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