What Goes Into a Meeting -- Vision and Goals

Welcome to Planners Pointers!

Meetings, conventions, weddings, fund raisers and birthday parties all have one thing in common.  They all share the same planning process.  This planning process has several pieces and over the next several weeks I am going to write about the many aspects of the planning process. 

This week aspect is Goal.   Goal as defined by Merrian Webster is "the end toward which effort is directed."  I believe that determining what your goal will be for any event must be the first thing you accomplish in any planning.  Without a goal or goals, the everything will flounder.  Goals determine budget, dates, location, marketing and all of the rest of the processes. 

Let's try a word similar to goal -- vision. Defined as a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination.   Vision is often a word people when describing what they want their event to be.  What people see in their mind's eye.  What their dream is.  Most of the time vision is what happens before goals are set. 

What does this all mean for the event and meeting planner?  I believe that it is the planner's job to take the vision and turn it into a goal.  How you do that will be discussed next time on Planners Pointers.

Glossary Term -- Agenda

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's. Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning. Give them ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover.

Each month I would like to share words commonly used by professionals. The words along with their meaning will be from the APEX Industry Glossary.

The Convention Industry Council is the organization of 33 associations coming together to exchange information among the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. One of the initiatives is APEX, Accepted Practices Exchange to develop practices that reach industry wide. One of the practices is a glossary of terms used in the industry. The goal of the glossary is to standardize the definitions of words used by the meetings industry.

This week's word is Agenda:  A list or plan of items to consider, decided, undertaken or accomplished at a meeting or event.  Agendas are generally formal, structured lists and may include a time schedule.

A simple agenda might look like this --

Time	Event	Location
8:00 AM	Continental Breakfast	Junior Ballroom
8:30 AM	General Session	Main Ballroom
8:45 AM	General Session -- Election of officers	Main Ballroom

Other Agendas would add speakers, topics, and length of time

Another term you hear used in place of agenda is schedule. 

Determining the agenda for any meeting or event should be done very early in the planning.  In my experience it should be done right after you set the goals of the meeting. I believe one way to show how you are to carrying out the goals of a meeting is through the agenda. 

That your Planners Pointer for today!

Website -- Eventsburgh

Attention all Pittsburgh event planners!  Looking for new website to post your events for free?  Eventsburgh  is the new on-line place to be. 

Want to post an event on Eventsburgh?  First you have to become a member.  That's free and all you have to do is complete the form.  Yeah!  I like easy.  You can add a picture of yourself if you would like, otherwise you get an avatar.

Once you have registered you can click on the big button that says "Post an Event"  and complete the form and post.  The 100,000 character description  block will cover even the most detailed event.  Don't forget to use the preview button to make sure you have all your information.

You can also push it out to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with a mouse click.  For those of us used to doing separate postings, it's a time saver.

It has a few bells and whistles that you can choose to add for a small fee. For example, an additional link to your on-line registration site, or additional social media listings but they are inexpensive and I think worth the cost.

All events are posted to the calendar and emailed to those who register.  You only receive emails for events in categories that interested you when you signed up. 

Also take a few minutes to wonder around the site to find listings or read forum postings.  The site has lots of potential.

Eventsburgh was started by University of Pittsburgh alum, Tony Hsieh (pronounced "Shea") as a way to show his friends that there are lots of things to do in the 'Burgh.  Yeah Tony!

Remember an on-line event site is only as good as those who post their listings.  Add Eventsburgh to your list of on-line calendar listings.  

That's the Planners Pointer for today!

Invitation Tips for better mailing and response

Welcome to Planners Pointers!  You are planning a wonderful special event.  You have a great speaker or are honoring community volunteers or this could be a special fund raiser.  Now it's

time to send the invitations.  When you are sending invitations for an event you have been doing for several years it's easy to recycle the same invitation.  Just slip in the new dates, new honorees and it's good to go.  But before you hit send to your printer's ftp site here are five idea you consider.

1. Review last year's invitation.  Does it still reflect the goal of the event?  Has your logo changed?  Location?  Board members? Website?  Mission statement?  Have at least 3 pairs of eyes.  Add something new like a QR code.  Design it so it will fit into a standard size envelope.

2. Mailing list  When was the last time it was updated?  Have you made the corrections that resulted the last mailing you sent?  Are the invitations going to those you support your events or you interact with on a regular basis?  Or are you doing a really broad mailing?  Do you even know who has supported you in the past?  The cost of printing and mailing has increased greatly over the last couple of years and it would be prudent if you could see who has not been attending and perhaps remove them from printed mailings.  Not talking about removing them from emails that you send, just printed materials.

