January 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Education: It’s not just for kids or boring seminars. Let Lori show you how lifelong learning can make your events pop!
Elizabeth, Liz, and David welcome back Lori Pugh, their go-to expert on all things education. In this episode, Lori explains why continuous education is not just a nice-to-have but a must-have for staying competitive in the events industry. They discuss different approaches to learning, from traditional certification courses to new and interactive formats like podcasts and webinars. Lori breaks down how to incorporate education into a busy schedule and why even a small nugget of knowledge can shift your entire career trajectory. Whether you love or loathe learning, this episode will leave you inspired to sharpen your skills.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Event Therapy, the podcast that dives deep into the world of meetings and events. Whether you're a seasoned event planner or a supplier looking to enhance collaboration, we're here to explore topics that foster understanding and drive innovation. I'm Elizabeth, and I'm joined here with David and Liz. And today's topic is education. Why do you need it?
(00:01):
Well, today, we have Laurie Pugh, director of events, content, and strategic engagement for the Path to Purchase Institute. With 19 years of experience in meetings and events industry, Laurie is an award winning expert in strategic planning, event production, and speaker management. She owns Woven Path Consulting and an event consulting and facilitation business. We're excited to dive into her wealth of knowledge and insight. Welcome, Laurie.
Hi. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here today. We're so excited. And, you know, just kinda starting off, you know, I like to refer to you as the queen of education.
So we're excited to to get you here on our our podcast today. Well, I'm excited to be here, and I like the fact that we're recording all together. It adds a nice element to it. Absolutely. So let's, you know, talk about it.
Why is education important? Sure. So, you know, I I feel like over the course of my career, and, really, I think most, meaning professional careers, there's so many different paths that you can take, and the ability to have the option to choose which paths you may want to take given your seasonal life is is all about education. How can you pivot and learn, in one area of meeting and events and maybe move up to another, and education is really the way to do that. Absolutely.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I know you. She's the queen. I know. Well, you know, what about for those who maybe education isn't their main priority or goal?
How how can they incorporate it specifically when we're talking about the meetings and events industry? I think people have a preconceived notion of what education is. They think back to, you know, high school or maybe college where they absolutely hated, you know, going to school, and that's okay. But education could be in the form of podcasts, it could be webinars, it could be as simple as certificate courses. So there's really different types of education depending upon what type of modality you like.
I'm the kind of person who, yes, I can listen to podcasts, but I'm also a person that has to take notes to retain. So for me, I just kinda know how I like to learn and I bite sized education is what I prefer. You know, if I'm waiting for my daughter to finish volleyball and I know I have a hour, maybe there's something that I can tune into and read just during that time frame because we're we're all busy and we're just trying to fit it in. So you have to figure out what fits best in your life and what you really enjoy in terms of how you learn. Alright.
So keynotes and writing it down. I like it, and we were just talking about that. You know? Sometimes just writing it down helps seal it to that memory. Mhmm.
It's kinda funny because I'd like to know, were you listening in before you joined? Because us 2 just had a full on conversation about our college day. Oh. Like, I would work day all day over going back to school. But I do like education when it involves what we already do for a living.
Mhmm. So I think that you do have to look at a different life. You haven't dove into know, professional education, you know, that is much more exciting when it's relevant to what you're doing and how it can obviously grow your career and your network. And for me, peer to peer, education is my favorite type. Mhmm.
I know you do a lot of that Yeah. Leading those types of sessions. I think that can be so beneficial and and sort of what we're doing here with the podcast. So Yeah. Mhmm.
Peer to peer is my favorite because Absolutely. I mean, a lot of times, especially one of the reasons you may not have liked school in terms of college is they drone on and on and on, but most of them aren't practitioners. They aren't living it every day and they can't give real world examples of talking to people. Exactly. It's better when it's peer to peer and you could share what you learn, or my favorite thing is I love when people disagree about a topic.
That is the best thing to me. I don't want someone just to agree with everything I say. I want you to challenge, like, what the thought process is or maybe how, you know, you've seen something different. Let's do it. Let's do it here today.
That's what this whole podcast is about is, you know, we're not excited. Yeah. She did, like, yes. I get real geeked out. Trust me.
I love me a good healthy debate now. Don't get me wrong. Well, we're trying to have those healthy conversations when it comes to meetings and events. And, you know, I think if you bring up a lot of queens, especially peer to peer, I it's so valuable to me because that trust is there. You know, I'm going to trust your opinion a lot more than I am somebody I don't know.
So, and I think, you know, and us talking about, yeah, we didn't like the traditional, you know, university, you know, we did it, we got the degrees. Yay. But it's, it's what does that education look now? And I think so many people think it is that traditional format, and they don't realize that it has grown and evolved and expanded in so many different levels, and in so many different ways. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I mean, if you really think about all the organizations, the associations, even companies that do provide education, it's a business. And so they also have to be able to attract people, so they make their education or how they go about their educational formats more exciting because we don't necessarily have to be sitting in those classes or listening to those podcasts away. We're doing it because we're interested in the content. So I do feel like the education field is really adapted, and I even seen actually, I was on a call with the University of North Florida, and they're actually taking more practitioners for, teaching undergraduate level classes because they're finding that the students really want that, and they're they're engaging more in signing up for those different classes based instead of saying, okay.
I'm I have a doctor in x y z, but I've never taught in the field. So I I think you're seeing more and more of that more relevant context versus, okay, read this book and write me, you know, 10 page paper. I don't think that really suffices anymore. I love that. First off, that's where I graduated.
So Go, Oscar Ace, swoop. But I remember thinking that. I'd be sitting in my marketing class, and they're trying to teach me about hypothetically or this situation, you should do that. And I'd be like, oh, okay. So, you know, where did you oh, I've just been a professor my whole life.
And I'm like, and I'm taking advice from you. You've never done this. You're teaching me what somebody wrote in a book, but it's not practical. So again, I think it goes back to that trust. How can I trust what you're saying?
How can I know that that is the truth? Mhmm. Very true. Well, I think also sometimes, like, when you think about education, you think about this big grandiose thing of knowledge and, like, overwhelming thing. And to your point earlier, is sometimes it's just that one little small nugget that you get that can change the whole trajectory of what you're doing.
(00:22):
Mhmm. And, you know, so be being open minded to that kind of thing is is really cool. And then, you know, again, thinking about from the standpoint of learning from people who are doing. Like, I think back to when I was younger and, you know, we've all been there where you're sitting in in class and you're like, what does this old person know about my life? And what now and now some of us are those old people.
Right? Oh, shoot. Speak for yourself. Yeah. That's why I said some of us and pointed to myself.
Right? But but, I mean, you know, it's just interesting to to think about those 2 different perspectives. But, yeah, I mean, I think learning from people that are doing is is so incredible. And and it's good to hear that the education world does understand that and does give some credibility to that and and the value in in implementing that. Not not fully taking over, but implementing it.
Yeah. Absolutely. And complementing it because there's some things that are foundational in in education that they teach. And, actually, that that made me think of something else. I was reading an article, about the events industry council is completely redoing the CMP test.
Oh, thank goodness. Yes. And I think don't quote me on it, but I think it, like, comes out in a in a year or so. Yeah. And so I think, again, you're just seeing more organizations adapting because life has changed.
Hate to bring up COVID. You know, here we are 4 years later, but we're still talking about it. But, you know, the way our industry has changed, and also the way that we can find content anywhere to get education has changed, that they're adapting. And now what I'm really hoping, I'm excited to see what the new test looks like. I felt like when I took the test, it was very much you had to answer the way the book would answer.
That's how I felt. Right. And so I'm excited to see what they come out with. Yeah. No.
I mean, I thought there was a lot of really great nuggets in in in taking it, and there's so much value in having the designation. But I definitely felt the same way. You had to answer it exactly. And, you know, it it's those tests where it's like, well, they all could be correct. Which one is most correct?
Yeah. See, this is why I didn't love school. There you go. It's like, why trick me? What's the point of tricking me?
Right. No. Absolutely. Well, speaking with that, let's kind of switch gears a little bit to designations because, you know, while I call you the queen of education, I could also call you the queen of designations because, you know, I aspire to have so many letters at the end of my name like you do. You know, people like to joke with me.
They're like, really adding more letters? And to be honest with you, I I would say people ask me, like, why do you have all of these? Okay. 1, I work for an organization where they were free for me today. They were covered and paid for.
That's awesome. And if there's anyone out there whose companies pay for them or have professional development funds, if you're not taking it Mhmm. You're crazy. You're really passing up an opportunity. Absolutely.
You know, because I don't wanna say it's free money, but in a way it does because I tell you what, the candidate pool and job seeking right now is very difficult. And if there's anything that can help push you a little bit further than the other person's resume, it helps. I also like designations because it's shorter than going through a master's program, you know, and you can chunk in and bite size it, and then you can specialize in different areas that are important to you, versus, again, one of the reasons maybe you didn't like college, at least I wasn't crazy about my first two years, is because I was learning things that I was never going to use. Right? 1st 2 years.
Yes. Yes. It's like, you know, I don't wanna say I felt like I was taking underwater basket weaving sometimes in the classes. It was just not relevant. So that's what I like about designations.
I can hone in on one particular thing. For instance, I we talked about CMP really being a necessary what I call necessary evil, but I'm maybe not with the new test, is because there are a lot of jobs out there are looking for that. Yeah. And it's something you have to check off the list. Oftentimes, like, checking off that you have a college degree regardless if it's in English literature or, you know, whatever it may be in.
But then from there, I feel like for me, I took the CMN, the certificate in meeting management, because that was kind of moving up a level into managing people, which is something I'm really passionate about, so I felt like that helped in that area. Certified event designer. This is where I really felt like I cut my teeth on processes and theories in in creative design instead of just kind of open brainstorming. There's steps that you take. Right.
So I would say those are kind of the the main areas. Now what I have to remind people of, there's no designation or education or content that is going to be, wow, all of that was amazing. You have to take what resonates and pick what makes sense and, you know, you know, if you gave up, what, 6 hours to get a certificate or, you know, let's say here 40 hours of your time in a project, what's what's that in the grand scheme of things? Chances are you've taken 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 things away from it that you can apply. Absolutely.
