What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 2October 2017

Welcome to another week and we can't quite believe it's October already - wow - where is the year going? This week we'd like to feature the UK Awards Conference which is our next scheduled event and is set for 7 November at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London.

You might not know this but there are in excess of 4,000 Awards Ceremonies taking place in the UK each year covering everything from Advertising to Aeronautics, Textiles to Toilets and for the entrants and winners, this awards are a big deal.

What many don't see though is the hard work and energy that goes on behind the scenes for the organisers so the conference is designed to bring together all of the topics that are relevant to the people who deliver awards, from generating sponsorship, to ensuring you have a credible and communicative jury - and we have an exceptional programme in place with some top rate speakers. 

We are running the event in conjunction with Boost Marketing Chris Robinson will chair the event. Chris is the Managing Director of Boost Marketing and his company not only details the most comprehensive list of Awards currently running the UK, but his organisation is also the largest specialist in the world at helping businesses to win awards. With operations in the UK, Ireland, USA, France and New Zealand, Boost have to date helped over 200 companies win in excess of 1,000 Awards - not a bad tally! 

Richard John who is the chair of the judges for us on the CHS Awards is then going to look at the history of awards, including some of the more memorable moments from awards in the last decade - and who can forget the blunder at the Oscars this year?

Setting up an awards programme is the easy bit, but what constitutes a good awards scheme and how do you know you are getting it right - well this is the topic that Don Hales for Awards International will address, but we move on to Creativity in Production with Richard Tierney.

We are also looking at Diversity in Awards: Achieving & Maintaining an Audience with Sarah Garrett MBE, as well as looking at establishing objectives for your potential entrants, – and maintaining open and honest working relationships with your target audience irrespective of their success levels, with Sarah Garrett.

Events aren’t just about what and who is in the room: they are also about the wider community. Simon Burton is a passionate evangelist for event amplification. Using real world case studies of awards he’ll demonstrate why social media shouldn’t be an add-on but an integral part of your awards strategy.

Just one of many highlights for the event is a session with Mark Borkowski who will be asking does Celebrity Matter? Does attaching a name to your brand have any impact on its standing with your audience? Getting the right fit for your programme is paramount and the suitability and expense does not always deliver an R.O.I. - or does it? Mark will look at guests expectations and the highs and lows of celebrity involvement in your awards.

We will also be dishing up the details with Anthony Marshall, Executive Head Chef, Hilton Park Lane who is reminding us that food remains an important element of any event and can make or break an awards ceremony. Food trends have changed significantly over the years at awards, and dietary requirements, the diversity of menus and demands from guests and events organisers are more complex. How does this impact a venue and how do they maintain their levels of quality and service to meet and exceed expectations? This invaluable session offers an insight from behind the scenes from one of the UK's leading executive chefs from the Hilton Park Lane.

Our last session is with Martin Lewis who is the Managing Editor at CAT Publications. The M&IT Awards are the most prestigious and most established recognition programme in the Events Industry and celebrated their 30th Anniversary this year. In an evolving industry, what has worked with the brand and what hasn't? In a look back a the history of M&IT, Martin will share some of the great lessons the brand has experienced over the years and how embracing change has positively impacted the awards.

Delegates can also enjoy some specific workshops, such as Balancing Stakeholder Communications with Andy Green, and a very hot topic at present around IP & Content with Ed Wright from Shakespeare Martineau. Just what are the legalities of what you can do with an entrants submission and content? Irrespective of your own rules and guidelines as part of your awards criteria, copyright is a form of intellectual property that protects original work and gives the creator of the work the exclusive rights so are you infringing this as part of your programme and what are you legal obligations? What steps can you take to protect your brand when promoting entrants online and reproducing their images, photos or copy? How clear is your legal position? The answer will probably surprise you! 

Workshop Three is with Donal Keenan from D&AD who will look at judging solutions whilst 

Anne Nolan from Awards Force will demonstrate some new technology to help organisers streamline their awards.

And if that wasn't a suitably packed programmme already, there is also an exhibition of suppliers and venues that can host awards, which are we running with our friends at CHS.

So if awards are your thing, then it's not too late to book - reserve your place now online and make sure your next awards event is a winner!

Have a great week!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 28 September 2015

Welcome to another week and its another manic one here at Cloud 9 Towers. We've two big awards events looming and launching another three whilst we also have various other events on the go, plus our free venue finding service is also a little popular at present but we'd rather be like this and busy and buzzy than wondering what to do next!

With training courses, new business meetings, websites to update, social media and the endless stream of emails (and yes we are still being invited on endless fams despite Paula's Blog on the CHS Group website last week), it can be tricky to squeeze everything in.

So we could use this week's blog to wax lyrical about time management and also to save a bit of time we could just blatantly pinch the online offering of some training company. But instead and to keep it personal, we thought we would share our tips for keeping all of those plates spinning! 

Our first rule here is about emails. There was life before emails and electronic communication which our younger team don't seem to fully appreciate, but we spoke to people, we telephoned them, we visited them and if needs be, we then wrote to them afterwards to confirm exactly what we had spoken about. This process could have taken a couple of days and factor in postage and weekends and sometimes it could be almost a week. Whilst we appreciate we live in a society where everyone, including clients, wants everything now, but the world really won't end if you leave your emails a little while. That's why we ban anyone looking at emails until 9.30am in the morning. 

That first half an hour in a morning allows you to focus on what you need to do that day and catch up on anything you may have missed. We also use this time to look at our social media and make sure everything that should be up to date, is up to date. If anything really is that urgent, then call us. Or text us, or message us. Just don't email us unless you really need to, and whatever you do, don't fax us. We're not sure how the fax even works any more!

Next up is sharing. No matter how experienced or knowledgeable you think you are, it's important to remember that you are still always continually learning and whatever you think you know, there is probably someone else who knows as much if not more. It doesn't matter if you have always done something in the same way for years and years. Getting a fresh perspective on how to work differently and more efficiently can be a really useful thing especially when you have a lot on.It may be sound obvious, but it's something that many managers often forget, especially when it comes to how they manage their time. In fact, some of our biggest time management mistakes are simply caused because you don't know any better?

Also sharing skills can be a massive help. Assign tasks to those who are pretty good at that particular aspect of a project and ensure those that need some help with certain tasks or some additional training in that area, understand why things are done in certain ways. That way everyone benefits...and even though every project at Cloud 9 has someone to lead it, every project, event and client we have are collectively discussed to make sure we are using each of our own particular skill set.

This is photograph A 1699 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Communication is also vital and it doesn't matter how great your external communication is with clients, if people don't understand what is happening internally, then you have no or little excuse when things go wrong.

Whilst we all might complain about the sheer number of emails we all get everyday, BCC has become our friend here at Cloud 9. Forget Blind Carbon Copy the original glossary of BCC, as here it stands for Better Clouds Connected. On a large proportion of our daily emails we BCC in at least another person or a couple of people in the team.

The couple of seconds it takes to do this, and to briefly scan an email that's been sent out, can firstly stop having to have unnecessary meetings but also means that if one of the team is suddenly kidnapped by aliens or worse still, run over by the No.47 bus, then as sad as we would be, at least one other person on the team has a fighting chance of picking up a project to ensures its successful continuation!

So knowledge is power and sharing key. We're also list maniacs here. One a week which we are collectively responsible for. It's amazing what you can do with the power of a few bodies all pitching in!

 
Just ask any of our clients! So, have a great week, see you soon!