I was like many people thinking Twitter was another social media tool that was going to suck the life out of all personal face to face communications (i.e. what some believe Facebook has become). When I decided to join Twitter, it was for a personal experiment and I gave it a month to determine if it was going to be useful to me either personally or professionally.

In May 2010, I joined Twitter and started to follow friends and celebrities for two reasons; one to get an idea of how others used Twitter and secondly, to learn the unwritten rules and etiquette. I also followed professionals in the event industry to tap into what they were doing on Twitter. I quickly discovered a wealth of knowledge on Twitter when I clicked on various links and started to follow other event professionals that were being followed by event professionals I was already following. A world was unfolding in front of my computer with the use of only one tool!

I was slowly being converted into a Twitter user. I continued to observe my Twitter feed as the months went by and continued to follow people as I met them either online or in person. After a Special Event Boot Camp meeting at the Windsor Arms Hotel I came home and added @windsorarms to my followers list and thanked them for hosting our meeting and showing us the hotel. After adding @windsorarms I didn’t think too much about it until I discovered a tweet that stated that the spa at Windsor Arms had a position that was available. I quickly “DM” (Direct Messaged) and asked for more information. After this, the possibilities continued to unfold. I handed in my resume via mail, received a phone interview then an in-person interview, which then lead to a phone call stating that I got the job!! Within a week and a half of reading the tweet about the job posting I was working at the Spa at the Windsor Arms and taking steps towards my new future.

Through a personal meet up and adding that connection onto Twitter I was able to access a door of opportunities. I am now officially converted; I see the potential and possibilities that Twitter has to connect with a world of people from various industries. I am not saying Twitter is the only tool you should use to find a job or that it is the best tool to find a job but it is a tool that allows you to connect with people who work for companies that you want to work for someday. So get onto Twitter, follow the professionals that inspire you and listen to what they have to say and offer, because you never know what they might tweet next.

Blog Post Written by: 

Katie Paterson is an Event and Meeting Management student at George Brown. She is currently in her second semester of classes and is looking forward to a career in event management in Toronto. She has been interning at Special Event Boot Camp since May 2009.    katie@specialeventbootcamp.com, @katiepaterson

“You can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job.” This no-win dilemma, dubbed the “Catch-22”, is a predicament faced by many new graduates eager to join the workforce. Power Unit’s E3 Challenge, a business challenge especially designed for youth, offers 16-20 year olds the opportunity to work closely with real-life companies, develop leadership skills, and – contrary to the Catch 22 – get the experience without the job.

More and more often, students are catapulted into the workforce with a handful of knowledge and almost no practical experience nor the skills to present their knowledge in a convincing and thoughtful manner. Not only is this a headache for the students, but also a setback for employers who seek out candidates, only to discover these “high-caliber” recruits are in reality completely clueless. Nowadays, intellect is ubiquitous, but the difference between a good candidate and a great candidate are the soft skills that can be picked up through practical experience. The trouble with developing under strictly academic environments is that students often times fall into a mechanical, formulated process of approaching problems without understanding the problem itself. In today’s society, success lies not in possessing theoretical knowledge but in knowing how to apply and cater that knowledge towards the problems presented by a job. In such dilemmas, extracurriculars act as the perfect portal from the class room to the real world. With its mandate “Entrepreneurship, Excellence, and Empowerment” in Mind, the E3 Challenge strives to offer just that. The E3 Challenge starts off in the beginning of July with four teams of students ranging from high school juniors to university sophomores. The E3 Challenge is supported by a unique system of mentors. Each team consists of five members and three mentors who guide and support the team. Although the mentors do not get involved with hands-on tasks such as generating ideas and scheduling meetings, they carefully observe the team morale and how each member plays his / her part. Although E3 Challenge is business oriented, participants are able to gain valuable soft skills and experiences that apply to all fields. “Working on E3 gave me the motivation, opportunity and pressure to hone my communication skills and taught me the importance of responsible leadership. I would never have applied to Harvard without my experience with E3,” said Stephanie Tam, an E3 alumnus who is currently a second-year Architectural student at Harvard.

 Unlike many extracurriculars, the E3 challenge emphasizes personal development and growth over victory alone. That is why the mentors devote much of their time and energy to making sure that the distinct personalities of each member are being accommodated in a team setting.