And and I think I would agree, you know, CMP is kind of a norm in our industry. So, you know, I when it comes to recommendations, I would kind of, you know, tend to agree that CMP is probably where you wanna start. I know you and I have had some conversations about the CMM and, you know, it's definitely something I'm looking at as well and, and we're both CDs. So we have the opportunity to go there, but I know you even got to get your masters, which is, you know, I'm so torn because I I see the master's program, but I really want my MBA because I have a business degree. So I'm like, how do I decide?
I'm over here just saying I wanna play in the NBA, but I know those are totally different letters. Sorry. Those are not the same thing. You know? Okay.
So there's I'm gonna wear 2 different hats here. So I'm gonna wear my SDSU master's degree hat. One of the most amazing things about the program was meeting the other, the people in your cohort. Right? So it was, like, a really good networking opportunity, and you found people in the industry who were is driven about our industry and great connections.
And there were great things I took away from it. Okay. So that's my SDSU hat, Astec Proud. Now I'm gonna put on my other hat, my businesswoman hat, and saying, I do feel like, especially, not saying you would ever wanna leave this industry, but let's say you're taking a different route into c suite, sometimes that MBA does transfer over. So I think it it depends on where you wanna be in your career.
(00:43):
Mhmm. One of my long term goals, would I would love to be COO of a company because I love that organizational perspective. Oh, that's something new we're learning about you. Yes. Yes.
I just like the way things, like operations and project management and things of that nature. So that might would be if that's something you're interested in, that might lead you in a particular direction. But between the 2 of them, they still talk about, you know, p and l's and finances and EBITDA and all those high level things. For me, getting my master's was a no brainer because the company I worked for was paying for quite a big portion of it, and then the military was actually paying, for another portion of it. So when it all said and done, I think I'll only maybe be paid, like, 7 or $8,000.
So for me, that's a no brainer. Right. Everybody else has to decide their financial reasoning. I will tell you there's no perfect time to decide to go back to school and get your masters. Right.
There's no perfect time to decide to get a certificate, so you just you just sign up and, you know, deal with the consequences of signing up. Right. And then you just figure it out. You figure it out. That's how we do.
We figure it out after. I mean, you know, I know the CMP, CMM, CED, masters, they're all you know, they take a little bit of commitment and time. It's it's not a certificate course or something you can just say, oh, I'm gonna do this and complete this in a week. You know? They all take significant time.
So what are some ways that, you know, maybe somebody listening to this or thinking about it or, I don't know, David List, you know, maybe you are interested in but not quite sure you wanna step your toe quite in that yet, that people could get a little taste of the education. I know you touched on it a little bit with the certificates, but, just kind of getting that extra education. So I think one of the easiest ways is going to a conference. That's a great way to get education. There's great podcasts like this one that we have here that you can listen in the car.
That's one of the things is, you know, I have a teenage daughter, and she thinks she controls the radio. So, like, I have my own little ear pods in, listening to what I wanna listen to. You would also be shocked, you know, if you take out your phone and you look down and and it tells you how many hours you spent on your phone and scrolling things. Like, it's all it it would disgust me at the end of the week. I'm like, this is so bad.
How have I been on my phone for 8 hours of the day? Look at that now. Yeah. It's but if you think about that, if you are really mindful about something that's important in your life and you could say, alright. I'm gonna devote 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes at 5 o'clock or maybe at 8 o'clock to digest something that you're interested in, even if it's just reading industry magazine.
You have to be mindful and you have to, like, put it in your calendar. Otherwise, it's not gonna happen. And just think about how much time we kill flipping through Facebook for nothing. So you can make time if you want to, and it and and if you bite size things, then it you'll just be surprised how much you can accomplish instead of, oh, you know, thinking I gotta spend my whole Saturday doing 8 hours of education. No.
You don't have to do that. You're so right about the calendar. I mean, I I think you're like that, Liz. Like, I I have them on everything in my calendar. Yep.
No. I do the same thing. Like, I play every single thing I do within reason in in the let's think about that for a second, you know, on a calendar. And then I see. And then to to Laurie's point about, like, not getting on information overload too.
You know what I mean? Because that that's a that's a real thing too. Like, if if you're digesting all of this information, I I it was funny you said earlier about taking notes. Like, I really have to do that. I love going to a conference and knowing that they are recording it and they are giving us a I don't care if it's a video or it could just be audio.
It doesn't even have to be video, because I wanna be in the moment and digest, like, the most highest level things that resonate with me right there and then. But I also know there's gonna be so much other content there that I wanna be able to make notes of and then actually go through those notes and because it's one thing to just make notes and then put them away somewhere and you never do nothing with it. We've all done that. We've all been there. Guilty.
But, like, how how great is it, though, to be able to, like, you know, create this almost like this action plan of, like, here are the things that I think I can do, and then just go knock them off the list and then go to the next one and knock it off the list. And, I love your point about education. It doesn't have to be, like, the scholastic definition of education. It can be, you know, again, just reading a magazine and learning something that you didn't know you were, you know, 0 days old before you knew that kind of a thing. Mhmm.
Absolutely. And, again, not realizing somehow how we've gotten 19, 20 years of experience. I'm like, what? I'm still 24. How did that happen?
Right. But I you know, people always used to say when I started in the industry, oh, you know, the older, you know, I guess, what you would be boomer, they're scared to try technology. Right? There was this this misconception between younger generations and older regardless of of where we are now in that generation line. I think we also have to be mindful to try things that in education that really scare us.
Like, a lot of people are afraid of AI, and I'm totally geeking out on it right now because it's not as complicated and scary as it sounds. So I actually would challenge people to to either read or listen to a podcast on something that intimidates them, in the industry that that maybe younger generations are more familiar with. Like, I'm horrible at editing videos. Like, I don't know I don't know how to do boomerangs and, like, all those cute social media things my daughter does, so that that's on my list of things I wanna accomplish this fall is try to figure out how to do more stuff for my consulting business like that with the social media. So just try something new.
I recommend that. Absolutely. I I I love that. And when when did we get 19 years? I I I just had to somebody asked me for my my bio recently, and I had to, like, update the years.
Like, oh, it's 19 now. Like, you would think that would be a good thing, but it's like, ugh. I I remember I remember when my company turned 20 years old, and I was, like, bragging about it. Like, we're 20 years old. Then I was like, oh, wait a minute.
Maybe that's not the That means I run run a company for 20 years. Maybe in my industry, that's not the greatest thing to be touting out to the world because they're like, if your business is 20 years old, how old are you? Right? What are you talking? I'm aging backwards.
That's right. I love it. I love it. Oh, one thing I wanna say too, is I love I love this idea of, like, learning something. It doesn't require money.
(01:04):
Like, what you're talking about doesn't require money. You could just jump on YouTube or or anywhere and and get, you know, get some pointers and get that education. But it's putting you in that mindset of like, okay. Well, this is not so scary. And, like, okay.
Maybe maybe I could take the next step and go into something where, alright. Let me let me raise the stakes a little bit and put some money down on this thing now. But Now get a little piggy bank down the side. Taking taking those baby steps to to, like, just get into that mode. I love that idea.
It's all my I mean, if you think about any goal you set for yourself, it's all small, you know, milestones and you have to celebrate each one you complete. So, you know, what is that saying? Keep it simple stupid? It's like that's really Oh my gosh. I have worked somewhere and it was always they were always like, keep it simple statement or keep it simple smart.
Yeah. Yeah. The case method. Right. Just pick something small to do.
Read the magazine. I I, I'm the kind of person when I get up in the morning, I can't just, like, dive into doing a big project at work. I need to have coffee and kinda warm up like a Buick for about 30 minutes. And so maybe it's like, hey. I'm gonna actually read this email article that someone sent me about, you know, something in the industry.
So just figure out what works for you and how your brain works best. I mean, I have friends that, you know, they don't go to bed till 2 o'clock in the morning, and they do their best learning or work even sometimes between midnight and 2. So, yeah, I gotta figure out what works for you. Oh, I need to be in bed. I we were just talking.
I was like, yeah. We need our our our problems with our age are, you know, just getting our blood work done before, having coffee. You know, getting these tears of poop in here. Yikes. I'm really dating at our age.
That's right here. But you are going back to you. You also talked a little bit about AI, which, you know, It's so exciting, but also scary. Yeah. And I think it's exciting if it's used in the right way, but I think it's scary when you start to think about the big picture and, like, what all it could do.
But let's keep it light. Mhmm. Talk about the fun of it. You know, I know you have really spent a lot of time, and it's something that I, you know, I'm guilty of only using it like chat gpt. Hey.
Rewrite this, like, you know, paragraph for me or write the social caption. But I know there's so much more. So I'd love I I know this wasn't a a talking point in our conversation, but I I think it's important to maybe talk about some topics of education. And and I think AI is something that there's a lot of question marks still around. Absolutely.
And what people don't realize, like so there's AI, generative AI. I mean, we don't have to go into the weeds of that, but if you think about it, we've had AI for a long time. I mean, how long have you had an iPhone in which you lifted it up, but it saw your face and it opened? Yeah. That's AI.
Right. So, I think we just have to get kinda move that stigma down. For me, personally, I like to use it for some of the very basic things that a a a really good administrative assistant would do or, you know, proofing, yes, proofing an email, helping me come up with brainstorming ideas, like, hey. I wanna come up with a theme. Here are the important kind of topics that I want for this conference, and I wanna to come up with theming that really resonates based on these things.
It'll help generate ideas. I mean, I'm not the interesting a lot of people ask questions about copyright, which is a valid question, But anytime that you see something and then you put your own personal spin on it or tweak, then it then it really does change that copyright and becomes yours. So the the the idea isn't that you're just copying and pasting things. It's it's something to stimulate your brain and help you, you know, then you can go in and you can involve an idea. So, I also think that there's a lot of, I guess, time and energy we put into doing things that we would be much better fit to be doing something else for the organization for.
So what a person on my team, we basically think of it as a hosted buyer program. Right? Well, part of what she does during the off season and goes and looks at competitor conferences and pulls up potential sponsors, potential speakers, and potential speakers and potential brands that we want to come to our conferences. Well, now all you do is control c on the page and then put it into Chat gpt, even the free format now that since there's been an upgrade, and ask it to put it in a CSV file, which is essentially in Excel. So it takes all that work and puts it in Excel sheet for her, and that would have taken her 8 hours to do.
So especially for younger people on my team, I try to tell them to use their time doing something I can't, which is building relationships. So, you know, hey. You're new to the industry, and maybe you're in charge of organizing and putting things together for a board. Well, how about you do a little research on the board members? Right?
Maybe something interesting that they've, done, their company's done so that next time you see them or engage with them, they're like, hey. I I heard you guys have that new merger. That's very exciting. Or, hey. I heard you you know, got that promotion.
That's where we should be spending our time meeting in person, and just let AI be our assistant. Wait. I'm trying to think of this saying. Is it, trust but verify? That's what I think about AI.
It's like trust but verify. Use it to do all the work that isn't, you know, super critical and that's and then devote your time to that, but you do have to go back and check AI for sure. Well, we were all just together in a conference in Kentucky and ran into a friend of mine, Mitch, which was so crazy because everybody in the group ran into him before I did it. I didn't even know he was gonna be there. And, his company, Hive, is all about AI.
And I love that their whole bay basic premise is about maintaining humanity of AI. And I I don't know that this is really the way they say it. But to me, I look at it as like AI is designed to enhance you, not replace you if you allow it to. You know? And and, so I think to your point earlier, just by being able to utilize it to help your mind be a little more creative.
Because I think that there are certain areas of all of us can be creative in certain ways, but we can't be creative in every way. But being able to have a tool like that to help open up that creativity, You know? And and people have said it all along. At this day and age and and the year what are we in? 2024 now?
I don't even know. We're in 2024. Here we go. Yeah. There's there's almost nothing new now, like, other than technology.
(01:25):
But, the the chances of somebody else already thinking or talking about a topic or coming up with a topic or speaking to a topic that you would like to has already happened 1000000 times over. And so as long like you said earlier, as long as you're not, like, a 100% verbatim just plagiarizing these people, it's okay to utilize the technology to to get that, to stimulate those ideas and see where it takes you. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the same person I talked to at UNF who, is now a dean there, I asked her the question of how is AI just changing the whole landscape of education?
Because, you know, how do you know they're not using AI? And and so what was interesting is she said there's a couple different modalities of thought on it is getting people in a room and making them write a paper in person, like the old school where you come and you get a paper and you get there's a timer. But she's like, who wants to do that? Again, education has to be interesting for people to actually attend these days. Right?
So she said it was like, how about you use AI to let you come up with a really interesting thought or concept, and then you do something physically to bring that concept to life. Mhmm. And I've and talking about education, you don't retain everything you just read in a book. If you can't apply what you're learning in either, an example of this is how it would apply to you or take what you learned and create something, you're not gonna remember it. And so I I think this helps us, move into something much bigger to where we're creating instead of just listening and retaining.
And another reason why we didn't like school is this memorization for what? Memorization for what? Yeah. You know? Just to be able to take a test and be able to prove that you remembered all the capitals of the 50 states.
Immediately. Yeah. And then you're, like, it's gone. Drained. It's gone.
It's gone. Yeah. Well, actually, I know somebody else in, education, at the university level, and they were saying that some of the schools actually use a software program now. Mhmm. So they can actually put your paper or whatever in it, and it will tell them if it was written by AI, which I was like, okay.
So another AI software to read. It is AI. But, you know, you bring up some great points because I think at the end of the day, you've got to look at your value and how much, you know, you're worth. How much is an hour of your time worth? Is it better suited, you know, really perfecting this one paragraph?
Or can you you lean on AI a little bit to to let you help you out with that? So Can I touch on that for just a sec? Because I I think that that really takes me down there this rabbit hole of thought process. And I'll try not to go too long on this. But, this whole concept about you mentioned that, you know, oh, there's this software to say whether AI wrote this, this, that, and the other thing.
But it's almost like, but does that matter? Like, if that freed up your time to do something more important than to just check a box of, like, I did this paper assignment or whatever. If it opened your mind to think a different way, if it gave you an extra hour to spend with your family, if it gave you, like, something that's more important to your life than just banging out things on a keyboard, there's a lot of value to that really. And I I don't know. I really, to some extent, feel like opening our thought process up to that kind of idea because I I think about this all the time when it comes to, like, the workday and the work week and all that stuff.
And, like, you you think about people that go to their jobs, for example, in corporate America, which by the way, I've never worked in. So I'm only speaking from what people told me. I've never ever worked at a corporate job. But imagine you go to work for 8 hours because why do you do that? Because if you wanna make the money you wanna make, you gotta be under lock and key at that place for the 8 hours.
Right? But if you're only doing if you're doing 5 hours of work and the other 3 hours you're gossiping in the office and you're going to the bathroom and you're taking, like, I'm not a smoker, but I'm gonna take a 15 minute smoke break anyways and stuff like that. Like, doesn't it make sense to just give you those 3 hours back so you can use them for something more productive and use them for something more meaningful in your life? So I feel like AI allows the potential and opportunity to do that, but we have to be willing to be okay with that. We have to be willing to let go of some of the conventional thinking of how life is supposed to be.
Oh, a 100%. You brought up some topics that you almost made me wanna go down a rabbit hole of why I like remote working. Yeah. Exactly. Same.
I'll be honest. Yes. I mean, talk about hours back. But I, I I think, you know, one of the key things I heard you say, Laurie, is AI's been around for a really long time. And I think a lot of people don't think about that or realize that.
I mean, that's why you see the, you know, TikToks of women picking up their phones, whispering in their husband's phone, like spa, Louis Vuitton. Like, what do you think you're talking to? Right. AI. Yeah.
How is it magically every time you go to your phone, there's ads on stuff you were just talking about 5 minutes ago? It's so true. And now given what I do at my day job at a media company, our content is basically how consumers like us buy products at a grocery store. And now I would just was at a conference last week. They're talking about, okay, now they can track what you looked at online, and then it'll serve up an ad on your TV when you're watching it.
So it's like double hitting Oh, it happens all the time. And I'll be like, what's crazy. It's it's crazy to think of, but I we just gotta we have to embrace it with our eyes open. Yes. Cautiously with our eyes open.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. No.
For sure. I I think it's it's all great points, and I know that was a little bit of a a different topic. And I feel like we could have a whole another topic on it, but, you know, I think it it's healthy discussion. So, really kind of wanting to go back to something, you know, we've talked about designations and why education is important. But what steps would you recommend to somebody who's just starting out in the industry?
We're seeing so many new planners and suppliers coming along that, you know, they like, where should they go? Where should they look and act, you know, as they wanna grow and better their career? So definitely professional associations is the place to start because unless you're surrounding yourself with a group of like minded individuals, it's hard to stay motivated. I mean Right. Really think about a workout plan.
If I don't if I'm not held accountable by somebody else or somebody that motivates me, I'm not gonna do it, which is exactly why I haven't exercised in probably seven and a half months. So, right now, I'm just the exact timing too. Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, that being said, that's find yourself a a in industry home, so you can meet people in person, and, you know, they'll send you email reminders, things like that, putting it putting small things on your calendar.
I think having a mentor is important. Think about where you want to be in the next phase of your career, because I can tell you when I started out 19 years ago, I if, you know, if I could look in the future, this is not what I thought I would be doing. Like, I'm kind of shocked I am where I am, but I also think that's one of the great things about our industry. I've worked at a hotel. I've worked at a production company.
(01:46):
I've I've worked in association. I've worked kind of in the government side, all within that hospitality and events and and industry umbrella. But I think it's really served me well because there are times where I was I was a single mom and it was like, hello, I can no longer work the production hours of 80 hours a week and nights and weekends, but I could still stay within my community. So I think, look, finding somebody that has an interesting career trajectory. And people get scared to mentor.
Do I have to meet with them every Tuesday from 11 to noon? No. It doesn't need to be that serious. It's like, hey. Can we sit down for coffee or can I buy you a drink?
It could be periodically. Shoot them my text. Shoot them my text. What would you do in this situation? I actually have a a really good relationship with Melissa, out of the South Florida chapter, and sometimes we'll just ping each other and say MPI?
Yes. Yeah. And and we'll just ping each other. Thank you. Like people like everyone knows what the South Florida chapter is.
MPI, South Florida chapter. Meeting professionals in a world. Yeah. Yeah. And even when it comes an association of many.
Exactly. You could. Exactly. And, you know, she'll say, what do you think I should do with this situation? And it's funny because I'll give her advice, and I'll be like, wow.
Why am I not taking my own advice? Right? I I say that all the time, especially to Liz. I'm like, why am I so good at giving it but never taking it? It's so true.
And then she'll give me advice and you know? So, it could be very simple and impromptu when you need it. Yeah. I think that's where you can start and really you know, not everything also has to cost you money as well, so just subscribe. There's 18,000,000 different ways to get content, especially now coming out, again, as I mentioned, of of COVID.
So just Google search. See what pops up. Search or or hashtag Instagram search. Yeah. I hear that a lot.
Or, oh my goodness. There's so many free podcasts out there like this. Mhmm. Well, you know what's interesting too is, like, we're we're also faced with this whole hustle culture thing. Right?
But if you take the combination of hustle culture and the amount of burnout of new people and really analyze why that's happening, again, my own hypothesis is that they're not pursuing a mentor. They're not pursuing somebody that can help them avoid some of those pitfalls and avoid some of those things that are gonna create burnout because you've got this other group of people on social media or wherever you're getting it from telling you, oh, you can just go do your own thing. You can go from, you know, ground level to CEO overnight. All you gotta do is do this. And and there are so many steps missed in that process.
And and I and I do kinda understand the selling of the dream and believing in yourself and those kind of things, but you can get that from a mentor too. Right? They're gonna give you those things too, but they're also gonna give you the reality. This goes back to what we said earlier about the the the, the, excuse me, the professors who all they've ever done is taught all their life. They've never done it in practicality.
Well, that's what hustle culture is doing. Hustle culture is telling you all the things that you need to be told, but they've never done it before in what you're trying to do. So having a mentor, having somebody that can who's been there, that can help you avoid those pitfalls and streamline some of that process. I love that you said that. One thing that I wish there was more training on.
So, I, again, worked at a hotel for a very brief period of time. Did not like it. Wasn't for me. Liz, I know you work. Not us.
You work at a hotel and you rock it. Like she owns a hotel. Well, okay. Maybe not yet. Like that.
No. She may win then. She loves it. She own one one day. I love the hotel.
That's the kind that you do. Yeah. Well, here's the thing, though. I do have said to me, though, when I went to school for hospitality management. I I went to hospitality school saying, but I'm never gonna work in a hotel.
That's not what I want. I wanna be a meeting planner. And now I think just from surrounding myself with other people and educating myself through my peer resources, I don't think that that is something that I wanna do. I do. Me all the time.
I never wanna be a planner. Yeah. So much. You're like, I love my hotel. Thanks.
Yeah. I know. I do. I love this business, and I think that I did I wouldn't imagine myself here either. So You know, what is what I think is interesting, and I heard this a lot when I worked, at MPI headquarters, was the the sometimes lack of education for suppliers on the hotel side.
So I would love to get your opinion on this because I don't have my pulse on this. Although both my parents were in sales at one point, and they used to get always get so frustrated when they're, you know, they've been 30 years in sales, and then they have some kind of sales training and it pops in a 24 year old trying to teach them how to sell things. So, that being said, I'm kinda curious to hear from you though about education for sales professionals because I feel like that is something that is lacking in the meeting and events industry. Yeah. I think, like, through the professional organization.
(02:07):
Exactly. Well, I think it's I what I would say about that, because there is sales training that you can get, you know, through our company. You know, if you work for a brand, there there's sales training there. I agree with you. I think that what my biggest takeaway in being a part of a membership organization in our industry is just understanding what you do better as a meeting planner.
Like, I know that I am a better salesperson because I really understand my clients and what you're going through. And so even when I'm learning or collaborating with somebody else that doesn't do exactly what I do, hearing about their struggles or kinda what they're going through or or even seeing how they're being taught, you know, or educated, I guess, I should say, helps me, I think, better understand how to do my job. Mhmm. So I I've tried to use that as the education that I get. But yeah.
No. I think, you know, there could be some more, education to that, for sure. But I think you there's ways of finding, you know, learning something in any situation. I see a lot of, well, I guess, in my thinking of my day job, so what we call solution providers or suppliers, what have you. I see a lot more of them getting their CMPs, and I kinda find that interesting, and I did ask somebody who was in a transportation company getting a CMP, and I was like, okay.
And he said the same thing. It was to learn what the issues were, but then also, like, networking within that particular, like, study groups and things like that. Mhmm. But that's a good point. I guess, you know, you don't know what you don't know.
I I think too about just back on designations. I think one of the aside from getting a job and and educating yourself more, I know as a hotelier, when I see CMP on somebody's, you know, signature line because we do work with all kinds of people, not necessarily meeting professionals. They could be marketing professionals. They could be executive assistants, but anybody who has that designation. I just think it gives you that leg up in the conversation and the negotiation.
Like, I know that I've been working with somebody that this is their profession. So I think it helps in those situations as well. Oh. So you're saying you respect me more for my designation. About just letting you know yourself.
Oh, you just don't Oh, well, I can tell you it goes 2 ways. Because when I'm looking at, a supplier or especially mainly more with, like, CVBs and VCBs, I do look out for the designation. And if I see it, that's who I reach out to, because I'm like, they get it. Designation. And if I see it, that's who I reach out to because I'm like, they get it.
Yeah. Like, they understand it. So, you know, I think it can go kind of go both ways in that front. But I will say you you bring up some great points about wanting like, suppliers wanting to know more from planners than I know, kind of speaking of MPI a little bit more. Our own local chapter, we've been trying to do a lot more conversations where it's more of, like, you know, breakout tables and where we can have those natural conversations and those difficult conversations, but in a safe space about contract negotiations and, you know, project management and, you know, suppliers can hear from planners.
And I think the more that we're able to have those healthy conversations, you know, the better we can work together for events. So, I do real quickly want us each to go around and say, what is some of the best education you've seen? You gotta limit it to 1 now. Oh, man. Throwing it out there on y'all.
It can be a type of education. Something Lori did. So oh, yeah. Definitely. Definitely, all my classes were excellent.
Your all your women in leadership and Yeah. Yeah. Let's see here. Oh, gosh. Some of the best education.
That is a lot you know, I actually think that sometimes, this could be a very broad answer, sometimes the best education you get are in industries that are not your own industry. So what can you learn from the realm of, like Yeah. So in in my day job, a lot of the attendees are essentially marketers, shopper marketers, and they always talk about personalization. And and as events industry, we've talked about personalization personalization as well, but that's more like, oh, let's personalize sometimes the pillows or let's personalize, I don't know, something else. But I think some of the other things that I've learned is our industry has a long way to go in terms of the technology we use and and and personalization from everything from registration to their agendas.
And and so and, anyways, long story short, the the reason I like it is because I go to the conferences about that, and I always pick up a nugget of something that I could use to personalize an event or education a little bit more. So that would be my advice. Yeah. Education a little bit more. So that would be my advice.
I love that. I love that. It can be subject matter. Doesn't have to be, like, anything in particular for me. I would it's actually a Lori Pugh thing.
And then I'm not just because you're sitting next to me, but, truly, you host a session on crowdsourcing, and I do love that. I love I'm a peer to peer learner, so you crowdsourcing, you brought the entire audience together to decide who was the expert on the topic. We developed topics within the room, and then whoever lined up in the line and felt like they were the expert, you know, those top 4 people are now on a panel, and you have opportunities to ask questions. And I just feel like it engaged everyone. If you wanted to talk about something, you had an opportunity to put a topic forward.
If you wanted to be involved in offering some insight, you know, you could do that. If you want to learn, there were many opportunities to learn. So I I think that was great. I thought that was very unique, and I think that was kind of a creative way to do some peer to peer. Just facilitation is my favorite because, I mean, there's so much collective wisdom in a room.
Even wisdom outside of how many years in the industry you have, just diversity of thought, diversity of experience. So facilitate facilitation I think is some of the best way to to get content and education. I would agree. Yeah. I would agree with that.
I mean, I I've been on the attending and presenting or being a speaker side of this situation. And, like, I can think of a lot of times where, like, I've gotten up on stage and and as you're getting up on stage to give this presentation that you've spent, like, 5 hours or 5 minutes preparing, and you're like, do these guys even or do these folks even care about what I'm talking about? Like, you wanna believe if they came to your session, they do. But still at the end of the day, like, I I I I I say that I agree with both of y'all, but I do have my own as well. But but I I do agree that being able to have the room kind of take the conversation where it needs to go Yeah.
And then Being flexible. Then being able to be okay with, like, putting your ego aside for a second and saying, okay. Well, I know that I'm this I'm this person on stage right now, but if there's if there's a topic of conversation in the room that can can really help this room, but there's somebody else in this room that maybe has a more experience, more understanding, more knowledge, more something than I do, embracing that and and letting them come into being a part of what you're doing, I think, is such a great concept. So I I agree with with with what you said there. My answer would be, believe it or not, a mastermind group that I'm a part of.
And and that has really changed my life, professionally because it's it's inter it's interesting to look at one perspective of and this is the perspective that a lot of us have been guilty of, is looking at somebody something that somebody is doing that you deem better more than you and being jealous of it. And we've all been there. And then I was introduced to this perspective of instead of being jealous of it, understand that that means that that it can be done at that level. So where you might not be at that level yet, you now have a contact. You now have somebody who has done it at that level that you can connect with and figure out, okay, what steps am I missing to get to that level?
Whereas you may not have had that if you continue with this jealous, oh, they're, you know, they had, they got better genes or they got more money or they got this or they got that. Doesn't matter. But it shows you that it can be done. And I love that. Absolutely.
(02:28):
No. That's so great. And, you know, I would say my favorite is this podcast. No. I'm joking.
I I I I like anything interactive. So interactive, really getting the, crowd audience engaged, that could be from breakouts, small groups, to just full on having everybody stand up and close your mind and visualization. I I just think that, you know, is more engaging to me just than listening to somebody talk at me. But, well, I I feel like, Laurie, we're gonna have to have you back for, like, a part 2 and a part 3. I mean, I've got AI.
We didn't even get to talk about speakers, so we're gonna need a whole another session on speakers. So get ready. Threaten me with a good time. Getting me out of my office. I'm in.
I'm in. Sounds good. Well, I do wanna end it with, you know, giving you the opportunity to kinda share your best piece of advice to, meeting an event professionals. It doesn't have to be about anything we've talked about today. It can be anything related to the industry.
If you could just leave with one piece of advice, what would it be? If you get an opportunity, you take it. Yeah. Don't worry if you're not a 100% qualified. You don't know how to do a 100% of the things.
If you've gotten this far in this industry, you'll figure it out. So, opportunity knocks, answer it, and work hard. I love that so much. That is I mean, especially as somebody who's who's just venturing out on their own, I keep telling everybody, I'm saying yes to everything. Yeah.
Saying yes till I can't say yes anymore because there's just no hours. Yeah. So I love that. I think that's a great piece of advice. Well, what I've always been doing is I I try and take little notes and tidbits down, through our conversation.
So just to recap some of the the key things from today was, you know, obviously, you know, use AI as a way to farm your, you know, work too. Always saying yes. Keynotes, you know, take them down. Write them down. It it will help with you retaining and remembering and and making sure you reflect back on those.
Something that I know a lot of us do is is putting notes in our calendar to to work on different tasks. So why don't we do that for education? Right. And, you know, like you said, even if it is that, you know, 30 minutes in the evening, I you know, even if your parent get the kids to bed, you know, and and then take 30 minutes to to really bet on yourself. I I've been seeing that a lot too lately.
Bet on yourself. That's what I'm all about. I like it a lot. Build relationships, trust but verify when it comes to AI. I wrote down the convert to Excel because I did not know that Laurie, I will be using it, and getting a mentor.
