Corrections or additions?
These articles by Kathleen McGinn Spring were prepared for the
February 14,
2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Meetings Multiply
New Jersey is becoming a “little hotel mecca,”
says Joanne Dennison, owner of the Bridgewater-based meeting
and event planning company On a Shoestring. Still, says Dennison,
despite the proliferation of new hotels, don’t even think of planning
a midweek meeting anywhere in the Garden State on short notice.
“There
is a real shortage of meeting spaces,” she says.
Dennison speaks on a panel giving insights into the future of the
meeting and events industry to Meeting Professionals International
on Wednesday, February 21, at 11:30 a.m. at the Radisson Meadowlands.
Cost: $50. Call 732-536-5135.
“No one grows up wanting to become a meeting planner,” says
Dennison. “No one know about the industry. Our parents don’t even
know what we do.” Along with a shortage of meeting space, she
says, there is an acute shortage of personnel in the industry.
Dennison took a typically circuitous route to becoming an event
planner.
She holds a bachelor’s degree (Class of 1982) in American studies
and women’s studies and a master’s degree in higher education
administration
from the State University of New York at Brockport. She worked in
college administration until 1991. Her last job, associate dean of
students at Upsala, involved planning student events, including
homecoming
and graduation.
After leaving Upsala, and before starting her own business in 1993,
Dennison “wandered around trying to figure out what to do.”
During that period, Dennison says, her husband dreaded questions about
what she did for a living. “I was doing about eight things at
once,” she laughs. “I’m the queen of multi-tasking.”
Having mastered the juggling act that is event planning, Dennison
has become active in Meeting Professionals International, an
18,000-member
trade group. Through her own experience and through attending industry
events, she is well positioned to discuss future trends in event
planning.
Among those trends:
More meetings. “Five, six years ago, they said videoconferencing would be the end of meetings,” Dennison says. Notso. “It’s almost humorous to think that,” she says. “Inno way has technology replaced massive numbers of meetings.”Especiallypopular now, she says, are sales and training meetings. Associationmeetings also are on the rise.Golf, not rope ladders. While team building meetingsfeaturingobstacle courses are still with us, Dennison says it’s a differenttype of course that corporate groups crave. “More want a niceresort with a golf course,” she says.Meeting rooms with strings. Hotels, in the catbird seatas demand for meeting space intensifies, often don’t want to sellconference rooms unless the client will also take bedrooms as partof the deal. This is particularly true on the most popular nights— Monday through Wednesday, and Tuesday through Thursday. Cateringhalls are jumping in to fill some of the demand, Dennison says,renovatingwith an eye toward expanding beyond weddings and adding the technologyand lighting that will appeal to business groups.Technology. While video conferencing did little to puta crimp in live events, Dennison says technology is indeed havingan impact on the event industry. “Registration, searching forsites, people planning meetings for thousands of people from PalmPilots,” Dennison says, ticking off the ways technology ischangingher often frantically-paced profession. Among the event planningwebsitesDennison is finding invaluable are www.madsearch.com, www.bethere.com,and www.corbinball.comLess lead time. With hotels and resorts booked solid,requests to put on a really swell midweek confab for oh, say, 2,000,on a date barely a flip of a calendar page away is unnerving. Butit happens. All the time. Dennison says pharmaceutical companies arenotorious in planning circles for asking for big drug launch eventswith little notice — maybe six weeks, or even four. It’s not easy,but Dennison says event planners grow good at fielding these requests.In listing what goes into being the kind of event planner whocan keep her head when all about her are losing theirs, Dennison listsan important hint. “The person in the supposedly lowest position(the janitor, housekeeping, the lady in the cafeteria) will be theone who magically comes up with the red magic marker you need whenno one else can or will. Be nice to them before you needsomething.”Top Of PageFirst Days on the JobIt’s like the first week of school, but trickier. Beingthe new kid in the cubicle — or even in the executive suite —can be a mine field. Should you wear khaki or serge? Call thepresident”Frankie,” or “Mr. Big”? Shoot out your ideas forreorganizing the place, or lay low?How to make the transition? How to get off to a good start in a newoffice? Jack Guarneri, senior career counselor at Mercer CountyCommunity College, offers advice when he gives a free career workshop,”Succeeding at Your New Job,” on Thursday, February 22, at5:30 p.m. at MCCC’s Student Center. Call 609-486-4800, ext. 3397.”The most common mistake is not fitting in with the culture,”says Guarneri, who has been a career counselor at MCCC for nearly20 years. A graduate of Stony Brook, where he earned a bachelor’sdegree in Spanish literature, Guarneri holds a master’s in counselingfrom Long Island University. “You want people to like you,”he says of an early imperative for new employees. “You’ll needall the allies you can get.”This is equally true for supervisors and for the troops they guide.Fitting in encompasses everything from putting together a workwardrobewith just the right degree of formality to identifying — andstayingaway from — the negative political animals who lie in wait atthe water cooler.Guarneri’s advice for fitting in at a new job includes the following:Start before you begin. Look for clues to your newemployer’sculture before you even step into your first interview, Guarneriadvises.”Look at the website, the annual report,” he says. There