Saturday, September 4, 2010



Your choice of location can make or break your corporate team building session or executive retreat. Let your objectives and theme drive the location selection decision and not vice versa.

Before approaching an event consultant, determine if you will require assistance with location scouting. An experienced team building firm should be able to help you find a location to fit your budget. However, it does take time to call around, check availability and come up with just the right fit. It is not right to expect consultants to do your location scouting for free and do the event on your own or use the location suggested by one team building service provider (for free) and give the business to another.

For this reason, location scouting is now a service we provide as a stand alone or complimetary to organizations that have decided to engage our team building services. If your budget is limited, scout around. You may be able to find some unique and cost effective locations for your events. You can stretch your budget by using children's camps during off-peak season, amusement parks, acting studios, the catering department of community colleges to save on the cost of refreshments, movie theatres, camp sites, and conservation areas. To save money on location, it is important to book your session WELL in advance.....3 - 4 months in advance. To book a group camp site and shelter, you would need a 5 - 6 month lead time.

Do note that you can usually negotiate for better group rates when booking in advance.

For weekend teambuilding sessions, here are 5 of our favourite hotels in Malaysia:

Corus Hotel, Port Dickson




Corus Paradise Resort will captivate you from the moment you arrive at this beautiful Port Dickson hotel.

Descending down our grand staircase, you will feel the warm sea breeze on your face and the glimpse of Straits of Malacca as you make your way to our lobby area. Your journey in Port Dickson will be filled by the mellow and peaceful sounds of our cascading waterfall.

With 200 en-suite bedrooms equipped with modern facilities and amenities, Corus Paradise Resort in Port Dickson is the perfect getaway for your family.

Want to hold meetings in Port Dickson? Corus Paradise Resort Port Dickson is an ideal conference and seminar destination. It can accommodate up to 300 guests for meetings, seminars and banquets.

Conveniently located, Corus Paradise resort Port Dickson is well serviced by major roads and is connected to the North-South Highway. It is 1 hour 30 minutes by car from most Kuala Lumpur hotels and just 40 minutes from Kuala Lumpur International Airport

http://www.corusparadisepd.com/

Swiss Garden Kuantan




Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Kuantan Pahang Malaysia is a world-class beach resort located on the pristine shoreline of eastern Peninsular Malaysia. Idyllic and charming, this coconut-swaying paradise fronts the azure waters of the South China Sea. With luxurious accommodations, excellent facilities, attentive service and true Malaysian hospitality, every guest of ours can expect to be treated like royalty. Holidaymakers and business travelers alike will find the Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Kuantan, Pahang Malaysia an unforgettable experience.

Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Kuantan, Pahang Malaysia comes with 304 well appointed guestrooms. The rooms comprises of 111 Deluxe Garden View, 134 Deluxe Sea-View, 23 Family Suites, 16 Studio Rooms and 20 Executives Suites. A harmonious blend of contemporary design, the Resort's elegantly refurbished guest accommodation in subtle earthy tones combined with exclusively designed soft furnishings create a unique atmosphere and perfect balance between luxury and homely familiarity. Facilities in all rooms include a long bath with a built-in shower, king-size or twin beds, individually controlled air conditioning, satellite TV, broadband internet connection, safe, mini-bar and coffee & tea making facilities. Each room has a private balcony and boasts panoramic view of the South China Sea or the lush green garden.

http://www.swissgardenkuantan.com/

Swiss-Garden Golf Resort & Spa Damai Laut



Swiss-Garden Golf Resort & Spa Damai Laut (formerly known as Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut), a 4 star resort, open on 18 December 1997 is an international standards resort blended with the quiet charm of traditional Malaysian hospitality in a rich tapestry of comfort and luxury. Swiss-Garden Golf Resort & Spa Damai Laut (formerly known as Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut) offers guest a wonderful retreat to nature. Providing superb hotel amenities coupled with attentive, personal service, the resort is perfect for business conferences or a holiday filled with recreational fun.

