This month, we’re talking best business practices on Allwork–some do’s, some don’ts, some tips, and some success stories.
When it comes to workspace community, events are a must; they’re the perfect excuse to pull members away from their desks and get them mingling, and also a great approach to demonstrate the added-value of your workspace membership.
Curating a successful workspace event, however, is not as easy as it sounds; especially if your members have a wide range of interests, hobbies, and lines of work. Nonetheless, organizing a successful event is an attainable goal; you just need to cover some bases first.
Stormy McBride, Operations Manager at Link Coworking, shared some knowledge on what it takes to curate a successful workspace event, big or small.
“When curating events for your workspace community, you need to take into account your audience. It sounds like an obvious statement, but people often wonder why the success and involvement is not what they were expecting, and more often than not, it’s because they missed their mark somewhere along the way.”
Before you set out to organize the event, Stormy recommends clearly answering the following questions:
What do your members want?
What do your members need?
What is something they would attend if money, time, or distance weren’t a factor?
What are your members’ interests?
Once you have answered these questions, start curating your event around them. When it comes to smaller events, it’s easier to guess what will appeal to most people, however when it comes to bigger events, this becomes trickier.
Keep in mind that you cannot and will not please everyone. Some events will attract some members, and some won’t. Instead of organizing the perfect event, aim to organize a variety of events that span different interests. However, “don’t forget that whatever you put out and organize is a direct reflection of you, your brand, and your community; so don’t host anything you wouldn’t fully back just to please someone else.”
“At Link, we have a pretty large span of interest in our member base. To cultivate a community that is well balanced and to ensure we get maximum engagement, we rotate the types of events we host. Our list of events span across the board–from dressing for success, to marathon training, to legal advice, to tax prep, to yoga and meditation, to name a few.”
The success of your events should be measured around the value of the content, the level of engagement, and the overall takeaway by the audience.
Not every event is a party and not every luncheon is for business
“Business is not all work and no play.” Following this mantra, Link consistently organizes happy hours and invites its workspace community as well as the local community. “We encourage members to invite their friends and network; you never know when someone else’s best friend is another person’s next business connection.”
“True to our Austin nature, we also host events that are light and funny and that allow members to get away from emails and give them the opportunity to relax and disconnect. We’ve had tarot card readers, we offer massages, psych tournaments, and pizza parties.”
By now, you’ve probably settled on some events you’d like to curate. The next step is to spread the word and let people know about your event. What is the best way to do it?
For Stormy, the answer is technology.
“Technology comes into play in the form of marketing. If you want to invite a group larger than 10, I recommend you use an invite or an evite. Additionally, at Link we also list all of our events on our events page, our Facebook page, our Instagram, our Twitter, and we also blast out a reminder on our monthly mailing.”
After the word is out, it’s action-time.
“An event is a form of hospitality. Be warm, be welcoming, be inviting, and greet your guests.”
Make sure you’ve done everything possible for attendees to feel comfortable, this includes thinking about seating, temperature, lighting, sound, and refreshments.
In the end, remember it’s not about how grandiose or magnificent the event was, it’s about how you have added value to your workspace and your community.
*Feature image: GCUC, May 2016, Los Angeles
