Experience University Podcast

S6E1: Events and Travel During COVID

January 25, 2022 Extraordinary Events Season 6 Episode 1
Experience University Podcast
S6E1: Events and Travel During COVID
Show Notes Transcript

Happy 2022 all!  In this episode, I recap my last two and a half months!  This involved traveling nine out of eleven weeks all around the world!  I share my top three lessons learning from events and travel during COVID to include: how the United States is when compared to the rest of the world, preconceived notions of other countries, and the rise and reality of vaccine-mandated shows (with some loopholes that need to be closed!)  I offer an impromptu evaluation of PCMA Convening Leaders and then talk about how the podcast will change for this semester! 

Things referenced in the podcast:  My YouTube channel, My TikTok @DrKevents

We would love to hear from you!  Please stay in touch with us through one of our many platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Website, and Email!  

Hello, hello my dear friends, my family, my listeners! I am so excited to be posting my podcast for 2022. My first one. It has been really, really heartwarming having people that I don't even know reach out to me to ask when the next podcast was going to be released. To have friends and family say hey when are you releasing your podcast. Are you still doing it? It's been just such a delight. I just wrapped up my annual evaluation and so I had to pull statistics on the podcast and some of my other channels. And I am so excited to announce that we are now in over 450 cities, in 49 countries, on six continents, and that is all you. I am just I'm so flabbergasted that you all have just been along the journey with me. 

I do have some crazy updates, and I will be telling you what the rest of this year will look like. But I would like you all to send a thank you up to the air for this semester student attending the podcast Mackenzie. Kenzie this podcast wouldn't be possible without you this semester so thank you so much for continuing the torch of all the previous students who have edited the podcast.

I want to update on what I've been doing for the past two to three months. And then talk about some lessons learned from these travels - my top three lessons. And then kind of talked about the new format of the podcast going forward and some other offerings that we have which is pretty incredible. 

So, if you have tried to send an email at all, you got more than likely, one of seven or eight different away messages. I was actually traveling 9 out of 11 or 12 weeks throughout October to the beginning of January. It was insane. I have hundreds and hundreds of emails that I still need to catch up on. So, my apologies if that would be you. But I started a long list of travel, you know covid kind of died down a little bit and all of the conference's from 2020 to 2021 were all rescheduled to the latter part of 2021. And it seems like my normal conference schedule that's typically three conferences ended up being just a lot more than just the three conferences. And it was back to back to back. Sometimes they were overlapping - it was insane. But in October I went to IMEX America and well I think that was beginning of November. I did talk about last podcast that was in Las Vegas. And then I went immediately into an industry exploration event in Kansas City for students that are in the PCMA heartland chapter. And that was absolutely incredible! Then I was back for three days, and then I was jetting around the world to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. And I was in Dubai for two weeks. I attended the World's Expo - the World's Fair. And that was absolutely incredible. I have a ton of really tangible things to take away from that I will probably put on the next episode. But Dubai - let me tell you it was absolutely incredible! I will talk about that I promise. Then I came back from Dubai on a Saturday afternoon, and my phone wouldn't connect back to the networks to the cell towers in the United States and that was really frustrating so I had to go in on a Monday. So, I arrived Saturday afternoon, couldn’t connect to our own cell towers and then went in Monday. And then Monday night/Tuesday Morning, middle of the night, then I left to go to Boston for two weeks and was in Boston then I came back and I was back home for three days and then I went to PCMA,  the Professional Convention Management Association's Convening Leaders conference in Las Vegas. And I just came home from that a couple days ago, but you won’t listen to this podcast for about a week. and now I am so happy to say that I am pretty much home for it the rest of the semester. I do have an extended weekend in Austin in April or May and then I am in London in May right after the semester ends. So, if you are in any of those places definitely let me know and we can meet up. Super fun.

Other updates - okay so as you know PCMA runs a North American Student Competition. And I was not submitting teams in the fall. I was not, I was adamantly against it. I was like I am  not submitting teams. I had two teams submit in the spring. Its normally is an annual competition. But I had two student teams that really, really, really wanted to do it. And they took the charge, they led the way, they did it. And both were named finalists - also in second and fourth place. And some of the students got scholarships to attend Convening Leaders. It was absolutely incredible! It was great to be at one of my favorite events and have some students there so that was a lot of fun.

One thing that I did in the latter part of the fall semester in the US which is in December is I decided to negotiate my job a little bit. I was really looking at the things that brought me joy. that made me happy and where I can really make an impact and have a purpose. And I'm so thankful to have such a supportive leadership team here within extension and within the College of Education and my direct boss. And I was able to negotiate my job and I didn't think it would take place until fall of 2022 but it has taken place already effective January 1. So, I am actually in the new apportionment which is incredible. I'm so excited to be able to dedicate even more time to some of my community efforts. And thank you to everyone in the community who has demonstrated a need for quality event education. I'm really excited about that.