Don't be scared of it. So I think it's so many great takeaways and little nuggets of tidbits, and we just love being around you and having you a part of our podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today, and and thank everyone to for listening to Event Therapy. We're always learning. So follow us on Instagram at Event Therapy Podcast, and let us know in the comments what you wanna hear from next.
So see you on the next pod. Thank you. Thank you.
Welcome to Event Therapy, the podcast that dives deep into the world of meetings and events. Whether you're a seasoned event planner or a supplier looking to enhance collaboration, we're here to explore topics that foster understanding and drive innovation. I'm Elizabeth, and I'm joined here with David and Liz. And today's topic is education. Why do you need it?
(00:01):
Well, today, we have Laurie Pugh, director of events, content, and strategic engagement for the Path to Purchase Institute. With 19 years of experience in meetings and events industry, Laurie is an award winning expert in strategic planning, event production, and speaker management. She owns Woven Path Consulting and an event consulting and facilitation business. We're excited to dive into her wealth of knowledge and insight. Welcome, Laurie.
Hi. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here today. We're so excited. And, you know, just kinda starting off, you know, I like to refer to you as the queen of education.
So we're excited to to get you here on our our podcast today. Well, I'm excited to be here, and I like the fact that we're recording all together. It adds a nice element to it. Absolutely. So let's, you know, talk about it.
Why is education important? Sure. So, you know, I I feel like over the course of my career, and, really, I think most, meaning professional careers, there's so many different paths that you can take, and the ability to have the option to choose which paths you may want to take given your seasonal life is is all about education. How can you pivot and learn, in one area of meeting and events and maybe move up to another, and education is really the way to do that. Absolutely.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I know you. She's the queen. I know. Well, you know, what about for those who maybe education isn't their main priority or goal?
How how can they incorporate it specifically when we're talking about the meetings and events industry? I think people have a preconceived notion of what education is. They think back to, you know, high school or maybe college where they absolutely hated, you know, going to school, and that's okay. But education could be in the form of podcasts, it could be webinars, it could be as simple as certificate courses. So there's really different types of education depending upon what type of modality you like.
I'm the kind of person who, yes, I can listen to podcasts, but I'm also a person that has to take notes to retain. So for me, I just kinda know how I like to learn and I bite sized education is what I prefer. You know, if I'm waiting for my daughter to finish volleyball and I know I have a hour, maybe there's something that I can tune into and read just during that time frame because we're we're all busy and we're just trying to fit it in. So you have to figure out what fits best in your life and what you really enjoy in terms of how you learn. Alright.
So keynotes and writing it down. I like it, and we were just talking about that. You know? Sometimes just writing it down helps seal it to that memory. Mhmm.
It's kinda funny because I'd like to know, were you listening in before you joined? Because us 2 just had a full on conversation about our college day. Oh. Like, I would work day all day over going back to school. But I do like education when it involves what we already do for a living.
Mhmm. So I think that you do have to look at a different life. You haven't dove into know, professional education, you know, that is much more exciting when it's relevant to what you're doing and how it can obviously grow your career and your network. And for me, peer to peer, education is my favorite type. Mhmm.
I know you do a lot of that Yeah. Leading those types of sessions. I think that can be so beneficial and and sort of what we're doing here with the podcast. So Yeah. Mhmm.
Peer to peer is my favorite because Absolutely. I mean, a lot of times, especially one of the reasons you may not have liked school in terms of college is they drone on and on and on, but most of them aren't practitioners. They aren't living it every day and they can't give real world examples of talking to people. Exactly. It's better when it's peer to peer and you could share what you learn, or my favorite thing is I love when people disagree about a topic.
That is the best thing to me. I don't want someone just to agree with everything I say. I want you to challenge, like, what the thought process is or maybe how, you know, you've seen something different. Let's do it. Let's do it here today.
That's what this whole podcast is about is, you know, we're not excited. Yeah. She did, like, yes. I get real geeked out. Trust me.
I love me a good healthy debate now. Don't get me wrong. Well, we're trying to have those healthy conversations when it comes to meetings and events. And, you know, I think if you bring up a lot of queens, especially peer to peer, I it's so valuable to me because that trust is there. You know, I'm going to trust your opinion a lot more than I am somebody I don't know.
So, and I think, you know, and us talking about, yeah, we didn't like the traditional, you know, university, you know, we did it, we got the degrees. Yay. But it's, it's what does that education look now? And I think so many people think it is that traditional format, and they don't realize that it has grown and evolved and expanded in so many different levels, and in so many different ways. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I mean, if you really think about all the organizations, the associations, even companies that do provide education, it's a business. And so they also have to be able to attract people, so they make their education or how they go about their educational formats more exciting because we don't necessarily have to be sitting in those classes or listening to those podcasts away. We're doing it because we're interested in the content. So I do feel like the education field is really adapted, and I even seen actually, I was on a call with the University of North Florida, and they're actually taking more practitioners for, teaching undergraduate level classes because they're finding that the students really want that, and they're they're engaging more in signing up for those different classes based instead of saying, okay.
I'm I have a doctor in x y z, but I've never taught in the field. So I I think you're seeing more and more of that more relevant context versus, okay, read this book and write me, you know, 10 page paper. I don't think that really suffices anymore. I love that. First off, that's where I graduated.
So Go, Oscar Ace, swoop. But I remember thinking that. I'd be sitting in my marketing class, and they're trying to teach me about hypothetically or this situation, you should do that. And I'd be like, oh, okay. So, you know, where did you oh, I've just been a professor my whole life.
And I'm like, and I'm taking advice from you. You've never done this. You're teaching me what somebody wrote in a book, but it's not practical. So again, I think it goes back to that trust. How can I trust what you're saying?
How can I know that that is the truth? Mhmm. Very true. Well, I think also sometimes, like, when you think about education, you think about this big grandiose thing of knowledge and, like, overwhelming thing. And to your point earlier, is sometimes it's just that one little small nugget that you get that can change the whole trajectory of what you're doing.
(00:22):
Mhmm. And, you know, so be being open minded to that kind of thing is is really cool. And then, you know, again, thinking about from the standpoint of learning from people who are doing. Like, I think back to when I was younger and, you know, we've all been there where you're sitting in in class and you're like, what does this old person know about my life? And what now and now some of us are those old people.
Right? Oh, shoot. Speak for yourself. Yeah. That's why I said some of us and pointed to myself.
Right? But but, I mean, you know, it's just interesting to to think about those 2 different perspectives. But, yeah, I mean, I think learning from people that are doing is is so incredible. And and it's good to hear that the education world does understand that and does give some credibility to that and and the value in in implementing that. Not not fully taking over, but implementing it.
Yeah. Absolutely. And complementing it because there's some things that are foundational in in education that they teach. And, actually, that that made me think of something else. I was reading an article, about the events industry council is completely redoing the CMP test.
Oh, thank goodness. Yes. And I think don't quote me on it, but I think it, like, comes out in a in a year or so. Yeah. And so I think, again, you're just seeing more organizations adapting because life has changed.
Hate to bring up COVID. You know, here we are 4 years later, but we're still talking about it. But, you know, the way our industry has changed, and also the way that we can find content anywhere to get education has changed, that they're adapting. And now what I'm really hoping, I'm excited to see what the new test looks like. I felt like when I took the test, it was very much you had to answer the way the book would answer.
That's how I felt. Right. And so I'm excited to see what they come out with. Yeah. No.
I mean, I thought there was a lot of really great nuggets in in in taking it, and there's so much value in having the designation. But I definitely felt the same way. You had to answer it exactly. And, you know, it it's those tests where it's like, well, they all could be correct. Which one is most correct?
Yeah. See, this is why I didn't love school. There you go. It's like, why trick me? What's the point of tricking me?
Right. No. Absolutely. Well, speaking with that, let's kind of switch gears a little bit to designations because, you know, while I call you the queen of education, I could also call you the queen of designations because, you know, I aspire to have so many letters at the end of my name like you do. You know, people like to joke with me.
They're like, really adding more letters? And to be honest with you, I I would say people ask me, like, why do you have all of these? Okay. 1, I work for an organization where they were free for me today. They were covered and paid for.
That's awesome. And if there's anyone out there whose companies pay for them or have professional development funds, if you're not taking it Mhmm. You're crazy. You're really passing up an opportunity. Absolutely.
You know, because I don't wanna say it's free money, but in a way it does because I tell you what, the candidate pool and job seeking right now is very difficult. And if there's anything that can help push you a little bit further than the other person's resume, it helps. I also like designations because it's shorter than going through a master's program, you know, and you can chunk in and bite size it, and then you can specialize in different areas that are important to you, versus, again, one of the reasons maybe you didn't like college, at least I wasn't crazy about my first two years, is because I was learning things that I was never going to use. Right? 1st 2 years.
Yes. Yes. It's like, you know, I don't wanna say I felt like I was taking underwater basket weaving sometimes in the classes. It was just not relevant. So that's what I like about designations.
I can hone in on one particular thing. For instance, I we talked about CMP really being a necessary what I call necessary evil, but I'm maybe not with the new test, is because there are a lot of jobs out there are looking for that. Yeah. And it's something you have to check off the list. Oftentimes, like, checking off that you have a college degree regardless if it's in English literature or, you know, whatever it may be in.
But then from there, I feel like for me, I took the CMN, the certificate in meeting management, because that was kind of moving up a level into managing people, which is something I'm really passionate about, so I felt like that helped in that area. Certified event designer. This is where I really felt like I cut my teeth on processes and theories in in creative design instead of just kind of open brainstorming. There's steps that you take. Right.
So I would say those are kind of the the main areas. Now what I have to remind people of, there's no designation or education or content that is going to be, wow, all of that was amazing. You have to take what resonates and pick what makes sense and, you know, you know, if you gave up, what, 6 hours to get a certificate or, you know, let's say here 40 hours of your time in a project, what's what's that in the grand scheme of things? Chances are you've taken 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 things away from it that you can apply. Absolutely.
And and I think I would agree, you know, CMP is kind of a norm in our industry. So, you know, I when it comes to recommendations, I would kind of, you know, tend to agree that CMP is probably where you wanna start. I know you and I have had some conversations about the CMM and, you know, it's definitely something I'm looking at as well and, and we're both CDs. So we have the opportunity to go there, but I know you even got to get your masters, which is, you know, I'm so torn because I I see the master's program, but I really want my MBA because I have a business degree. So I'm like, how do I decide?