3. Response cards  Do you know how your attendees RSVP?  Do they call?  Do they email?  Do they do it through on line registration?  If the response cards are being thrown out in the trash, it might be the time to save a few trees and do away with them.  Make sure though that phone numbers, emails and websites are clear on the invitation.  Or what about adding a QR code to the piece?  Invitees can scan the code with their smart phone and register.

4. Mailing date  Yes eight weeks is the traditional time so don't change that.  What you can do to make sure you hear from people is to make sure you also add emails to the mix.  These days you are competing with several organizations and 200 cable channels.  People are responding later and later.  More not less interaction is necessary to get the responses necessary to reach your attendance goals.

5. Save the date mailings.  They still have a very important place in your overall marketing plan.  Mailing are a good way to keep in touch with everyone on you lists of contacts. 

In this world of 200 email messages a day, mailed invitations still are an important part in getting the word out about events.  The trick is keeping your list manageable to keep the costs manageable.

That's the Planners Pointer for today

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Value of a Meeting

Welcome to Planners Pointers!

Recently the Convention Industry Council released a study called The Economic Significance of Meetings on the U.S. Economy.  It gave some amazing figures 

1.8 Million corporate and business meetings, trade shows, conventions, congresses, 

incentive events and other meetings take place in the U.S., resulting in:  

$263 Billion in spending

1.7 M US Jobs

$106B contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

$14.3B federal tax revenue

$11.3B state and local tax revenue  

$60B in U.S. labor income 

Astounding isn't it?  If you want to see the full report go to www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com

All those figures are wonderful news to meeting planners because it says that meetings have a value and contribute to the economic wellbeing of this nation. But the value of a meeting for most is not about the money spent.  While hosting meetings is important, the most important value to attendee is what goes on at meeting/conference. The programming, exhibitors, and speakers that are what is of value to an attendee.  It is what makes them want to come.

But not always -- Seth Godin in a recent blog talked about why he attends conferences which is the conversations that happen outside the planned sessions or events and I couldn't agree more with his statement.  I will not forget the MPI World Education Conference I attended several years ago.  I got to meet some of the biggest guru in the meetings biz including Corbin Ball and Joan Eisenstodt outside of their sessions.   I learned from the exhibitors that I met because I got to ask questions about their products that ads or articles in magazines don't always address. 

The value of a meeting is the face to face interaction.  This is why face to face meetings will never go away.  You can start relationships anywhere.  But relationships get cemented by face to face encounters.    Business is what happens after relationships are formed.

 My Planners Pointers for today is when working on the elements of your next meeting allow for lots of one to one interaction.  Create spaces where people can go to meet and mingle.  Everyone will thank you for that.

Planner's Pointers is written by , Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam

Email Hang Up -- When Sent Mail Doesn't Arrive

Welcome to Planners Pointers! 

Did you ever wonder how many emails are sent in a day?  According to the Radicati Group, an organization that provides research to the IT community, in 2010 around 294 billion emails per day.  WOW! That's a lot of people trying to communicate!  No wonder that if people miss one or two of your emails, they don't even know it.

A couple of weeks ago I was having email problems.  Yes we all get those and we all hate it when that happens.  I would write a message using MS Outlook, click send but no one would get it.  I wasn't getting any responses so I started calling people that's how I discovered it. When I really wanted to get a message out, I would have to use the email client provided by my ISP or Google. 

A couple of people wondered why I wasn't willing to give up using MS Outlook for other clients like the one provided by my ISP.  I like the way Outlook works and I like only having to use one set of contacts.  No matter how many emails addresses I have they all show up in Outlook.  I don't have to bounce around on websites to get my email.

It took several long calls to my ISP including talking with their security department to find out the problem.  Guess what it was?  My email signature was being read by the servers as spam so the email was being blocked by the servers. Spam?? I don't even forward joke emails! No one seemed to know.  Thanks to my ISP's customer service department, I was able to rearrange my signature and the mail is going through. But my question still remains on why one day email worked and the next day it didn't.  No one could answer that.  Makes it sound like could happen again.

Something else I learned about all the email sent -- It's shouldn't come as surprise, but did you know that 90% of all email is spam or viruses?  

