As a part of our series about “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Virtual Event”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gina Alesse, Director of Professional Development, Project Management Institute.

Gina Alesse, MEd., is the Director of Professional Development at the Project Management Institute (PMI). A proven leader in Learning Design and Development, Gina has spent most of her career managing teams of instructional designers, web designers and contractors to design and create innovative technical training and sales enablement products for global customers. In her role at PMI, Gina is responsible for PMI Global Event Strategy as well as the development and maintenance of PMI’s online catalog of digital offerings.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher — it was my first “dream job.” I actually ended up following this path through high school and college and earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from California Polytechnic State University and a Master of Education degree from Wright State University. My plan out of school was to either teach or become a counselor. I gratefully had the opportunity to try both during my career before my time now at the Project Management Institute (PMI).

 

Can you tell us the story of what led you to this particular career path?

As I mentioned, after leaving school I had the opportunity to try both careers that I had my eyes on: teaching and counseling. Through those experiences I actually realized that neither one of those things was what I really wanted to do in my career. In a major career switch in response, I took an internship with a high-tech company as an instructional designer, and that really started me on the career path I am on now. I consider myself a learning professional and have spent my career since designing and building training programs as well as managing the teams that build training programs. In a way, I am still “teaching,” but in a totally different way than first expected.

 

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I have made a billion mistakes in my career, but I think the best ones stem from the crazy ideas that I or my teams have when it comes to training. Those usually lead to the best learning opportunities. What I have learned most from making mistakes over the course of my career is that mistakes are when you learn the most or make the biggest changes.

 

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
My favorite book is Harold and the Purple Crayon, and it has been since I was little. In a general sense, it’s a story about a boy who writes his story as he goes along. I see myself carrying this mindset in my life and career as well. In my life, “plan A” rarely ends up working for me, so I have gotten very comfortable with exploring plan B, C, D, E, or F. Especially in the past year, utilizing plans D, E, or F have become the norm, whether it be an individual looking to take care of their kids at home or a business looking to adapt to working from home. We can all learn a ton from Harold.

 

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” I think this is applicable in most situations, but especially recently and especially in a remote working environment. As I said previously, mistakes are when you do the most learning, and I think we’ve all done quite a bit of learning since the beginning of 2020.

 

Can you tell us a bit about your experience organizing events in general?
While my entire career has been around training and development, I have recently gotten more involved in events. I’ve had great experiences building presentation sessions, writing the content, creating the products to be shown, and even actually presenting. When I stepped into my role at PMI, I began working closer with events, and I thought it was a safe stretch from the training world to learn more about event execution. Most recently, my team was involved with planning and executing PMI’s Virtual Experience Series, which featured several events providing a way to keep the PMI community engaged and supported throughout an unprecedented time and discussing how businesses and professionals can navigate our current world. My team got to work with many amazing speakers through the process, including Tamron Hall, Malala Yousafzai, Katie Sowers, and more. We’re even planning a 2021 version of the Virtual Experience Series now, which will begin in March.

 

Can you tell us a bit about your experience organizing live virtual events? Can you share any interesting stories about them?
Since I began working on live and virtual events, one of my biggest learnings has been that, unless you have put on an event from end to end, you cannot fully appreciate the work that goes into delighting your customer in every way. Every single aspect of an event is a project itself, whether it is the marketing, registration, content, agenda, keynotes and presenters, technology, entertainment, food, venue, or staff preparations. Even the voice that tells you to “take your seats” is a huge project with many moving parts. That being said, seeing everything come together is absolutely incredible and extremely rewarding.

