Australia’s reputation for excellence and innovation in events will be nationally recognised this year, with the launch of the 2009 Australian Event Awards - a new national awards program designed to reward performance and unite the entire Australian Events industry.
The Australian Event Awards, to be staged in October this year, will encompass business, cultural, sporting and community events, as well as achievements in sustainability, Australian excellence in event exports and outstanding individuals.
A panel of highly skilled industry experts will judge The Awards, co-chaired by John Allen, Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Event Management, and Sandy Hollway, formerly CEO of the Sydney Organising Committee for the 2000 Olympic Games.
"Until now, there has never been an overarching awards program recognising the full scope of excellence in Australian events. The Australian Event Awards marks an important program in spelling out the achievements of our thriving industry to the wider community,”Mr Allen said.
“With spending on events increasing each year and tertiary education in event management at its best, there has never been a more important time for the events industry to come together, recognise excellence and work towards outcomes that are beneficial for audiences.”
According to Sandy Hollway, the creation of a national event awards program is crucial not only for the confidence and professional development of the Australian Events Industry, but also for promoting the export of Australia’s world-class skills in the sector.
“Major events in Australia have recently been the breeding ground for a new export industry, with Australian companies and experts sought after by major events throughout the world,” Mr Hollway said.
“These days there is barely an event around the world that doesn’t have some level of Australian expertise involved – nobody can do it better than Australia, and it is time we as an industry recognised that.”
“For the industry to start ‘hunting as a pack’ and making strategic global connections, it is imperative we start to acknowledge and reward excellence in all aspects of the industry, from the major events to the smaller, community events.”
“Awards are a very visible and clear way of asserting there is an identity to the sector and will provide a value for the whole industry, not just those who win it,” Mr Hollway said.
Judges will be looking for events that connect well with their audiences, possess a level of authenticity or have come out of a genuine community desire, and have been executed with a high level of professionalism, skill and creativity.
“From regional and community events to multi-million dollar conferences and festivals, anyone involved in production and supply of Australian events is encouraged to enter,” said Jeremy Miller, Executive Producer, Australian Event Awards.
“We hope that a structured, national awards program like this will begin to identify our thriving events industry in such a way that will eventually have better outcomes for audiences, including better concepts around business development and investment.”
Award criteria for the 2009 Australian Event Awards will be available online from Monday 4 May 2009. There are 24 categories of awards spanning all sections of the industry and entries are open to any event staged between 1 July 2008 - 30 June 2009.
For more information about the Australian Event Awards and to register for updates, visit www.eventawards.com.au
Award criteria available – 4 May 2009
Award Entries Open – 1 June to 27 July 2009
Gala Dinner – 8 October 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Shoot for the moon
Blue Fish Events EP, Jeremy Miller, was asked to be a guest lecturer last night to students studying for a Masters in Event Management at the University of Technology, Sydney. His topic was Project Management for Major Events.
Its one thing to manage an event, its quite another thing to lecture on it, as Jeremy found out. He says that he struggled for a while to articulate processes that he tends to do out of habit. In the end he broke it down into these key tasks:
1. Set the goal
2. Breakdown the tasks
3. Setup the team structure
4. Set the deadlines
5. Track the progress, review if needed
6. Communicate to staff and stakeholders
7. Don’t let them whittle it all away.
We asked Jeremy to give us an example of ‘Set the Goal’ and he pulled out a speech from John F Kennedy (Jeremy is a bit of a politics geek).
How’s this for setting a goal:
Wow, Kennedy knew how to set a goal. We can’t all be a Kennedy, but you can try something similar next time you need to set the agenda for your team – “I want us to do this task. Its going to be amazing and you’re going to tell your grandkids about it. Its also going to be very, very hard and its going to require everything you’ve got. If you don’t think we can do it, if you don’t think we should do it, say so now. There won’t be any more money and there won’t be time for squabbles and distractions. If we’re going to do this then I need you with me. Trust me, its going to be worth it.
And ‘Don’t let them whittle it all away’? Jeremy said that there will be people every step of the way who will try to whittle down your goal. Its too big, its too hard, you don’t have the budget, the experience, or the time to do it.
