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.
Professionals in the event industry have to juggle coordinating participants, creating an agenda, finding a space, and a multitude of other tasks. The work doesn’t stop until the event is over, but experts in the industry have elaborated on the two priorities of a corporate event that are always on the top of mind and critical in its success from start to finish.
Communication
Remember, just because your workshop was an offsite does not mean your work should be left behind when the event is over. Create a manifesto and make a plan of next steps to implement your findings.
. Also, communication doesn’t stop at the end of the event, always extend your connections with those met at that event.
Experiences
Visit Playing A Proactive Role to learn how to further implement the learnings from this article into your next 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.