 

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job creating live virtual events? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

One virtual event that immediately comes to mind is Adobe Max because of the variety that the conference offers. It is all about creativity, which brings a certain level of interest automatically, but the organizers want to provide a wide range of speakers, which I think is so important. On the other side, ATP’s Innovations in Testing comes to mind as a great in-person event because of the many ways to collaborate with speakers and attendees, something they were able to successfully move online in 2020. I can honestly say that our events at PMI impressed me last year through the Virtual Experience Series — and not simply because it was my team. Similar to Adobe Max, I think one of the reasons the series was successful was because we truly had something for everyone. We engaged our community of project managers and change-makers in a variety of ways and brought our attendees together as part of a family, a community, around the world. We tried to create a consumer event rather than a business event, but we still had all the elements of learning and networking the PMI community is accustomed to.

 

What are the common mistakes you have seen people make when they try to run a live virtual event? What can be done to avoid those errors?
If you do the same thing every year, your event gets stale. This goes for in-person and virtual events, but it is especially important when moving an in-person event to a virtual platform. Another mistake is not putting enough emphasis and thought into a clear value proposition or outcome for the event. It is so important to ask what is the event about, who should attend and why, what will they walk away with? These answers are critical — both in event planning and execution. It’s important to keep the proposition simple and clear so any prospective attending can understand why it’s a must attend event.

 

Which virtual platform have you found to be most effective to be able to bring everyone together virtually?

During PMI’s Virtual Experience Series last year, our team explored many different virtual platforms, many times out of necessity to see what worked best for our specific event and our audience. We use Intrado to deliver our events, but Hopin and On24 have also been effective. As we have learned, it is important for event teams to be incredibly agile when experimenting with platforms and tools to find which work best for their goals, audience, and budget. For certain events for example, Zoom can work just fine too.

 

Are there any essential tools or software that you think an event organizer needs to know about?

While this isn’t a technical tool, I think people and leadership skills — what we at PMI call “power” skills — are vital for any event planner. This includes collaborative leadership, communication, and empathy. Corporate event planners work with many different departments within an organization, allowing for incredible opportunities for collaboration. These power skills will allow planners the ability to always change up their events, elevate their content, look for new ways to engage people so attendees want to come back.

 

An in-person event can have a certain electric energy. How do you create an engaging and memorable event when everyone is separated and in their own homes? What are the “Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Virtual Event” and why?

Virtual events may on the outside appear limiting, but they open up a wide range of possibilities that may not have been explored before. When I think of running a successful virtual event, this is what comes to mind:

1. Do the work — research — have a goal. As previously mentioned, taking the time to align on a value proposition for your event is a vital part of the planning process. Everything you do should stick to bringing that proposition to life.
2. Create relevant content. You need quality in your speakers. If you do not have quality, relevant content it doesn’t matter how good your event execution is.
3. Provide variety. Attendees don’t return to see the same material, the same speakers. Having diversity in opinions, expertise, and themes is incredibly important, especially if your event is recurring.
4. Provide opportunities for networking and side discussions. Even during a virtual event, attendees are there to network and meet industry colleagues, whether they are looking for a new role or just to make connections. Providing opportunities to make these connections, whether artificially or organically, should be a priority when building an agenda.
5. Deliver on an easy to access and navigate platform. Test, test, and test your platform again. Technical difficulties may always arise but doing your homework to pick the best platform for your audience can be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful event. At the same time, don’t be afraid to pivot and use a different platform if it isn’t working out.

 

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a live virtual event that they would like to develop. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

The first, and arguably most important, steps for any event should be research, specifically into the audience you would like to engage with. It is important to take the time to know and understand your audience — this will allow you to create an experience that is tailored to them and one that will truly resonate with them.

 

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’d like to have lunch with Carol Burnett. She is an extraordinarily smart and groundbreaking woman who has had a career that spans seven decades. She’s an actress, a singer, a comedian, a writer and was the first woman to host her own comedy variety show. Besides getting her advice on how to stay relevant and keep reinventing yourself, I just feel like that would be a REALLY fun lunch!

 

Source:https://medium.com/authority-magazine/gina-alesse-of-project-management-institute-5-things-you-need-to-know-to-successfully-run-a-live-3b513a81149d