Swiss-Garden Golf Resort & Spa Damai Laut (formerly known as Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut) is a very private hotel with 300 well appointed guestrooms overlooking the Straits of Malacca and Pangkor Island. It is located on a 425 acres of natural rainforest and surrounded by lush tropical rainforest, wetlands and offers beautifully landscaped gardens and large open spaces with breathtaking sea view for guests who want to relax and enjoy a wonderful retreat to nature. All rooms are equipped with amenities including High Speed Internet Access, IDD telephone, individually controlled air-conditioning, colour television with CNN International news service, Astro channels and in-house videos and an electronic safe in every room for personal documents and valuables. This resort is perfect for business or holidays complete with recreational fun. All rooms are air-conditioned and come with its own private balcony.

http://www.damailaut.com/index.html

Bukit Gambang Resort City



BGRC, an integrated resort city with its multi-dimensional tourist attractions and reasonably priced resort accommodation, strives to be an added feature for the Kuantan's attractiveness among the west coast city dwellers. It further aims to be one of the “must-visit” resort destination, not only for the East Coast local residents but also all the West Coast visitors.

BGRC is conveniently located Gambang, Pahang with easy access via the East Coast Expressway. BGRC is a mere 218km, 2½ hours drive from Kuala Lumpur; while Kuantan folks are just 35km away. Nestled in a secondary forest, Bukit Gambang Resort City provides visitors with a serene environment, lush green surroundings and a great vacation spot for exciting activities.

BGRC is also the home of the first and the largest water
park in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia; offering a
20-acre lake, 25,000 square feet wave pool with 8 modes of waves, the longest family raft
ride and 6-lane racer slide complete with timing scoreboard

Equatorial Cameron Highlands



Perched at 1,628 meters above sea level, surrounded by majestic mountains and gentle undulating valleys, Equatorial Cameron Highlands is the only resort situated at the highest accessible point of highlands.

Spread over 13 acres, the Tudor styled resort offers 141 attractive, self-contained low rise apartment suites and 268 superior rooms, deluxe rooms and suites in the hotel tower that offer breathtaking views of the highland landscapes.

The Resort is famously known for its capability in hosting events from company incentive trips to conventions and seminars. Besides the Resort's extensive recreational facilities and vast grounds, where telematches and scavenger hunts can be carried out; the Resort will also arrange trips to the "Orang Asli" settlement.

http://www.equatorial.com/cam/

Eagle Ranch Resort



Want to immerse yourself in a variety of sports and recreational activities, or simply unwind and relax without the hassle of long-distance travel? If your answer is yes, then Eagle Ranch Resort, which is set amidst rugged 30-acre surroundings with horse trails and live eagles soaring the skies, is the right place for you! Whether you're planning a family holiday or a corporate retreat, there are many fun activities for everybody, for the young, as well as the very young at heart.
Located in Port Dickson, an hour and a half's drive from Kuala Lumpur, Eagle Ranch Resort provides a wide range of interesting and exciting outdoor & indoor activities to keep you occupied during your stay here.

Accommodation at Eagle Ranch Resort is unique and varies from kampong houses over the fishing pond, log cabins, paddock chalets, bandwagons and tepees, equipped with queen and twin beds, colour TV, fridge, coffee and tea making facilities to dormitories furnished with double deck bunk beds.

http://www.eagleranch.com.my/
byBest Events
in
6:22 PM

Selecting the Right Locations for Teambuilding or Corporate Retreats

Your choice of location can make or break your corporate team building session or executive retreat. Let your objectives and theme drive the...
Read More

Once you are clear about your objectives of your teambuilding session, it is important to determine:

•number of participants
•level of participants
•budget
•time frame
•special dietary requirements including allergies
•physical disabilities and constraints
•if you will require assistance with location scouting
If you are interested in using an external team building consultant, here are some reasonable expectations for a decision making process

•Before you contact prospective consultants, ensure that you can clearly state your objectives, identify a clear decision making process, establish decision making criteria and set a budget
•It is also important to have an idea of other agenda items that your company is planning to include on the agenda eg presentation of sales results, upcoming plans
•Ensure that you have an approved budget and sufficient time on your agenda for team building
•When you contact event consultants you should be prepared to share this information with them and indicate the size of the group, indicate group demographics and state your preferred dates
•You should give event consultants about a week to get back to you with a proposal
•You should be in a position to make a decision no more than 2 weeks after you receive proposals from prospective event consultants.
•Ideally, you should allow 5 - 6 weeks, preferably 2 months for adequate planning of your session.

