It isn't easy to be a planner. Planning involves creating, setting up and inventing. Planning involves preparing for exigencies too. A planner can't afford to be narrow-minded or to live in a small world. A planner has to take a wide-spectrum view of things. He or she has to be clairvoyant to a certain extent, has to be a good guesser. Strangely, a planner should possess contradicting qualities. While he or she has to possess good administrative capabilities and have his or her feet planted firmly on the ground, it is also required for him or her to be a dreamer. Unless a planner can dream, he or she won't be able to be a visionary. And unless he or she's a visionary, he or she won't be able to look into the future. A planner has to be ambitious, has to know his or her goals, has to know where he or she wants to go. If a planner is working for a company, then they have to know where they want to take the company and the approximate time that they'll take to get there. A planner is an architect, a builder, a prime mover.
A conference planner needn't always be a human being. A meeting planner can be a manual, a guidebook or even a software. Many people prefer 'inanimate' planners over human planners. They say that inanimate, non-living planners are better at planning, make lesser errors because of the very fact that they aren't human, and help to mechanize the entire planning process. But others say that they only stereotype the planning process. They say that 'non-human' planners follow a fixed pattern of task-setting, aren't flexible and cannot deal with many aspects of planning, precisely because of the fact that they aren't human. As the number of people who are for the motion, 'a meeting planner should always be a human being' equate the number of people who are against the motion, let's delve deeper into the issue to find out who can be the best event planner.
Conference Planner
The conference planners of a company are either 'internal' people who are chosen for the job of conference planning by their seniors or 'external' event managers recruited specially for managing the conference event.
An external conference planner always charges a huge sum for the event management process because the external conference planner uses their expertise for the process of event management. An external conference planner may also be a certified meeting planner. Companies select only those external conference planners who have proven track records in conference management. But the problem with an external conference planner is that while they have a flair and finesse for expert conference management, they are not aware of the company's goals and other company nitty-gritty. As a result, they may help a company to host a grand event, but can do little in making the event productive and everlasting. Hence, company seniors often use the services of an external conference planner when hosting trade shows for the public or hosting a promotional, events that are linked to the company's goals, indirectly. Where conferences focus directly on company goals, bottom-lines, targets, strengths, and weaknesses, company seniors prefer assigning the conference planning task to insiders, who can align the conference management process to the short and long term goals of the company, better.
Duties of a Conference Planner
Conference planning is a complicated task. A conference planner has to be meticulous and precise. A conference planner has to have an insight into the future. While a conference planner should always be optimistic, he or she has to be somewhat pessimistic too, and prepare carefully for unforeseen events and last-minute emergencies. A conference planner has to keep the budget in mind while planning events. It's no point hosting grand events that overshoot the conference budget. A conference planner needs to have an accurate intuitive sense, especially about figures, because it's a total waste if a banquet has been organized for a large gathering and only a few people turn up.
A conference planner has to ensure that:
• a comprehensive meeting agenda for the conference has been set down, which addresses all the important requirements and goals of the company.
• a suitable time and date for the conference has been selected. Conference scheduling is a tricky business and has to be done with much deliberation.
• conference minutes and summaries will be recorded properly
• a suitable conference venue has been selected where the conference may be hosted.
• the seating arrangements are in order and according to company hierarchy
• the conference hall acoustics are in order
• all conference equipment including audiovisual equipment are present in the conference room and are working properly
• invitations have been sent, well in advance, to attendees and participants
• final confirmations about how many people are attending have been made
• conference kits and stationery are prepared so that they can be given to the key attendees
• the catering service selected for the event is reliable and the caterers don't fail to turn up. The menu and the amount of food to be prepared also have to be mentioned by the conference planner to the caterers, in advance, after the final estimated head count.
• rehearsals of the conference are conducted several times before the day of the actual conference so that the presenters know who will speak after whom and so that there are no botch-ups in front of the conference audience on the actual day
• the cost of hosting the entire event is within the budget allotted for the conference
• nothing stops or stands in the way of the conference.
