Event Manager Blog

International Team Building: An Inspiring Cultural Affair

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:50:00 -0800

When organizations go global, fostering an understanding of the culture and business etiquette at your various locations becomes crucial. How can you do this in a unique and inspiring way? A half day international fair with interactive team building is an approach worth considering.You can offer this as a stand alone or as an add-on to any conference, retreat or sales incentive trip.

An International Fair: An Innovative Team Building Concept

How to create a splash with an International Fair

It's very simple.

Identify the key locations
Invite tourist boards from the various locations to set up displays and interactive exhibits featuring country profiles, business etiquette guides, DVDs, and toys and challenges, and, of course, give-aways
Divide your group into cross-functional and cross-regional teams representing the various regions from which you have drawn your exhibitors.
Kick things off with a food court featuring cuisine from around the world. Start with finger foods. After revealing your main space, provide heartier fare and invite people to sit at the table that has been designated for their teams.
Open and reveal your main event speace with a splash. A showcase of Native Canadian culture or Lion Dancers is the way to go for maximum impact.
Have something small and sweet (such as country specific candies) at each display.
Design interactive an team building exercise consisting of general trivia relating to all the countries and giving participants and a chance to explore no more than 2 of the countries in depth. To keep it simple, have circuits with no more than 2 exhibitors and 5 teams per circuit (e.g. Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean). You'll need about 2 hours. Postpone alcohol service until after your team building so that participants are clear headed and focused enough to move smoothly and easily through their circuits.
Offer a cultural showcase featuring dancers, singers, and musicians from various destinations throughout your international fair.
Have lots of door prizes.
Return to the food court for a cornucopia of desserts from around the world.
Identify the winners for your team building, one winner per circuit so that there are lots of prizes to go around.
Close with a bang. Whether it be Lion Dancers or Samba and Capoeira from Brazil , it's important to go for maximum impact and leave participants with something truly memorable and meaningful.

Planning an International Fair

How much time do you need to pull your international fair together?

You'll need about 4 months if all participants are in the same city or country and a minimum of 6 months if participants are coming from around the world. Streamline your planning committee and process. Have no more than 3 people on your committee which will be your core group with decision making authority. Form a sub-committee of no more than 6 participants to assist the core group. There role will be to brainstorm, research, contribute ideas and execute the myriad of tasks that go into pulling off an international fair with success. Select your venue and caterer in the first 3 weeks. You can tweak the menus and detailed specifics of set up and agenda later.

Your Budget

How much should you budget?

Based on a group size of 200, about $160 - $175 per person should cover everything except transportation to the venue (if required).

Effective Team Building and a Memorable Event to Inspire Your Team

An international fair with interactive team building can be created at any location around the world. With these simple steps you'll create highly interactive teambuilding and a memorable event that will inspire your team for years.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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New Weapon in the Battle For Attendees

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:46:00 -0800

You worked harder than ever to attract attendees to your events in 2009.

You crafted the best programs, attracted the best speakers and selected the best venues. Then you designed and executed your best marketing program ever. You even tapped into Social Media - blogged, tweeted, facebooked and flickr’d.

But still - for some of you - your best was not enough. You fell short of your registration targets.

Help might be on the way. One of the last frontiers in audience acquisition is tapping into the social networks of your attendees. With all of the people on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, this should be easy to do right?

Eventvue, a Denver, Colorado company, is beta-testing a new service that allows you to see if your contacts in Linkedin, Twitter, Yahoo, and GMail are attending the conference. They call it Discover - because you Discover if your friends are going to be there.

You should try it for yourself on the Defrag Website. Click on the "See Who is Going Button"

How does it work?

You add the Discover Tool to your conference website. Once people are on your site, browsing your awesome program, checking out the top rate speakers and learning about your super venue/destination -- they can also see which of their Twitter, Linkedin, Yahoo and Gmail contacts are already coming to your event. Here is how it works:

Step 1: Select one of your contact lists or a group of friends for the application to search. Then let the application check the registration system to see if those friends are registered.

Step 2: Checkout the Results. It turns out that 4 of my Twitter friends are attending the Defrag Conference.

Stay Engaged

One thing that I like about this tool is the ability to keep a prospect connected to you. For example, if your friends signs up - the discover tool can send you a message. OR if you try the tool - you can receive a special discount code that you can use or share with your friends. I thought that was really cool.

What Does This Mean For Your Events?

This tool could be a new weapon in the battle for attendees. Over the next several months, I expect that more tools like this one will come on the market. (if they aren't already!)

So, before you launch your event website and marketing campaign - be sure to consider tools that allow attendees to tap into their vast social networks and discover which of their friends are coming to your event.

Have you used anything like this before?

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Event 1.0 vs Event 2.0

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:21:45 -0800

Let's kick it with the first post for Event Coup!

Photo by swisscan via Flickr

Event 1.0

Controlled by the few
Spoiling
Disrespectful for the environment
Sponsors generated
Offline
Brochuristic
Untangible
Exclusive
Sylos based
Top down

Event 2.0

Controlled by many
Motivating
Green
User Generated
Online
Social Media Marketed
Tangible thanks to technology
Inclusive
Conversation Based
Bottom up

Have more? Add yours!

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Welcome!

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:14:00 -0800

Hey all this is Event Coup and it is the brainchild of Event Manager Blog.

We started this blog to respond to the changing world of events and social media.

We are ready to rock and roll with great writers and fantastc content so stay tuned!

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