Planner's Pointers is written  Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  @ marypam onTwitter.

February 22 APEX Glossary Term: SMERF

Welcome to Planners Pointers! 

Each month I like to share words commonly used by professionals. The words along with their meaning will be from the APEX Industry Glossary.

The Convention Industry Council is the organization of 33 associations coming together to exchange information among the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. One of the initiatives is APEX, Accepted Practices Exchange to develop practices that reach industry wide. One of the practices is a glossary of terms used in the industry. The goal of the glossary is to standardize the definitions of words used by the meetings industry.

This months definition is SMERF. No, not the blue cartoon people on television.  SMERF is an acronym for a category of event market segments including Social, Military, Educational, Religious and Fraternal groups.

I used to think that SMERF or SMERF market was a derogatory term until I realized that each one of the markets listed was worth millions of dollars spent.  For example the Social markets includes weddings, a billion dollar business. Military includes events like military reunions which are very valuable to cities because the people who attend them do things outside the planned events like visiting museums and shopping at local stores.  See what I mean? 

Say it proudly!  I am a planner who caters to the SMERFS!

Planner's Pointers is written by me, Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  Follow me on Twitter @marypam

When Was the Last Time You Read "Who Moved My Cheese?"

Welcome to Planners Pointers.   I was having lunch with a friend last week when the discussion changed from technology to the ability to change and with that came a discussion about the "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson.  Ah, the story of the mice and the maze said my friend. And the ability to change or react to the change around you I said.  Which made me wonder...

What is your ability to change?  Are you like "Sniff" and "Scurry?" Are you "Haw?" Or are you "Hem?"

When was the last time you read "Who Moved My Cheese?"  If you haven't read it in a while, read it again! To plan effective meetings and events does depend on you ability to anticipate the unexpected and to look for what lies ahead.

If you have never read the parable about change you can find it in most book stores.  Looking to purchase a copy for a friend? Try the Half Price Books in your area or go to www.whomovedmycheese.com

Planner's Pointers is written by me, Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  Follow me on Twitter @marypam

Is All in the Follow Up!

This  is International Networking Week.  Started by BNI, Business Network International, several years ago, International Networking Week celebrates the importance that networking plays in our life. 

Last week I was a part of a panel at a networking event and I was asked what my number one networking tip was and I said "Follow Up with the people you meet!  Unless you follow up, all those business cards are just ink on paper."

It is a surprising statistic that 48%, almost half,  of all sales people never follow up with new contacts or prospects.  That only 25% of Sales people make a second contact.  This seems amazing since most sales don't happen until  more than five contacts were made.

There are several ways to follow up with the new people that you meet.  You can email them, you can send a handwritten note, you can a note using Send Out Cards.  Choose one and use it consistently.  Make the note about them, and not about you.  Bob Burg in his book Endless Referrals describes his process for follow up using handwritten notes and he does it every day!  Networking Like a Pro Turning Contacts Into Connections by Dr. Ivan Misner, David Alexander and Brian Hilliard has a great way of following up with people and helps you categorize your contacts.  The book also has some great examples of notes you can send.

Being effective at networking is a trait that every meeting and event planner needs to have.  Have you followed up today with you contacts?

Planner's Pointers is written by me, Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/.  Follow me on Twitter at @marypam.

Treat Your Computer to a Day at the Spa!! -- Computer Spa that is...

Welcome to Planners Pointers!  Each day thousands of people take their cars in to get inspected or do 50,000 mile check ups.  People go to the doctor's to get all sorts of check ups.  We go to dentists for our teeth, chiropractors for our backs. 

What about our computer?  Many of us meeting and event planners are one person shops linked to the outside world via our computer.  Let something happen to it and our world crashes! 

Could our computers need a day the computer spa.  A day of deep temporary cleanses.  A good keyboard manicure,  A hardware tune up! 

Here are six things to think about as you look at your computer.

1. When was the last time you did a  complete back up of your files?  I have a friend who almost lost all of her client files because her computer got corrupted.  She was in tears!  There are several ways to do this including backing up to an external hard drive or using storage with such web based products as Carbonite.  For the cost of a couple of latte's you can have peace of mind for a year.  I have a friend who has both an external hard drive and has a subscription to Carbonite. 

2.  Are your virus checkers up to date?  How often do you virus scans? Do you have more than one virus checker.  Sometimes they don't work well together and you can have problems. 