Kennedy didn’t compromise, and neither should you. Kennedy didn’t say “oh, okay, we’ll just send a man into space, maybe the moon is too hard.” Give in little by little and suddenly your grand goal is reduced to a guy in a hot air ballon. You let the dream be whittled away.
If you’re ever asked to speak at your local university, college or high school - do it! Think about everything you learnt from guest speakers when you were a student and take the opportunity to give the next generation that same opportunity. And besides, Jeremy says you’ll be surprised by how much fun it will be!
www.bluefishevents.com.au
Its one thing to manage an event, its quite another thing to lecture on it, as Jeremy found out. He says that he struggled for a while to articulate processes that he tends to do out of habit. In the end he broke it down into these key tasks:
1. Set the goal
2. Breakdown the tasks
3. Setup the team structure
4. Set the deadlines
5. Track the progress, review if needed
6. Communicate to staff and stakeholders
7. Don’t let them whittle it all away.
We asked Jeremy to give us an example of ‘Set the Goal’ and he pulled out a speech from John F Kennedy (Jeremy is a bit of a politics geek).
How’s this for setting a goal:
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.
I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgement, ... because it is a heavy burden and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.
This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organisation and discipline which have not always characterised our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.
New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact aggravate them further – unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space. (Go here for the full text)
Wow, Kennedy knew how to set a goal. We can’t all be a Kennedy, but you can try something similar next time you need to set the agenda for your team – “I want us to do this task. Its going to be amazing and you’re going to tell your grandkids about it. Its also going to be very, very hard and its going to require everything you’ve got. If you don’t think we can do it, if you don’t think we should do it, say so now. There won’t be any more money and there won’t be time for squabbles and distractions. If we’re going to do this then I need you with me. Trust me, its going to be worth it.
And ‘Don’t let them whittle it all away’? Jeremy said that there will be people every step of the way who will try to whittle down your goal. Its too big, its too hard, you don’t have the budget, the experience, or the time to do it.
Kennedy didn’t compromise, and neither should you. Kennedy didn’t say “oh, okay, we’ll just send a man into space, maybe the moon is too hard.” Give in little by little and suddenly your grand goal is reduced to a guy in a hot air ballon. You let the dream be whittled away.
If you’re ever asked to speak at your local university, college or high school - do it! Think about everything you learnt from guest speakers when you were a student and take the opportunity to give the next generation that same opportunity. And besides, Jeremy says you’ll be surprised by how much fun it will be!
www.bluefishevents.com.au
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Advice from Clinton's Events Manager
Event Solutions 2009 Conference & Tradeshow is currently running in Vegas. The show is a goldmine of useful information, new products and trends - for example have you jumped on the trend of nightclub buyouts for your event yet? You can follow all the action here. We took special note of the section titled "19 Ways Event Planners Can Use Twitter" after our previous blog post!
One of the speakers at this year's Conference was Laura Schwartz, former White House director of events for the Clinton administration. In typically pugnacious American style, Schwartz shared her Seven Power Tips for Leveraging Networking to Achieve Business Goals (catchy!). Keep these in mind next time you're doing the rounds at an industry function:
www.bluefishevents.com.au
One of the speakers at this year's Conference was Laura Schwartz, former White House director of events for the Clinton administration. In typically pugnacious American style, Schwartz shared her Seven Power Tips for Leveraging Networking to Achieve Business Goals (catchy!). Keep these in mind next time you're doing the rounds at an industry function:
- Power of opportunity. Nothing is optional. Make the most of every opportunity.
- Power of goals. Give yourself a goal and follow through to achieve it.
- Power of preparation. Be prepared for every opportunity and ask questions to help yourself learn.
- Power of introduction. What's your line? Practice it and have it ready.
- Power of conversation. You don't have to know it all -- try to know a little about a lot so you can participate in any conversation. Schwartz suggests skimming newspaper headlines daily.
- Power of business cards. Always have your card available and accessible.