So, what does that mean? That means that I am teaching one class a semester. I know that  all the teachers out there are a little envious. I'm teaching an in-person class in the fall and in the spring and I'm teaching an online class in the summer. So, I am a 12-month teacher officially now. But I have a much better schedule that will allow me to help the community a lot more. I have lots and lots of projects of people that have reached out. And I am excited to have the time to dedicate will allow me to dedicate more time to that. 

Let's see what else. I was elected the faculty chair for the IAEE which is the International Association of Exhibition and Events for their faculty. So that's super exciting. I absolutely love Marsha Flanagan and Cathy and all of IAEE. I'm really excited to serve in this role and I look forward to talking to a lot more of the faculty. I just wrapped as an impromptu, fill in PCMA chair for faculty for their January event at Convening Leaders. We had an incredible faculty chair last year and he unfortunately had to bow out a little because he accepted a new job transitioning from academia back into the industry. So, I was excited to be invited to step up for that. 

I am… let's see… let's jump into lessons! We are already 7 minutes in, my goodness. There has been so much that has happened in life and in work and in all the things. I’m so excited, we have so much going on. Okay so my top three lessons. I've been traveling all around the world, I was also in Germany for a little bit, I didn't mention that.  I've been traveling all over the world. I've seen a lot of different things over the last two months, and I sat there and said I really want to make sure that my podcast provides value.  Like tangible real-world value for everyone that’s listening. And so I looked at everything over the last two-three months and I said what are my top three lessons?  What are things that maybe I didn't know or things that could be of  value.

Lesson number one. Everywhere else is handling covid and testing better than the United States. Now I say everywhere else, that is obviously a generalization, but I feel like the United States should really have up their game. So, for example I live in the Midwest but we have major cities here. And I decided that I was flying to Dubai on a Monday morning. And I needed a negative PCR test, obviously to fly internationally. And I had to have it within so many hours of when my flight was leaving. Now that was really difficult because there's a lot of places that don't do testing on Sundays here. And even when they do do testing on Saturdays they might not process it on Sundays. And so I needed to take my test Saturday after 11 a.m. and I had to have my results back by Monday morning at 11 a.m. And so of course I'm super worried about this because if I don't have my test, I can't go. I didn't realize how big of an issue it would be. It seems like everybody's shipping overnight their PCR test to these bigger labs in other cities. and it was kind of crazy. I ended up getting four tests in different organizations. One of the results I got back the morning of it like 8:30. You can imagine, I’m a planner, so I have anxiety. So I get my test results back at 8:30 and that was literally the only one of the four that I got back in time. And that one ended up costing me money of course because I wanted it back at a certain time. I also got my test at CVS which was the next shortest one, I got that while I was in flight flying from my first destination to my second. I got my second one shortly after that, a couple hours later. I got my third one which was my last one which was Walgreens, tisk tisk Walgreens, I took that test on Saturday and I didn't get the results until Wednesday so that obviously was not much help to me traveling.

Now returning to the US of course we have these mandatory testing requirements. I think it had just gone into effect the 24-hour negative test. Keeping in mind my flights combined was 27 hours so thinking about that 24-hour rule especially if you have layovers in other countries before you enter the US. And it was so easy. Almost 24 hours a day you can drive up to any place in Dubai and you'll get your test results back within four hours. Four hours! A PCR!  It was absolutely incredible. Talking about masks in Dubai you were required to wear a mask outside and inside and everybody did it. They covered their nose and their mouth and they were respectful. And even on the airplanes they would just pull it down for a second to take a bite of their food and then put it right back up. And let me tell you the minute we crossed into the United States it was like masks everywhere, not wearing them. not caring. It was just super interesting the differences there. So top three lessons: one I do believe that of all the countries that I have connections in and have traveled to, they are  handling covid testing and covid a little better than the United States probably cause it's not politicized in other places.

Two, I would say in the United States, and in other places in the world, there's a lot of preconceived notions of the Middle East. We hear a lot about war, we hear a lot about the different types of ruling and the different structures of the places and I would say… so I first wanted to go to Dubai in 2017 with one of my former PhD students. And I'm so glad that I waited. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. Because, from what I hear,  Dubai and Abu-dhabi and even Saudi Arabia have just increased in tourism and infrastructure and rights over the last five years. Dubai was actually just voted the safest place by women to walk at night and I will tell you - I took three students with me to Dubai.  I took two females and a male and myself and I will say that at the end of every night we were debriefing and it was a common theme of I can't believe how safe I feel. I feel safer here than I do in the United States. I feel safer walking around. I don't feel like I'm going to get mugged. I don't feel like this or I don't feel like that. And it was just really kind of interesting the preconceived notions and we would post pictures on our social media online and people would be like oh my gosh I'm glad you're still alive! There’s just a lot of, I wouldn’t say misinformation, but just listening to the things that we're kind of fed with our algorithms online. So definitely some preconceived notions of other places. Making sure to give them a shake before you make a judgment on them.

