How to memorise names

Remembering someone's name makes them feel noticed and valued, so it's a great skill for an EA to have. It allows you to give professional, useful introductions and avoids any embarrassing situations. However, despite best intentions, it's not always easy to remember people's names. Thankfully, there are a few easy ways to improve your chances.

Creating a story, image or catchy phrase associated with the name is one way to start. If you meet someone called Maria who works in marketing, you could remember her as 'Marketing Maria'. Meanwhile, you could picture someone who works in the environmental industry as standing amongst trees so they're part of a story.

Visualising the name is also helpful, and is especially relevant to EAs taking details down while on the phone. Be sure to write out the name and look at it long enough to commit it to memory. If you're at an event, look at the person's name tag, or ask for their business card.

Perhaps the simplest tip we've come across though, is to really focus on remembering. Start making an active effort to remember each name you hear and you'll find yourself getting much

How to get the answers you want, fast

To do your job well, you need all the facts. Getting the information you need isn't always straightforward though. Executives are often tied up in meetings, and not being able to speak to them can really slow you down. They also have lots of different people wanting their attention, but need enough down time to actually do their job. Developing a fool-proof method of extracting the information you need means you can both work more effectively.

• Schedule regular touchpoints: List all your questions in one place and schedule a 10-minute catch-up once or twice a day. You get all the answers you need without continually interrupting their other activities.

• Ask for access: Waiting on others is a real drain on your time. By asking for access to files your Executive uses and administrative databases you can get your own answers, as you need them. If full-access isn't possible, compromise on a shared folder or regular exports of the key information you use time and again.

• Make notes for repeat tasks: By writing notes as you go about something, you naturally create an aide-mémoire for next time. You can see at a glance what information you need, and ask the relevant questions well ahead of time. Having this kind of checklist means you can have focused planning meetings, rather than trying to elicit answers when everyone's busy with other things.

Top tips for a smooth-running conference


Conferences and other large corporate events are often largely the responsibility of the EA. While your Executive will give you direction on many aspects, it's your job to pull it all together and turn their ideas into an actual event. What can you do to make event planning a little less stressful?

Streamline the administrative burden by making the most of the technology available today. Find an event management platform and use it to manage ticket purchases and delegate information, so you can easily export the data when you need it. Log dietary needs, special access requests, hotel details and emergency contact information. Some systems allow you to send email notifications to attendees with further information, or to remind them to complete their registration details.

Another important step is to visualise the event ahead of time. Imagine yourself as a delegate, and walk through your event in their eyes. Where and when do they want refreshments, how do they know what time particular talks are happening, how do they get from their hotel to your event. By picturing the delegate experience several times throughout your planning process, you can iron out the kinks step-by-step, with plenty of time to spare.

5 healthy snacks to keep your energy levels up

We all have moments in the day where we need a little extra boost. While it's tempting to turn to chocolate or coffee, there are lots of nutritional snacks that'll both get you through the day and keep you healthy.

1) Bananas: As a good source of energy-boosting nutrients, bananas are a great option for on-the-go eating when you've only got a few minutes to spare.

2) Water: Don't underestimate how much hydration affects your ability to concentrate and fight fatigue. The key is not to wait until you're thirsty before having a drink. Sip water regularly throughout the day to stay on top of your game.

3) Nuts and seeds: As a protein and a healthy fat, nuts are a great way to power your day. They also have a long shelf-life, so you don't have to remember to refresh your stocks too regularly.

4) Green tea: Another way of avoiding dehydration, green tea also contains caffeine to give you a boost, but without the coffee come down. It's also bursting with antioxidants.

5) Other fruits: If you have a sweet tooth and usually reach for the lollies in the afternoon, try swapping it out for fresh fruit. You get the sweet, sugary taste but once again, avoid the come down. Fruits are also full of useful vitamins, so you're giving your body a helping hand at the same time.

Making Executive travel stress free

Keeping things running smoothly in the office is one thing, making sure travel plans work out is a whole different ball game. Unfortunately, you can't control delays, cancellations or last-minute event changes. However, you can ensure your Executive has all the tools they need to deal with unexpected issues.

First and foremost, make sure you're both armed with all the information you could possibly need. In practice, this means ensuring your Executive has the relevant travel apps on each of their devices, and knows where to find login information. Not only can they check for real-time updates while they're travelling, they're also equipped to deal with a problem if it's the middle of the night where you are.

Having one overarching document that lists all key information, from flight numbers to travel time between locations, means you both have just one place to look when it comes to adapting plans. Rather than needing multiple sets of login details, confirmation emails and other documents, this approach means you can jump straight into coming up with a solution.

