Plannin’ Ain’t Easy!

Planning a meeting isn’t always easy. I’m not even an event planner and this is easy to see. So the question becomes: How can THIS meeting be made better? After all, the goal is to make the experience as successful as possible to get them coming back for more. What you don’t want, of course, is for everyone to turn into Mitch Martins who ditch the meeting for the early flight home.

Here are some tips I gathered to enhance your meeting.

When organizing your event, time is of the essence. EliteMeetings.com has some interesting ideas to help free up your schedule. Try outsourcing. Simple legwork can be accomplished by Harry Hardatwork or Tina Tasker for a small fee. Incorporate technology into everything you do. Using a program like Google Reader makes it easy for documents to be shared for planning collaboration. Don’t forget the golden rules of staying organized and setting realistic daily goals for your workload.

Everywhere we look there is something in our face about saving the planet and becoming greener. This is a major trend in meetings-to no one’s surprise. We are trying to make the earth healthy. What about the individuals that are attending your event? ConventionPlanit.com covers your attendee’s health with some helpful tips: Scheduling walks at different times during a conference where participants are given raffle tickets is a sure way to keep everyone alert. It doesn’t hurt they are rewarded for participating as well! If the venue is a hotel that has an in-house trainer, have them come in and stretch everyone out. This keeps everyone fresh and avoids participants from pulling a hammy. Walking too much? Have acupressure foot masseuses on hand to silence those barking dogs. When it comes time to eat, spread out portions so no one is a victim of the heavy-eating food coma. Replace traditional drinks with pomegranate-flavored soda, or green / peach iced tea.

Last, but not least, do things to help make the meeting engaging. While this is done with the right preparation, material, and speaker, another method is to force participants to sit up front. Place a reserved sign on the last few rows of tables / chairs in the room. As more space is needed, have someone slide the “reserved” area further back as needed. Also try a setup that eliminates the riff raff in the back. Set up a U shape or hollow square to keep everyone close and engaged.

For more tips check out: http://www.conventionplanit.com/blog/2010/07/15/meet-healthy-for-attendees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cpblog2+%28ConventionPlanit.com+Blog%29

Scott Sanker
Graphic Designer