In order to
see close you need to go far sometimes. I
was privileged to go to United Kingdom to do some benchmarking in two different
universities. I was mainly interested in event management and coordination,
marketing, communication and service culture. I am pretty new as event coordinator, but have
10 years of experience in Marketing and Sales in international business world
and 10 years of work experience at TAMK as Service Coordinator in R&D. I
wanted to learn good practices about event coordination and event management in
the university context and environment. Organizing events is about project
management, people, team work, communication and marketing, premises,
technology and about putting the pieces of puzzle together to get the whole
picture, the service. Both universities in UK found the graduation party as one
of the most important event, but they organized many commercial events as well.
Here are
two descriptions about event management. What is event
management?
“Event
management is the co-ordination, running and planning of all the people, teams
and features that come together to create every kind of event.”
“Event management is the application of project management to the creation and development of large scale events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, formal parties, concerts, or conventions. It involves studying the brand,
identifying the target audience, devising the event concept, planning the logistics and coordinating
the technical aspects before actually launching the event.”
PMA =
Positive Mental Attitude
It is all
about the attitude in services and about team work. People who have excellent
communication skills and talented in emotional intelligence, are needed to work
in different kind of events. You should find different kind of skills to your
teams. Positive attitude shows far and gives you the opportunity to get
endorsements to your company and events. Take care of your customers and
deliver the service customer needs and wants. “You have to embrace the change”
said the event and conference manager of one university, who has been working
in the same university for 37 years! What a great attitude! Yes, world is
changing rapidly and we cannot stick to old habits and patterns, but change and
adapt to the new circumstances with the world. He also said: “People buy
people”, which means it is all about people, trust, attitudes, personal selling
and communications.
Branding
I am
personally really interested in the branding of events. In both universities in
UK, all events are clear sub-brands for the university and this is visible in
all marketing material and signs. It is easier to sell a clear brand with the
image and identity than just some kind of events. This is going to be homework
for me and my colleagues. TAMK has many events, but we are still developing the branding.
If you are our
partner, customer, student or staff member and you are interested in organizing
an event at TAMK, please do not hesitate
to contact me anytime through ursula.helsky-lehtola@tamk.fi.
Let´s meet, face to face, because it is all about people and positive
attitude.
Ursula Helsky-Lehtola
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