Once you find a method that works, sticking to it also helps. Use the same templates, save them in the same place, record information in particular apps each time. That way, not only do you both have all the crucial information, you know exactly where you're looking and you're familiar with the process.

Taking notes on-the-go

As an EA, you often get given key information when you least expect it - in the corridor, kitchen, elevator or car park, for example. When this happens, it can be hard to remember the key points when you're finally back at your desk. Learning to take notes on-the-go is crucial.

• Choose your material: Notebook, iPad or mobile - you choose, but carry something with you all the time. Especially if you're not heading back to your office straight away, making a few bullet-pointed notes that remind you who you spoke to and what you need to do or pass on saves you having to remember it all.

• Adopt short hand: To get through your notes quickly, come up with a way of sign-posting points you need to action, or that are relevant to a particular Executive. That way, you can find what you need quickly and easily.

• Verbally summarise the key info: Don't get back to your desk with a note confirming a meeting, without the date or time. Sometimes the conversation itself distracts you from writing notes. Finish each discussion by repeating the key takeaway back to the other person.

Event and meeting planners typically end up choosing between two tech platforms. What are their pros and cons?

Today’s event planners can choose from a host of technology platforms to manage nearly every aspect of the meeting planning process and benefit attendees. With so many choices, how can they make the correct choices in deciding which platform to use?

Many event planners end up choosing between two major options, the Classic Event Platform and the Event Tech Desk. Each solution has potential strengths and challenges, as meeting technology consultant Corbin Ball explains. 

The Classic Event Platform

Companies that supply a classic event platform provide comprehensive technology solutions to address many aspects of the meeting planning process. This includes registration, event website, marketing, scheduling, logistics management, content management, speaker management, and more.

These platforms aim to be a one-stop shop that allows event planners to meet most or all of their event tech needs.

Benefits

• Planners can decide on the vendor and can typically choose from a broad menu of technology offerings. With fewer vendors, there is less negotiation time needed.

• Comprehensive platforms aim to provide seamless data integration among all the technology products within the company.

• In an ideal world, the user interface should feel the same among all the varied technology products therefore requiring less training. The look and feel should be the same among the various product subsets.

Challenges

• It is a huge technology task for a company to cover all aspects of the needs of all types of meetings. This is an enormously complex challenge!

• Historically, data integration has been a harder task, especially for older, legacy systems.

• For some meetings, dealing with these mega companies with thousands of employees may be more than is needed for small, simple events in terms of cost and complexity.

The Event Tech Deck

The other main option is to choose a variety of different vendors, based on the specific technology needs of the event—to create a “deck” of different vendors.

Benefits

• Planners can choose the “best of breed” specific tech solution to meet their exact needs. This can be less expensive and more targeted to the specific planning needs.

• Technology innovation is flourishing with new ideas popping up frequently. They are often start-up ventures. This option does not lock planners into one big system that may be slower to respond to new developments.

• There is significant progress being made in terms of data integration among smaller, independent meeting tech vendors.

Challenges

• Multiple vendors require separate discovery, vetting, negotiations and more time.

• The user interface among varied tech products can be different requiring separate training.

• Historically, one of the biggest challenges is that there has been a lack of easy data integration among the different products – leading to a failure to easily collect data from multiple sources about specific attendee journeys (to better customise marketing and communication to that individual for future contact) and collectively to improve the overall event. This, however, is changing.

Moves toward event deck data integration

Data management systems are maturing to where integration is a much simpler task making the concept of an integrated event tech deck more feasible.

With state-of-the-art cloud-based event technology systems and advanced application programming interfaces (APIs), it is now possible to collect and analyse onsite data and connect them with popular CRM tools—closing the loop from a marketing standpoint. Interoperability is at the centre with much of the change that is happening.

The benefit for meeting planners is that they can choose an assortment of specialised event software products work together easily—an event tech deck.

Meeting planners are be able to find highly customised solutions using multiple technology products with the ability to extract valuable marketing data is if they were a single platform.

This rich interoperability makes it much easier to analyse the data and bring it back to CRM systems. Customer behaviour and interests expressed at meetings can, therefore, be tied to customer profiles allowing for much better marketing intelligence and more customised sales communication as well as general, overall data insights to improve events.

Conclusion

So, which planner to choose: the platform or the deck?

Both paths have their strengths and challenges. The good news is both paths are providing much better data integration and analytics options to broaden the options and improve events.

The two major event tech options—the Classic Event Platform and the Event Tech Desk—both have advantages and disadvantage, but both are big improvements on previous options.

  

This article Content courtesy of Karstens Conference & Training Venues