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Early this year, after a private workshop that Blueprint 1543 designed and facilitated, a colleague asked me whether Blueprint could also be contracted to do public events. He had hosted a lackluster event designed and administered by his university’s events department and wondered if there was a better way for his grant-supported work to have public impact. I told him that if the event aligns with Blueprint’s mission, yes, we could do that. I also took the opportunity to explain why his university’s team probably only delivered a mediocre event even if it is a good department.
To begin, a good event has a clear purpose in mind. What is the event trying to accomplish? What will be different about participants afterwards? What change are you trying to bring about? There should be one main goal and no more than two secondary goals. These goals will then guide the strategy for the event, including who is needed for each necessary role to make the event a success.
University events offices are accustomed to having one of two goals for their events: to recruit students and to attract committed donors. If they are well-managed, they have hired staff members who keep these aims front-and-center and know how to design effective events for these aims. But what does that mean for a scholar whose goal is for a body of research to impact a particular public audience? For instance, what if the goal is for faith leaders to learn about and use findings from the psychological sciences to improve their pastoral work? This isn’t an aim that a university’s events team usually has. It may be that because of their marching orders from their superiors or because of how their teams have been built and trained, these university events offices may be unable to adequately meet the needs of this very different sort of public event.
I suspect many project leaders recognize the mismatch between their aims and those of the university events office or know that what they are trying to do falls outside of the remit of a central office. Maybe the event is too small or working through the university bureaucracy is too daunting. And so, the event is ‘in-housed’. But how many academic departments or research units have the requisite expertise on hand to put on excellent events? Not many. Being a regular theater-goer doesn’t qualify a person to direct a stage production; likewise, attending lots of academic events doesn’t mean that you have the skills to create a meaningful experience for participants.
Blueprint 1543 can help.
