Saturday, June 28, 2008

Communicate More Good

“In the time honored tradition of email, just ignore the question.”
- John Dobbin


So while I love Xobni, I like this idea better.

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Remember: Events ARE Marketing

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.”
- Chinese Proverb


Seth Godin has a great post today about event/meeting planning. I think he's accurate on everything except the 30 x 80 meeting room setup - and I get his point, but I disagree with it.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

They Travel in Packs

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."
- Ryunosuke Satoro


And how many times do oceans need to register for something? Most of the time. I am seeing more and more instances where either I need to register an entire room block or my customers need to register multiple attendees to an event, and the technology piece does not allow for it. Does anyone really have the time to sit around and individually register 32 people? Probably not. If you are building out a reg site, make sure you consider the poor administrative assistant or event planner who is going to have to waste half a day entering everyone's names into you system one by one.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Appreciate Out Loud

“Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.”
- G.B. Stern


Thank you notes have always been touted as the most sincere way to personally thank someone for something they did for you. Today, this is still true, but why not go above and beyond? Follow Andy's lead. I always include about $50-100 in my event budget to use for appreciation gifts. Maybe its an Edible Arrangement to the housing bureau manager who miraculously found me 5 extra rooms the day before the deadline. Maybe its a bottle of chocolate dipped wine to the hotel event manager who found me two meeting rooms even though the conference is less than a week away and the hotel truly had no space left (I still don't know how she did that)! Even a couple of restaurant.com gift certificates to the event planners on my team who have bent over backwards to deal with ambiguity and get an amazing event planned. In the grand scheme of a $120k+ event, $100 to thank some folks is so very worth it.