It is not reasonable or acceptable to:

•Contact event consultants and indicate that your request is urgent unless you know for sure that you will be making a decision quickly
•Contact consultants on Friday afternoon indicating you urgently need information for a Monday meeting and then just disappear
•To ask consultants to spend time preparing proposals, contacting potential venues, etc. before the budget and time have been allocated for team building
•Take more than 2 weeks to make a decision after you get proposals or quotes
•Disappear without contacting suppliers who have taken the time to submit a proposal and let them know your decision

It is just plain unethical to:

•Skim off the best ideas and have the retreat using internal resources without paying a consulting fee
•Use the location that a consultant provided without paying a location scouting fee
•Contact other consultants and ask them to prepare proposals when you KNOW that you have already selected a supplier and you are just trying to meet your company's three quotes minimum requirement. Instead, Google the words team building and use information from company web sites.
byBest Events
in
6:09 PM

Planning for your teambuilding event before asking for proposals

Once you are clear about your objectives of your teambuilding session, it is important to determine: •number of participants •level of parti...
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We've had clients who come to us requesting for teambuilding proposals before coming back to us two weeks later saying that their company has decided to cut-back leaving room only for a weekend getaway. Why does this happen? Here's an article adapted from Training Oasis.

It's simple. Too much focus on the activity, not enough focus on results, tie-in to the business, and return on investment. It's happened in organization after organization. One day the money is flowing freely. Eventually, someone in the executive suite says "Hey wait a minute, we've spent RM1 million(or RM5 million and even more when one factors in the indirect costs like salaries for the participants) for drumming, hot air ballooning, paint ball, or go karting. Where's the value? How much time was spent debriefing the activity and drawing links to our business? Were business or planning exercises part of these sessions? How did this further the business? How did this improve performance or team interaction?" Suddenly, "poof" the money is gone and suddenly team building is something we used to do.

If you want to ensure that your budget for team building gets cut, treat it like a commodity. Give the most inexperienced person in your team the responsibility for contacting prospective suppliers. Give them very little guidance, after all you're busy right? They'll focus strictly on the fun activities and short list based on what sounded like the most "fun". They won't be able to answer questions like "What are your objectives for this session?", "What major challenges is your team facing?" and "What specific improvements do you want to see in organizational and team performance?" They'll shortlist and present options to you based on what sounds like fun or what's cheapest. When making your selection, go for the latest fad, what's hot and the flavour of the month. Eventually, the money for team building will disappear from your company's budget as it has in other organizations. It's guaranteed. On the other hand, if you really want team building to be a value added, give careful attention to clarifying your objectives and allow sufficient time for defining your team building strategy and planning.

As mentioned in our previous post, before you plan your corporate team building session or executive retreat, it is important to be clear about your objectives. Remember you need the steak AND the sizzle. It's an organization you're running not a social club so keep that in mind when determining the best course of action. Far too often, companies end up disappointed in team building sessions and corporate retreats because expectations were not clearly identified and articulated.

Examples of Team Building Objectives

•Forge stronger alliances between geographically dispersed teams
•Fine-tune your marketing and sales strategy
•Reduce friction and "turf wars" between organizational levels and departments.
•Improve communication between teams and departments
•Improve your decision making process
•Identify strategies to reduce red tape and duplication of effort
•Brainstorm and generate new strategies to resolve business issues and overcome challenges
•Manage projects more effectively even within tight timeframes
Then, think carefully about whether or not team building is really appropriate. Select your programme based on your objectives not just because a particular activity sounds "cool".

There is a place for team recreation, socials, picnics, etc. The key is to be clear about what you're doing. Don't call it team building just to have an excuse to party or next year maybe that budget will disappear. Here at BEST EVENTS each and every one of our team building sessions and accelerated learning programmes is LOADED with the "fun factor". However, unless someone has hired us strictly for recreation, its fun with a purpose. Why gather all of these people together, pay money to stay at a resort or rent meeting space at a hotel if your goal is strictly "fun". Order a pizza, go bowling, go out for dinner and then salsa dancing, or go to an amusement park. It's a lot cheaper.

