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: Vince L. Rodriguez
Company Name: NRECA
Job Title: Director, Member Meetings & Conferences
Years of Experience: 30+
How were you able to overcome the challenges that Covid brought to our meetings and events industry?
Like most of the industry, my staff and I had to quickly pivot from all in-person conferences and meetings to online/virtual ones. Early in the pandemic, we relied and collaborated on the expertise our audiovisual partner brought to the table since we, as an association, were just beginning to tip our toes in the online/virtual space prior to March 2020. My staff and colleagues researched and read everything we could possibly get our hands on about best practices for developing and convening online/virtual conferences. We also participated in a plethora of presentations and workshops provided by numerous vendors. Additionally, three of us immediately pursued and were certified as Digital Event Strategists through PCMA, which gave us a greater understanding and confidence of what we were doing. Finally, we were fortunate to have purchased event insurance in 2019 that covered pandemics for our 2020 conferences and meetings. We never thought we would have much use for it but it helped our bottom line significantly.
As a planner, what was the number one thing you learned over the past years?
The number one thing I learned over the past years was how willing and able our entire staff - conferences and meeting team, the executive office, finance colleagues, and subject matter experts in the various departments throughout the association - were to do whatever we needed to do to provide our members with the high-quality education and programs that they are used to receiving from their trade association. The speed at which our conference and meeting professionals rose to the challenge of learning and implementing new ways of providing content to our members was truly admirable. In a typical year, NRECA convenes between 17 and 18 national conferences and meetings. We only cancelled two in 2020. All others were convened in a virtual/online or other format.
Is there anything you are changing in your planning process moving forward as a result of the pandemic?
The question of whether or not to incorporate an online/virtual component to our conferences and meetings is now a standard question that we address at the beginning of the planning cycle for all of our programs. If the answer is yes, then what does that look like? Is the conference/meeting going to be completely live streamed? Selected content recorded for on-demand use by the participants later? A combination of both? Factors helping us answer these questions are the goals and objectives of the program, and the ability to accomplish them virtually. Can we provide a good learning and engaging experience for our online participants as well as we do for our in-person participants? Is it possible to do so? Our members are in rural parts of the country and access to high speed Internet and broadband are still significant challenges for many of them. Conversations with our online/virtual vendor partners are happening much earlier now than before the pandemic.
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.