- Power of follow-up and follow-through. Send a creative follow-up to any connection you make so you can be remembered.
www.bluefishevents.com.au
Sunday, February 8, 2009
All a Twitter
Here at Blue Fish Events we like to stay on top of current trends. Facebook has proven that its not just for teenage girls by revolutionising our methods of communication in business and the next big hit could well be Twitter.
If you haven't yet encountered Twitter, its a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. In English, that means it is a way to send and receive very short messages, very quickly, very easily.
Twitter has already started to change the world - according to wikipedia, "during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every five seconds as the tragedy unfolded. Twitter users on the ground helped in compiling a list of the dead and injured. In addition, users sent out vital information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals that needed blood donations." Pretty impressive stuff.
Now, you'll notice that we're saying Twitter could be the next big hit. When even the Breakfast show on ABC2 is plugging its Twitter address you know this is something that you can't ignore. On the other hand, picking winners in Web2.0-world is a tricky business and the main problem with Twitter is that, frankly, we just don't get it!
In the Blue Fish Events pond we could intuitively grasp Facebook from the first glance and even explain it to our mothers. We've been on Twitter for a while now and we can see the attraction for the web-obsessed but we still haven't figured out what makes it a valuable business tool.
Thankfully we are not alone in our confusion, Event Solutions is also experimenting with Twitter and wondering where the payoff is hiding. They suggest that event managers could use it to:
Twitter has not yet reached the 'tipping point' that turns it from a webtrend into a tangible business tool. Until (if) it does, we'll follow the event industry experiment at Event Solutions and keep you posted.
Tweet you later?
www.bluefishevents.com.au
UPDATE: 5 May 2009. Since writing this article, the Twitter experiment has exploded. Politicians in the US and UK have been bitten by Twitter controversies and the media coverage of the 2009 Logies was mostly about the disparaging coverage from the Twitterverse. We’re still not convinced that it will become a widely-accepted tool to enhance events but you can follow our tweets at www.twitter.com/bluefishevents
If you haven't yet encountered Twitter, its a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. In English, that means it is a way to send and receive very short messages, very quickly, very easily.
Twitter has already started to change the world - according to wikipedia, "during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every five seconds as the tragedy unfolded. Twitter users on the ground helped in compiling a list of the dead and injured. In addition, users sent out vital information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals that needed blood donations." Pretty impressive stuff.
Now, you'll notice that we're saying Twitter could be the next big hit. When even the Breakfast show on ABC2 is plugging its Twitter address you know this is something that you can't ignore. On the other hand, picking winners in Web2.0-world is a tricky business and the main problem with Twitter is that, frankly, we just don't get it!
In the Blue Fish Events pond we could intuitively grasp Facebook from the first glance and even explain it to our mothers. We've been on Twitter for a while now and we can see the attraction for the web-obsessed but we still haven't figured out what makes it a valuable business tool.
Thankfully we are not alone in our confusion, Event Solutions is also experimenting with Twitter and wondering where the payoff is hiding. They suggest that event managers could use it to:
- Engage audiences through commenting on sessions and speakers
- Obtain real-time feedback from attendees
- Get instant opinions faster than by e-mail
- Provide customer service for registration, answer questions from customers
- Instantly message out information or breaking news
- Quickly schedule meetups with partners and vendors during conferences
Twitter has not yet reached the 'tipping point' that turns it from a webtrend into a tangible business tool. Until (if) it does, we'll follow the event industry experiment at Event Solutions and keep you posted.
Tweet you later?
www.bluefishevents.com.au
UPDATE: 5 May 2009. Since writing this article, the Twitter experiment has exploded. Politicians in the US and UK have been bitten by Twitter controversies and the media coverage of the 2009 Logies was mostly about the disparaging coverage from the Twitterverse. We’re still not convinced that it will become a widely-accepted tool to enhance events but you can follow our tweets at www.twitter.com/bluefishevents
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Top Trends for 2009
Its tempting to start the year with a crystal ball, if only so you can look back at the end of the year and have a laugh at your predictions.
The brave people at Trend Hunter have nominated their Top 20 Trends for 2009. Will the credit crunch force us back into the kitchen? Will '09 be all about Geek Pride and Ugly Beauty, or will we reinvent history and embrace the 60's?
Click below to find out......
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