I had a unique opportunity yesterday to participate in a live event – an international conversation of sorts. Source One presented a webinar at the University of LaSalle's School of Business in Mexico City about a topic near and dear to their hearts: nearshoring. While this isn’t a new topic, the presentation was so completely different that it was hard not to feel enthusiastic about the opportunities that exist. In the last 10 months, I have attended roughly 100 webinars. None of them had a live video feed from another country and none of the presentation formats were able to capture the enthusiasm that this audience expressed. I highly encourage more event planners and hosts to try to incorporate applause into their events – somehow it makes the message more exciting.

The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions.... Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well — so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other....

—Bill Clinton, Wired interview, December 2000.^[3]

Applying proper motivational techniques can be much harder than it seems. Steven Kerr notes that when creating a reward system, it can be easy to reward A, while hoping for B, and in the process, reap harmful effects that can jeopardize your goals.

-Wikipedia, Incentive Theory

Last week I attended an excellent supply chain risk management webinar sponsored by the Next Level Purchasing Association and featuring a global supply chain manager from a Fortune 500 company. The event followed the story of this particular corporate supply chain through the 2010 tsunami in Japan (you can click here for my notes).

One of the lessons this particular company learned was about finding the right place for addressing the human side of a very complicated business issue. I was impressed with the efforts they had made, particularly for such a large company. A thought started to form in my mind: what contract clauses were put aside in order to have an appropriate response to the devastation while not creating serious business continuity issues?

Although we don’t necessarily have much more of a visibility horizon than we’ve had for months, things at least seem to be stabilizing. Events are starting to focus on next year, and they provide a sense of what is within our control. That is far more productive and positive than continuing to focus on everything that is out of control.

August hasn’t been as busy as June and July were, but the pace of new events is already picking up for September. There are already 12 events on the calendar for next month, half of which I added this week. If you are also a fan of Art of Procurement, run by my colleague Philip Ideson, you’ll want to SAVE THE DATE for AOP Mastermind Live: October 6-7.

I get a lot of questions about what events I list in the BMP calendar and how I decide what to recommend. I have always believed that the calendar needed to be an industry resource, not a revenue source. BMP receives no money for any of the webinar listings, does not guarantee that any events will be recommended in advance, and does not (knowingly) list demo events. If you have any questions about our listing and recommendation policies, feel free to reach out. Similarly, if you have a thought leadership-based webinar that you think the procurement community would like to know about, please send it my way!

It would seem that we are going to have a summer slowdown after all. There weren’t enough events to pick from last week, so I skipped my recommendations post, and there are only a few for this week but they are worthwhile. On the bright side, I already know there will be event recommendations for next week as well.

As we close out the end of July, webinars are just starting to post for August. If you look at all of this week’s webinars, there is a clear note of defiant optimism with the focus returning to supply resiliency, leadership, and automation over necessary but fatigued coverage of the pandemic. Next week also marks the release of the July ISM-New York Report on Business, so we’ll get another look at how the professional services economy is recovering from the various shutdowns.

Following is a list of the upcoming webinars that are worth of an hour of your (scarce) time. Some I recommend for the topic, others for the speaker, but all of them will give you something new to think about – and goodness knows, we can all use more good ideas to stand up to the challenges 2020 has handed us.

The events continue to roll in – I added another dozen new events to the calendar this week. In addition to the events listed below, I’ll be making the case that procurement is not the ‘enemy’ when it comes to sourcing projects for IT solutions with MyComplianceOffice.

Another week, another 9 new webinars. I think we’re seeing a meaningful shift this week from all-COVID-all-the-time to a longer term look at what’s next, whether that means the economy, changes in how we manage our supply chains, or significant industry restructuring.

In addition to the events listed below, this week also marks the release of the ISM-New York Report on Business and other major economic reports. Obviously, we are all watching them closely as they provide yet another month’s worth of insight into the global economy and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The calendar continues to fill up, and this week I added events that are scheduled well into the month of July. There are 12 events taking place this week alone. Unlike other years, when things slowed down more for the July 4^th holiday, there will definitely be event recommendations for the week of June 29-July 3. In addition to the events listed below for this week, I’d like to recommend two longer term events:

Another week, another 10 events added to the calendar – all of which are taking place between now and the first week of July. There are 8 webinars this week and 11 next, and several events already listed for the week of July 4th. That may indicate that the pause in business that typically surrounds the July 4th holiday in the U.S. will be shorter than in more typical years.

Last Tuesday I announced that Buyers Meeting Point has acquired MyPurchasingCenter, a website and online community much like BMP. This step increases our reach, audience, and – most importantly – our content base. Some of the best known writers in procurement and supply chain were authors for MPC, including Jon Hansen, Bill Michels, Dr. Tom DePaoli, Rich Weissman, and Elaine Porteous. Look for more on that front starting this week!

As we turn the corner into June, the pace of even virtual events has slowed back to what I would expect to see in the summer months of a ‘normal’ year, which this decidedly is not. One sign of light at the end of the tunnel is this: I added a live event (yes, live – in person and with people in attendance) for November of 2020. Time will tell if that is going to hold and what it will look like, but it feels like a glimmer of hope all the same.

If you are outside of the U.S., just a quick reminder that Monday is Memorial Day, a Federal holiday and the unofficial start to summer. Most people are still marking the day in some fashion, but I suspect that very few will be taking to the roads, so the week should be relatively business-as-usual starting on Tuesday.

If you are planning your schedule further ahead, I recommend “How BNY Mellon is Building a Value-driven Procurement Organization” on June 2nd from IACCM, BNY Mellon, and SirionLabs.

Holy webinars Batman! I added 14 new virtual events to the calendar last week. Clearly companies are embracing this method of reaching their desired audience (in the absence of an alternative). I just hope they aren’t all sad COVID-19 fallout events. If anyone hears about a webinar focused on how the ‘murder hornets’ are expected to affect the supply chain, please let me know?

The schedule continues to be full of events, and I am noticing that they don't hit the calendar with as much lead time as I would expect under normal circumstances. The good news is that they are almost all available on demand. If you ever need helping tracking one down, don't hesitate to ask.

If you are planning your schedule further ahead, I recommend “Money in Hand How to Adapt Promptly and Conserve Your Cash” from JAGGAER on May21st.

In addition to the events listed below, the ISM-New York Report on Business will be released on May 4th at 9:45am ET. Watch the BMP blog or the ISM page for details.

If you are planning your schedule further ahead, I recommend “Key Takeaways from Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2020” from the team at Supply Chain Now and Mike Griswold, Vice President Analyst, Supply Chain Research at Gartner.