Open Forum

Hi there! Welcome back to a new month and our next Huddle of the Week discussion.

Can you believe it is March again? March 2020 feels like forever ago and yesterday at the same time. Speaking of time, we know you all are extremely busy, and therefore time management and efficiency is very important to you and your teams. Whether enhanced while working in this virtual environment, or something you picked up a while back, we'd love to learn how you keep up your productivity while managing your event programs.

• What are some of your favorite "productivity hacks" when managing event programs? (This can mean anything – building events and managing the technology, onsite at an in-person event, executing a virtual event, or supporting events at your property for our suppliers)
• Has anything changed while remote/supporting virtual events that you feel you will continue with in-person events?

As always, let us know your thoughts, ideas, and questions below. #HuddleoftheWeek #VoiceIt

#Miscellaneous
#ManagingVirtualEvents
#ExecutingStrategicMeetingsManagement

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Danni Czark
Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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We use Microsoft 0365 in our company and my favorite thing has been planner. We created one "mock" planner that covers anything and everything an event could contain whether in person or virtual - brand assets, speakers, contracts, invoice payments, session plannings, agendas, even internal meetings, rehearsals, activities, food, etc.

Then as we go to start new events, we just clone the planner and remove what's not needed. We then continue to add to the template anytime something new is discovered as needed and then this way we're not falling into the 'missing some small details' and it's easier to hit the ground running on getting started with planning since what to do, priority orders, next steps are already mapped out for us.

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Rachel Sigley
Director, Brand Marketing
Tata America International Corporation
NJ
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With a distributed team of content managers, you have to learn how THEY best work. For most of them, a simple "checklist" with dates, the stakeholder, and the due date.

Make this simple sheet, go over it on EVERY MEETING. And pad 2 weeks into every "deadline." Because people get behind.

The coolest hack I have is an excel sheet that takes a SESSION EXPORT and puts it into a BLOCK AGENDA so people can visualize the event.

Left vertical column is start times - in TEXT. Top horizontal column is "room name." Give even your Virtual events "virtual room names." This way you can visualize the intersection of the start time and what is happening in each "room" at that time.

The way it works is a concatenation of the time + the room name, and the search looking for that match puts the Session Name into the block, in the right column and at the right time.

It isn't 100% accurate if you have overlapping sessions where the Start Times are different. But you can get a good look at what is happening overall.

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Brenda Ainsburg
Channel Program Manager
brenda.ainsburg@siemens.com
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
United States
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We use Microsoft Teams at our company, and it's been an invaluable tool for team communication. We use our specific channel for sharing and editing documents and other materials, and also for chats around the event. It cuts down on the 1000+ emails that go back and forth and makes it easier for everyone to access critical data in real-time.

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Bouran Qaddumi
National Field Trainer
Cajun Operating Company d/b/a Church's Chicken
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After meeting with stakeholders, I add a reminder to their calendar a week before information is due back to me, and a reminder the day of the informaiton is due. It keeps everyone on track and they dont have to get through all of their emails to reply. We also utilize Microsoft Teams, which has been a lifesaver.

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Mary Ann Hall
Event Planner
Federal Reserve System
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Happy Friday!

I would say for us it would be checklists and communication - to pull off an event there are many different departments having to work together (from planning to marketing to creative to servicing and the partner hosting the event), so weekly updates/meetings are a must. Have TEAMS meetings and set up different groups because not everyone has to be part of every meeting.

We recently hosted our Annual Meeting (hybrid actually) and it was interesting to see how we pulled it off... the virtual component was done well and the in-person part was considering all COVID-19 safety measures (spacing of tables, masks, check-in procedures). It was a different feel than just the in-person event we have done in the past, but still good and we wish we can host our next one in-person only...

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Andrea Timbes-Cox
CRM Administrator & Lead Catcher
Visit Fort Worth
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Communication amongst the team is key for managing event programs.  We utilize Slack in our office to ensure people get the messages no matter where they are (unless they are somewhere with absolutely no cell service).  We also use Basecamp to mark the progress of the various program components (i.e. marketing materials, logos, speakers, etc.).  The only thing I feel that has changed regarding in-person events is that there will most likely be a virtual component once we can get back to in-person.  I think virtual events were super well attended this year because everyone was looking for a way to reconnect, but I get the feeling that virtual conferences will not be as well attended over the next 18 months.  People are burned out on sitting in front of their computers.  We all long for a lunch of chicken with sauce, slightly overcooked vegetables, rice or potatoes, a roll, and cheesecake for dessert.

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Amy Zientek
Director Of Sales
Visit Lubbock The Convention and Visitors Bureau
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