Tag Archives: event planning

Four Steps to Making Your Event Speak

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SpeakersDynamic, thoughtful, engaging speakers make for a great event. Beyond that single event, they contribute to your brand as one that can pull in great "talent"  - making your events worth attending time after time. So, how do you attract dynamic speakers and how do you cultivate all speakers so they give their best to your audience? Here's just a few ideas: [Tweet "4 ideas on attracting dynamic speakers and making your event speak to the audience. #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Focus in on one thing - encourage speakers to pick one clear topic and develop their presentation so that everything feeds back to that. Presentations should include three supporting sections that feed back to the "one thing." Those sections should include stories, real life scenarios that make the theory being discussed real. Don't over do the use of statistics but one or two really meaningful or surprising numbers or research findings per section will keep the audience engaged and further set the stage for the main point. Use TED talks as an example of how conference presentations should be crafted.

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Halfway There: Looking at the Reality of Event Trends

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halfwayAt the halfway point through the year, we thought it was time to look back at the predictions we made at the beginning of 2015 regarding what events would look like. Here's a quick status report on our predictions: [Tweet "A look back at the predictions we made at the beginning of 2015. #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Virtual Events - webinar and virtual events listed on our site seem to be holding steady when compared to 2014 numbers.
  • Smaller Events - we have hundreds of luncheon, breakfast and table top events listed on GovEvents. Many of these are positioned as opportunities for networking within a smaller set of attendees. Some even tout the availability of the speaker for one-on-one discussions.

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Great Meeting Hotels

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Cvent recently came out with their rankings of the top hotels for meetings.  While we cannot validate all of their findings, we know what our GovEvents' members look for in choosing hotels and other venues for meetings.

  • Consolidated management - does the hotel offer A/V and catering as part of the full package? If not, they usually have a list of preferred providers. It is important to see if the hotel will coordinate with those preferred providers or if you will have to mange multiple points of contact. Ideally, members like dealing with a single point person at the hotel for all services offered.

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Introducing the GovEvents Member Resource Center

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We're proud to announce the addition of a new feature here on GovEvents - The Member Resource Center. This area of the site was designed to give our government and military audience access to lists of vendors they may need in their event planning and attendance as well as in their day-to-day business. With this launch we are inviting our vendor members to populate the resource center which we will promote to our 50,000 members.[Tweet "New feature on GovEvents--The Member Resource Center."]

Event-related categories on the center include: Continue reading →

Does Face-to-Face Networking Mean Seeing Eye-to-Eye?

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There has been a lot of media coverage and general talk about the difficulty of attending face-to-face meetings in the government sector. From travel and budget restrictions to just general time crunch issues, getting people together face-to-face feels too hard for many people. But, it is an effort worth making.

Recent surveys have shown that 84% of people prefer in-person meetings.[Tweet "84% of people prefer in-person meetings. #GovEventsBlog"] When asked why, 85% responded that they build stronger, more meaningful business relationships. 49% said they prefer in-person business meetings because they allow for more complex strategic thinking. Maybe this is because it is easier to read body language and tone (as 77% noted). Or maybe it is the inherent bonding that happens in a social setting (75% noted this as a positive aspect of in-person). Continue reading →