3. Same goes for your malware detectors.  I had a friend who let her teenage grandson use her computer.  What he did was perfectly innocent, but it cost her more than $200 to fix the problem that the malware created.

4.  Is your computer running slow?  How many programs are you running in the background?  Do you need all of them to be running in the background? 

5. Slow to boot up in the morning?  Check what is in your Start Programs Do you really  need to have the small programs to start automatically?

6. Speaking of programs.  Are you storing programs you are no longer using?  When you install a new version of a program are you making sure to uninstall the old program first?  Do you do automatic updates of your programs?

Next time you schedule a tune up for your car,  make one for your computer as well.  Spending the day at the spa?  Send your computer for its own spa treatment with your favor computer technician   You will both be refreshed!

Setting the Table

Ah, one of my favorite places to host an elegant event, the Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh, PA.

From time to time I  like to share words commonly used by professionals. The words along with their meaning will be from the APEX Industry Glossary maintained by the Convention Industry Council

The Convention Industry Council is the organization of 33 associations coming together to exchange information among the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. One of the initiatives is APEX, Accepted Practices Exchange to develop practices that reach industry wide. One of the practices is a glossary of terms used in the industry. The goal of the glossary is to standardize the definitions of words used by the meetings industry

While you are looking at the picture, here are a few terms for describing different items on the table.

Napery is another name for table linen

Place Setting or Cover:  A combination of flatware, glassware and china.

Double Cloth: Use of two tablecloths on a banquet table for decorative purposes, to muffle sound, or to attach to skirting.  Usually two different colors are used. 

Overlay:  A second smaller tablecloth used for decorative purposes at banquets

Banquet Round:  Round table used for meal service; depending on the diameter, can comfortably seat up to 12 persons. A round for 8 is usually 60-inches in diameter, and a round for 10 is usually 72-inches in diameter. Rounds that are 66 inches in diameter may also be found in use for tables of 8-10. 

Just add people and you have a beautiful event.

Planner's Pointers is written by, Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may Mary Pam through her website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam.

Friday Web Tip -- Google Voice

Welcome to Planners Pointers! 

One of the recent additions to the many faces of Google is the addition of voice mail.  Called Google Voice, this latest product is something for you to add to your list of settings.  And like other things Google, it's free!

Here are some benefits.

1. Phone number rings on multiple lines.  For example, the Pittsburgh NAWBO Chapter has added Google Voice.  It rings the phones of three different people.  If no one is available, the Gmail account gets an email that says that there is a message waiting. 

2. Along the same lines as the first suggestion,  ff you are using your home phone and your cell phone for business but don't want to advertise the fact to the rest of the world, Google Voice will give you a phone number, in your area code, to use.  Use that number on your business cards and website.

3. You can email the voice mail message.  Get a message and want someone else to hear it, you can forward the voice mail via email quickly.

4. Google transcribes the message so you can read your voice mail.  One drawback:  If the person leaving the message isn't clear enough, the words maybe wrong.  I wondered who Jenny was until I heard the message and my sister-in-laws name, Joanie.

The best suggestion is to go to www.google.com/voice and check it out for yourself.

That's this week's Planners Pointers web tip.

Planners Pointers is written by Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP, Kilgore Business Services, LLC.  contact me at mpkilgore@comcast.net  

Home Office Kryptonite

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's!

Today we are going to talk about home office Kryptonite.  Remember Superman?  He leaps over tall buildings in a single bound?  He could stop a bullet.  And as we learned in the first Superman movie that came out in the 70s, Superman can turn back time.  But he had one weakness:  Kryptonite, a mineral from his own planet that would zap his powers and if exposed to it long enough would eventually kill him.

We aren't talking about issues that could hurt us physically, but what about those distractions that happen every day.  Things that grab our attention, and because we don't let them, won't let us go.  Time grabbers, home office Kryptonite in other words.

1. Daydreaming -- that's what our teachers called it when we were kids. Thinking about other things when you are working on a project.  For example:  You are working on a client's project.  You are getting paid to do this but sometimes your mind wanders and you think you should be doing something else. Another project, perhaps or taking the dog for a walk.  I like timers.  When you start working on project, set the timer for 45 minutes.  See where you are with the project at that time.  Still moving ahead, or stuck and thinking about laundry?  If you are moving ahead, set the time for another 30 minutes.  If not, take a break, 5 minutes and get up and move around.  I am a list maker. When I start thinking of other things I I add it to the list, then I don't have to remember it anymore.  It's on the list of things I am going to do later.

