End of an Era

I hate having to meet hard deadlines when I'm sick. I am in a busy period as well, two client events in a month, punctuated by a trip to England to attend my last grandparent's funeral.

Attending the client events is a sign of success, so I am really pleased to be busy, but a funeral always gives one a chance to take stock of where one is, a milestone if you like.

My grandfather, Donald Gardiner, was 97 when he passed away a week and a half ago, and he had most of his marbles until he was 94. Through his eighties he would do things like go on 24 hour trips to Ireland by ship and rail just to see an old steam engine somewhere. He did the same when he came to the US, only my mother drove him around. An opinionated guy, he helped develop the Hurricane fighter to fight the Germans in the second world war. In short he had a mostly happy life, only less pleasant when he had to leave his house of 60+ years to move to an Alzhiemer's Home.

Why do I bother you with this? Well it occurs to me that if you're not enjoying what you do, then get the gumption to change it. For me the change I made to form The Event Mechanic! was a distillation of many forces, some intentional, some not. But I love what I'm doing even in the times when I'm working and I'm sick and rushed so I can pay my respects to my antecedents.

My message? Enjoy what you do as I don't know how many of us will be lucky to get to the ripe old age of 97. And I think I'm a chip off of old Grandad, so it's a timely reminder to me.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

Here we go again

As I mentioned before, the current downturn or 'recession' hasn't affected my business, in fact my business has increased over last year. Except for companies 'high in the pipeline' perhaps, ie that don't have immediate needs, I am seeing a fruitful landscape.

What I am seeing however is that discretionary spending and travel is being cut way down, affecting attendance. On speaking with event producers and potential attendees, it's clear that the content of events need to be on the money, as well as getting to the right people early, so that you have an even chance of getting those attendees to register, and, if exhibition visitors, to actually show up.

My overall answer to this is to add massive value to your events(free sessions, consultants corners, free reports) and publish at least the titles and companies of the people attending on your website so prospective attendees can see all the value they'll be missing if they don't show up.

I interviewed a high ranking executive for my SISO column a while back he said that you should
cut operations costs and increase marketing investment when times are tough. Hard to do, but what's the option?

In any case, make sure your content is rock solid, your relationships with stakeholders tight, your marketing targeted at the right people and you'll survive for the next upturn. Sounds easy in theory, harder in practice.

Hang in there for now.....

Retaining the old, bringing the new

I guess I am getting old, as I am starting to appreciate stuff from the past much more than I used to.

The 'new me' flys into a place for a couple of days and then back to the office immediately(the 'old' me in my corporate job would be in a location for a week and I'd get a chance to enjoy the weekend whereever I was.

I had a trip out to the LA recently and I spent most of the day with the client and then went back to the hotel to do paperwork and retire. I was determined to do something touristic this time so I returned to The Queen Mary, where last year I spent the night as it also is a hotel. Since I arrived in the dark and left at 6AM, I didn't see much of the ship.

I was determined to put that right this time. Since I was flying out of Long Beach back to Boston(got to love JetBlue), I zipped down to the docks to lay may eyes on that mighty vessel once more. I first arrived in the US on her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth so I was very interested to see another Cunard ship as an adult.

What an experience, just the breeze across the deck was something to be amazed by. It got me to thinking what a treasure the ship is, I am so glad that the City of Long Beach bought it in 1971 as like most of the other ships of its time, it would have been scrapped.

In the sixties with the age of air travel, the ship became uneconomic to run even after starting to run cruises, that Cunard deciding to make smaller ships that were more entertainment centers than just elegant ships.

I am so glad that some historical things are retained, it just reminds me how grateful I should remain that I can experience both the old and new.