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Do You  Continue to Learn? Do You Continue to Evolve?

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It’s been well over 25 years that I’ve been part of the world of corporate and non-profit meetings and events, and it’s been 23 years since the founding of P&V Enterprises. Have meetings and events changed in that time? You bet they have. It’s changed for the better, in my opinion. It’s as different as TV shows like Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best are from shows like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory.

25+ years ago, most people couldn’t communicate via email. Things like AOL and CompuServe (remember them?) were in their infancy. There was no social media. In fact, most people didn’t have a personal computer.  My gosh, how did we survive? What were those meetings like? Obviously we survived, but the needs and expectations of people and corporations were very different.

What prompted me to think about this was the process of cleaning out “old stuff” from our store room. We hadn’t done that in quite some time as we found cables for a VHS player!  We haven’t had a VHS player in our studio for years!

So how have we, at P&V Enterprises, learned and evolved?

When we began our company, we were still producing multimedia presentations using 35mm slides and many projectors. It was possible to produce on a computer, but the resolution was not very good and therefore the projected image would be not be good enough. Come to think of it, slide changes actually were programmed with a computer, but on punch tape!

However, several events later, we found that we could, indeed, rely on our super duper Mac to help us produce beautiful PowerPoint shows that could be projected very well.

To continue in that vein, our slide shows continued to become more complex and creative, while being sure that the important elements of branding and information were there.

Then we turn to video. Video cameras were ok, but not great. So many people had a Handy-Cam, but they were not good enough for professional use. Every year, there were improvements, and today’s High-Defintition Digital Video Cameras produce an excellent image that can be projected sharply, and when streamed on the internet are excellent quality.

There is more learning and more evolution. P&V Enterprises,  has continually evolved technologically. We’re not necessarily the Beta Testers, but we are sometimes early adopters, and always embrace proven technology.

As the internet has become more reliable and the ability to have more stable connections and more bandwidth increases – not to mention the major improvements in streaming and encoding software – we are able to produce broadcast quality webcasts for our events.

Speaking of learning, we didn’t just blindly begin to webcast; we took time to learn, to research best practices and best methods before we ventured into this. Since 2010, we have been webcasting different types of live events, extending their reach globally.
These are some things to think about. Where do you go to learn and what are you learning about planning events? How are you evolving in your approach to planning and managing events?