We all need motivation to be able to fulfil a task and achieve big goals. Sometimes we can’t seem to start what we had planned to do and so we end up postponing, or not doing it at all. But what is this mysterious power, that helps us achieve our goals or fail even trying? And how do we get it? Motivation is described as the general willingness to do something. Psychologists tell us there are two main types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. They di

Negotiation is like performing a dance You move smoothly from one side to the other You speed it up and slow it down You turn left and you turn right, back and forth. It is that state of flow which is the basis of every great negotiation. And it takes a lot of practice You always have to consider, that you want one thing, while your negotiation partner might want something else. How do you create a situation, that you can call win-win? Here are 5 steps to achieve that: 1. G

Communication starts in your head. Our brain is wonderful and mysterious organ. It is working all the time, day and night. We cannot stop it from thinking a million thoughts… …well that is not exactly true. Researchers estimate that we think about 50.000 to 70.000 thoughts per day. Some of them are neutral to our behavior and our communication, most of them though define how we interact with others and how we feel. They have an immediate impact on the way we communicate with

Being in the lockdown brings out some of the most interesting things in us. For me, staying at home and working from there is not a new thing. I have been practicing that for a while. What I really do miss, is the face-to-face meetings with colleagues, clients and especially the travels to events all over the world, including the pleasures of interacting with many people while giving a speech. So, my days have been a little more monotonous lately. And so have yours. What I ha

Transcript of the video engaging meetings is a company focused on enhancing the human-to-human communication and Meeting Design. We do coaching, training, seminars and lectures and consult in human-to-human communication Today I want to talk about communication in general and in times of crisis First communication in general: Communication is based on many different layers. Many elements have to come together to make a good communication happen. Communication works best, when

The human being is a social being. We are looking for commonality, we are looking for friendship and devotion. It helps us, when we help someone else. We feel better, when we smile at someone else. No matter if that person will smile back or not. But I promise, he or she will! A smile is like a virus, I’s contagious. Facebook, twitter and Instagram only work, because they feed our need of belonging to someone else. To a group, to a community, to other human beings. Real frien

The human being is a social being. Communication is the basis of any social encounters with other human beings. How to communicate is something we learn early on at a stage, when we cannot even speak a word. As babies we learn the first types of communication to be able to show our surrounding that we need a change, are hungry or just need social contact. When we learn words, we learn how to arrange them to express what we want and need, what we fear and some of us even learn

The crisis is here, the meetings and events industry is at a standstill. Cancellations and postponements are happening every day. We have more time, that we actually never asked for. But this situation won’t stay for long. We should get our heads up and start thinking about what’s going to happen, when the wheals start turning again. We should use the time that we have right now to plan for the future. Ask yourself: Have I done enough for my skills to sell our services and of

The last couple of weeks and days have been treating the meetings and events industry badly. Major and minor events have been cancelled, postponed and re-organized. Small and medium companies are struggling to survive in a changed surrounding, where a virus and especially the panic resulting from it, have brought our industry to a standstill. Whoever you speak to within the industry has a story to tell, about travel regulations, that have changed, budgets that have been froze

There is not a single day that goes by without hearing or reading something about the novel corona virus (COVID-19). Although the World Health Organization is trying to spread scientific knowledge, the information we get though the media or by word of mouth is somehow fuzzy and anything but scientific. Every day we hear about people that have been diagnosed with the virus, affected by the outbreak and the death numbers of people especially in China. We speak about and try to

Last week I had the pleasure and the honor to be invited to give a seminar and speak at an event in front of meeting and event industry professionals in Tokyo. One of the topics was the focus on the reasons of doing business in Japan. I have been lucky to have planned and conducted meetings and events in a lot of places around the globe. Every country has its benefits and its challenges. In Japan, the most outstanding virtue is the hospitality of the Japanese people towards t

A FAM trip is a form of event, which is quite important and very common within the decision-making process for meeting planners and meeting designers. FAM trip is the short form for familiarization trip and describes a group travel organized by local Convention Bureaus (CVB) or hotels and realized by Destination Management Companies (DMC). The target group are agency planners, corporate planners and association planners. Members of these groups are invited to see and experien

In our recent blog post we spoke about the “pre and post experience” of participants in general and how to make the experience curve last longer. In this post I want to speak only about the experience the participant has while travelling to an event. You might think this is not as relevant to the overall experience as the things that happen while at the event. I do believe though, this is one of the most important things to take care of! What happens if the travel experience

“Let’s be creative, we have to come up with a good concept for this event….”. This is how a lot of creativity meetings start when focusing on the design of a meeting or event of a new client or assignment. Some of us are by nature more creative than others, some are not, or they think they aren’t. I would say anyone can be creative, at least to a certain extent, but only very few can be creative starting cold. But what is creativity? There are a hundred different definitions

A simple smile can change so much. As a kid it was so easy to smile for the silliest and smallest things. It was the first thing we did when approaching others, even if we didn't know them. To smile is one of the first behavior patterns we learn as humans and we also learn that as a result it can open doors for us. Growing up we are confronted with so many other feelings, good and bad, that we tend to forget to smile. So many people are consumed with bad feelings, that it mak

Motivation is something we all need from time to time. Actually, we constantly need it. But can the motivation be given to you by someone else? This is the idea behind motivational speakers. If you have experienced motivational speakers, you will agree, that sometimes they are more intimidating, than motivating. As always there are speakers of many different styles and quality. I have seen some, that basically were yelling at the crowd, hoping they would pick up some of this

I don't even have to ask if you ever experienced that moment, when you ask the participants in the room, or you hear someone asking, “does anyone have a question for the speaker” and you know…. there will be a cruel silence. Most of them have questions…just no one wants to admit it or be the first. Or they think “yes, I do have a question, but …nah, not that important!” A person cannot ask a question, if the role he/she was assigned until that moment, was mute and inactive. W

Event apps have been a part of the meetings and events industry for more than 10 years now. As so many innovations in our industry, they turned out to be the holy grail of the interaction within any meeting or event, when they first came out. So many copy/paste companies joined the buzz and created apps to be used in conferences, meetings and events. As the years passed and the app providing companies received more and more feedback of what worked out well and what not, the w

Most events I have attended and quite honestly some of the events that we have done, do have a very steep but short experience curve. It usually has the shape of a church tower. The experience starts on the way to the event and ends by the time the participant is back home. Why? Let me take you back to the last pop or rock concert you desperately wanted to attend and were lucky enough to get tickets for. How was the experience curve there? It climbed quite high, when we saw t

In the meeting and events industry, we by definition have to work from many places. Basically, all we need is a laptop and a cell phone and we can start. This makes our industry to a perfect place for home office. Isn’t that amazing, people would think. Well I see it a little differentiated. I have worked in big companies surrounded by many employees and colleagues. Small companies with about 5 people around. I have worked in airport lounges, taxis, trains and hotels. And I h