THREE UNIQUE CHALLENGES, ONE IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON

E3 consists of three challenges each requiring solid team dynamics, creative problem solving, and strong leadership. The first challenge required the teams to create a game booth at Power Unit’s flagship event, Night It Up! with only $100 of start-up funds and 2 week preparation time. In the second challenge, E3 paired up with Special Event Boot Camp - an organization dedicated to training young professionals in event planning – to create a social media recruitment campaign that utilized tools such as Facebook and Youtube. The third challenge, in co-operation with IBM, gave E3ers the opportunity to create an HR campaign specifically targeted to university students looking for co-op placements, internships, and jobs. Contrary to many business challenges offered in school, The E3 Challenge offers youths a rare opportunity to interact and engage with executives of well-known corporations. There are no mock judges and no case studies – every challenge involves real problems and real managers who carefully analyze each team’s idea and feasibility. These challenges are built to emphasize the soft skills that are crucial to success in today’s workforce. Conflict resolution, public-speaking and networking are all skills required for success in such challenges and ones that many students often overlook. Above all else, The E3 Challenge strives to help youths find a firm sense of self, develop the inspiration to lead, and discover the passion to achieve something beyond the walls of academia.

Press Posted by: Shirley Luong-Do

July 13th, 2009 –This past weekend, Power Unit Youth Organization, a youth empowered organization that focuses on bettering today’s youth for tomorrow, held their annual Asian infused event- Night It Up (formerly known as Toronto Night Market).

Power Unit Youth Organization created and founded by youths for youths is known for their success with the Toronto Night Market raising more than $50,000 (2008) for not-for-profit grass root organizations in Toronto, tonight, partners with event management and consulting company Special Event Boot Camp at Ryerson University are set to launch their latest project, The E3 Challenge.

The E3 Challenge, a youth empowered reproduction of Donald Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice is intended to lead thirty (30) youths ages 16-30 to learn how to develop, implement and utilize today’s new media culture -  Social Media 2.0 (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc.,) in a marketing campaign. The marketing campaign will be developed to engage the interest of young professionals in attending a two-day training intensive in event planning at a young professionals rate at the Steam Whistle Brewing  held August 10^th-August 11^th, 2009 taught by Special Event Boot Camp. Campaign effectiveness based on market output, velocity and frequency. The adjudicators present will be Special Event Boot Camp’s founder and CEO, Carol Moxam and her team.

The finals will take place at a Six Degrees Venue on July 31, 2009. Good luck to all the youths involved.

Posted by Lieutenant, Xiana Li, Event Coordinator

Special Event Boot Camp is an army of Event Professionals bringing emerging and established leaders from all sectors to the table for meaningful conversations and learning that lead to positive social actions in special events.  Our officer ranks in our community are defined by experience and involvement in the event industry.

Private (Recruit)

Guests who participate with Special Event Boot Camp for the first time are recruited as a Private. They are encouraged to come again to learn and grow.  As you join our ranks there is lots of opportunity for advancement in the event army.

Higher position= Greater responsibility.  Private is guest who actively takes part in several challenges and gains remarkable knowledge in the industry at Boot Camp. It is very appreciated that the trained privates will share their insight to the recruit basic privates.  Do not keep the experience “private” to them.

Junior Officer, Lieutenants

Junior Officer, Lieutenants, is our internal Event Co-ordinator team members at Special Event Boot Camp who plan and execute the event delivery packages.

Drill Sergeants

Drill Sergeants are top Event Professionals who share their best resources in event management, tips, tools and expertise. They are assigned the duty of initiating new recruits entering our Boot Camp into the customs and practices of the special event military life. Speakers share their expertise, point of views and references to back up the information. The purpose of their speech is to create awareness of the topic.

First Sergeant

The senior grade of Lieutenant is known as First Sergeant, Carol Moxam.

Social Media  - The Tools in Special Events

by Ruth Noe, SixSense Inc.

Facebook, and  twitter, and blogging, oh my! Sixsense has transformed teams for years without these social media tools, but as we expand into a new division of Team Building Events, it seemed wise to take a look at the way we find business.  We developed our website but then realized that no one was able to find us, so we started learning about how to direct people to our site.

Enter Social Media Boot Camp.  Being the most tech savy person at Sixsense, I decided to see how I could apply my online skills to the business. I was already on Facebook for personal reasons, so I learned about putting our company on  there as a personality, not just selling it and bombarding people.  During the course of the Boot Camp day, twitter speak was translated and is no longer the confusing language it was before the class. I had been researching getting my team building experts blogging, but wasn’t sure what the best format was. I learned what to look for at Social Media Boot Camp’ and found a program that fits our needs.

Before Boot Camp, I had been researching about search engine optimization, but all the options were fairly pricey.  We are a small company and throwing that much at something that might not work didn’t seem like the smartest use of finances in a troubled economy.  At Boot Camp, I learned more about how to get the Sixsense name out there in a different way, by creating a friendly presence, being true to who we are, and letting people get to know the great personalities behind Sixsense. I realized we can’t just do this behind the website, we need to get out and engage the masses. 

I learned about a lot of great social networking sites at Boot Camp.  But as I reviewed my notes from the class and completed the Seven Day Challenge to use the skills we learned about, I realized something…to most of our clients, facebook and twitter are something their children and in some cases, assistants are using, not their first source of finding new information.  So as the Seven Day Challenge winds down, I’m taking on a new challenge. I’m going to focus on building a relationship on line with the admins who are surfing the web looking for new team building events and leadership training information to pass a long to their not-so-tech-savy bosses.

