Lower temperatures and longer lines in the Student Center can mean only one thing—the start of fall semester. Welcome back everyone! To kick off the new school year, I wanted to feature some on-campus resources for event planners to get some new skills this semester. Here are a few on-campus and low-cost ways to expand your event-planning skills.
This year, the Event Coordinators’ Network welcomed Jim Hooker, cofounder of Stewart and Hooker and former associate senior vice president for Cultural Relations and University Events at the University of Southern California.
In his keynote address, Mr. Hooker spoke about “Rising to the Next Level.” He reminded us that it does not take a large budget to create a great event and having a large budget does not guarantee success. An event becomes great when it maintains consistently high standards and makes an emotional connection with the guests.
The keynote speaker at this year’s Event Coordinators’ Workshop, Mr. Jim Hooker, expanded on his keynote address with a breakout session titled “Excellence Through Design and Décor.”
When creating an event, he advised, keep both the design (the overall purpose or theme of the room) and décor (the actual pieces) in mind at all times so they are in line with each other.
While there is plenty of specialty software on the market for event planners, at Georgia Tech a lot of our work is done in Microsoft Excel. That does not have to be a bad thing, though. Excel can do amazing work for an event planner; you just have to know the tricks. One trick I have fallen in love with recently is Conditional Formatting.
Conditional Formatting allows you to highlight cells that follow a specific rule. The function can be found under Format in the menu bar or on the Home Ribbon.
When planning and executing an event, it is easy to overlook some of the simpler items. In this post, I wanted to highlight a few simple actions that event planners should make a habit at all of their events but are easy to neglect.
Networking is an important part of career growth and advancement. While we all recognize that we need to do it, our busy schedules often limit our opportunities. If, however, you can take an hour to assist at a check-in table, for example, you can create your next networking opportunity.
I think the only three letters I dread more than TBD are CMP. The CMP stands for Certified Meeting Planner, a highly regarded designation in the events industry. I often tell others that it is similar to a PhD in the events world due to the level of work and dedication it takes to achieve. The CMP is administered by the Convention Industry Council (CIC) and has provided a standard certification for meeting professionals for the past twenty-five years.
To say that April is a busy month at Georgia Tech would be an understatement, but how else can you describe it? It is not just the end of semester, but the end of academic year with the end of fiscal year looming right behind it. However, we cannot move into the calm until we evaluate our past actions. Laura touched on a post-event evaluation in her previous post, Summertime…and the Living is Easy. I’m here to look a little deeper into the process – the who, the what, and the how.
A key part of being a great event planner is being prepared. Event planners work for days to ensure that four hours of one day runs perfectly. It is impossible for planners to predict and they have to be ready for everything, but there are still precautions one can take to cover the common challenges.
This week I’m starting with the bare basics – documents.
Thank you to the more than 100 colleagues who registered to attend our professional development event on February 23, where we introduced our new Institute Special Events & Protocol website. The new site, intended to provide event planners with a centralized location to find all the necessary information they need to produce a successful event, includes information on policies, entertainment resources, catering options, and many other useful topics.
