DIVE LOCAL – A Dive Industry Community Effort
Regional Summit Conferences
By Gene Muchanski, Executive Director,
Dive Industry Foundation
CHAPTER 8 – Regional Summit Conferences
Once you have set geographical boundaries for diving and diving related businesses in a given area and have identified the key people within those companies, your Local Diving Community or Regional Diving Community can begin to hold meetings, seminars, workshops, diving events, and dive shows as a unified community. The best way to begin to organize local, coordinated events is to hold a Regional Summit Meeting. This could be done in person or on-line.
In the past twenty or more years, I am sure that many of us have attended and participated in industry meetings that discussed the lack of growth and participation in our recreation. Year after year we attended these meetings, complained about the diving industry and then went home and did nothing about it, only to return the following year and have another meeting. The entire industry is tired of industry meetings that do nothing except waste our time.
Most of these industry meetings were held at the DEMA Show and Regional Dive Shows. Even though they may have been well attended for the most part, they basically amounted to an annual bitch session. Looking back on these early meetings, we see they were not well organized, there was no stated “Call to Action” in the agenda, and there was no follow-up. We need more than just an annual industry get-together. We need Regional Summit Meetings with a specific agenda to accomplish something.
In 2016 I took part in three Regional Summit Meetings in Dallas, Chicago, and Secaucus. All three were held in conjunction with regional dive shows and each lasted between 1 and 3 hours. Dallas drew 21 attendees and 5 speakers. Chicago had 19 attendees and 6 speakers. We had a full house in Secaucus with 43 attendees and 4 speakers. These summit meetings were better organized, with a common agenda; Speaker Presentations, a Break-out Session for focus group discussions, and a combined discussion and summary period. The groups were looking to address regional problems, potential solutions, and actionable items that could solve problems and bring about positive change. All three Regional Summit Meetings were videotaped for future reference.
We learned a lot about conducting regional summit meetings but there was still a major flaw in the programing. There were no individual assignments given out and no follow-up to our possible actionable items. Since 2016, Regional Dive Shows have declined, attendance at the remaining shows has dwindled, and the COVID pandemic has changed the way we conduct regional meetings. On the bright side, we have our video recordings and reports from the last three Regional Summit Conferences, the industry still has four dive shows we can work with, and our digital capability to conduct on-line conferences has improved tremendously. I believe it is time we give another look at conducting Regional Summit Conferences.
Rather than rehash the way industry meetings were conducted in the past, let’s start fresh. After all, this is the new millennium and post-pandemic economic recovery era. Since most of us are actively involved in running our own businesses, we should really think about the reasons we are meeting and what we can collectively expect to get out of these meetings. When I think of industry meetings, a few questions immediately come to mind. Why are we meeting? Who should be attending the meetings? How and where should we be meeting? Is there an organized agenda to the meeting with a specific purpose? And finally, what positive outcomes can we expect to achieve by conducting these meetings?
The purpose of conducting a Regional Summit Conference is to bring Dive Industry Professionals from different stakeholder groups together to discuss economic development issues that affect their region and their industry. An organized conference should address the industry’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a way for leaders from local diving communities and various stakeholder groups to report on how they are doing in their current market. In an economic downturn, participants of Regional Summit Conferences identify problems in their industry, brainstorm possible solutions to their problems, and recommend actionable items that will overcome their challenges.
To prepare for a Regional Summit Conference that addresses regional or national industry issues, it is best to prepare ahead of time for the conference. I would recommend that stakeholder groups get together with their peers and discuss issues that are relevant to their stakeholder group. Dive Retailers should begin to meet with other Dive Retailers in their local diving communities. Same thing for manufacturers, training professionals, clubs, non-profit organizations, and travel companies. All stakeholder groups have a vested interest in the success of their local diving community, their regional territory, and in their industry on a national and international basis. There is even common ground that all industry stakeholder groups share. That’s the purpose of bringing the entire global diving community together to make the industry more popular, successful, and meaningful.
When we think of venues that will support a successful conference, we should think about the way dive industry professionals currently prefer to meet and participate. I believe we should use an integrated, hybrid meeting format. Using present-day marketing tools, we can promote an initial regional meeting or stakeholder meeting digitally. The initial meeting can be promoted via social media, electronic correspondence, telephone calls, and word of mouth. The idea is to get the ball rolling and gain support for meeting locally, which hopefully will lead to regional and national meetings. Digital face-to-face meetings will create a core group of working dive industry professionals that are active in the market and have a vested interest in the industry’s growth and eventual success.
If conducting digital meetings is successful at creating a core group of like-minded industry leaders, the next logical step would be to host a regional summit conference in conjunction with a regional dive show. I am sure that Scuba Show and Beneath the Sea would see that it is in their best interest to sponsor a Regional Summit Conference at their annual event. Especially if we can convince the region’s key people to participate. For territories in the United States that do not have long-standing shows and events planned, we can ask the smaller, less publicized regional events to step up to the plate. Depending on the success of the Regional Summit Conferences, a National Industry Summit Conference could be in the works, sponsored and held at a national event.
There should be a common agenda at these local summit meetings so that discussions at a regional or national level follow an established format. A suggested schedule of topics could include:
- Identify current dive businesses or stakeholder groups in a local dive community.
- Identify current economic activity in the community. Sales, Certifications, Travel, Local Events.
- Identify current problems, challenges, obstacles, and roadblocks to growth.
- Identify possible solutions to challenges.
- Identify actionable items in a Plan of Action.
- Assign responsibility for achievable outcomes.
- Monitor to see if action plan is achieving planned outcomes.
- Report and follow-up.
When Regional Summit Conferences are held, local dive communities can compare notes to see where they have common ground in activity, problems, solutions, and positive change, with other local dive communities. Collaboration can lead to a better understanding of a region’s economic development and result in better industry norms and best practices.
For more information contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director, Dive Industry Association, Inc., 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL. Phone 321-914-3778. Email: gene@diveindustry.net web: www.diveindustry.net
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DIVE LOCAL 