When the Professional Convention Management Association’s annual meeting kicks off Jan. 8-11 at the San Diego Convention Center, there’s plenty in store – from The Learning Lounge to the collocated Virtual Edge Summit to innovative keynotes, educations sessions and networking opportunities.

This year, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting is working with PCMA once again to organize part of the 2012 Convening Leaders Learning Lounge.

There will be more than 100-plus education opportunities from Big Ideas TED-style presentations to “How To” iPad sessions to “Bring Your Own Mobile Device” instructional presentations to the Really Live Chat Rooms.

The Big Idea Theaters and Really Live Chat Rooms will be focused on three primary themes - Designing Meetings for Learning & Designing Experiences, Expo and Sponsorship and Growing Attendance.

In 2012, The Learning Lounge is open the entire conference, except during general sessions and luncheons.

Also returning this year will be the Virtual Edge Institute’s Virtual Edge Summit, running in conjunction with the PCMA annual meeting and featuring 80 speakers and 30 sessions and focusing on everything a show organizer needs to know about virtual and hybrid events.

The theme of the summit, “Accelerate: knowledge. strategy. results”, will be aimed at presenting digital solutions for meetings, events, learning, training and community and feature speakers from companies such as 3M, Cisco Systems, Herbalife, HIMSS, IBM, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, VMWare and Xerox.

“VES 2012 reflects a shift in our industry over the past 12 months,” said Michael Doyle, executive director of VEI and founder of VES. “Whereas our program previously focused on helping event practitioners and marketers make a business case for virtual to their organizations, today our audience is seeking the knowledge, strategy and skills to deliver and measure real business results from digital programs.”

He added, “And VES 2012 is the only place to gather the intelligence, education and business contacts one needs to accelerate knowledge, strategy and results.

PCMA also has a reputation for having innovative keynotes at its annual meeting, and this year’s no exception.

The meeting’s opening session, “Rules for Epic Wins that Fascinate”, will be given by three authors: Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World”; John Medina, M.D., “Brain Rules”; and Sally Hogshead “FASCINATE: Your 7 Triggers of Persuasion and Captivation”.

They will be discussing how to design meetings that are more engaging, foster better recall and generate more action.

The final day of the meeting will feature a plenary session – “A Conversation with Richard Saul Wurman”.

Wurman is the creator of TED, TEDMED, the e.g. conference and the upcoming WWW.WWW Conference, as well as the author of 80 books.

In between the packed-full schedule of PCMA education sessions, there also are numerous networking opportunities, including the meeting’s opening party at the Manchester Grand Hyatt and PCMA’s Party With a Purpose that will benefit a local charity.

For a full schedule of The Learning Lounge, Virtual Edge Summit and PCMA annual meeting events please visit http://www.conveningleaders.org/.