Corporate Events Plus

A ‘buonissimo’ February

What a change from last year, if the pace of business continues as it has done in the first quarter we will be seeing a remarkable turnaround in business.

We are seeing a return to quoting for new business, and for existing customers there are also two events revived that were postponed last year but re confirmed for this year. It is good to see clients understanding the value of face to face meetings for staff.

We are currently working in Financial Services, Energy and Retail sectors during February and March. Projects are on the horizon for foreign customers in London and an incentive trip to St Petersburg, I have realized how poor in general we can be at making an effort in languages with foreign customers, the danger is to assume that these customers understand how we do business, our specifications or event schedule reasoning because they speak English but sometimes the translation creates a gap. So finding my Russian daunting I am starting by making an effort with my Italian!!

Presentation slide deadlines though are still at short notice, I am finding now that it is important more so now than ever to schedule in rehearsals in advance of final on site deadlines. Rehearsals should be rehearsals, presentations should be polished during this set aside time but still what should be rehearsals are really no more than extended planning meetings. Or as event organisers, are we not being assertive enough to demand more involvement time in advance of the show?

A bit of inconvenience this month was the demise of my own faithful laptop. It is all very well backing up files and documents, and this can be easily and quickly copied across onto a new machine as indeed I managed to do, however, it is all the little programmes that you add during different projects, printer files, digital camera software, mobile phone connectivity, Skype, email address’ and passwords, all kept as information in various places but it is the time it takes to load it all back on that has surprised me, oh, and now windows 7 so learning of the new improvements are being done ‘on the hoof’ so to say.

A month of coalface ahead, although funny enough I am really looking forward to it.

Ciao for now.