Why we created the evolve community

I joked recently that I’ve obviously been doing this for too long as I’m being asked to judge awards, a sure sign that I’m starting to reach my peak of career (or is it notoriety?) It is fair though to say that I’ve been around for a bit now and a few years ago a started noticing a pattern in the education provided by the events industry, for the events industry.

The pattern was that education tailored to association event professionals was lacking. Lacking in originality, lacking in deep discussion, and often lacking in substance.

Many of our industry events are put together without proper research, using untested and inexperienced speakers who can’t avoid the opportunity to pitch rather than deliver rich and valuable content. Yes there are exceptions, as you can imagine I attend most of the established industry events myself and have seen some brilliantly devised sessions, but in my experience they are vastly outnumbered by the poor.

I then added to that the problems around isolation, lack of support, lack of network, that association event professionals often face, and started to think about what I might be able to do to help.

Enter Evolve - The Conference for Association Event Professionals. A one-day conference for event professionals that work in associations that really gets to the nub of the matter, helps create lasting relationships and skills, and adds a bit of fun into the mix.

The main themes I wanted to address through the programme were:

• Creating lasting positive relationships with peers in similar organisations that share the same daily challenges that you face. 

• Getting your voice heard by stakeholders in order to bring about positive change in your organisation 

• Ideas about how to evolve and develop education and events programmes in a world that doesn’t stand still. 

• Creating a sense of fun and enjoyment through learning and socialising for work.

I’m pretty sure that that’s what we’ve achieved, but you’ll be the judge of that.