On September 9 at Marriott Wardman Park, volunteering as a Room Monitoring, I got the first chance to inspect and work in the conference in Washington, DC. Out of some past experience working in Chinese exhibitions and conferences, I was impressed when comparing with different operation modes of conferences in China and United State.
ALL MEETS, BUT NOT EVENTS.
Usually in China, when mentioning meetings, the topic is bundling with art, tourism, business and trade. But here this time in MEET, all the exhibitors, audiences and speakers focus on meetings and conventions. Meeting already has become a mature industry in US, no more merely a part of the events. People who sale meeting rooms and conventions complex, and who plan and rent meeting are together in the conferences to learn and figure out better way to held conventions. That seems long way for China to hold such an specific meeting and convention.
EASY STEPS TO REGISTER AND FIND THE LOCATIONS
Volunteers for conferences in China are usually responsible for holding the arrows, showing the way for participants, helping them to write information, getting the entrance card, passing the security test and leading to the interested conference sessions. However, things goes really smoothly when every guests registered on line ahead of time. When arrived, they report their name to check in, then follow the signs to get to the right place, as easy as check in an hotel after booking online. All the complicated steps are arranged on the internet, making the spot on conferences in great order.
Also, Way signs are easy to recognize as there are not as much as advertisements on the way to the conferences. I notice that the many sponsors are convention association, kinds of NGO, maybe that explains the less advertisements.Unlike NGO, the profitable enterprises in China devote massive money into conferences and exhibition mostly for promotion and advertising, in order to open up new sources of customers and business partnership.
SIMPLE EXHIBITS AND BOOTH DESIGNS, MORE SWEETS
As for the booths, exhibitors share different ways with Chinese ones. In China, corporate invests lots of money to buy more booths, install exaggerated lights and decorations to be eye-catching. In MEET, in most of the booths, there are sweets, cookies and desserts on the welcome desks to catch people's attentions. Specially, a booth hired an artist to draw portraits for guest, attracting a long line of audience waiting right on the booths. But, those are too common tricks in China, exhibitors figure out all kinds of methods to be outstanding, such as designing interesting games, showing the most valuable antique, bring a model of high-tech facilities.
Detail evaluation process for each conference session.
Different from China, audience usually do one investigation or fill out one evaluation form to make comments about the whole event. However, MEET handed out evaluation form each time right before the conference sessions to investigate the effects of each conferences. My responsibility of the volunteer work was to hand out the evaluation forms to the guests in the conference room. But, what surprises me was that most of the guests were used to the evaluation steps so that they get used to search for the evaluation form when they entered the room. Maybe that's why the conference room needs few people to run the spot, as audience already got used to the system about how the conferences work and what they should do.
In shorts, the MEET is quite a fantastic volunteer activity that provides me a quick shot into the meeting industry in United Stated. Though there is something differences with Chinese operation mode and the United State, two management methods can be compared so as to figure out better way to improve each others in the global business times.
----Mix (Mingshi Liu)
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