Top 5 qualities of the successful event manager

This post is a collective effort of the Linkedin event community trying to identify the attributes that make an event professional stand out.

A few comments. Read all the answers as you may be inspired by the very latest and I can tell by the quality that every single participant made an effort in writing. I am very happy to finally see event professionals exchanging opinions and talking about their experience, you will notice that we will all benefit from this.

Statistically here is what the majority agreed on:

The first answer is the one that I thought to be the best. Best means more comprehensive and spot on according to my experience. Nonetheless, you might find that other answers are more inspiring that is why I decided to post them all.

Kevin Jurczyk – National Marketing Director at Branstrator Sunrooms and Basement Systems of America says:

1) Excellent time management-

The ability to coordinate not only yourself, but the scheduling of the entire team helping with the event. It’s all about planning, and re-planning and scheduling.

2) Resourcefulness-

In my opinion, this is the most important. With years of experience in events, there is always something that requires a creative fix. Whether it be a piece of tape, or re-working a display because the display across the aisle looks too much like yours. You have to be very resourceful and use what you have. Ability to pool together the individuals you need.

3) Communication-

Share your ideas and your vision openly with your team. Communicate on a level that is respectful to everyone. Do not talk down to anyone, regardless of their role. Everyone has their part and it ultimately leads to your success, make sure you communicate clearly and respectfully. Accept criticism and be open to new ideas.

4) Passion-

Without passion you cannot over come the bumps and triumph when all seems lost. I can train time management, but I cannot teach passion.

5) Strong will, but a level head-

You have to be able to carry out your vision and sometimes crack the whip to get it done. Resolve problems and issues quickly. And you must be able to stand calm at zero hour when something doesn’t go your way. Your team should look to you for everything, the last thing they need is a shaky leader that makes rash decisions because they crack under pressure.

Chris Donahue – Regional Technical Trainer at PSAV – Presentation Services says:

1 – Excellent Time Management
2 – Good Communicator
3 – Attention to detail
4 – Ability to creatively solve probelms
5 – Staying calm at all times

Chris Catoggio – Independent Event Services Professional says:

Probably number 1 is great people skills. The Event Manager needs to be communicative, with the ability to listen and understand what the client is looking to achieve, as well as being able to convey that concept when selecting and negotiating with vendors.

Number 2 is organized. The event manager needs to coordinate a number of responsibilites and manage many teams simultaneously.

Third, an event manager needs to be flexible. In any event, things can and will change with a moments notice. The event manager needs to be able to, for lack of a better word, PUNT.

Fourth, an event manager must be responsible. Regardless of what goes right and what goes wrong, the success of an event, and all it’s coordinates, is the managers responsibility.

Fifth, a successful event manager needs to be enthusiastic and passionate about what they do. Enthusiasm and passion brings about creativity and generates excitement. Maybe, this should be #1!

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ecoCamp: a case study

Most of my afficionados know that I’ve worked in the past two months at ecoCamp, a BarCamp about the environment, ecology, sustainability and energy. The event took place yesterday 29th of March 2008 in Conversano – Italy. This post sums up what happened before, during and after the event, from an event management perspective. As a planner I learned a lot from this experience and I invite you to participate in a BarCamp close to you because it will definitely help the way you approach your career.

Why ecoCamp?

I organized ecoCamp with Carmen Boscolo, a fellow blogger and environmental consultant, and I will use “we” referring to me and her. We both fell in love with the BarCamp formula. Open access, no pre-scheduled sessions, interaction and the Internet sounded like a great mix. In conceptualising the event we came up few things we wanted to experiment:

– Usually BarCamps host presentations. We didn’t like that . We thought that presentations are a subtle way to control a session and kill interaction. We decided to tell our audience that we wouldn’t host any presenter but just “promoters”. We borrowed this role from Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology. At the beginning of ecoCamp, the promoter suggested her/his topic and got immediate feedback in terms of participation to the session. The promoter had the duty to guide and facilitate the session, collect the names of participants and manage time as well as take responsibility of the room and logistics.

– Usually BarCamps share the content, in that the organizers publish slides and materials of the presentations. We did not like that as well. We thought that the chance of having a large number of people working together could not be wasted. We were sure that the energy of the event would have been great. In order to collect and funnel that vibe we thought about creating a document, again inspired by Harrison Owen. We called the document “ecoCamp@world“. The promoter of every session was given a template to fill out during the discussion. We asked few questions:
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What the Cluetrain Manifesto taught me about events

The Cluetrain Manifesto is almost ten years old. I was actually surprised to see it was written in 1999 for two reasons:

- It is amazing to see how it is still relevant to both Internet and businesses. The words of the manifesto sound like a Web 3.0 startup’s mission. They got it right. The people who signed it saw 10 years in advance what was about to happen. Few things are yet to come but I’d bet we’ll shortly experience them.

- Crazy, crazy, crazy. Companies had in front of their eyes the chance to get the most out of the Internet and treat the customer in new, engaging ways. It was there, clearly written and explained. It is SAD to see how only few organizations have embraced these life changing concepts.

The Cluetrain Manifesto is free to read. How the most popular Italian and world’s top 10 blogger, Beppe Grillo, would say, download it, print it and start sharing it around. Give it to your boss, to your colleagues, if possible pass it to the person sitting next to you on the underground.

The Manifesto has a lot of things to say to those involved in events. I went through the 95 Theses and got few that I thought might be of interest.

- Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
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The trade show unfortunate misunderstanding

Last week the blog was fairly inactive as I went to London to attend the 2008 International Confex.

For those out there who don’t know what I am talking about, Confex is one of the biggest trade shows for event planners, mangers and everyone involved into the industry.

This is the trade show of the trade shows. When you host people who actually work with events, expectations are extremely high and I think Confex did great.

It was a great organizational success. If you go through the numbers, you’ll notice that more than 15,000 people attended. Furthermore you would have noticed how the organizational machine worked perfectly. My congratulations to those who managed to create such a perfect event.

Nonetheless, during the whole visit I had this persisting idea: do we need trade shows at all?
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linux.conf.au@eventmanagerblog.com

Few days ago Melbourne hosted the biggest Linux conference of Australia. This event has completely captured for a number of reasons.

- I am a member of the Italian Linux Society
- I’ve erased from my PC every form of proprietary software, choosing Kubuntu
- I’ve participated to a “Linux Day” in Italy and I think they are great events
- I love Australia since I studied there for two years and got life changing experiences
- Linus Torvalds participated to the event and this is a small event itself.

Therefore, for all of the above I decided to contact the guys DownUnder for a chat on the conf. I asked them if they could share with us a bit about the event and inspire us for the future.

I am happy to say that once again I wasn’t disappointed by the community. In the person of Donna I was able to find the usual great spirit of sharing great content and empowering the listener. No matter how busy they were with managing the event.

My thanks to the great kindness of my mates in Australia and for you a great interview with heaps of great info.
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