This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.
Name: Annette M. Suriani
Company Name: AMS Meetings Solutions
Job Title: Chief Events Strategist
Years of Experience: 25
How were you able to adapt during COVID-19 when the meeting and events industry got disrupted?
I took this opportunity to "reskill". I earned a new certification in digital events as well as becoming a certified faith-based meeting planner. I wanted to show my clients my commitment to them by staying on top of trends. Additionally I participated in a lot of virtual classes on the pandemic including classes offered by FEMA. As planners we are always responsible for mitigating risk in many areas so I felt the FEMA classes would provide me with new risk management strategies.
As a planner, what was the number one thing you learned over the past year?
Ours is not just an industry - it is a community that needs one another. I started a weekly happy hour for meeting planners that then opened up to suppliers. It was a safe place to go to discuss our fears, concerns, share our accomplishments and basically just be there for one another. It was almost like a weekly therapy session that then morphed into an education session. We scheduled speakers and had demos on the latest virtual platforms. It just ended in May but we plan on doing it quarterly.
Is there anything you are changing in your planning process moving forward as a result of the pandemic?
Besides having an iron clad force majeure clause, I think we need to continue to educate our clients that we need to offer participants various ways to learn simultaneously through hybrid events. Virtual isn't going away. We need to embrace it and make sure we build a digital strategy into our planning process.
This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.