2. Email  Email is a trap if you let it.  There have been several articles about email organization like schedule reading times.  Morning, and later in the afternoon.  Unless you are expecting an email.  The same could be and should be said about Facebook and Twitter.  A word here about phone calls.  Answering services, Answering machines, caller ID and voice mail have been around in some cases 30 or more years.  Turn your ringer off if you want, put on headphones.  Screening doesn't have the negative connation that it has had in the past.

4.  "Oh look Shinny!"  You are on the Internet doing some researching when one link leads to another and before you know it you have spent two hours on an entirely different topic then when you started.  Or you are at a really large website let's say something like istockphoto.com and Internet Movie Data Base. 

5. Television  This is my personal Kryptonite.  My computer has a TV tuner in it and if I turn it on it is hard for me to turn it off.  Yes I can put what I am working on in front of me and still hear it.  

How do I handle life's interruptions?  I make lists and have a plan for the day.  For some things like Internet searches I will set a timer.  I screen calls.  I have days that are office only.

Planner's Pointers is written by Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC. You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  or marypamkilgore@gmail.com  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam.  Copyright 2010

Looking for work? Interview with Dawn Penfold, Meetingjobs.com

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning. Give them ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover.

I teach a class at Allegheny County Community College called "Event Planning as a Career. One of the most often asked questions I get from my students is are there jobs out there… I took this question to Dawn Penfold, CMP and president of http://www.meetingjobs.com/   I interviewed her on my Talkshoe radio channel.  I thought I would share the link with you so you could hear her comments and tips about finding a job as a planner in today's economy.  Here is the link to the Planners Pointers Radio Show:

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/73353

TechnoGranny Show -- Discussing New Media

I had the chance to be on the TechnoGranny Show on Talkshoe on Monday, January 3.  It was a lot of fun!  Here is the link so you can listen.  What we talked about was the different new media that we had started in 2010 and the new media we were going to use in 2011.

Here is the link TechnoGranny Show

How to Plan a 7 Course Meal

Did you ever wonder what a seven course dinner was?  Ever wonder how it was served?  Today we are going to take a look at How to Plan a Seven Course Meal

Before we explain each course -- let's look at the courses has a whole

First Course: appetizer

Second Course: soup

Third Course: salad

Fourth Course: sorbet to cleanse the palate

Fifth course: fish or poultry

Sixth Course: red meat, fish or poultry with vegetables

Seventh Course: dessert

I know what you are thinking.  How can people each all that food!! Or have all that time! Or take all that time. 

Biggest tip I learned is to give the dinner a theme.  That helps you choose what types of food you would like to serve. Also remember these are smaller portions.  For example the meat course portion should be 4 oz of meat. 

Break it down by course --

1. Appetizer course -- Small and light  If you were doing something with an Italian theme you might do an antipasto. Or if you could do a shrimp cocktail.

2. Soup course:  You may use a cream based or clear soup such as a chicken stock based soup or a vegetable soup. Avoid heavy soups.

3. Salad course:  For example use different varieties of lettuce with a nice vinaigrette and a few crotons  Also keep the amount of salad dressing to a minimum.

4. Cleanse the palate course with sorbet like a lemon or a lime.

5. Fifth Course fish or poultry.  In one of the things I read some called it the first main course.  You could serve a baked fish such as Orange Ruffy or baked chicken such as chicken picatta.  Make sure that the fish or poultry used in this course don't overpower the Meat Course

6. Meat Course This could include fish, poultry, red meat including beef or pork with vegetables and potatoes.  If you bake the fish or chicken in the fifth course then you choose a different method here like broiled or grilled.  Again keep meat portions small.  4 ounces will do nicely.  Adding the vegetable helps cleanse the palate and aid digestion.

7. Dessert.  Something lavish and memorable.  Anything chocolate would work such as Chocolate cake or chocolate silk pie.  You could also do make your own sundaes

Some hints:  Serve foods that compliment each other.  This is a meal that is served and not done family style so people won't over load on one thing. 

Each course is to have its own wine.  A good way to way to do this without sending everyone home tipsy is to visit a wine store and go over the menu with the sommelier to discuss what wines and how much to serve each person.

Also please allow enough time to enjoy the meal

As Julia Child used to say "Bon Appetite!"

That's the Planners Pointer for today.

Planner's Pointers is written by, Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP  owner of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam.