By Diana Rowe
It can be draining just to think about all the challenges faced by meeting professionals: Stay focused and budget-conscious, negotiate contracts, juggle vendors and schedules, hit multiple, impossible timelines, look after attendee management, deliver on business objectives with each project, measure ROI — and then muster the creative energy necessary to keep programs fresh and new.
When the sheer weight of the logistics threatens to break every creative bone in your body, what’s the secret to keeping those juices flowing?
“Slow down,” is the advice given by Steve Prentice, president of Bristall Morgan Inc. “In today’s high-speed environment, the best way to manage your creative processes is to pause and rest. This might be an unconventional approach in the business world, but the creative brain works best when given the chance to slow down.” With offices in Toronto and New York, Bristall Morgan is a corporate education firm dedicated to establishing observable positive change in corporate behavior.
Strategic plans, operational plans and other planning tools assist meeting professionals in affirming and revitalizing their mandate and envisioning their future while keeping on track with their day-to-day activities. 
For some organizations, the greatest knowledge is garnered in the planning process itself, while others benefit from plans to enhance and support ongoing management and administration.
According to Prentice, “Planners are so busy moving from one meeting to the next, contacting vendors, checking e-mails and messages, or trying to come up with creative solutions to motivate attendees that we never get the chance to think through a deeper level. The brain is like a sponge. When you compress the sponge, it becomes a small tight thing, but when you release it, the sponge re-expands to its full size. If you spend just 15 minutes away from your desk not thinking about problems or issues of the day, the brain will come up with solutions, as soon as the grip is relaxed.
Managing The Creative Process
“Foremost, a meeting professional should recognize,” said Prentice, “that their single greatest tool is behind the eyes — the brain. How many times do we enter an elevator and pull out our cell phone to check messages? I challenge you instead to allot that time to standing quietly and staring at your shoes. Let the brain re-expand and deal with the issues, instead of putting yourself into overloaded stress while checking more off your to-do list.
“The second way to manage your creative processes is to maximize communication,” suggested Prentice. “We aren’t built to work away feverishly for 16 hours a day without a break. Something’s going to give. How about influencing through the art of communication? No planner is an island. We all need help to create a successful meeting department. The art of influence is not a spontaneous act. We have to know who we’re talking to and how best to connect with that person on numerous levels: emotionally and professionally, team member and individual. The higher level of empowerment we can instill in our team, the higher level of success we will achieve in our meetings or events. This happens when we give ourselves enough time to think through, instead of running at full pace.”
Communicating also means planners should step back and negotiate better alternatives than ASAP, suggested Prentice. “Ask yourself how can I talk to my manager or customer and discuss a more reasonable alternative than ‘yesterday?’ We can condition people to give us impossible deadlines, but we can also condition ourselves to know when the deadlines are impossible. Instead of agreeing to more work, why not compromise with an ‘I have several other deadlines right now. Can I get you this by 2 p.m. tomorrow?’ Of course, sometimes that’s not possible, but asking for a more advanced time frame still might be doable, but you don’t know if you don’t ask.”
The third key, according to Prentice, is the power of the tangible. “There’s an enormous creative energy in writing things down. As long as an idea stays in short-term memory, there’s less room for new creativity to come back. Short-term memory of the brain is like a small bucket. When you pour something out by writing it on paper, it creates a new medium for new ideas to naturally fill that space. Someone once said that everyone gets a million-dollar idea every day, but most get the idea and lose it, evaporated from short-term memory.
“Finally, the art of mentoring encourages creative behavior,” says Prentice. “Managing your creative side doesn’t come from working faster. It comes from stepping back, analyzing the situation, and utilizing your tools, which includes your team. Mentoring with a peer gives you another creative hat to consult and share knowledge. The bottom line is, a human connection wins out over frantic energy.”
Plan For The Unexpected
A final tip from Prentice: “Plan for the unexpected. Tasks are always bigger than anticipated. Surprises always come in — that’s the law of expansion. Set a budget slightly higher than projected. Allow more time on a project than expected. I always factor in an additional 5 to 10 percent. Corporate greats have learned to leave elbow room for the unexpected if they want to strive and thrive.”
Dana Marshall, CMP, CMM, manager, meetings and events for the Emeryville, CA-based Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, manages her creativity through her planning team. “We begin by initiating a discussion with the person driving the event. It is critical to understand their vision. Then it is important to establish the 
team to execute the vision. On large events, we form a multidepartmental team to ensure all areas are represented and that the right people are on the team that will make things happen.
“Brainstorming sessions are still the best way for us to tap into creativity,” said Marshall. “We try to tap into all five senses — not just sight, sound and taste, but incorporate elements for touch and smell as well. Pulling in additional people who are not on the core planning team is often helpful for fresh ideas, too.”
Drew Williams is the director of worldwide marketing and events for Certiport Inc., an American Fork, UT-based industry-leading provider of digital literacy and desktop productivity training, assessment and certification solutions. Williams plans three major worldwide events each year, plus numerous smaller ones from 50 to 4,000 attendees. Williams uses his unique, blended background in business development, marketing and media production management to organize his creative process.
Storyboard Each Event
“I storyboard each event,” Williams said. “Literally, I block minute-by-minute of the event, just as you would every minute of a film — from the dry run, formal reviews, sponsorships, endorsements, speakers, to the event itself. I believe planning a meeting or event of any kind is like running a film. I identify the core audience and message, and then start looking at tactical resources. I storyboard first, then I dig in and start the planning process.”