Anne Thornley-Brown M.B.A., President
Executive OasisInternational

Toronto Based Consulting Firm Specializing in Business Team Building,
Executive Retreats & Incentive Travel

Featured Destinations: Canada, Jamaica, Anguilla, Grenada,
St. Lucia,Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman

http://www.thetrainingoasis.com/teambuildingprimer.html
http://www.executiveoasis.com
byBest Events
in
5:34 PM

Why companies cut back on teambuilding

We've had clients who come to us requesting for teambuilding proposals before coming back to us two weeks later saying that their compan...
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Wednesday, September 1, 2010


With the recent Merdeka celebrations, the citizens of Malaysia were shown being united and living in harmony despite some minor incidences that showed otherwise. As a nation, there are those who express patriotism openly either by displaying the national flag or declaring their undying love for the country. Then are those who love their country just as much but are just not into being as expressive and there are still those that put the country down no matter how good they've got it. For a country to be united, all the citizens should work together to bring the country forward.

The same goes with a company. It's all in the state of mind and personal drive. There are those who will work extra hard because they believe that this will work in their benefit, and are there are those who just enjoy complaining without getting any much work done.

It's usually the Managements' belief that one teambuilding session or workshop can change the mental state of those who are not working in harmony with the company hence not being as productive as they should be. Teambuilding sessions do help but companies need to know that the whole outlook of the company - it's mission, values and objectives are there to ensure that positive change is being implemented continuously.

Symptoms that Signal a Need for Team Building


Decreased productivity
Conflicts or hostility among staff members
Confusion about assignments, missed signals, and unclear relationships
Decisions misunderstood or not carried through properly
Apathy and lack of involvement
Lack of initiation, imagination, innovation; routine actions taken for solving complex problems
Complaints of discrimination or favoritism
Ineffective staff meetings, low participation, minimally effective decisions
Negative reactions to the manager
Complaints about quality of service from clients


Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to the 12Cs below as identified by Susan M. Heithfield.

•Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?

•Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values?

•Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

•Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?

•Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

•Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework?

Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?

•Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

•Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?

•Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

•Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?

•Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

•Cultural Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs?

Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back from the work of the teams?


One teambuilding event won't be able to solve all problems at one go so it's important to know what your company wants to achieve from the first teambuilding event and have the event company customize the activities in order to achieve this objective. When the company is satisfied that the staff is responding well, they can then slowly introduce other positive changes.


Teambuilding is not just about playing games and having fun while building relationships. It's about uniting staff towards the same goal- the moving forward of a company.
byBest Events
in
8:14 PM

Will having a Teambuilding Event Help your staff?

With the recent Merdeka celebrations, the citizens of Malaysia were shown being united and living in harmony despite some minor incidences t...
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Tuesday, August 3, 2010


TV or Internet? Newspaper or Magazine? With thousands of channels available to advertise your event, choosing the right one has become increasingly difficult. This is a major concern as selecting the wrong channel means that your message will not reach your target audience and will hamper your event success.

We've come across a few companies which take event marketing for granted assuming that the event is so cool that people will automatically know about it. Sure, your event could be filled with amazing activities and cool celebrities but if you don't create awareness about the event at least two months before the event (and this means frequent reminders and not just a one-off notice), trust us, no one will be excited enough to attend. Advertising helps to build the hype and the desire for your target audience to attend but the question now is what sort of advertising medium should you opt for?

Here are a few questions you need to ask before selecting a channel for your event:

1. What is your event size?
2. Where is your event located?
3. Do you have a fixed or diverse audience?
4. What is your promotion budget size?

As you answer these questions, you slowly but steadily eliminate channels that will not work for you. For example, if you are organizing a doctor’s conference for doctors practicing in Mumbai, buying a TVC spot on popular channel is both pointless and expensive. You will deplete your budget without seeing an impressive rise in conversion rates. A better and more cost effective channel for a medical event would be a medical magazine.

To simplify your decision-making process further, here is an at-a-glance look at some popular advertising mediums and their pros and cons:

TV – Strengths

1. Versatile medium that uses both sight and sound to communicate
2. Promote events on a national, regional or local level
3. Reach out to selective and diverse markets based on channel choice

TV – Weakness

1. Prime time spots receive maximum viewing audience but are expensive
2. TV ads are short in duration and so, are easy to miss or ignore
3. There are limited spots available
4. Not suitable for event with a set audience e.g. Pilots

Radio – Strengths

1. Promote on a local or regional level
2. Target specific markets or reach large, diverse markets
3. Excellent way to reach commuting audiences

Radio – Weakness

1. Radio ads are short and can be missed easily
2. Each channel has a specific audience and you may have to purchase spots with multiple channels to deliver your message effectively

