Carma Khatib: Blog Post #3- Learnings from Course

This course has taught me several things that I had not learned about in any other classes at GW.  I really valued the guest speakers and opportunity to go visit Social Tables because I was able to get a better understanding of how event management plays a role in all events and I was also able to learn about the business side of event management.  I was also exposed to project management for the first time as well as the financial management aspects of the industry. 

Project management was a concept that I had always thought about in a very general way, however, project management is a very detail oriented, organized concept that consists of software that was created for the purpose of project management. I learned how to and made my first Gantt Chart in this class as well as played an online project management game (thatpmgame.com) that required us to experiment with balancing the different parts of a project and delegate how much time and who would be committed to each aspect.

 Financial management was also an interesting topic for me because I learned what usually cost the most for different sized meeting as well as where the revenue comes from.  I learned that for large meetings the biggest source of revenue is registration, followed by exhibit sales.  The biggest expenses for large meetings are food and beverage.  Using what I learned about financial management I applied to the Haskayne BBQ case study and the Festival By the Sea Case. 

As a student who comes from a very entrepreneurial background, my most enjoyable experience in this course was the opportunity to go visit Social Tables.  I really enjoyed this because not only was I able to experiment with a new software, but I saw first hand how you do not have to be an event management enthusiast to work within the industry.  There are many roles needed in order for an event management company to be successful.   I also learned that in an outdated industry such as event management, there is a lot of room for innovation and development.