What will the future look like? It is sometimes difficult to see the big picture clearly in a complex world with multilayered challenges. The solution therefore seems could be to follow the advice of Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict your future is to shape it.”

Trying to solve complex problems in our increasingly fast-paced world by ourselves is becoming more difficult. Therefore, we need joint efforts and collaborations, which you can achieve by joining the Response Room. Through the Response Room, you can discover an open innovation platform, discuss the meetings industry’s current challenges with a growing global community, and collaboratively create solutions (and business models) for future business events.

Shared problems, shared solutions  Nature, in particular, bee colonies, have shown us the power and principle of swarm intelligence, where interactions between single entities lead to more intelligent collective behaviour or outcomes. This is something that can also be seen in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics. A more famous example, though, is Wikipedia, where the personal knowledge of many creates an almost unbelievable pool of collective wisdom.

The same applies to collaboration in teams in the workplace, especially for those with diverse backgrounds. Humans often share similar problems and consequently can learn from each other, give each other new impulses, and create new experiences and ideas. Whether it’s an open collection of ideas on a particular problem, feedback on solutions already developed, or a brief mood barometer on current topics: every one of us possesses valuable knowledge that can only really blossom in interaction with others. This approach lies at the heart of the Response Room’s open innovation platform. Ultimately, it provides the opportunity to collaborate with fellow event professionals on innovation challenges and solutions for future business events.

What’s in it for you?
  • Be the first to learn about new solutions and actively participate in their development.
  • Sit at the forefront of a growing movement to take business events to the next level.
  • Share your knowledge and expertise, whilst benefiting from others’ knowledge.
  • Expand your network in new directions.
  • Strengthen your profile and position yourself as a thought leader on specific topics.

The platform’s global search function makes it easy to navigate and find topics or other community members. Response Room is the global open innovation platform for all players in the world of business events. Initiated by the German Convention Bureau (GCB) and implemented with the support of PCMA and the Imex Group. Initially launched in January 2021, access to the forum is open to anybody and creating an account to participate is free of charge.

The latest innovation challenges  International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) were looking for innovation projects within its global community. On the road to the 61st ICCA congress in Krakow this November, all ICCA members were invited to share their innovative tools, products, programs, collaborations, research projects, startups, or other approaches. From all submissions, ICCA’s team selected topics and speakers for a session on innovation. This provided the perfect opportunity to present ideas live and develop them further in personal conversations.

Another recent innovation challenge was aimed specifically at the hospitality industry. Titled: “In search of best practices for Property Management Systems (PMS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM),” the challenge invited the Response Room community to share their own experiences of PMS and CRM programs and to talk about their do’s and don’ts. The platform includes an innovation blog, providing users with research results, out-of-the-box reading recommendations and inspiration on how to drive innovation in their day-to-day work. One of the latest articles discusses the research radar by Future Meeting Space, which presents nine insights for the future of business travel. These include mobility behaviour affected by sustainability and the paramount importance of personal security and health.

Get started  Visit responseroom.io. Register with your name and email address, participate in the innovation challenges, find inspiration in the blog, and stay tuned for upcoming events. For a deep dive into the platform’s functionalities and to make the most out of your experience, you can watch a short tutorial video below.

Do you have any questions or ideas you would like to share with the community? Would you like to contribute to the blog as a guest author? Or do you know of any upcoming events that should be listed? Send an email to the GCB’s Response Room team via Dr Martina Neunecker: neunecker@gcb.de