Eric Blog Post #3

From the various panels, class discussions, field trips and other learning opportunities this class has granted me, I have learned a lot about the event and meeting industry, associations therein, and got to experience insights from professionals in the industry. The most important learning that I will take away form this is semester is how valuable your personal network and relationships can be. Many professionals spoke about how people in their networks led to them taking new positions, or exploring different sectors of the events industry, or provided them with further learning opportunities. Another takeaway is that new technology is overtaking the events industry and changing the way that many aspects of it have been done in the past. For example check-in and registration can now be completely computerized with Ipad kiosks and printers and mobile event apps can be used to by attendees to schedule their day, socialize, and more. Finally I learned the importance of creating sustainable events. This can come from the environmental perspective or the planning perspective. Being environmentally aware as an event planner ensures that your event will have as positive an impact on the community as possible. This can be achieved by using sustainable materials, decreasing the carbon footprint, and partnering with locations that share these values. From a planning perspective ensuring that accurate records are kept, surveys are conducted to gain guest input and key performance indicators are tracked will increase the likelihood that the event will be successful into the future.