In a livestreamed press conference this morning, Michael Doyle, executive director of the Virtual Edge Institute, Deborah Sexton, president and CEO of the Professional Convention Management Association and Susan Katz, PCMA Board Member and Director of Corporate Events and Travel with True Value Company, announced that PCMA has made a strategic investment in VEI that will allow VEI to accelerate the development of standards for the digital events industry and the establishment of best practices and education.

“We’ve reached an important milestone today where we’ve gone past the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that’s existed in the physical and virtual event industries,” says Doyle.  “Now we’re coming together as one industry to take advantage of the technologies that allow us to expand our audiences and extend the life of our events. This is truly a turning point.”

Sexton recognized VEI as the organization that has done more than any other to spark the conversation, adoption, growth and education around digital solutions for meetings, learning and community. “PCMA is known for having the highest level of education,” she says. “And when we determined that virtual events will be critical to the continued growth of events and meetings, we sought to work with Michael because he has the same high standards for education.”

Sexton said that by investing in VEI, the organization can deliver more education, faster.  “The next 12 months are critical for the advancement of virtual,” she explained. “We believe strongly in VEI’s ability to deliver the education our members need.”

The funding will also allow VEI to add resources to launch its Digital Event Strategist certification program.

So that was the news. Now my thoughts:

I think investing in VEI was a smart move by PCMA—and you’ve gotta give credit to Deb Sexton and the PCMA Board for doing it. Virtual is an industry in its infancy. I still believe that by 2015 every event will have a virtual component. Rather than letting its members seek the education they need for this elsewhere, PCMA has brought it somewhat in-house.

I think accepting the investment is a smart move by VEI. (Full disclosure: I perform contract work for VEI, so I obviously have a vested interest here, but I’d be saying the same thing regardless.) It’s time for VEI to move to the next level. What most of you don’t know is that Michael Doyle doesn’t have a single employee. What he’s accomplished since founding VEI in 2008 with just a couple of contractors here and there, is amazing. He’s been one of those “one-armed paper hangers,” and that can only get you so far.

I think what remains to be seen is how this announcement affects the rest of the industry. They were careful to point out this morning that PCMA is not acquiring VEI—it’s simply an investment to allow VEI more resources to move his education forward. Michael says he’ll continue pursuing other collaborations in and out of the association, corporate and educational markets—and he’ll also likely consider other investors looking to support digitalization in their market. But we all know associations can sometimes be territorial and competitive. My fear is that by aligning with PCMA, VEI may be cut off from the rest of the industry organizations.

Addressing that issue this morning, both Deb and PCMA board member Susan Katz said this was about advancing an industry, not about advancing just PCMA. Deb even mentioned that although the Virtual Edge Summit is co-located with PCMA again for 2012, maybe it can co-locate with other industry associations in other years. “We hope to always have branded VEI content at our event,” she says “But if the Summit rotates around, we’d be fine with that.”

If that can truly happen, then I think this is, indeed, a very fine day for the event industry.

Donna Sanford is the founder and former publisher of EXPO, and a blogger with The Virtual Buzz, a site that analyzes the trends, news and best practices in hybrid and virtual environments.