THE AGE-OLD STORY
WE’VE all been there. Pulled out all the stops to meet a client’s deadline and then waited… and waited… and waited. The word ‘urgent’ is probably one of the most misused in the English language. Everything seems to be urgent - particularly when someone wants something - but it’s rarely reflected in the responses that are forthcoming.
Sometimes there are no responses! I can recall, in the dim and distant past, that prospective clients would actually write (no email in those days) or sometimes even telephone and tell you if an application wasn’t successful. Nowadays it seems that the art of communication has been irreparably damaged if not lost altogether.
And yet communication is the very essence of what PCOs and Incentive Practitioners do, or should do.
Today software exists in both the meetings and incentives industries to alleviate any communication problems. Whether it’s cloudbased or stand-alone software a lot of what the modern-day PCO or Incentive Practitioner has to do can be done almost at the touch of a button. This should leave plenty of time for creative and innovative thought about the project but does it happen?
How do we make conferences more effective and innovative in terms of the design of these events? Ed Bernacki, an innovations expert, suggests we do this by redefining what we do and how we do it. “From a perspective of results and innovation, the most practical definition is that people learn new things at a conference, convert these into ideas for their future success, and then act on these ideas after the event. This is a challenging definition as it forces a major rethink
of all elements of the design of a conference”.
Ed goes on to say “This leads to many ideas for the design of a conference that focus on the experience people would have at a conference. However this is not enough to prompt action after a conference. For this reason, our thinking must focus on the relationship people have before the event and after the event”.
When a client is asked to define the learning objectives of the event the most usual response is to provide details of a theme. But a theme is not an objective. The process for designing more effective conferences starts by recognising that all events have two different planning priorities: a logistics strategy, includes the planning details to host the event, and a learning strategy that defines why the event is being held, what results are crucial for participants, and how they will be achieved.
Incentives require much the same process but this is usually more clearly defined, particularly in the case of sales incentive programmes where the objective is often defined in terms of monetary or percentage increases.
The communication between parties to a sales pitch or an RFP surely must contain an element of trust - trust that the word ‘urgent’ truly means ‘requiring immediate action’ and trust that if a proposal, application or whatever else is being solicited does not meet the requirements then the submitting person or company is advised of it.