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12/28/2013

10 simple principles on managing seminars | Trilok Kumar Jain

TKJAIN’S

10

PRINCIPLES

SERIES

AN ACADEMICIAN'S GUIDE TO MANAGING SEMINARS, CONFERENCES, CONVENTIONS,

SYMPOSIUMS AND WORKSHOPS

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AN ACADEMICIAN'S GUIDE TO MANAGING SEMINARS,

CONFERENCES, CONVENTIONS, SYMPOSIUMS AND

WORKSHOPS

By : -

Trilok Kumar Jain Professor and writer of Management, Entrepreneurship and

Spirituality

Jain.tk@gmail.com

Mobile : 9414430763

For whom:

Teachers, Scholars, Faculty members, Writers, Social workers who wish to organise seminars and

workshops for knowledge dissemination.

About the author: -

The author has experience of orgainsing and managing hundreds of seminars, conferences, workshops,

plays, puppet shows, MDPs, specialised talk shows etc. The author was part of the organising team

when Tom Alter’s plays were organised in Bikaner (organised by the Ajit Foundation for Social

Development). The author was the part of the organising team of a series of seminars by Gandhi

Research Foundation in Bikaner. The author was the organising chair during C3W 2012 and 2013 (C3W

stands for Convention on Climate Change and Water Crisis, which attracted over 160 environmentalists,

NGO representatives, Corporates and activists). The author believes that there should be continuity of

seminars. The continuity of seminars will enable success in the seminars and people will remember and

wait for the seminar (for example, C3W is organised every year and therefore people wait for it).

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tkjain's 10 principles series: -

About tkjain’s 10 Principle Series

As an author of management, I have written e-books on 10 principles – which are simple, easy

to remember, easy to understand and can reflect the most important aspects. These e-books

are freely available on internet. Some of these are as under : -

Entrepreneurs’ guide to Managing Human Resource

Time Management

Problem Solving and Decision Making Techniques for Administrators

Strategic Decision Making

Digital Marketing and Webpreneurship

Edupreneur’s Guide to Academic Excellence and Educational Administration

tkjain's 10 principles for managing seminars, conferences, symposia, conventions, workshops, street

plays: -

1. student organising team

2. sponsorship

3. stay arrangements, logistics, receptions and overall hospitality arrangements

4. online marketing for registrations

5. globalisation

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6. session planning

7. publications

8. amazing rewards based on research paper performance, presentation, participation and

interactions

9. concrete results

10. entertainment, exhibitions, films, sight seeing, networking and other attractions

Brief descriptions of all these is discussed as under : -

1. student organising team : There should be a strong students organising

team. The students learn a lot by organising these events. In C3W 2013, we

had a four student team, which continuously worked and didnt sleep for 72

hours non-stop and did an amazing work of hospitality to 160+ delegates

under the guidance of one senior faculty (who was CEO of the convention).

These four students didnt say that they were tired, rather they said that

they were highly satisfied as they learned a lot in managing the hospitality

(logistics, stay arrangements, hospitality etc.). These four students have

grown in their maturity, personality and presentation by the orginsing an

event. the student organising team shold have lot of discussions and lot of

debates regarding how to orgnise it, this will help them in their own

development. The organising team should be prepared to spend sleepless

nights for ensuring success in the event.

2. sponsorship : There should be a core group for securing sponsorship of the

event. The core committe of the sponsorship should use emails and contact

UGC, AICTE, ICSSR, Fortune 500 companies, local companies (companies of

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neighbouring region), International funding agencies like UNDP, EC, etc and

should also contact government departments like Ministries etc. A very

responsible person should be a part of this committee. All the medium /

large companies and organisations from the neighbouring region should be

invited to be sponsor of some or other event. Media partnership is very

important. One newspaper should be the media partner from the beginning

to highlight the progress and proper publicity should be there for 10

months for success. Invitation committee should work in close association

with sponsorship committee as many sponsors will be requested to send

some nominees for the seminar.

