Three weeks… Three Shows… Three Key Takeaways…

I usually take away an idea or two from each event that I produce. I had the pleasure of planning and producing three multi-day events for Siemens over the past month and my experience at each show made a unique impression on me.

Listening – At the recent Industry Leadership Conference, Siemens had a customer panel who, with very senior Siemens management in the audience, were frank about some key issues they had with Siemens. When you hear things in person it makes the content more personal and therefore more impactful than hearing the same things second or third hand. The sessions were recorded and so impactful that Siemens showed clips of the panel discussion at the Drive Technologies Management meeting two weeks later. How’s that for an actionable takeaway?

Service – The recent Siemens Building Technologies Annual Management Meeting was held at the JW Marriott Starr Pass in Tucson. As I noted in a recent blog, I was blown away by their attention to service and how simple, one-word ideas can translate into digestible concepts easily executed by their staff on a daily basis. They highlight these one-word concepts on a concise, efficient document called Luxury Notes, which is hanging in the service corridor to serve as a visual reminder of the simplicity of service excellence.

1½% – As the leader of the recent Drive Technologies Management Meeting was closing out this meeting he asked the audience if they thought the event was worth 1 ½%. Why?
1 ½% represents the portion of time that the audience had spent at the meeting as part of the total amount of hours they work in a given year (3.5 meeting & travel days/230 work days). In essence, 1 ½% of their work year is at this meeting. Did the audience get the right amount of new information to come up with ideas on how to best use it? Did they reacquaint and make new connections with other attendees? Did they have fun? Did they get their
1½% ROI?