2022 Spring Education Day Session Details

Morning Keynote 

The Roaring Twenties - Marketing & Selling Better in the Post-Pandemic Decade   

- Shawna Suckow

Welcome to the most unpredictable business climate we’ve ever experienced. The pandemic threw the entire world into a tailspin, but we’re emerging now, and everything looks different in this new light. There’s a lot of confusion and noise out there about what the marketplace will look like as we continue to move forward. How will your orgnization shift its strategy and tools to adapt to evolving prospects, attendees, and sponsors? How will you position yourself for the Roaring Twenties?

It all requires a keen understanding of your customers, their changing priorities, and their vastly different decision-making triggers as a result of the pandemic. What do you need to do differently to rise above the noise and stand out to them in this whirlwind decade? How will you drive attendance and sponsorship numbers when everything has changed? As a supplier, how do you need to approach planners differently?

One thing is certain: new messaging and tools are key.

Join meetings industry veteran Shawna Suckow, CSP, CVP, CMP, as she shares her latest findings on where we are, and what’s next. It’s not just data though; she’ll share case studies to give you the relevant steps you can take NOW.

Attendees of this session will:

1. Learn how your customers have evolved as a result of the pandemic, and what organizations need to do to adapt.
2. Gain up-to-the-minute insight into the best ways to connect with prospects of all kinds.
3. Time is of the essence! Discover what tools are working right now to stand out in the most tumultuous decade we’ve seen since the Roaring 1920s.

Shawna Suckow, CSP, CMP, CVP, is a speaker with some serious knowledge of the hospitality industry. She was a global meeting and incentive planner for over 20 years. In 2008, she founded SPIN, an association of senior-level planners which now has over 2,000 planner members across North America. 

Shawna began studying consumer behavior in earnest in 2009 and speaking to hospitality audiences who were frustrated with the shifting marketplace and the influences of technology. She’s the best-selling author of five books, with her latest release, “The Roaring Twenties: How to Market and Sell Better in the Post-Pandemic Decade.”

What she’s proud of: She’s spoken on 5 continents in 17 countries, helping hospitality organizations to understand the ever-evolving customer landscape. Honors include achieving the highest designation a speaker can earn (CSP©), being named to the Global Top 100 Women Business & Tech Speakers, and Planners' Favorite Speakers lists.

Three memorable things about Shawna: she played in the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2015. She’s so good at hand washing, she should get a trophy. Due to a freak badminton injury, she now wears one contact lens.

General Session

On the Road Again: Tips for Safe Traveling
- Alan Kleinfeld

The last couple of years have changed many things in our industry, not the least of which is travel. It came to a screeching halt. Now that we’re returning to face-to-face meetings, you’ll want to prepare to stretch your flying legs and be ready for when you take off on your next trip. This session includes practical travel safety tips (to use both personally and professionally) and also covers insider info such as the safest part of a hotel, small items to carry with you and what you can learn from checking the local weather. In this session, listen to a former law enforcement police officer and risk management professional on how to keep yourself you’re your attendees) safe when you’re on the road again.

Breakout Sessions

Crisis Communication: It’s More than Social Media

- Alan Kleinfeld

In this day and age of ubiquitous Facebook and compulsive tweeting, it may seem practical during an emergency to put your thumbs into “smartphone” overdrive. However, communication in a crisis (before, during and after) is so much more than a few quick posts. A good crisis communication plan does more than help when it comes to your organization’s reputation and public relations. It also includes telling fact from fiction, knowing what to say when, and learning from practical scenarios. A suitable plan can help keep people safe and the doors to your organization open during an emergency.

Learner Outcomes

• Identify the benefits of media training for you and your staff
• Examine the steps and roles included in a communication plan
• Formulate topics and items to include in your organization’s plan
  

Connecting Across the Generations

- Lisa Walden

Generational insights at work. 
There’s no question that each generation brings a unique perspective into the workplace. Whether it’s embracing emojis in communication, asking for efficiency in meetings, establishing clarity through hierarchy, or demanding diverse representation, every generation has left its mark. Unfortunately, lack of generational awareness can make it easy for inter-generational dynamics to sour. Rather than seeking to understand, we start to point fingers and communication and collaboration suffer, to everyone’s detriment. This presentation takes a closer look at each generational identity, to create better awareness about why we all behave the way we do, and to improve connection across generational lines. 

Takeaways Include:

• Decrypting every generation’s formative years, and how they inform distinct generational identities 
• Identifying the potential areas for disconnect across generations 
• Spotlight on how the newest generation, Gen Z, will shake up the workplace 
  

Afternoon Keynote

BURY THE HUSTLE: Striving for Balance in a Burnout World
- Lisa Walden

For decades, top talent has worked hard to stand out as go-getters that rise and grind to achieve results. While home used to be an oasis from the constant pressures of our jobs, technology and hybrid work has made that stress almost inescapable. And hustle culture has only exacerbated the problem. There’s this mindset that being “always on” and reachable is not just a necessity, but a boast-worthy state of being. The hard truth is that employees are hurting. This way of working is unsustainable, and burnout rates have never been higher. People are exhausted and disengaged, and leaders are wringing their hands trying to figure out how to stem this massive burnout tide. In Bury the Hustle, Lisa explores critical mindset shifts needed to bury the hustle, and gives attendees actionable tools and strategies to help bring some calm to the world of work.

Attendees of this session will:

• Spotlight on the key causes of burnout; how to recognize it and what to do about it.
• Counter-intuitive perspectives on work ethic and what “working hard” can (and should) look like.
• Strategies for setting boundaries to reclaim time and use it effectively.

Lisa X. Walden is a speaker, strategist, and consultant dedicated to helping businesses create authentic, empowering workplaces that don’t inspire the dreaded Sunday scaries. Her presentations deliver action-oriented insights that help people better connect, collaborate, and communicate.

As co-founder of Good Company Consulting, her work is centered on the (strangely revolutionary) concept that people and strategy don’t have to be mutually exclusive. She takes a holistic approach to workplace strategy, keeping human beings - arguably the most valuable resources - at front and center. Lisa’s speeches focus on how to maintain thriving cultures, best-practices for mindful communication practices, and tactics for nurturing the single most important component of a healthy work environment—trust.

She has worked with a broad range of clients and organizations, ranging from architects, to finance, real estate, and hospitality. In her speeches, Lisa strives to inspire mindset shifts by presenting valuable, research-based insights in a way that resonates, engages, and entertains. She weaves in stories, statistics, case studies, and some good old-fashioned self-deprecating humor into each and every one of her presentations.

Lisa is the co-author of Managing Millennials for Dummies and is deep in the trenches of planning her next book. She is a voracious consumer of all business-related books, podcasts, magazines, and think pieces.