Experience University Podcast

I often say that events are everything. Events are marketing, project management, design, business, communications, neuroscience, and so much more. Today we will be talking about how events and hospitality are transferable skills for crisis management. As COVID ramped up throughout 2020, crisis management contractors needed more staff. They looked for those with meeting and event planning backgrounds who were already tried and tested as professionals who could handle pressure, think quickly on their feet, and effectively manage rapidly changing logistics smoothly.  As some event planners, and many hoteliers, were separated or furloughed from their full time positions, this became an easy transition where many of the skills were naturally transferable between industries. In today's industry spotlight, Jordan shares with us his background in meetings and events as a hotelier and his experience transferring into the field of crisis management during these unprecedented times! 

If you would like to follow up with Jordan, you can connect with him here: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanfatheree/

While you are online, we want you to connect with us! The Extraordinary Events Initiative offers more than just a podcast - we offer free weekly training webinars, a once a month listserv, and many other opportunities for you to get involved with us and for us to get involved with you. To explore all of our offerings - go to our website and follow our social media pages!
Website: https://www.extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative

This is a special episode discussing a very real time issue as we see an increase in hybrid events and a return to in-person events. Cleanliness. While most venues are doing an amazing job of this - attendee confidence in events are low and a large percentage of this is due to concern over other people's safety and security and perceived cleanliness. What is the different between actual and perceived cleanliness and how can you impact both? This episode shares several examples that you can implement tomorrow!

Dr. K also shares some forward thinking ideas of ways we can return back to in-person meetings with an exhibit floor type design where attendees can customize their space to what they want and pay for that personalization. It's an interesting idea that could bring attendees back to conferences sooner than originally anitcipated! 

Connect with us! The Extraordinary Events Initiative offers more than just a podcast!  We offer free weekly training webinars, a once a month listserv, and many other opportunities for you to get involved with us and for us to get involved with you. To explore all of our offerings - connect with us on our website and through our social media pages!
Website: https://www.extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative

This is a special student spotlight featuring Alyssa Carlson, a University of Nebraska Lincoln student. As a dual major in hospitality and film, she is involved in a lot of facets from attending events, planning events, attending online events, and attending classes that went online - she provides an interesting perspective on what she has been experiencing in all of these different areas. As part of her Intro to Events class she chose to create a podcast to complete one of her creative project assignments to highlight some of these experiences. 

The Extraordinary Events Initiative offers more than just a podcast!  We offer free weekly training webinars, a once a month listserv, and many other opportunities for you to get involved with us and for us to get involved with you. To explore all of our offerings - connect with us on our website or Facebook page! 
Website: https://www.extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative

Events are no longer a one time affair and trial runs are possible!  With the advancements in technology, and the restrictions of COVID, we have seen a sharp increase in hybrid and virtual events. But what about the concept of prototyping an event?  Several companies are beginning to expand their research and development efforts and are "trying out" what their event will look like in a face-to-face environment by doing beta tests online! 

This podcast discusses ideation and prototyping in the events industry. Suggestions are given and stories are told!

The Extraordinary Events Initiative offers more than just a podcast!  We offer free weekly training webinars, a once a month listserv, and many other opportunities for you to get involved with us and for us to get involved with you. To explore all of our offerings - connect with us on our website or Facebook page! 
Website: https://www.extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative

Storytelling is all the rage, as is narrative design, online experiences, the desire for travel and tourism, and all things immersion. Frances Vieras Blanc is a one stop designer with the background of champions doing utterly incredible things. I sat down with her to pick her brain about her pivot from in-person immersion experiences to virtual immersion tourism experiences. This is a bit longer than our normal 10-15 minute episodes at 25 minutes - but it is definitely worth it and an episode you do not want to miss!

We will be following up with Frances for a live Q&A session that will be posted on our social media pages. To ask her your questions to be answered live - make sure to leave a comment on our Facebook post!

To connect with Frances:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesvierasblanc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letthemeatcaketheshow/
Website: http://letthemeatcaketheshow.com/

To connect with the Extraordinary Events Initiative:
Website: https://www.extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative

How do you evaluate your event? Do you evaluate onsite? Do you evaluate before the event even starts? This episode is all things evaluation - but done through storytelling! Hear some ideas of how we have done evaluation for our events before, during, and after the event. 


We have a new website!  Check it out at extraordinaryeventsinitiative.com. Make sure to follow our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative/ for behind the scenes look at everything we have going on!

This is a special student spotlight featuring Nickol Payne, a University of Nebraska Lincoln student. As part of her Intro to Events class she chose to create a podcast to complete one of her creative project assignments. Her podcast was so amazing that we decided to feature it on the Extraordinary Events podcast!  No matter what you currently do, or aspire to do, having insights from the next generation of leaders into their thought process is critical (and often inspirational) to see where our industry is going.

Nickol is delightful and passionate and you will surely want to get to know her after you listen to today's podcast!

Make sure to follow our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative/ for more information and a behind the scenes look at everything we have going on!

The vast majority of event companies do not know how to accurately state if their event was a "success" or not and how to define what success actually means for them. This is because they do not have well defined objectives that they are measuring against. Objectives, and more specifically SMART objectives, are not a new concept and are used across a variety of industries and in both personal and business situations.

This episode discusses how terms are often used incorrectly or interchangeably and how to accurately define SMART objectives for your event. Examples are given from events we have worked on before and tips and tricks are shared as you think about whether you actually have SMART objectives for your event or not. An easy to use template is shared for the beginners figuring it all out: [Resource] will [action] to [target population], resulting in [change] by [time frame].

Make sure to follow our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative/ for more information and a behind the scenes look at everything we have going on!

In our last episode we talked about the importance of empathy in the design process. On this industry spotlight episode, we talk with empathy experience designer and transformational coach Katja Wallisch who lives in Berlin, Germany. Katja shares with us tips for building empathy, different empathy experiences she has designed, the most impactful empathy experience she has participated in, and things to think about as we enter an increasingly virtual world filled with Zoom meetings. This is an episode you don't want to miss! 

To connect with Katja directly:
Website: https://katjawallisch.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LifeCoachKatja
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katjawallisch/
Instagram: @katjawallisch

To see other things we are up to, follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative/

For many years, the industry said that incoming employees and college students needed more "soft skills". Now, we have been recognizing that this is shifting to needing more "empathy". Empathy is an Emotional Intelligence competency that is critical in events and design, but is also essential in almost every other industry. Would you say you are an empath? Do you know how can you build empathy skills?

This episode defines and discusses how to build empathy, especially as it relates to the design context. I also share in-depth about an actual design process I facilitated and how the empathy mapping process COMPLETELY changed the ENTIRE event - from the name to the layout to the sponsors. 

On Thursday we will continue this topic with one of my friends who happens to be an Empathy Experience Designer currently living in Berlin, Germany. Did you know that empathy design and coaching was an area that existed for you to utilize? Or even that this is a career that you could go into? 

Make sure to follow our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eventinitiative/ for more information and a behind the scenes look at everything we have going on!