In order for planners to tap and manage their creative, Williams suggested, “Start early for the next event, the day after the current event closes. Nail down your budget as early as possible, and write a detailed budget narrative, including people resources not just funds. Whatever manpower you think you need, get more. Be prepared to do whatever you have to do to make the event happen, because you still might not have enough hands.”
Joe Goldblatt, CSEP, is a Temple University senior lecturer and professor in the School of Tourism & Hospitality Management, who also serves as the university’s executive director for professional development and strategic partnerships. Goldblatt spent 30 years planning and producing corporate events for Xerox, Trump Organization and others. Founder of the first master’s degree and professional certificate programs in the field of event management, Goldblatt is the author, co-author or editor of 16 books and hundreds of articles.
Goldblatt said that today’s meeting professionals are presented with exceptional challenges, “As audiences move from Caucasian to rainbow and from young college age to baby boomers, meetings will require creative solutions to support the needs of their multicultural and generational attendees.”
According to Goldblatt, “Given the rapidly changing demographics of your audience (every 9 seconds someone turns 50), planners are constantly facing the challenge of understanding their audience’s values, attitudes and lifestyles. I believe that these challenges provide some of the greatest opportunities in the history of meetings to include larger numbers of people.
“The simplest solution is to avoid myopia,” said Goldblatt. “Associate with creative persons who represent different points of views and a variety of values, attitudes, lifestyles and ages. Accessing these viewpoints will continually provide meeting professionals with an insight into their diverse attendee base and allow them to align the values of their audience with the programs they develop. Planners who ignore this are risking the cardinal sin of status quo, and status quo is one step away from obsolescence.”
Goldblatt reminds meeting professionals that, “Generation X and Y may be the first group of attendees not content to merely sit in a meeting room. Rather, these generations require physical interaction and lots of multimedia, from MP3 to video streaming. In today’s technology-savvy world, planners must be cognizant and supportive of their attendees’ learning and experiential needs. If you are not accessing and satisfying the needs of that generation, then you might find yourself obsolete, replaced by a 22-year-old who understands those tools.”
However, David Green, managing partner of the Lehi, UT-based Allbee Green Events & Marketing, cautions meeting professionals to not lose sight of their core meeting objective. “It’s easy to get bogged down with the new buzz words like infotainment, experiential branding or Generation X, but don’t lose sight of the business at hand. Whether a regional sales meeting or international trade show, all events must have 
measurable objectives. When managing the basic creative process of the event, start with the question: What must happen for you to consider this project to be successful?”
Core Objective
According to Green, to deliver results, these three components allow planners to manage their creative side. “Point yourself in the right direction for strategic thinking to measure the event. Put processes in place to execute the event flawlessly. Merge the logistics with the strategic management. Finally, managing the tactics leads into the core objective. Whether it is to make a sale or increase employee accountability, marketing the entire concept connects to your core objective.”
Following discussions with the decision-maker, planners should ask four questions to benchmark their objectives to confirm they are thinking and managing their project successfully.
1. What must happen for you to consider this project successful?
2. How will you measure whether your objectives will be met?
3. How do you envision the project’s final outcome?
4. What are the constraints to prevent this success?
Betsy Wiersma, CSEP, president of Englewood, CO-based Wiersma Experience Marketing, said that her number-one creative management recommendation is to steal great ideas. “A planner should always search for great ideas. I suggest that everyone start a file, labeled ‘Big Idea File’ and tuck in great speakers, themes, destinations and pictures — anything that elicits a ‘wow!’ from a meeting professional. That way when the time crunch occurs (and it will) for you to produce a creative idea, you can pull out your big idea file and stir your creative thinker.”
Pulling from 25 years of insights, ideas and “ah-ha!” moments, Wiersma said that there are three planning tips that help create amazing events. For those who struggle with their creative side, this pre-planning actually caters to your left brain while freeing your right.
1. Powerful purpose. Wiersma explained, “For every project, I make myself sit down and set clear goals and measurements. I write detailed goals and measurements of success. This cuts down on time and clearly delineates successful measures to achieve a successful event before I spend time on planning. This makes me focus on strategy, hones in to what I’m doing and why.
2. Dream in detail. “The second step is fun,” said Wiersma, “and actually feeds your creative side. With a clear purpose in mind, dream in detail. What does your event look like when it works, when everything runs smoothly and perfectly together into that final moment. Talk it out loud with yourself and your team, and let the energy flow.”
3. Execute with style. “Finally, execute your event with style,” advised Wiersma. “Once you have set clear goals and measurements and envisioned the perfect event, the meeting professional can’t help but achieve them. Both sides of your brain are engaged, and you can visualize success. All you have to do is take the steps to get there.”
Wiersma conceded that balancing your creative side with the tactical and strategic necessities can sometimes feel like a tug-of-war, but she offered these tips to stay in balance: “Always be searching for great stuff. Keep a playful attitude. Part of planning for meetings and events is that we are creating memories for our attendees. Make sure your customer experience is safe, fresh and interesting, and that your energy and leadership is playful and fun. The team leader sets the energy level. A playful attitude even with challenges will create a pleasant work environment, and be a conduit for a creative and successful event.” C&IT