We are absolutely delighted to have Karen Norris (@freckleface23 on twitter) join us on the podcast today. Karen Norris is the conference manager at the Canadian Association of General Surgeons and manages the Canadian Surgery Forum, the largest annual meeting for Canadian general surgeons. In this episode we talk about what the future holds for conferences in a COVID world, including how organizations can optimize their virtual conferences and what hybrid conferences might look like. Links:1. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/319055/the-art-of-gathering-by-priya-parker/2. Meetings Mean Business Canada Advocacy Video: https://vimeo.com/3672719863. Meetings Mean Business webpage: https://www.meetingsmeanbusiness.ca/4. TraumaCon: https://traumacon.org/5. Mike Morrison (Twitter): https://twitter.com/mikemorrison?lang=en6. Article I referenced about one conference using unique networking opportunities: https://www.bizbash.com/production-strategy/virtual-events/article/21202973/how-american-film-markets-virtual-conference-created-spontaneous-networking-opportunities 7. The Canadian Association of General Surgeons: https://cags-accg.ca/8. The Canadian Surgery Forum: https://www.canadiansurgeryforum.com/Bio:Karen Norris has a degree in Political Science and Sociology from Queens University, a diploma in Event Management from Algonquin College and in 2015 she achieved her Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation from the Events Industry Council.She is the Conference Manager at the Canadian Association of General Surgeons (CAGS) and manages the Canadian Surgery Forum which is the largest surgical meeting in Canada attracting 1000+ delegates annually. Before her position with CAGS, she had coordinated conferences for the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada and the Coaching Association of Canada.She has sat on numerous boards and committees with Meeting Professionals International (Ottawa Chapter) and The Professional Convention Management Association (Canada-East Chapter). She has also sat on various tourism advisory boards for major Canadian cities who host business events and she currently sits on the Algonquin College Event Management Program Advisory Board.She was awarded Planner of the Year in 2018 by the Ottawa Chapter of Meetings Professional International and was a member of the team who won the 2019 “RISE” Award for most Innovative Educational Programming by Meeting Professionals International for an inaugural conference entitled “The Event”.Whenever she can, she works with Meetings Mean Business Canada, the advocacy arm of the business events industry for Canada to garner support from government officials and the public about the economic impact of conferences and events.

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