Organizing corporate offsite events can be tricky for Event Coordinators and Planners. They have to put the entire event or workshop together, are responsible for taking people out of their day to day routine, and be on top of any issues that may arise. Here are 3 simple steps to consider to help play a more proactive and consultative role in events.
Building Relationships
Establish that you are the “go-to” person for all of the participant’s needs or concerns during the event.
Spark conversation and provide tools to cultivate lasting relationships such as group exercises or team bonding activities. Camaraderie is a cornerstone in playing a more proactive and consultative role as an Event Planner or Coordinator. Most importantly, build a community and continue to build relationships after your event. After all is said and done, reach out to connections you made during the event and follow up with them. This can be something as simple as a recap file of the event, a one-pager about your company’s services, or even what your conversation was about.
Environment
The setting of your event has a much bigger impact than you would expect. The last thing anyone wants to do is to go into a dim, dull, and boring conference room for an offsite workshop. They suppress creativity and kill collaboration. All attendees should be inspired by the time they enter and their brains should stay stimulated until the time they leave. Adding toys, natural decor, or even something as simple as comfortable chairs into your workshop will liven the room and promote out-of-the-box thinking.
Create A Sense of Accomplishment
People like to know that their task is worth doing and will yield some sort of result. Ensure that your participants feel accomplished every step of the way with a visual display of work done throughout the duration of the event. Building a sense of accomplishment is a great way to keep the attendees motivated, engaged, and working hard.
Take the learnings from this article and apply them to the information in Overcoming Challenges to help you pull of a successful offsite corporate event! If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at 646-692-3522.
There are a lot of factors that go into planning an impactful event, and even more that go into ensuring it is a success. Here is a list of what should be top of mind when pulling together any offsite corporate event:
Communication
Communication is essential to have an impactful and successful offsite corporate event. With a strong agenda, you can incorporate the use of bright colors, brain games, and quirky ice-breakers to stimulate conversation, which promotes brainstorming. Cut back on tunnel vision by providing your participants with all of the collaboration tools and canvas space they need to get their ideas out of their heads, and onto paper, such as whiteboards or hypertiles.
Kinetic Thinking
Listening
Stress the importance of listening during workshops or events. Not one participant knows it all and everyone should listen to what their colleague has to say during a brainstorm, regardless of experience or title. The right input will make an idea flourish and bring you a step closer to achieving your goal.
Visual Alignment
While many may consider illustrations secondary, don’t underestimate the power of vibrant, eye-catching images in putting on a truly unique event. In addition to providing a burst of color, visuals can help immensely in connecting the dots and illustrating the speaker’s points. The right visual elements ensure that your most salient points will resonate with attendees, as nothing complements a strong message like a visually-pleasing photo or illustration.
Emotive
What happens when you stimulate communication? People get animated, creative, and more likely to speak their mind or share their ideas. Remember, you never know who or where the next “big idea” will come from.
Visit How Industry Experts Overcome Challenges for more high value information from event industry experts on how to overcome some of the greatest challenges when planning an event! If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at 646-692-3522.
Event Coordinators and Planners go through a rigorous planning process when it comes to executing any event.
Your perfect offsite event could not be made possible without the people in these positions, and they face a variety of challenges during the event’s planning process. Here are two of the greatest challenges event Coordinators or Planners face in holding an awesome corporate offsite event:
Budget
Attendees
Attendees are the life of the event, literally. The purpose of any corporate event is to bring people together and work towards solving a common problem. Making sure the attendees show up, and stay focused and comfortable throughout the duration of the workshop is a difficult job to do. The environment of the event plays a huge role in its success. Find a space that stimulates conversation, collaboration, and boosts creativity while getting the most out of their time spent at the workshop.It is imperative to maximize the work output of those attending. Give the event some structure with a clear agenda and stick to it to keep everyone moving forward, but remember to incorporate team energizers and icebreakers to get people out of their seat, and comfort zone.
Visit 5 Tips To Spark Creativity for innovative tips & tricks to maximize your teams creativity during events! If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at 646-692-3522.
It’s always great to get a chance to hear what other professionals in the industry say about their corporate events.
At our networking event on Thursday, November 29th, we were lucky enough to brainstorm with other professionals in the event industry and ask what technology they think has the most potential to add value to corporate events.
According to those professionals, the answer was all about collaboration and sharing tools; such as digital screens and hypertiles as well as programs like Skype, Slack, Google Suite, and Survey Monkey. These tools and platforms open an entire world of possibilities for internal communication, increase work output, and promote conversation or brainstorming. Incorporating a number of social platforms and hashtags are also very important, an example an industry professional gave was that right when participants join an event give them a hashtag to use on their social media. Hashtags create buzz and digital engagement on variety of platforms. People can share ideas with one another away from the event space and continue their conversation or brainstorm after their session ends.
