Secrets of the Meetings Contract

Image by NobMouse

This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro at Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

When you need to plan the big corporate meeting, there are so many elements to consider that it can be overwhelming.  You have to make the travel plans, get the meals right, make sure everyone gets there on time and to the right place, make the hotel reservations, not to mention accomplish a million other things.  Before you even get to that part, you have to decide on a location and sign a contract with that location – usually a hotel or resort.  This is where the details lie and if you aren’t careful, you could end up paying for things that you did not want, do not need or do not understand.

Portuguese Assistants

Image by tiseb

This is a guest post from Diana Ferreira from Secretariando.

There is a lot to be made here in Portugal regarding this career. The first problem is that being an Assistant is still not seen as a career at all. Executives have a career and assistants have a “small job” which consists of serving executives. The role of assistants inside corporations or public companies only recently started to change but changes are always difficult and slow.

When I started working as an assistant, there was no need for a degree and the number of courses, university and professional, related to being an assistant were scarce. Assistants were not considered a part of the team. They were not included in meetings and would not present suggestions or participate in any matter. They would do the tasks that where given to them.

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Corporate Meeting

Image by Engin Erdogan

This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an emerging segment of corporate meetings that is likely here to stay. There is a good deal of debate among corporate managers over whether companies should engage in CSR.  Although altruistic as well as a good PR move, there is a cost associated with performing a CSR volunteer activity both in terms of money and risk management. Besides being one more line item in the meeting budget, there are risks of possible injuries that might be sustained during some of the volunteer activities.  However, the sense of pride and accomplishment experienced by the volunteers, as well as the good press generated, means that CSR is quite worth exploring for your next meeting.

Planning a Green Meeting

Image by Office Now

This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Across the country, companies large and small are putting “best practices” policies into place. One such resolution concerns measures that a company can take to mitigate the environmental footprint that their actions have on the planet as a whole and on their small corner of the world in particular. Also known as “green policies”, the targeted outcome is to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on natural resources.  But what does “green” actually mean?  As the event manager charged with following said policy, how do you make sure that you are doing everything possible to be “clean and green”?

In the simplest terms, being “green” means creating an event that has as minimal impact on the environment as possible.  While that may seem a formidable task, there are steps you can take to plan accordingly: