Hi, I’m Lisa, and I am glad you found this website. If you are struggling with how to get started planning a meeting or event, I hope I can help. In the past, I have worked as an Executive Assistant, Office Manager, and even as a volunteer at places where I had large events assigned to me for planning and execution. As someone who enjoys traveling and considers myself well organized, I thought I was doing a decent job. I planned employee retreats, fundraisers, educational conferences, and board meetings - and did a competent job. Later in my career path, I moved into more formal meeting & event planning roles and was fortunate enough to gain access to a lot of training over the past decade which made me realize there was quite a lot I didn’t know.
I moved to California ten years ago after completing my Master’s in Administrative Science and Nonprofit Management and began work at the nonprofit where I still work today. During my first year there it became clear that my experience in planning meetings was going to be expanded on, so I enrolled in the Event & Meeting Planning Certificate Program at San Francisco State University – a fabulous program I highly recommend. After that, I joined Meeting Professionals International and began to attend both online webinars as well as the in-person WEC event they host each year. Every year, I learned more skills that I was able to immediately apply to my work. I have since earned my CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) and DES (Digital Event Strategist) credentials, and continue to attend continuing education webinars, courses, and conferences.
Suffice to say, there is a wealth of information and tools available in this profession, but I didn’t know how to access it before. I realize now that I missed some key steps or spent a lot of time in areas where there was free help available. One example, to source venues I used to google search hotels and then call each one trying to connect to someone in the sales department. Now I know there are resources (both online tools and local assistance) to help with both sourcing and RFP distribution. What a time-saver, plus I was easily able to see a lot more available venues as well as information on each!
As my way of giving back and offering help to people who find themselves in the position I used to be in, I will be posting articles that cover the fundamentals I wish I had known. Once you have this information, I hope you will have an easier time planning your meetings/events. And maybe you will get pulled in even further and look to gain further training once you have these basics under your belt. I have a long list of topics I plan to write about – budget basics, AV needs, contracts, virtual meetings, sustainability efforts, timelines, BEOs/function sheets, and setting meeting goals. If there is a topic you would like to see covered, feel free to drop me a line at theeventbasics@gmail.com. You can also follow this site on Twitter, or me personally. If you would like to connect on LinkedIn, please just include a note saying you found me on this website.
I’m glad you’re here!