Author Archives: Kerry Rea President of GovEvents

About Kerry Rea President of GovEvents

Twitter: @Kerry_Rea | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrea/ I am a business and marketing professional with an extensive background in company start-ups. I have 20+ years direct experience in the information technology, government, franchise, and construction industries. Having a passion for business, I love brainstorming, collaborating and strategizing on the best ways to achieve our clients' and partners' business objectives.

How Venues are Changing to Meet Event Needs

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Each day there is a new article out talking about how the meeting and event industry is changing. From use of social media, to the growth of virtual events, to attendee and sponsor budget constraints, the meetings industry has embraced change as the new normal. As part of the industry, hotels and event venues are also making some changes in what they offer to event planners and attendees.

Below we share some of the more interesting changes or enhancements venues are making to entice planners and attendees alike. [Tweet "Interesting enhancements venues are making to entice event planners and attendees #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Social Media Manager - The Hilton Anatole Hotel, near downtown Dallas, TX is offering a social media manager to support the social media efforts of event organizers. At the Hilton, this role includes doing social media for the property as well as providing social media strategy and tools to people using the property for events.
  • Light - This may seem like a really minor thing, but traditionally natural light has been hard to come by for events. Windowless ballrooms may be great for projecting to screens, but as events veer towards more collaborative sessions rather than power point- heavy presentations, the use of natural light becomes logistically desirable. New facilities are building meeting spaces with views that can inspire creativity or at the very least help attendees better gauge what time it is.[Tweet "New facilities are building meeting spaces with windows and views. #GovEventsBlog"]
  • Wellness - Hotels are offering more healthy and sustainable catering options including more spa-like food and drink choices. Water stations are being set up rather than offering all attendees bottled waters. Event planners can also add on extra perks for guests like the "Sleep Advantage Program" at the Crowne Aire Plaza in Bloomington, MN which offers upgraded bedding and aromatherapy kits for guests.
  • Technology - The network capacity of a venue is quickly becoming a discriminating factor. Hotels and conference centers alike are upgrading their technology infrastructure to offer fast WiFi that can accommodate all attendees using it on multiple devices.[Tweet "The network capacity of a venue is quickly becoming a discriminating factor. #GovEventsBlog"]
  • Flexible Spaces - Venues need to offer more than a massive room to house attendees for keynote presentations. More and more hotels and conference centers are taking care to build in smaller spaces designed to facilitate collaboration and small group discussion.

We'd love to hear from you what are some of the newer amenities you see offered by venues? How are they impacting where you hold events?

Defense in Depth: A Look at Defense Industry Events

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While the defense community is well acquainted with meeting and defeating big challenges, the dynamic nature of the cyber world is proving to be a daunting adversary for our military. From arming soldiers at the tip of the spear not only with weapons but also with data to fending off threats to cyber networks, defense professionals are in a constant learning mode while being on constant alert.[Tweet "The defense community is well acquainted with meeting and defeating big challenges. #GovEventsBlog"]

At GovEvents we are proud to be the defense community's one-stop-shop for finding training and networking events. We hope that our site takes some of the strain of this new tech frontier off their shoulders.

In this post we want to highlight some of the key events coming up for defense professionals through the end of the year.[Tweet "In this post we highlight some of the key events for defense professionals. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →

The Complexities of Government Acquisition

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Acquisition-it's a complex topic for the government market. Private sector companies must navigate a complex system to make their solutions and services available to government customers. Federal acquisition professionals are working to ease this process and adapt decades old policies to meet the needs of modern technology buys such as cloud and as-a-service offerings. There are also new mandates and government-wide policies like FITARA that IT and procurement personnel have to understand and comply with.  Add to this the fact that the acquisition workforce is in an incredible state of turnover with older professionals retiring and new ones coming in without the guidance of procurement veterans.[Tweet "Acquisition - it's a complex topic for the government market. #GovEventsBlog"]

The ACQUIRE Conference and Expo that took place in June in Washington, DC was designed to help government agencies create, manage, and run successful programs. The conference program offered federal agency-led training sessions, and government & industry thought leadership panels and keynotes. At the event, the Professional Services Council (PSC) issued their biennial Acquisition Policy Survey that more definitively outlined the challenges detailed above. Some of the findings included: Continue reading →

Giving ‘Baby You Can Drive My Car’ a Whole New Meaning

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With summer road trips in full swing, many of us may be wishing that driverless cars were available today. The reality is the availability and use of driverless cars is not too far away.  The move to driverless cars may be more of an evolution versus a revolution say some industry experts.[Tweet "The move to driverless cars may be more of an evolution versus a revolution. #GovEventsBlog"] Each model year, cars are introduced with more and more "autonomous" features from self parking, to lane floating warnings, to automatic braking. Some industry experts say this slow inclusion of features is how we'll get to an autonomous fleet of vehicles on the road.

At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this past January, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that the fiscal 2017 budget proposal seeks nearly $4 billion over 10 years in an effort to accelerate the development and adoption of self-driving cars. While Detroit factories may be busy building the cars, cities around the country have to get prepared to host these cars on their roads. Continue reading →

When Retirement Means Getting a New Job

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When people retire from the military it does not always mean their days will be filled with golfing and beach-side living. Many veterans retire in their 30s or 40s leaving a whole second half of their professional lives to figure out. And, many who retire from their military career are not ready to retire from professional service. Our veterans bring a deep level of experience and commitment to the private sector but many struggle to translate what they did in the military to an equally fulfilling and challenging job.[Tweet "Many who retire from their military career are not ready to retire from professional service. #GovEventsBlog"]

Each year, between 240,000 and 360,000 people separate from the military (whether through retirement or completion of duty). To meet this need for guided transition, the DoD has set up a number of organizations to assist veterans in making the transition to civilian careers including Transition Assistance Program (TAP) and the Department of Labor's Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS). The private sector also has a number of  non-profit organizations such as the NVTC Veterans Employment Initiative and Serving Together. On the for-profit front, there are a host of employment agencies catered to helping vets translate military experience into new careers.[Tweet "Each year, between 240K and 360K people separate from the military. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →