Sea to Sky Meeting and Association Management Inc.
Planning and management of meetings, conferences, and special events in Canada and Worldwide
Ever been to a professional conference or meeting and been underwhelmed? Maybe there was just too much information and you felt like you were being forced to drink from a firehose, or the topics didn’t have much practical application, or there weren’t enough opportunities to network. Perhaps you’ve experienced all of these things.
Picture this: you’re nearly ready to go on a major international conference. The hotel is booked, the exhibition is coming together, the food and beverage have been ordered, and the marketing is in full swing. Then you check the latest numbers and it doesn’t look good. Not enough people are registering.
Careful budgeting is important and, if you’re organizing an international meeting or conference, there’s no excuse for getting it wrong. Your client/boss/CEO is going to want to see some numbers and will expect you to stick to them.
When an international conference you’ve planned gets rave reviews or a special event you’ve worked on turns out really well, you get a good feeling. You feel like you’re helping people and doing good work. At least I do. And that’s what most people want from a career; something that provides an exciting challenge, rewards their effort and gives them inspiration to achieve great things in the future.
Okay, so I’ll admit to being a bit flippant with the headline here, but the fact is that at Sea to Sky we deal with big, complicated projects that take a lot of careful planning. We’ve had to become very good at doing it. Getting control of competing priorities, managing workload and exceeding clients’ expectations can be tough and there’s no getting away from the need to work exceptionally hard. But there are a few things I’ve learned over the years about leadership, teamwork and project management that I think are worth sharing.