I'm over here just saying I wanna play in the NBA, but I know those are totally different letters. Sorry. Those are not the same thing. You know? Okay.
So there's I'm gonna wear 2 different hats here. So I'm gonna wear my SDSU master's degree hat. One of the most amazing things about the program was meeting the other, the people in your cohort. Right? So it was, like, a really good networking opportunity, and you found people in the industry who were is driven about our industry and great connections.
And there were great things I took away from it. Okay. So that's my SDSU hat, Astec Proud. Now I'm gonna put on my other hat, my businesswoman hat, and saying, I do feel like, especially, not saying you would ever wanna leave this industry, but let's say you're taking a different route into c suite, sometimes that MBA does transfer over. So I think it it depends on where you wanna be in your career.
(00:43):
Mhmm. One of my long term goals, would I would love to be COO of a company because I love that organizational perspective. Oh, that's something new we're learning about you. Yes. Yes.
I just like the way things, like operations and project management and things of that nature. So that might would be if that's something you're interested in, that might lead you in a particular direction. But between the 2 of them, they still talk about, you know, p and l's and finances and EBITDA and all those high level things. For me, getting my master's was a no brainer because the company I worked for was paying for quite a big portion of it, and then the military was actually paying, for another portion of it. So when it all said and done, I think I'll only maybe be paid, like, 7 or $8,000.
So for me, that's a no brainer. Right. Everybody else has to decide their financial reasoning. I will tell you there's no perfect time to decide to go back to school and get your masters. Right.
There's no perfect time to decide to get a certificate, so you just you just sign up and, you know, deal with the consequences of signing up. Right. And then you just figure it out. You figure it out. That's how we do.
We figure it out after. I mean, you know, I know the CMP, CMM, CED, masters, they're all you know, they take a little bit of commitment and time. It's it's not a certificate course or something you can just say, oh, I'm gonna do this and complete this in a week. You know? They all take significant time.
So what are some ways that, you know, maybe somebody listening to this or thinking about it or, I don't know, David List, you know, maybe you are interested in but not quite sure you wanna step your toe quite in that yet, that people could get a little taste of the education. I know you touched on it a little bit with the certificates, but, just kind of getting that extra education. So I think one of the easiest ways is going to a conference. That's a great way to get education. There's great podcasts like this one that we have here that you can listen in the car.
That's one of the things is, you know, I have a teenage daughter, and she thinks she controls the radio. So, like, I have my own little ear pods in, listening to what I wanna listen to. You would also be shocked, you know, if you take out your phone and you look down and and it tells you how many hours you spent on your phone and scrolling things. Like, it's all it it would disgust me at the end of the week. I'm like, this is so bad.
How have I been on my phone for 8 hours of the day? Look at that now. Yeah. It's but if you think about that, if you are really mindful about something that's important in your life and you could say, alright. I'm gonna devote 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes at 5 o'clock or maybe at 8 o'clock to digest something that you're interested in, even if it's just reading industry magazine.
You have to be mindful and you have to, like, put it in your calendar. Otherwise, it's not gonna happen. And just think about how much time we kill flipping through Facebook for nothing. So you can make time if you want to, and it and and if you bite size things, then it you'll just be surprised how much you can accomplish instead of, oh, you know, thinking I gotta spend my whole Saturday doing 8 hours of education. No.
You don't have to do that. You're so right about the calendar. I mean, I I think you're like that, Liz. Like, I I have them on everything in my calendar. Yep.
No. I do the same thing. Like, I play every single thing I do within reason in in the let's think about that for a second, you know, on a calendar. And then I see. And then to to Laurie's point about, like, not getting on information overload too.
You know what I mean? Because that that's a that's a real thing too. Like, if if you're digesting all of this information, I I it was funny you said earlier about taking notes. Like, I really have to do that. I love going to a conference and knowing that they are recording it and they are giving us a I don't care if it's a video or it could just be audio.
It doesn't even have to be video, because I wanna be in the moment and digest, like, the most highest level things that resonate with me right there and then. But I also know there's gonna be so much other content there that I wanna be able to make notes of and then actually go through those notes and because it's one thing to just make notes and then put them away somewhere and you never do nothing with it. We've all done that. We've all been there. Guilty.
But, like, how how great is it, though, to be able to, like, you know, create this almost like this action plan of, like, here are the things that I think I can do, and then just go knock them off the list and then go to the next one and knock it off the list. And, I love your point about education. It doesn't have to be, like, the scholastic definition of education. It can be, you know, again, just reading a magazine and learning something that you didn't know you were, you know, 0 days old before you knew that kind of a thing. Mhmm.
Absolutely. And, again, not realizing somehow how we've gotten 19, 20 years of experience. I'm like, what? I'm still 24. How did that happen?
Right. But I you know, people always used to say when I started in the industry, oh, you know, the older, you know, I guess, what you would be boomer, they're scared to try technology. Right? There was this this misconception between younger generations and older regardless of of where we are now in that generation line. I think we also have to be mindful to try things that in education that really scare us.
Like, a lot of people are afraid of AI, and I'm totally geeking out on it right now because it's not as complicated and scary as it sounds. So I actually would challenge people to to either read or listen to a podcast on something that intimidates them, in the industry that that maybe younger generations are more familiar with. Like, I'm horrible at editing videos. Like, I don't know I don't know how to do boomerangs and, like, all those cute social media things my daughter does, so that that's on my list of things I wanna accomplish this fall is try to figure out how to do more stuff for my consulting business like that with the social media. So just try something new.
I recommend that. Absolutely. I I I love that. And when when did we get 19 years? I I I just had to somebody asked me for my my bio recently, and I had to, like, update the years.
Like, oh, it's 19 now. Like, you would think that would be a good thing, but it's like, ugh. I I remember I remember when my company turned 20 years old, and I was, like, bragging about it. Like, we're 20 years old. Then I was like, oh, wait a minute.
Maybe that's not the That means I run run a company for 20 years. Maybe in my industry, that's not the greatest thing to be touting out to the world because they're like, if your business is 20 years old, how old are you? Right? What are you talking? I'm aging backwards.
That's right. I love it. I love it. Oh, one thing I wanna say too, is I love I love this idea of, like, learning something. It doesn't require money.
(01:04):
Like, what you're talking about doesn't require money. You could just jump on YouTube or or anywhere and and get, you know, get some pointers and get that education. But it's putting you in that mindset of like, okay. Well, this is not so scary. And, like, okay.
Maybe maybe I could take the next step and go into something where, alright. Let me let me raise the stakes a little bit and put some money down on this thing now. But Now get a little piggy bank down the side. Taking taking those baby steps to to, like, just get into that mode. I love that idea.
It's all my I mean, if you think about any goal you set for yourself, it's all small, you know, milestones and you have to celebrate each one you complete. So, you know, what is that saying? Keep it simple stupid? It's like that's really Oh my gosh. I have worked somewhere and it was always they were always like, keep it simple statement or keep it simple smart.
Yeah. Yeah. The case method. Right. Just pick something small to do.
Read the magazine. I I, I'm the kind of person when I get up in the morning, I can't just, like, dive into doing a big project at work. I need to have coffee and kinda warm up like a Buick for about 30 minutes. And so maybe it's like, hey. I'm gonna actually read this email article that someone sent me about, you know, something in the industry.
So just figure out what works for you and how your brain works best. I mean, I have friends that, you know, they don't go to bed till 2 o'clock in the morning, and they do their best learning or work even sometimes between midnight and 2. So, yeah, I gotta figure out what works for you. Oh, I need to be in bed. I we were just talking.
I was like, yeah. We need our our our problems with our age are, you know, just getting our blood work done before, having coffee. You know, getting these tears of poop in here. Yikes. I'm really dating at our age.
That's right here. But you are going back to you. You also talked a little bit about AI, which, you know, It's so exciting, but also scary. Yeah. And I think it's exciting if it's used in the right way, but I think it's scary when you start to think about the big picture and, like, what all it could do.
But let's keep it light. Mhmm. Talk about the fun of it. You know, I know you have really spent a lot of time, and it's something that I, you know, I'm guilty of only using it like chat gpt. Hey.
Rewrite this, like, you know, paragraph for me or write the social caption. But I know there's so much more. So I'd love I I know this wasn't a a talking point in our conversation, but I I think it's important to maybe talk about some topics of education. And and I think AI is something that there's a lot of question marks still around. Absolutely.
And what people don't realize, like so there's AI, generative AI. I mean, we don't have to go into the weeds of that, but if you think about it, we've had AI for a long time. I mean, how long have you had an iPhone in which you lifted it up, but it saw your face and it opened? Yeah. That's AI.
Right. So, I think we just have to get kinda move that stigma down. For me, personally, I like to use it for some of the very basic things that a a a really good administrative assistant would do or, you know, proofing, yes, proofing an email, helping me come up with brainstorming ideas, like, hey. I wanna come up with a theme. Here are the important kind of topics that I want for this conference, and I wanna to come up with theming that really resonates based on these things.
It'll help generate ideas. I mean, I'm not the interesting a lot of people ask questions about copyright, which is a valid question, But anytime that you see something and then you put your own personal spin on it or tweak, then it then it really does change that copyright and becomes yours. So the the the idea isn't that you're just copying and pasting things. It's it's something to stimulate your brain and help you, you know, then you can go in and you can involve an idea. So, I also think that there's a lot of, I guess, time and energy we put into doing things that we would be much better fit to be doing something else for the organization for.
So what a person on my team, we basically think of it as a hosted buyer program. Right? Well, part of what she does during the off season and goes and looks at competitor conferences and pulls up potential sponsors, potential speakers, and potential speakers and potential brands that we want to come to our conferences. Well, now all you do is control c on the page and then put it into Chat gpt, even the free format now that since there's been an upgrade, and ask it to put it in a CSV file, which is essentially in Excel. So it takes all that work and puts it in Excel sheet for her, and that would have taken her 8 hours to do.