Newspapers – Strengths

1. Promote on a national, regional or local level to both select and diverse markets
2. Newspapers are published daily and are a great way to generate instant response / action
3. Publish detailed messages
4. Long lasting impact (people keep the entire paper or clip )

Newspapers – Weakness

1. Readers are selective, they might not read the page your ad is on
2. National newspapers are expensive and are not feasible for small or local events

Magazines – Strengths

1. Reach selected markets easily and effectively
2. Large audience (multiple readers read a single magazine)
3. Permanent as readers keep acquired magazines to re-read

Magazines – Weakness

1. Only approximate readership figures available
2. Strict deadlines to place ads
3. Difficult to make changes once ad is placed
4. Reader may forget about ad as magazines are published on a weekly or monthly basis

Internet – Strengths

1. Promote on a global level for a cost effective rate
2. Communicate to selective and diverse audiences easily
3. Interactive Youth friendly medium
4. Instant changes possible at any time

Internet – Weakness

1. Language Barriers
2. Time Differences
3. No very effective to reach a 60+ audience
4. Requires some at least a basic level of computer skills

To summarize, all channels have their pros and cons; ultimately, you need to decide which channel will best promote your event. By choosing the right a channel, you will spend less money and will retain a bigger budget for other essential activities.
-Event Industry News
byBest Events
in
5:40 PM

Which Advertising Medium is Right for your event?

TV or Internet? Newspaper or Magazine? With thousands of channels available to advertise your event, choosing the right one has become incre...
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We've been to parties and expos and have brought home our fair share of goodies (half of which are useless).

When searching for corporate souvenirs for your potential clients or guests to bring home, it's usually the usual stuff that gets pushed to you- the thermos, mug, pens, notebooks, badges, umbrella- all stamped with the company logo.

The items mentioned above ARE useful but you can't help but sigh "not another pen..." when you get it. If you ARE considering these items as giveaways, just remember to put a little effort into the design. Adding a little smart humour always helps boost its desirabiltiy.

We found a great blog on tradeshow giveaways on http://deirdrereid.com to help you plan for your next tradeshow giveaway. Here's the summary of the blogpost plus some of our own comments:

A lot of us agree on what we like to take home from a trade show. Shelly Alcorn raised an important consideration — “What about sustainability? Can we give out cool things without just creating more junk?” Jeff Hurt recommended “contacting PPAI, the association for promotional products professionals, for green sustainable and unusual ideas.” Some of the “greener” ideas mentioned were:

Seed packets, unless you have an international meeting. We like handmade paper seed packets (or coasters) that are buried and bloom into flowers. Joe Flowers once saw seeds that grow into “a plant with a one-word slogan on them. Very cool and geeky!”


Bamboo cutting boards with the exhibitor’s logo etched in, very cool.


Reusable shopping bags – by far one of the group’s favorites, they give the vendor a branding opportunity and fit the green requirement of many.



It’s understood that this is the vendor’s opportunity to brand themselves, but we want good design. This is a chance to associate your brand with utility and style. We don’t want an ugly logoed coffee mug, but we will take a nicely designed one, perhaps with a discreet logo on the bottom.

Dan Scheeler likes “how #tech10 posted booth giveaways in advance – admit that will influence which vendors I visit.” Most of us don’t read the exhibitor postcards and direct mail we receive before a trade show – it usually goes straight to the trash unless it has stand-out design.

Here’s what else we like in the food/beverage department:

Nalgene-type water bottles
Cork screws or bottle openers (like the kind you can keep on a keychain)
Neoprene lunch bags
Wine cooler bags
Insulated travel coffee mugs
Nice coffee mugs
Drinks, or bottles with custom labels. Good for speakers too.
Mints, power bars, bottled water and good candy help us get through the long days.
If giveaways can double as a gift for kids, it makes it home, like rubber duckies, stuffed animals, even caricatures. There is the risk that these gifts will be lost in the chaos of kids’ rooms, but parents like the thoughtfulness of handy souvenirs.