Visit Does Your Product Need Wings for an in depth example of how technology vastly improved and impacted the use of an already simple product. If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at (646) 692-3522.
The experts at the Innovation Loft have provided you with a few tips to spark innovation and creativity.
Get Inspired
To be innovative you must first be inspired. You have to get your team in an innovative and creative mindstate. Toys, quotes, and games are a great way to get “those juices flowing”.
Be Collaborative
Collaboration tools are the vehicles that move a brainstorm forward. Having items such as hyptertiles or whiteboards and lots of markers are a great way to enable your entire time to get their thoughts out of their head and on paper.
Stimulate Communication
Try to Implement colors and natural light to stimulate communication. Getting your team sharing ideas with one another is how you find unique solutions to current problems.
Spark Excitement
Innovative thinking won’t come from a lackadaisical and uninspired team. Be sure to utilize team energizers or goofy tasks to keep everyone in a light mood and raise excitement.
Don’t limit your team
Provide your team with all the supplies they need to succeed. Don’t limit their thinking and creativity by not having the tools to expand on their thought. Have a surplus of office supplies on hand so your team can always get their thoughts out.
Visit Creating A Collaborative Environment for examples of how to implement creative changes into your office space. If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at 646-692-3522.
Those that come to our Innovation Loft to engage in collaborative team events often comment on how the environment itself supports creative thinking, boosts team energy and facilitates the ability to work effectively. We are frequently asked how to recreate those same attitudes in their office space.
In this post, we’ll cover 7 key qualities that are essential to creating a space that fosters creative collaboration and will help bring these qualities to a more traditional work environment.
Disorientation
Create an environment that is surprising and novel. Our brains filter out a large portion of expected or familiar things than what we generally see, hear, and feel. So creating a space that is new and unexpected opens new possibilities, taking people out of their comfort zones while making them more open to adjusting their thinking.
Inspiration
Certain colors, textures, and objects evoke a certain mood. We find that lots of toys, books, natural materials and flashes of bright color encourage imagination and open a new door to creativity.
Stimulation
Surround people with content related to the topic at hand such as logos, charts, graphs, inspirational images or other relevant visual information. For example, at the Innovation Loft we have hundreds of feet of magnetic whiteboard walls where we can write and post relevant material, along with 35+ video displays used to display different images, videos, and websites during a session. In a conference room, you could replicate a similar effect by having just a few screens connected to an external device, or by lining the room’s walls with colorful, large-size images.
Illumination
Light has a massive impact on how people see the world. The use of specific lighting from different sources can have an effect on mood. Strategically use a mix of LED and fluorescent lighting to maximize this effect.
Collaboration
Give people the tools to easily communicate and collaborate. We find that the number one tool that fosters collaboration is a lot of canvas space and plenty of writing utensils. Creating canvas space is easy. For example, an inexpensive approach is a whiteboard (or chalkboard) paint or turn whole walls into collaboration surfaces! Glass or acrylic tables can also be used as writable surfaces. Remember to always document your work, at the Innovation Loft we photograph and upload anything left on the boards to an album for later review before the being erased at the end of the day.
Circulation
Encourage movement! It’s difficult to remain energetic in a day-long meeting, or while sitting at a desk for hours on end. Physical activity provides a much-needed boost of energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. Foster an interactive atmosphere by offering toys, games, or activities to encourage motion. You’ll quickly agree that movement is invaluable to a dynamic, productive meeting or work space, as participants’ moods will be instantly lifted by the change of pace.
Iteration and Prioritization
Give people areas to post their progress with a visual representation of their work. During a meeting, something as simple as an open wall to post flip-chart pages or post-it notes can be an immensely effective space in displaying the meetings’ growing output. This provides an easy way to browse and prioritize your work as well as a way to motivate your team! The environment itself is only one piece of the puzzle. That’s why, in addition to our creative space, we can help you make the most of your off-site event, bring out the best in your team, and provide the best results for your company or team with our facilitation services.
Visit How Tech Adds Value for more information on what innovative technology event industry professionals use on a daily basis! If you have any other inquiries about our space or services, please don’t hesitate to email info@innovationloft.com or give us a call at 646-692-3522.
Those that come to our Innovation Loft to engage in collaborative team events often comment on how the environment itself supports creative thinking, boosts team energy and facilitates the ability to work effectively. We are frequently asked how to recreate those same attitudes in their office space.