By building relationships with these people that so often get overlooked in the race to reach the executive, they will know they have a friend who does some pretty cool team building stuff. I plan to take the information I’ve gathered from Social Media Boot Camp and get more involved in my social networks, develop new networking skills and engage the online community that until now, I’ve just been observing.

Post written by: Ruth Noe

Sixsense Inc. www.sixsenseinc.com  e: ruth@sixsenseinc.com

Presentations available from Social Media Boot Camp

http://www.slideshare.net/SpecialEventBootCamp

Four Pillars in Event Management

Posted by Sandy Yong, Event Coordinator Intern

The Canadian Special Events & Meetings Expo (CSEME) is essentially for people who are involved with any type of events. Whether you are a supplier or planner and participating in special events, meetings, seminars, trade shows, galas, festivals, and fundraisers, this is an incredible three-day event that you should not miss.  CSEME provides you, as an attendee with the tools, the contacts and the information you need to make your events a success.

This year’s focus is on the environmental and social issues in combination with the global economic depression and their affects on the meetings and events industry. Corporations and clients are proactively seeking new solutions to increase their efficiency while also becoming more responsible in the way they conduct business and contributing to the triple-bottom line.

The conference and tradeshow took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre within the North Building, which is Canada’s number one tradeshow facility located within a close proximity to Union Station. Attendees had to sign-in at the registration station before entering the event. The friendly event staff were dressed in green shirts welcoming the attendees at the event.

There were educational seminars throughout the three-day event. On the second day, Carol Moxam was a guest speaker on the topic of “The Four Pillars of Event Management”. It was one of the first sessions of the day starting at 9:00am. As attendees arrived into the Indian inspired room decorated by Design2Decor, business cards were collected to enter into a draw to win an invitation for an upcoming Breakfast Series in April. Design2Decor provides innovative event design, event décor, and event management solutions for corporate events, weddings, and special events. The room was transformed with vivid colours of orange and gold that radiated the room with energy.

Carol’s presentation discussed the four pillars in events that can impact your whole planning process including: time, technology, resources, and budget. She addressed how each of these pillars can lead to a different strategy including the size of your budget, the usage of team members and volunteers, creating critical paths and event trackers to document your work, and dealing with financials that can affect stakeholders. During her presentation, ironically enough when she was presenting about the pillar of technology, there was a reoccurring technological glitch that gave a clear message to how the use of technology can either enhance your event or create unexpected mishaps along the way.

After her presentation, the draw took place and a member of the audience won the invitation to attend an upcoming Breakfast Series in April. Data On The Spot (DOTS) provided clickers, a wireless electronic in attaining the audience’s response on Carol’s presentation by answering a series of multiple choice questions which also provided an interactive platform for the audience to engage in the presentation.  There was an opportunity to speak with Carol in person and exchange business cards.

Posted by Virginia Dong

 Thai Kickboxing, an experience of culture in the Bangkok Garden Restaurant.

On Thursday, February 29,  the International Special Events Society, Toronto Chapter hosts monthly meeting on Countdown to 2010 Olympics, be a part of a dream team.  The event is being hosted at Six Degrees Venue, with guest presenters Betty MacLeod, Vice President, Olympic Business Development for RBC Royal Bank and Diane Henry, Torch Relay Executive Producer for RBC Royal Bank.  They will share how businesses can begin developing strategies for success in 2010.

For ISES Members who join us in the afternoon at 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. a workshop on Demystifying the RFP Bid Process.

This is a great opportunity to understand components of the Request for Proposal process and learn how to respond.  This seminar will also give a clear understanding of the principles of sustainability and how they are affecting the current business climate.

Special Event Boot Camp will be attending the evening’s events.

To register www.isestoronto.com
Phone: 905-898-7434

1. Music is the ONLY universal language. It transcends all social, economic, cultural and political boundaries
2. Most music happens through cooperation. Common impediments to working well together such as competitiveness, hidden agendas, differing styles, cynicism, and soloists can disappear while making music together
3. Active and attentive listening is essential for business development.  Making music as a group is a powerful way to expand listening awareness and capacity
4. Making music is largely a right-brain activity, giving us a break from logical, linear, practical thinking. Studies show that productivity and satisfaction comes from using both sides of the brain.
5. Scientists have discovered that the act of making music creates new neural pathways, or thinking connections in the brain – innovation requires this
6. The left and right hemispheres of our brain process information in different ways. The learning and thinking process is enhanced when both sides of the brain participate in a balanced manner. Most people tend to process information using their dominant side (often to the detriment of their less developed side). Music exercises both sides.

Be sure to check out the site for Pics & Video of the event at www.1KingRocks.com