Personal items that we like:

Lip balm
Hand sanitizer in little bottles (below 100ml) so that it can be brought on board a plane
Eyeglass cleaning cloths — and for a boomer audience, how about magnifier reading glasses for those show floor maps with really tiny print
Attractive or cool lanyards to reuse at other shows/conferences
Magnetic picture frames
Digital photos with friends, adding a frame is even better
Retractable headphone/earbuds
Golf tees and ball
Keychain flashlights
Brightly colored luggage tags — however, luggage handle wraps got a thumbs-down.
Small travel mouse with retractable cord
iPod wraps
Nice messenger or gym bags without any tacky branding
Drawstring backpacks
Pens get mixed reviews. Pens with a thumb drive are okay. Bobblehead pens are big movers at his booth.

Shelly summed up the pen issue, “Nobody wants a pen with your company name on it – I mean NOBODY.” Some people can never have enough pens but if you’re doing pens, try to make them cool.

Thumbdrives are popular with some, but others say they already have too many.

Other popular office items are:

Lanyards with a business card holder attached.
Headshots (useful for social media)
USB hubs
Post-its
Tape measure or ruler
Notepads
Highlighters
“The dreaded stress balls” – some like them, many don’t. I think they’re wasteful and will still be around in 2199 when we’re all in the matrix.

T-shirts get mixed reviews. Ray van Hilst said, “Lame t-shirts are bad. Funny or cool ones generate WOM.” That’s word of mouth, as in marketing, a major consideration for any giveaway decisions. Other advice: have a mix of sizes so they actually fit attendees and don’t get relegated to the rag pile; keep logos to a minimum, we don’t want to be your walking advertisements; if you make it funny, we might wear it.

Best Events designs t-shirts for only RM150 per design, we can print them for you as well. View post here.

Bathrobes and toiletries are great too.

Ray reminded us that sometimes “an experience counts as a giveaway too. Chair massages get people to stop and relax,” or hand “massages.”

Personalized art pieces are wildly popular especially when attendees can watch them being made.

Peter Romeo told me about a conference that gave attendees Express Mail postage to ship their conference binders home. It was a sponsored perk.

Experiences, rather than giveaways, might be a more sustainable option too. Mercy Malaysia did a ball toss game at a tradeshow recently. Attendees pay RM1 to throw a ball into a hole which has a prize. If it misses, the money just goes to their fund and the attendee still goes off happy for being able to contribute.

What about having a raffle for a big prize rather than giving away? Most of us like that option. We’ve seen raffles for an iPod, Wii and GPS, and would like to see Kindles and iPads as prizes.

At one booth if you guessed the correct number of M&Ms in a jar, you could win a Snoopy lunchbox. In another you won prizes playing Wheel of Fortune.
byBest Events
in
4:23 PM

Best and Worst Event giveaways

We've been to parties and expos and have brought home our fair share of goodies (half of which are useless). When searching for corporat...
Read More

Monday, August 2, 2010



An invitation card sets the mood by using the right play of words and the way it looks. It builds hype and excitement. However, with people being more conscious about the environment, an alternative to printing cards on paper would be to send e-cards instead.

Your guests know what to expect at a party from the invites that they receive. They can prepare themselves for a formal or informal event. This piece of published and decorated card carries a message and shows a host’s goal in relation with a certain event. For extremely important occasions like marriages, the degree of customization and the diversity of party invite ideas are really in depth.

It helps that a dresscode is stated as well. View post on the various dresscodes here.

From birthdays to anniversaries and vacations, you can take you pick of party invite ideas from extremely countless Internet sites. The design, the colors, the motifs and the personal information alter seriously.

For casual events, selecting something nice and honest for the theme of the party is sufficient. You do not want anything further than that when inviting your pals and comrades to a cocktail party, a dinner or a Halloween party.

The entire purpose here is to do something special pleasing, funny and entertaining. This is what a party is all about, and how you write the invite should definitely render that message.

Not all parties need a professionally designed card. For kids parties for example, a simple DIY design is sufficient. Best Events creates basic e-cards for free when our services are hired for Kids Parties.

When getting a professional to design your card, you can help prepare samples of what you want and what you don't want. Tell him what kind of pictures you would like to see, what fonts to use, how to adjust the colors and design to the theme of the party and much more.

For parties with smaller groups of people, you can opt for something more personal. We recommend pop-up cards from scissorpapercraft.blogspot.com (image above). Just lovely!
byBest Events
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Party invitations

An invitation card sets the mood by using the right play of words and the way it looks. It builds hype and excitement. However, with people ...
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