So especially for younger people on my team, I try to tell them to use their time doing something I can't, which is building relationships. So, you know, hey. You're new to the industry, and maybe you're in charge of organizing and putting things together for a board. Well, how about you do a little research on the board members? Right?
Maybe something interesting that they've, done, their company's done so that next time you see them or engage with them, they're like, hey. I I heard you guys have that new merger. That's very exciting. Or, hey. I heard you you know, got that promotion.
That's where we should be spending our time meeting in person, and just let AI be our assistant. Wait. I'm trying to think of this saying. Is it, trust but verify? That's what I think about AI.
It's like trust but verify. Use it to do all the work that isn't, you know, super critical and that's and then devote your time to that, but you do have to go back and check AI for sure. Well, we were all just together in a conference in Kentucky and ran into a friend of mine, Mitch, which was so crazy because everybody in the group ran into him before I did it. I didn't even know he was gonna be there. And, his company, Hive, is all about AI.
And I love that their whole bay basic premise is about maintaining humanity of AI. And I I don't know that this is really the way they say it. But to me, I look at it as like AI is designed to enhance you, not replace you if you allow it to. You know? And and, so I think to your point earlier, just by being able to utilize it to help your mind be a little more creative.
Because I think that there are certain areas of all of us can be creative in certain ways, but we can't be creative in every way. But being able to have a tool like that to help open up that creativity, You know? And and people have said it all along. At this day and age and and the year what are we in? 2024 now?
I don't even know. We're in 2024. Here we go. Yeah. There's there's almost nothing new now, like, other than technology.
(01:25):
But, the the chances of somebody else already thinking or talking about a topic or coming up with a topic or speaking to a topic that you would like to has already happened 1000000 times over. And so as long like you said earlier, as long as you're not, like, a 100% verbatim just plagiarizing these people, it's okay to utilize the technology to to get that, to stimulate those ideas and see where it takes you. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the same person I talked to at UNF who, is now a dean there, I asked her the question of how is AI just changing the whole landscape of education?
Because, you know, how do you know they're not using AI? And and so what was interesting is she said there's a couple different modalities of thought on it is getting people in a room and making them write a paper in person, like the old school where you come and you get a paper and you get there's a timer. But she's like, who wants to do that? Again, education has to be interesting for people to actually attend these days. Right?
So she said it was like, how about you use AI to let you come up with a really interesting thought or concept, and then you do something physically to bring that concept to life. Mhmm. And I've and talking about education, you don't retain everything you just read in a book. If you can't apply what you're learning in either, an example of this is how it would apply to you or take what you learned and create something, you're not gonna remember it. And so I I think this helps us, move into something much bigger to where we're creating instead of just listening and retaining.
And another reason why we didn't like school is this memorization for what? Memorization for what? Yeah. You know? Just to be able to take a test and be able to prove that you remembered all the capitals of the 50 states.
Immediately. Yeah. And then you're, like, it's gone. Drained. It's gone.
It's gone. Yeah. Well, actually, I know somebody else in, education, at the university level, and they were saying that some of the schools actually use a software program now. Mhmm. So they can actually put your paper or whatever in it, and it will tell them if it was written by AI, which I was like, okay.
So another AI software to read. It is AI. But, you know, you bring up some great points because I think at the end of the day, you've got to look at your value and how much, you know, you're worth. How much is an hour of your time worth? Is it better suited, you know, really perfecting this one paragraph?
Or can you you lean on AI a little bit to to let you help you out with that? So Can I touch on that for just a sec? Because I I think that that really takes me down there this rabbit hole of thought process. And I'll try not to go too long on this. But, this whole concept about you mentioned that, you know, oh, there's this software to say whether AI wrote this, this, that, and the other thing.
But it's almost like, but does that matter? Like, if that freed up your time to do something more important than to just check a box of, like, I did this paper assignment or whatever. If it opened your mind to think a different way, if it gave you an extra hour to spend with your family, if it gave you, like, something that's more important to your life than just banging out things on a keyboard, there's a lot of value to that really. And I I don't know. I really, to some extent, feel like opening our thought process up to that kind of idea because I I think about this all the time when it comes to, like, the workday and the work week and all that stuff.
And, like, you you think about people that go to their jobs, for example, in corporate America, which by the way, I've never worked in. So I'm only speaking from what people told me. I've never ever worked at a corporate job. But imagine you go to work for 8 hours because why do you do that? Because if you wanna make the money you wanna make, you gotta be under lock and key at that place for the 8 hours.
Right? But if you're only doing if you're doing 5 hours of work and the other 3 hours you're gossiping in the office and you're going to the bathroom and you're taking, like, I'm not a smoker, but I'm gonna take a 15 minute smoke break anyways and stuff like that. Like, doesn't it make sense to just give you those 3 hours back so you can use them for something more productive and use them for something more meaningful in your life? So I feel like AI allows the potential and opportunity to do that, but we have to be willing to be okay with that. We have to be willing to let go of some of the conventional thinking of how life is supposed to be.
Oh, a 100%. You brought up some topics that you almost made me wanna go down a rabbit hole of why I like remote working. Yeah. Exactly. Same.
I'll be honest. Yes. I mean, talk about hours back. But I, I I think, you know, one of the key things I heard you say, Laurie, is AI's been around for a really long time. And I think a lot of people don't think about that or realize that.
I mean, that's why you see the, you know, TikToks of women picking up their phones, whispering in their husband's phone, like spa, Louis Vuitton. Like, what do you think you're talking to? Right. AI. Yeah.
How is it magically every time you go to your phone, there's ads on stuff you were just talking about 5 minutes ago? It's so true. And now given what I do at my day job at a media company, our content is basically how consumers like us buy products at a grocery store. And now I would just was at a conference last week. They're talking about, okay, now they can track what you looked at online, and then it'll serve up an ad on your TV when you're watching it.
So it's like double hitting Oh, it happens all the time. And I'll be like, what's crazy. It's it's crazy to think of, but I we just gotta we have to embrace it with our eyes open. Yes. Cautiously with our eyes open.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. No.
For sure. I I think it's it's all great points, and I know that was a little bit of a a different topic. And I feel like we could have a whole another topic on it, but, you know, I think it it's healthy discussion. So, really kind of wanting to go back to something, you know, we've talked about designations and why education is important. But what steps would you recommend to somebody who's just starting out in the industry?
We're seeing so many new planners and suppliers coming along that, you know, they like, where should they go? Where should they look and act, you know, as they wanna grow and better their career? So definitely professional associations is the place to start because unless you're surrounding yourself with a group of like minded individuals, it's hard to stay motivated. I mean Right. Really think about a workout plan.
If I don't if I'm not held accountable by somebody else or somebody that motivates me, I'm not gonna do it, which is exactly why I haven't exercised in probably seven and a half months. So, right now, I'm just the exact timing too. Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, that being said, that's find yourself a a in industry home, so you can meet people in person, and, you know, they'll send you email reminders, things like that, putting it putting small things on your calendar.
I think having a mentor is important. Think about where you want to be in the next phase of your career, because I can tell you when I started out 19 years ago, I if, you know, if I could look in the future, this is not what I thought I would be doing. Like, I'm kind of shocked I am where I am, but I also think that's one of the great things about our industry. I've worked at a hotel. I've worked at a production company.
(01:46):
I've I've worked in association. I've worked kind of in the government side, all within that hospitality and events and and industry umbrella. But I think it's really served me well because there are times where I was I was a single mom and it was like, hello, I can no longer work the production hours of 80 hours a week and nights and weekends, but I could still stay within my community. So I think, look, finding somebody that has an interesting career trajectory. And people get scared to mentor.
Do I have to meet with them every Tuesday from 11 to noon? No. It doesn't need to be that serious. It's like, hey. Can we sit down for coffee or can I buy you a drink?
It could be periodically. Shoot them my text. Shoot them my text. What would you do in this situation? I actually have a a really good relationship with Melissa, out of the South Florida chapter, and sometimes we'll just ping each other and say MPI?
Yes. Yeah. And and we'll just ping each other. Thank you. Like people like everyone knows what the South Florida chapter is.
MPI, South Florida chapter. Meeting professionals in a world. Yeah. Yeah. And even when it comes an association of many.
Exactly. You could. Exactly. And, you know, she'll say, what do you think I should do with this situation? And it's funny because I'll give her advice, and I'll be like, wow.
Why am I not taking my own advice? Right? I I say that all the time, especially to Liz. I'm like, why am I so good at giving it but never taking it? It's so true.
And then she'll give me advice and you know? So, it could be very simple and impromptu when you need it. Yeah. I think that's where you can start and really you know, not everything also has to cost you money as well, so just subscribe. There's 18,000,000 different ways to get content, especially now coming out, again, as I mentioned, of of COVID.
So just Google search. See what pops up. Search or or hashtag Instagram search. Yeah. I hear that a lot.
Or, oh my goodness. There's so many free podcasts out there like this. Mhmm. Well, you know what's interesting too is, like, we're we're also faced with this whole hustle culture thing. Right?
But if you take the combination of hustle culture and the amount of burnout of new people and really analyze why that's happening, again, my own hypothesis is that they're not pursuing a mentor. They're not pursuing somebody that can help them avoid some of those pitfalls and avoid some of those things that are gonna create burnout because you've got this other group of people on social media or wherever you're getting it from telling you, oh, you can just go do your own thing. You can go from, you know, ground level to CEO overnight. All you gotta do is do this. And and there are so many steps missed in that process.
And and I and I do kinda understand the selling of the dream and believing in yourself and those kind of things, but you can get that from a mentor too. Right? They're gonna give you those things too, but they're also gonna give you the reality. This goes back to what we said earlier about the the the, the, excuse me, the professors who all they've ever done is taught all their life. They've never done it in practicality.
Well, that's what hustle culture is doing. Hustle culture is telling you all the things that you need to be told, but they've never done it before in what you're trying to do. So having a mentor, having somebody that can who's been there, that can help you avoid those pitfalls and streamline some of that process. I love that you said that. One thing that I wish there was more training on.
So, I, again, worked at a hotel for a very brief period of time. Did not like it. Wasn't for me. Liz, I know you work. Not us.