3. stay arrangements, logistics, receptions and overall hospitality

arrangements : - In C3W 2013, with 150 delegates, our hospitality team had

sleepless nights for 72 hours. The hotels should be booked in advance and

logistics, hospitality and arrangements should be outsourced through some

event management company. The delegates should know in advance about

the name of hotel, the address of the hotel, the contact persons, the

approximate distance from Railway Station / Airport to the hotel and to the

University so that they may hire taxis and reach on their own (they should

be provided detailed map showing the venue, the hotel, the important

locations with help line numbers). All the delegates should be provided

with ample food coupons so that they can take tea, breakfast, lunch and

dinner as per their choice from the Food Exhibition / Food Counters. There

should be large number of food shops / counters with varieties of food and

the delegates should have ample choice for the food (they should have

coupons which they can use in any counter).

4. online marketing for registrations : It should be started 18 months before

the event. The conference should be properly publicised through online

marketing using various websites like www.Conferencealerts.com etc. so

that scholars and researchers can come to know about it well in advance.

Do post your seminar’s homepage on websites like www.linkedin.com,

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www.twitter.com, www.facebook.com .The registration fees should be

different for the following categories : - a. Corporate Delegates b. Invited

Participants c. Academicians d. Research Scholars, f. NGO representatives g.

Students from Schools h. Students from Colleges /Universities. Following

should not have to pay any registration fees : - a. Invited speakers b. Invited

delegates c. Invited innovators d. Invited VVIPs e. Invited social activists,

writers, journalists, media representatives, film makers, dramatists and

artists. I recommend to use the following website for starting registration

panel for the seminar: - http://cmt.research.microsoft.com/cmt/

5. globalisation : In today's time every conference, seminar, workshop should

be globalised. Partnership with foreign universities, educational and

research institutions will improve the quality of the seminar proceedings.

6. Invitations for sessions, exhibitions and event planning: - Along with a

seminar, following exhibitions should be organised : a Exhibition of related

products/ services b. Exhibition of ethnic food / food festival c. Exhibition of

latest technologies/ govt. departments on related themes d. Exhibition of

folk products / local products from that region e. Exhibition of new

traditional products / folk products e. Students' scientific projects. These

exhibitions / shows should be open to the public and a media partner

should regularly give information on these. These should be properly

publicised so that people may come to attend these exhibitions. Companies

will also benefit by participation in these events. An event management

company may be hired for helping in success in these activities.

7. publications : - the proceedings of each session should be published

immediately on youtube / webposts / webinar format so that these are live

instantly and watched by people from across the globe. The texts of the

sessions should also be uploaded on the website regularly. In addition a

seminar newsletter should be started by the students highlighting the

progress / achievements / participation.

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8. amazing rewards based on performance, presentation, participation and

interactions : - there should be attractive awards and rewards on good

presentation, good contents - like Best Paper Award, Quizes, Environment

oriented play awards, Best Presentation Award, Best Innovation Award,

Best Photography / Coverage of seminar Award.

9. concrete results : - Every seminar should result in concrete results and

should enable the participants to go with some great benefits. These

concrete results could be in the form of acceptance of projects by funding

agencies / government / banks or development of some code of conduct

(during C3W 2012 we had developed a code of conduct about Corporate

Social Responsibility).

10. entertainment, exhibitions, films, sight seeing, networking and other

attractions : - participants also wish to participate in entertaining events.

During the C3W there were Creative Cultural Nights, which were extremely

liked by the participants. There should be entries from other colleges,

schools, institutions, film makers, play groups and artists for cultural nights.

All the entertainment events should be theme based - and the theme

should be related to the theme of the seminar. Feature Films / Art Films

on the theme of the seminar should also be shown. In the mornings there

should be Heritage walk with a visit to important places for sight seeing and

for appreciating the cultural heritage of the city. The curtain raiser event

should be organised in joint collaboration with all the industry associations

with invitation to all important persons, leaders including political leaders

so that the event gives an opportunity to interact.

Send your feeback, your comments and your support to jain.tk@gmail.com