And a third that is very specific to events is… I have definitely seen an increase in vaccine mandated shows. So, both at IMEX America and at PCMA Convening Leaders they were vaccine required shows. Now, I’m going to throw the devil's advocate in there. They are vaccine required shows which means you download an app, and they both used the same app in this instance, they download an app and then you take a picture of your card and then you upload it to the app. But if you didn't get that information or what not you can just pull up a picture on your phone of your vaccine card and show it to them and they will let you in. Super super fascinating. And I’m not going to call anybody out, but I do know of at least three people in those shows that were not vaccinated. That took a picture of a card, that I think, I honestly don’t know if they uploaded it to the app. I know one of them showed it on site, but it could have been uploaded to the app. But they were let in - it looked like the right card, it looked like the right information.. And so, I’m going to say if we're going to have vaccine mandatory shows and we're going to spend a lot of money to outsource to these platforms, we want to really make sure that they're connected to the medical network or that they have access to really truly verify if these vaccines are real or if it's people who photocopied a card or someone who scanned it and then changed information on Photoshop or got it off Etsy - I don't know. I don't know how they people got their cards but there’s a lot of talk about that right. So just like some of the best governments and organizations in the world hire professional hackers to make sure their own systems are safe, you also want to make sure that we're making sure we have safe shows. Who knows how many non-vaccinated people are trying to get in to the show and maybe they're writing reports on it. Maybe they're actually saying our shows and events aren’t safe. And that's the last thing we want is for our events to be seen as not safe.

So those are my top three lessons with covid testing and the preconceived notions of other places and the vaccine mandated shows. I do think those will be on the rise.

I definitely feel like it's hit or miss now on events that are using covid as an excuse to decrease service. I will say that PCMA Convening Leaders is one of my favorite events to go to year after year for the quality education. I truly believe they're a little bit better in the second-tier cities because the whole city comes together and really rallies around the event and wants to put forward the best face. Now of course it was in Las Vegas and it was at Caesars, and Caesars was the host of it. Ceasars did an incredible job with the situation that they had. Being in a first-tier city, being in the middle of covid, being in the middle of an omicron outbreak. It was definitely not an ideal situation. But I do feel like the service was lacking just a bit. Normally we have a lounge where you can get food or drinks and that wasn't really there. I mean you got a granola bar at check-in. It was the first conference that you didn’t get amenities sent to your room. So that was really interesting, there's just the little details I think could have been looked at a little more. But then you always have to wonder, you have to outsource your safety and protocols to this app and so where does that money come from. It comes from other areas in our events that we have to do purge money a little bit.

Okay so I was not expecting that to be part of the podcast, but there it was! You can always trust me to always be honest about my experiences. Okay so new format of the podcast. So up until December I had released this podcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays were kind of life lessons and life coaching a little bit. And Thursdays alternated between a student and an industry podcast. Now with the change in my job apportionment at the University, I'm actually going to just tweak the schedule just a little bit. I'm going to go down to a Tuesday only podcast and I should or, I should say once a week podcast it's really up to Kenzie whether its a Tuesday or Thursday. But I'll be going down to once a week podcast. And I'm really going to focus a lot on having one key learning objective every single podcast and then sharing stories and best practices and vision and futuristic things about that one topic so we can get back to our roots of being a little bit more of a lesson and sharing stories of course. The planning and the plan B and the lessons learned and just that key takeaway. I think that's so important. I will definitely feature some of the students. I'm going to have the PCMA student teams do another podcast, those will be released. And of course, if I am not an expert or don't feel good to talk to a specific point that somebody wants me to talk to, I will invite an industry professional because that's what we're all about education. 

Second, some of you may know that I have a YouTube channel and I've got some videos on there. I started videos in the middle of covid. They're all meant to be 6 minutes or less learning kind of little videos somewhere similar to the podcast, but a little bit more talking head and we have a lot of fun. I was taking them from webinars that I was running. And I think I'm going to concentrate a little bit on that this semester. I'm going to try to do some more little video clips that could be incorporated into trainings or classes or CMP certification or CEUs. But really small, just video clips that talk about someone objective. Kind of get down to the nitty-gritty that you all can use out there and digest at your will. So, I will be focusing on that and trying to get myself better about being in front of videos. I also started a TikTok last semester. I think I posted four or five videos. Maybe six, maybe six, but I think it was five. I might consider going back on there with some of my shorter videos. The students all really want me to be on Tiktok. And there is a lot of value and merit in Tiktok. So, I am heavily considering it. But that’s kind of what we have coming up. So, look for our podcast once a week and definitely check out the Youtube channel. I will check to make sure the link is posted in the show notes. That means Kenzie you’ve got to make sure the link is posted in the show notes. And as always so much I have missed talking to you all, to this mic, and hearing your feedback for the past month. I'm so excited about what the semester and this year holds. And I never take your time for granted. Thank you all so much for taking the time to make the time. I’ll talk with you soon.