Conventional Wisdom’s History

Working as owner and project manager, Conventional Wisdom’s (CW) co-founders developed the roots of its convention center facility programming practice in 1990 for the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Starting with the 1990 Master Plan and during the ensuing 35 years, David O’Neal and Rick Schmidt have researched industry trends, collected and analyzed event data, interviewed event planners and building managers – all to build the database that supports our facility programming expertise.

As an international management consulting firm, CW has provided its specialized services to over 300 public and private sector convention and exhibition centers, arenas, stadiums, theaters, and conference facilities, worldwide.

What We Do

Our role in these projects is simple, if understated: to bring the best talent and experience available anywhere for the planning, design and operation of convention, exhibition and conference facilities.

We believe our responsibility is more demanding: to serve as the owner’s trusted advisor, the voice of reason and truth throughout a complex process of defining goals and objectives, balancing the needs and desires of a diverse constituency within a set (and generally limited) amount of funds, with integrity, impartiality and clarity.

Our broad experience from an owner and operator’s perspective allows it to excel at providing “common sense solutions for complex problems”.