Management Plan

The real truth is that most organization's crisis management plans are not written with meetings in mind. The standard in crisis management, contingency planning, and business continuity is to write plans for a standard business that always operates under the same roof in the same location. This is the antithesis of meetings, which are held in different facilities, in different cities, and sometimes in different countries—sometimes with different participants and totally different circumstances for each one! So the meetings crisis management plan is unique and must be a flexible and customizable document. In this session, participants will be given a sample table of contents and outline of a crisis management plan and will be walked through the steps of actually writing their plan. The goal is for participants to walk away with at least a sketch of a crisis management plan that they can take back to their organizations and—with help from other members of the organization—complete and implement as part of a regular crisis management plan.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, participants will be able to:

• Determine the key elements of a crisis management plan.
• Write an outline of a crisis management plan that can be used by their organization for meetings, convention, conferences, exhibitions, and events.
• Compare different approaches to writing a crisis management plan to determine the best approach for a specific meeting and organization.
• Defend the importance of a customizable, meeting-specific crisis management plan to decision-makers in their organization.

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Walk the Walk: Ethical Issues for Meeting & Event Professionals

In this highly interactive session, the facilitator will give an introduction to professional ethics, then attendees will break into groups to discuss ethical scenarios on rebates, fam trips, commissions, pricing, and other ethical issues provided by the facilitator. Following some interactive time, the group will come back together as a whole and discuss the group's responses to the ethical scenarios. It is fun, educational-and sometimes surprising-for groups to explore different ethical perceptions between planners and suppliers, vendors and venues. Ethics is the cornerstone of professionalism and this session helps bring it to the front of everyone's mind.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Identify the interrelationship between ethics, law, and culture.

• Apply ethical standards to best practices in the meetings industry.

• Distinguish between the application of personal and professional ethics, which may be at odds with one another sometimes.

• Prepare to respond to professional situations that carry ethical risks.

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"This was the best seminar I have ever attended."
"More time with Tyra! 2 days wasn't enough."
- ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Copyright 2008 by Tyra W. Hilliard. All rights reserved.