youare likely to find photos that will indicate whether Hawaiian printsor pinstripes are the corporate uniform. Big clients, board members,corporate officers, and even favorite charities, will show up too.Study these materials and you will be better prepared to make smalltalk if you find yourself standing next to the CEO as you ride theelevator on your first day. You may also save yourself from makinga joke about a client whose fees help fund your paychecks.Know where you fit in. “I once had an intern,”Guarneri recounts. “He was very eager. He wanted to reorganizeeverything the first week.” The young man was not “consciousof his place in the scheme of things,” Guarneri says. “Hewas there to learn, not to be the teacher.” Had the intern beena paid employee, he would not have made it through the week at mostjobs, is Guarneri’s guess. That is not to say that new employeesshouldremain mute. “There is a difference between being pushy, andrespondingto an invitation to give input,” Guarneri says. “Once youunderstand the lay of the land and have some credibility, people willbe more willing to listen,” he says. “People resentsuggestionstoo early on.”Don’t stay in your office. “Keeping your nose tooclose to the grindstone is not a good idea,” Guarneri says. Getout and about, meet colleagues and supervisors, volunteer forcommittees,offer to help out on projects, look into working for the company’sfavorite charity, perhaps even contribute to the newsletter. Buildingup a network makes it likely, Guarneri says, that you will be awareof shifts in company priorities and will have a group of friends readyto help out if problems arise.Beware of cover-ups. New employees, unsure of procedures,have a tendency to cover up and try to keep going. This is a mistake,says Guarneri. Better to ask for help right away than to try to hidean area of ignorance. “Say `I’m not sure how to handle it,’”Guarneri advises. Approach a supervisor with two or three solutions,and ask advice. “Then it becomes a situation where you haveallies,”he says.Build an accomplishments file. Right from day one, startto compile thank you letters from grateful clients, positive noticesfrom supervisors, press clippings, and a synopsis of the projectson which you are working. Then, Guarneri says, when the time for yourfirst review rolls around, present the file to your supervisor aheadof the meeting. Not only should the file increase your chances fora glowing review, but it becomes a tangible record of your value tothe organization, a good thing to have when, for instance, lay offdecisions are being made.Cut and run?. Sometimes, Guarneri says, new employeesfind they are expected to perform illegal or unethical acts. Whenthat is the case, his advice is to get on out of there — fast.”But if the problem is boredom,” he says, “try to stickit out for a year.” The stigma that was attached to job switchingbefore the downsizing of the 1980s has lost much of its bite, butstill, Guarneri says, employers like to hire those they believe willbe dependable. A trail of jobs held for mere months can be a negative.Overall, Guarneri says, the best thing a new employee can dois to fit into the existing organizational culture. And the worst?”Make your boss look bad.”Top Of PageTest Drive an E-bookThe Princeton Public Library now has 942 titlesavailableonline. These E-books, available to patrons atwww.princetonlibrary.org,can be “checked out” for 24-hour periods. Acknowledging thatthat span of time is not long enough to do justice to War and Peace,the library says the service is intended as a reference tool. TheE-books are searchable by keyword, which makes it easy to findspecificinformation fast. Initial titles fall under the categories ofreference,business, computers, travel, careers, and examinations.The Princeton Public Library is one of seven libraries in the regionparticipating in a netLibrary trial sponsored by the Central NewJerseyLibrary Cooperative. The cooperative has established a users groupto set policies and share experiences and tips.Top Of PageMedical MiraclesAttention biotech investors, the Journal of the AmericanMedical Association is predicting major breakthroughs in the next25 years against some of the most stubborn disease states. Progress,in many cases, will come as a result of work now being done in biotechlabs. Here are some of the advances the American Medical Associationpredicts we are most likely to see:Alzheimer disease and osteoporosis are strong candidates fordisease prevention.Many chronic diseases, including Parkinson disease andarthritis,will be brought under control.Improved treatment of inherited diseases such as sickle cellanemia can be ensured.Many cancers may well be put into the category of curablediseases.The clinical problem of chronic inflammation in the lungs thatdefines cystic fibrosis may be solved.Individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease will beidentifiedand targeted for specific preventive intervention, improving thequalityof their lives.Both neurology and psychiatry will proceed at an unprecedentedpace, resulting by 2020 in more personalized therapies for brainrelateddisorders, such as depression and schizophrenia.Techniques for the replacement of defective genes will providea way to treat spinal cord injury and stroke in ways that would beabsolutely curative.By 2025, engineered tissues — to replace blood vessels,restore vision, repair bladder and grow liver tissues — mayeffectivelyeliminate the long waiting lists for specific organ transplantation.Non-invasive surgery may be the norm in 2025 through advancesin bioengineering and imaging technologies.A new age of antibiotic discovery will revolutionize our abilityto deal with resistant infections.Drug development and success against challenging medicalproblemssuch as obesity will be accelerated as intensive research locatesdrug “platforms,” areas where specific pathways for complexdiseases and multiple targets for drug therapies will be found.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