You work at a hotel and you rock it. Like she owns a hotel. Well, okay. Maybe not yet. Like that.
No. She may win then. She loves it. She own one one day. I love the hotel.
That's the kind that you do. Yeah. Well, here's the thing, though. I do have said to me, though, when I went to school for hospitality management. I I went to hospitality school saying, but I'm never gonna work in a hotel.
That's not what I want. I wanna be a meeting planner. And now I think just from surrounding myself with other people and educating myself through my peer resources, I don't think that that is something that I wanna do. I do. Me all the time.
I never wanna be a planner. Yeah. So much. You're like, I love my hotel. Thanks.
Yeah. I know. I do. I love this business, and I think that I did I wouldn't imagine myself here either. So You know, what is what I think is interesting, and I heard this a lot when I worked, at MPI headquarters, was the the sometimes lack of education for suppliers on the hotel side.
So I would love to get your opinion on this because I don't have my pulse on this. Although both my parents were in sales at one point, and they used to get always get so frustrated when they're, you know, they've been 30 years in sales, and then they have some kind of sales training and it pops in a 24 year old trying to teach them how to sell things. So, that being said, I'm kinda curious to hear from you though about education for sales professionals because I feel like that is something that is lacking in the meeting and events industry. Yeah. I think, like, through the professional organization.
(02:07):
Exactly. Well, I think it's I what I would say about that, because there is sales training that you can get, you know, through our company. You know, if you work for a brand, there there's sales training there. I agree with you. I think that what my biggest takeaway in being a part of a membership organization in our industry is just understanding what you do better as a meeting planner.
Like, I know that I am a better salesperson because I really understand my clients and what you're going through. And so even when I'm learning or collaborating with somebody else that doesn't do exactly what I do, hearing about their struggles or kinda what they're going through or or even seeing how they're being taught, you know, or educated, I guess, I should say, helps me, I think, better understand how to do my job. Mhmm. So I I've tried to use that as the education that I get. But yeah.
No. I think, you know, there could be some more, education to that, for sure. But I think you there's ways of finding, you know, learning something in any situation. I see a lot of, well, I guess, in my thinking of my day job, so what we call solution providers or suppliers, what have you. I see a lot more of them getting their CMPs, and I kinda find that interesting, and I did ask somebody who was in a transportation company getting a CMP, and I was like, okay.
And he said the same thing. It was to learn what the issues were, but then also, like, networking within that particular, like, study groups and things like that. Mhmm. But that's a good point. I guess, you know, you don't know what you don't know.
I I think too about just back on designations. I think one of the aside from getting a job and and educating yourself more, I know as a hotelier, when I see CMP on somebody's, you know, signature line because we do work with all kinds of people, not necessarily meeting professionals. They could be marketing professionals. They could be executive assistants, but anybody who has that designation. I just think it gives you that leg up in the conversation and the negotiation.
Like, I know that I've been working with somebody that this is their profession. So I think it helps in those situations as well. Oh. So you're saying you respect me more for my designation. About just letting you know yourself.
Oh, you just don't Oh, well, I can tell you it goes 2 ways. Because when I'm looking at, a supplier or especially mainly more with, like, CVBs and VCBs, I do look out for the designation. And if I see it, that's who I reach out to, because I'm like, they get it. Designation. And if I see it, that's who I reach out to because I'm like, they get it.
Yeah. Like, they understand it. So, you know, I think it can go kind of go both ways in that front. But I will say you you bring up some great points about wanting like, suppliers wanting to know more from planners than I know, kind of speaking of MPI a little bit more. Our own local chapter, we've been trying to do a lot more conversations where it's more of, like, you know, breakout tables and where we can have those natural conversations and those difficult conversations, but in a safe space about contract negotiations and, you know, project management and, you know, suppliers can hear from planners.
And I think the more that we're able to have those healthy conversations, you know, the better we can work together for events. So, I do real quickly want us each to go around and say, what is some of the best education you've seen? You gotta limit it to 1 now. Oh, man. Throwing it out there on y'all.
It can be a type of education. Something Lori did. So oh, yeah. Definitely. Definitely, all my classes were excellent.
Your all your women in leadership and Yeah. Yeah. Let's see here. Oh, gosh. Some of the best education.
That is a lot you know, I actually think that sometimes, this could be a very broad answer, sometimes the best education you get are in industries that are not your own industry. So what can you learn from the realm of, like Yeah. So in in my day job, a lot of the attendees are essentially marketers, shopper marketers, and they always talk about personalization. And and as events industry, we've talked about personalization personalization as well, but that's more like, oh, let's personalize sometimes the pillows or let's personalize, I don't know, something else. But I think some of the other things that I've learned is our industry has a long way to go in terms of the technology we use and and and personalization from everything from registration to their agendas.
And and so and, anyways, long story short, the the reason I like it is because I go to the conferences about that, and I always pick up a nugget of something that I could use to personalize an event or education a little bit more. So that would be my advice. Yeah. Education a little bit more. So that would be my advice.
I love that. I love that. It can be subject matter. Doesn't have to be, like, anything in particular for me. I would it's actually a Lori Pugh thing.
And then I'm not just because you're sitting next to me, but, truly, you host a session on crowdsourcing, and I do love that. I love I'm a peer to peer learner, so you crowdsourcing, you brought the entire audience together to decide who was the expert on the topic. We developed topics within the room, and then whoever lined up in the line and felt like they were the expert, you know, those top 4 people are now on a panel, and you have opportunities to ask questions. And I just feel like it engaged everyone. If you wanted to talk about something, you had an opportunity to put a topic forward.
If you wanted to be involved in offering some insight, you know, you could do that. If you want to learn, there were many opportunities to learn. So I I think that was great. I thought that was very unique, and I think that was kind of a creative way to do some peer to peer. Just facilitation is my favorite because, I mean, there's so much collective wisdom in a room.
Even wisdom outside of how many years in the industry you have, just diversity of thought, diversity of experience. So facilitate facilitation I think is some of the best way to to get content and education. I would agree. Yeah. I would agree with that.
I mean, I I've been on the attending and presenting or being a speaker side of this situation. And, like, I can think of a lot of times where, like, I've gotten up on stage and and as you're getting up on stage to give this presentation that you've spent, like, 5 hours or 5 minutes preparing, and you're like, do these guys even or do these folks even care about what I'm talking about? Like, you wanna believe if they came to your session, they do. But still at the end of the day, like, I I I I I say that I agree with both of y'all, but I do have my own as well. But but I I do agree that being able to have the room kind of take the conversation where it needs to go Yeah.
And then Being flexible. Then being able to be okay with, like, putting your ego aside for a second and saying, okay. Well, I know that I'm this I'm this person on stage right now, but if there's if there's a topic of conversation in the room that can can really help this room, but there's somebody else in this room that maybe has a more experience, more understanding, more knowledge, more something than I do, embracing that and and letting them come into being a part of what you're doing, I think, is such a great concept. So I I agree with with with what you said there. My answer would be, believe it or not, a mastermind group that I'm a part of.
And and that has really changed my life, professionally because it's it's inter it's interesting to look at one perspective of and this is the perspective that a lot of us have been guilty of, is looking at somebody something that somebody is doing that you deem better more than you and being jealous of it. And we've all been there. And then I was introduced to this perspective of instead of being jealous of it, understand that that means that that it can be done at that level. So where you might not be at that level yet, you now have a contact. You now have somebody who has done it at that level that you can connect with and figure out, okay, what steps am I missing to get to that level?
Whereas you may not have had that if you continue with this jealous, oh, they're, you know, they had, they got better genes or they got more money or they got this or they got that. Doesn't matter. But it shows you that it can be done. And I love that. Absolutely.
(02:28):
No. That's so great. And, you know, I would say my favorite is this podcast. No. I'm joking.
I I I I like anything interactive. So interactive, really getting the, crowd audience engaged, that could be from breakouts, small groups, to just full on having everybody stand up and close your mind and visualization. I I just think that, you know, is more engaging to me just than listening to somebody talk at me. But, well, I I feel like, Laurie, we're gonna have to have you back for, like, a part 2 and a part 3. I mean, I've got AI.
We didn't even get to talk about speakers, so we're gonna need a whole another session on speakers. So get ready. Threaten me with a good time. Getting me out of my office. I'm in.
I'm in. Sounds good. Well, I do wanna end it with, you know, giving you the opportunity to kinda share your best piece of advice to, meeting an event professionals. It doesn't have to be about anything we've talked about today. It can be anything related to the industry.
If you could just leave with one piece of advice, what would it be? If you get an opportunity, you take it. Yeah. Don't worry if you're not a 100% qualified. You don't know how to do a 100% of the things.
If you've gotten this far in this industry, you'll figure it out. So, opportunity knocks, answer it, and work hard. I love that so much. That is I mean, especially as somebody who's who's just venturing out on their own, I keep telling everybody, I'm saying yes to everything. Yeah.
Saying yes till I can't say yes anymore because there's just no hours. Yeah. So I love that. I think that's a great piece of advice. Well, what I've always been doing is I I try and take little notes and tidbits down, through our conversation.
So just to recap some of the the key things from today was, you know, obviously, you know, use AI as a way to farm your, you know, work too. Always saying yes. Keynotes, you know, take them down. Write them down. It it will help with you retaining and remembering and and making sure you reflect back on those.
Something that I know a lot of us do is is putting notes in our calendar to to work on different tasks. So why don't we do that for education? Right. And, you know, like you said, even if it is that, you know, 30 minutes in the evening, I you know, even if your parent get the kids to bed, you know, and and then take 30 minutes to to really bet on yourself. I I've been seeing that a lot too lately.
Bet on yourself. That's what I'm all about. I like it a lot. Build relationships, trust but verify when it comes to AI. I wrote down the convert to Excel because I did not know that Laurie, I will be using it, and getting a mentor.
Don't be scared of it. So I think it's so many great takeaways and little nuggets of tidbits, and we just love being around you and having you a part of our podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today, and and thank everyone to for listening to Event Therapy. We're always learning. So follow us on Instagram at Event Therapy Podcast, and let us know in the comments what you wanna hear from next.
So see you on the next pod. Thank you. Thank you.
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