• post-conference evaluation is executed properly
Conference Agenda
The agenda for a meeting or event has to be drawn up with painstaking effort. The agenda generally includes several topics for discussion. A planner has to be mature enough to gauge which topics should be incorporated in the agenda and which topics should be left out. A planner should do some brainstorming before delineating the final agenda or else he or she might come up with an agenda that focuses on less important topics, that leaves out topics requiring immediate and great attention, and that sets the stage for an unproductive meeting which is a perfect waste of everybody's time. It is imperative that the planner makes arrangements for obstructions and hurdles that might surface at the eleventh hour or otherwise the entire plan, meeting and event may collapse like a house of cards. A conference planner must always ensure that the agenda comprises topics that address relevant issues pertaining to the company and the discussion of which, will ultimately help in increasing company profits and employee productivity and improving the overall prospects of the company.
Meeting Minutes
A meeting planner should also assign the task of recording meeting minutes to someone responsible. He or she should inform the concerned person in advance so that the proceedings of the meeting are properly recorded. This is essential as people, in general, have short memories and might not be able to recall what passed at the meeting, a few days after the meeting's over.
Post Mortem
A conference planner should also perform a detailed review of the meeting after it is over. This post-conference review is required to ascertain whether or not the event was well conducted, whether or not the discussions were productive, whether or not the event made an impression and a mark on everyone, and whether or not the event will actually be instrumental for the achievement of company goals.
Who or What Can Qualify as a Conference Planner?
It is evident that there is practically no end to the duties and responsibilities of a planner. A planner has to shoulder the entire burden of an event, of devising strategies, and the consequences of his or her own plans, which might be successful or which might backfire. A planner should not make any faux pas. As there is a lot of risk involved in planning, few people wish to be planners. If the plan goes off well, then they receive heaps of praises but if something goes amiss, and the event is a disaster, then the entire onus falls on the planners and they're under fire. Many, therefore, feel that planning requires training. Those with degrees in event management or those who are certified meeting planners are hence often chosen as planners, over others. But professional event managers and smart certified meeting planners also fail sometimes. For a planner, a degree is not a sufficient guarantor.
So, many companies make use of planning guides and software for effective planning before events. As has been mentioned earlier, these too have their faults, the main fault being that they can't warranty excellent planning precisely because of the fact that they aren't human. They automate the planning process but cannot think creatively and prepare for last-minute snags. They're incapable of adapting themselves to new and unusual situations. Some of them are rather expensive to purchase and use. As most of them don't fulfill the basic as well as the specific needs of organizations, company managers get fed up of using them and give up on them after some time.
So what to do?
Valid question. If a planner has to surmount so many complexities, who or what can be the ideal and reliable planner? What is the solution to this problematic question? Is there any solution at all or should people be resigned to the fact that planning in advance will always be fraught with risks and dangers? We answer in the negative. Planning ahead of times needn't be such a headache or such a hazardous operation. Because there is one kind of planner in the whole world, just one kind of planner, that is completely trustworthy and fail-safe. This particular type of high-end planner is capable of generating foolproof plans for you and your company. It is a personal planner as well as a corporate planner that can plan for generic tasks as well as for specific and explicit tasks. It is a planner that is capable of offering customized and end-to-end solutions to the meeting management and the business management processes. This particular sort of planner has a massive storage capacity and can store oceans of data in it and allows you to retrieve data from it, in seconds. It is a planner that can help you to network professionally through its platform sans any glitches. It is a planner that functions as a meeting scheduler, meeting planner, business planner as well as an online organizer. It is a planner that can help you frame meeting agenda, wisely; think with originality; plan for crises in advance so that they don't wreck all conference plans when they arise; and spearhead the conference and business management processes. It is the only kind of online planner that can make you an able leader, that can help you to lead from the front, so that you're always part of the vanguard, wherever you are. It is a sort of planner that can transform you into a path-breaker, a trailblazer. What is more, it is a planner that offers all these services and more to you, free of cost. Yes, it is a planner that doesn't charge anything from you while helping you to plan because its only aim is to serve you well.
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