A Multidisciplinary Educational Focus by Jim Monroe, CSE

(Jim is a new member of the ISES Educational Council)

Imagine going into a seminar and listening to a master designer discuss her discipline.

Now imagine going into a seminar and listening to a master designer discuss her discipline and how it relates to your discipline.  That is how Paul Creighton, CSEP, Director of the ISES Education Council, envisions future educational offerings throughout ISES.

At our recent Eventworld and the preceding leadership sessions the ISES Board of Governors continued to make good on their 2008/2009 commitment to focus on education.  Education has been clearly established as critical to the future of ISES and the Education Council has determined that the interrelationship between our many disciplines is critical to our body of knowledge.

The educational offerings at the 2010 Eventworld were designed to begin this process, aiming to address various topics at the intermediate or advanced level while offering an emersion experience “Boot Camp” for event professionals with 3 years or less experience. 

My personal experience with the classes found that 75 % achieved the goal of providing advanced level information useful to the master level participant. For example, in the business track that I followed there was valuable information regarding current special event insurance offerings and equally valuable legal advice regarding structuring event contracts.  This is the first time in the eight event conferences which I have attended that there were this many master level presentations.  Most conference presentations are given at the 101 level, as there is a huge turnover each year with the largest number of attendees being 1^st or 2^nd timers.

Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly two of the best attended, sessions were the professional roundtables.  One, “Birds of a Feather” was made up of special event professionals from the same disciplines discussing current issues, trends and best practices for 1 1/.2 hours.  The other “Topic Focused” was made up of 30 tables labeled with different issues, topics or challenges; for example: “Design Trends”, “Stretching the Dollar” and “Strategic Relationships.”  Each attendee was allowed 25 minutes at each of three topic tables of their choosing.  This was perhaps the session that was most true to the goal of multidisciplinary interaction.  I found the interplay informative and inspiring.

The goals of the Education Council may not have been met equally well across the board, but in general the positive impact of those goals made this one of the best educational offerings in my experience at the conferences I have attended.

In closing I have to mention that having been away from the community of event conferences for a couple of years I was reminded of how invigorating the experience is.  Sharing some concentrated time together with fellow professionals from multiple disciplines and different places inspires creativity and boosts one’s energy level!