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    INSPIRING PEOPLE


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WEC Grapevine Learning Pathways

Join thought leaders, subject matter experts and peers on learning pathways that deliver on the education you need and seek in the areas of authentic innovation, leadership, social connection, experience design and community. Curated by industry icons acting as deans and delivered in our village theaters, each pathway will dive deep into the why and how of authentic discovery, and drill into the skills and abilities required to respond to the promise our events make to our participants, stakeholders and organizations.

 


INNOVATION PATHWAY

Located In the Innovation Theatre at the Innovation Village

The Innovation Pathway includes education around current creative trends and how to apply them to your business.

 

DEAN

Christine "Shimo" Shimasaki
Managing Director
2Synergize-a Simpleview company

Christine "Shimo" Shimasaki, CDME, CMP of 2Synergize, LLC, a Simpleview consulting company, is a passionate advocate of convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), also referred to as destination marketing organizations. Since 2009, Shimo has provided leadership and guidance to the CVB industry and has helped individual CVB sales organizations with specific meetings market issues and opportunities.
Shimo’s 35-years in the travel industry covers hotel, theme parks, convention center, and CVB experience. Her focus has been a continuum of strategy formulation and execution; helping organizations achieve competitive advantages, community collaboration, strong customer relationships and high performing sales and service teams.

Having a propensity for leveraging technology, Shimo has been instrumental in the development or redevelopment of several CVB sales tools designed to enhance the CVB value proposition, including San Diego Tourism Authority’s (formerly the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau) iLead and iService and Destination Marketing Association International’s MINT+, Event Impact Calculator, and Event Room Demand Analyzer.

INNOVATION PATHWAY

Located In the Innovation Theatre at the Innovation Village

The Innovation Pathway includes education around current creative trends and how to apply them to your business.

 

DEAN

Christine "Shimo" Shimasaki
Managing Director
2Synergize-a Simpleview company

Christine "Shimo" Shimasaki, CDME, CMP of 2Synergize, LLC, a Simpleview consulting company, is a passionate advocate of convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), also referred to as destination marketing organizations. Since 2009, Shimo has provided leadership and guidance to the CVB industry and has helped individual CVB sales organizations with specific meetings market issues and opportunities.
Shimo’s 35-years in the travel industry covers hotel, theme parks, convention center, and CVB experience. Her focus has been a continuum of strategy formulation and execution; helping organizations achieve competitive advantages, community collaboration, strong customer relationships and high performing sales and service teams.

Having a propensity for leveraging technology, Shimo has been instrumental in the development or redevelopment of several CVB sales tools designed to enhance the CVB value proposition, including San Diego Tourism Authority’s (formerly the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau) iLead and iService and Destination Marketing Association International’s MINT+, Event Impact Calculator, and Event Room Demand Analyzer.

SOCIAL PATHWAY

Located In the Social Theatre at the Social Village

The Social Pathway features education that enhances your connection with audiences, customers, and your community.

 

DEAN

Kevin Iwamoto
Chief Strategy Officer
Bizly Inc.

Kevin is a globally recognized industry influencer and subject matter expert in corporate travel, procurement, GDPR and strategic meetings management (SMM). He is also former President & CEO of the Board of Directors for the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). He has served on numerous association boards, most recently as a Board member for the US Council for the MPI Foundation.
Kevin has won almost every major industry award in both business travel and the meetings and events industries. In July 2018, he was just named for the third time in five years one of the Top 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry from Successful Meetings magazine. In 2018 and 2019 he was named one of the Top 1000 People in Events, in the Strategy & Leadership category by BizBash. Other accolades include the 2016 MPI Rise Award for Meetings Industry Leadership, the Changemakers Award for MeetingsNet, BTN travel manager of the year and Top 25 Most Influential Travel Executives, GBTA’s President’s Award & GBTA’s rarely awarded Industry Icon Award (he is only one of eight recipients).

He writes a popular award-winning industry blog (Gold Magellan Award for Best Industry Blog from Travel Weekly), published though Meetings & Conventions on-line.

He has two published books to his credit, Strategic Meetings Management: From Theory to Practice published in April 2011 and most recently, Your Personal Brand, Your Power Tool to Build Career Integrity, published in October of 2016. Both are available via Amazon.

Prior to joining Bizly, Kevin was Senior Vice President at GoldSpring Consulting, VP of Industry Strategy at Lanyon, senior global category manager in the Hewlett-Packard Global Travel & SMM Team and senior account manager with the Walt Disney Company.

EXPERIENTIAL PATHWAY

Located In the Experience Theatre at the Experiential Village

The Experiential Pathway provides education on new techniques and design ideas perfect for optimizing your future attendees' event experience.

 

DEAN

Andrew Lacanienta, PhD
Asst Professor
California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Andrew Lacanienta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experience Industry Management at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. He is an experience wizard who designs, stages, and researches experiences that encourage authenticity, bring out emotions, and connect humankind.
From training with the Kaos Pilots to being a Prefect at The College of Extraordinary Experiences, Andrew has been curating a special set of skills, tools, and network. Andrew is on a mission to apply theory to practice by sharing his experience design toolkit to help individuals design fulfilling lives, organizations engage their guests, and communities transform their neighborhoods. Focusing on user-centered design and co-creation, Andrew seeks to design experiences in a way that adds a little more intention to everything we do in life.

EXPERIENTIAL PATHWAY

Located In the Experience Theatre at the Experiential Village

The Experiential Pathway provides education on new techniques and design ideas perfect for optimizing your future attendees' event experience.

 

DEAN

Andrew Lacanienta, PhD
Asst Professor
California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Andrew Lacanienta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experience Industry Management at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. He is an experience wizard who designs, stages, and researches experiences that encourage authenticity, bring out emotions, and connect humankind.
From training with the Kaos Pilots to being a Prefect at The College of Extraordinary Experiences, Andrew has been curating a special set of skills, tools, and network. Andrew is on a mission to apply theory to practice by sharing his experience design toolkit to help individuals design fulfilling lives, organizations engage their guests, and communities transform their neighborhoods. Focusing on user-centered design and co-creation, Andrew seeks to design experiences in a way that adds a little more intention to everything we do in life.

LEADERSHIP PATHWAY

Located In the Leadership Theatre at the Leadership Village

The Leadership Pathway is for current meeting executives and aspiring leaders to acquire the tools they need to succeed and progress in their careers.

 

DEAN

Terri Breining
Principal
Breining Group Inc.

Theresa Breining, CMP, CMM, CED is the president of Breining Group Inc, whose focus is facilitation, coaching and consulting in the meeting industry. Terri has been involved in the industry for several decades, and was responsible for producing meetings around the globe.
Considered by many to be a thought leader, Terri is an activist working tirelessly on the continuous advancement of the level of professionalism in the meeting industry, and has served as adjunct faculty for meeting management programs for universities for many years. She is a sought after speaker, presenter and moderator for training and educational workshops for a variety of business entities.

In recognition of her many contributions, she has been acknowledged over the years. This acknowledgement includes being awarded MPI’s International Meeting Planner of the Year, her inclusion several times as one of the “Most Influential People in the Meeting Industry” and because of her lifetime of leadership, she was inducted into the Event Industry Council’s Hall of Leaders.

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