Turning B2B into experiences people actually talk about

Thank you, Laura. That was a wonderful intro.

One of the things I attended this year for the first time that I loved was I went to Stagecoach. And so that is like a huge festival in Palm Desert. I've never done a festival before. I've never

been out there, always wanted to do Coachella, ended up going to Stagecoach and loved it. And it was really nice to attend something like that, this massive scale. And there's tons of brand activations happening. There's tons of concerts and things happening all around you. And it was so nice to just take it all in. I love going to stuff like that because you can get inspired. Inspired by that B2C world, especially since I produce in

mostly a B2B world. And so just seeing how these brands build larger than life activations and how they think about engaging with their consumer in these cultural moments. And I find that attending these bigger cultural activations for me is always so fun to just like spend time in it and get inspiration.

could say this too, I did also get to attend Canva Create this year for the first time. And so that was really a fun one to see. I'm good friends with Jimmy Knowles, who is their head of events over at Canva and have massive respect for him and his team. And it was really fun to go and see that event live and be in it as a guest, but you can't, it's really hard to.

to take off that hat. almost never take off that hat. So I am not judging, like taking it all and being like, okay, so let's see how they design this space. What's the customer and journey? What's the attendee flow? What's reg look like? How long are the lines? How are they dealing with, you know, the sessions and the flow of guests in and out? What is the fun interactive engagement moments? What are the larger than life builds? Jimmy loves to do

fun stuff like that. So I don't take it off. Just like as

My husband worked in restaurants for years and like we go to dinner and he can't stop like judging the lighting and the sound and the tablecloth.

I think that they do a really great job of making this. There isn't just B2B, it's B2B and B2C because their actual users are attending that conference as well as their business customers. I think they do a really great job of being fun. They know how to think big.

I mean, I've had these conversations with Jimmy and some of his team and they like talk about how they get together and they just ideate crazy ideas. And then they bring them some of them they bring to life. Like, you know, the whole they bring confetti everywhere. They've built larger than life ball pits and they had a sit like a super slide at this event. And you're just like, that stuff. At first, you're like, God, that would never work. But then they do it and it works and people love it. And they build these moments that are extremely engaging and interactive.

They had this really fun area I thought that was like all these really larger than life builds. had this larger than life rubber ducky and stuff that's hysterical, but it works. It's amazing. It also works for their brand. I at LinkedIn cannot build a larger than life rubber ducky. It doesn't work for our brand. But just thinking about how they think about their brand and how they bring that brand to life and how they engage with the creators and they engage with the business customers and the consumers. They're really good at

just nailing it. I give them a lot of credit and like this year at Cannes, have this amazing bag. They gave out this swag bag that was photographed and videoed and it popped up all over Instagram and LinkedIn and the bag was viral to a degree. And so I think they just do a really good job of being super intentional and thoughtful and super creative.

I mean, I would say one of the things we just did at Can Lyons, which was to bring a speakeasy to life as LinkedIn. I mean, it's just not something that you would think that we would do. We were never a brand that like heavily leaned into nightlife or that sort of like evening clubby nightlifey vibe. And it was a crazy idea that I had. was like, listen, we have.

amazing space at the Carlton, which is this iconic hotel in the south of France. That is where our home base is for the Cannes Lions Festival. last year when you were ideating, was like, there's this shortage of spaces for people to go at the end of the night and just sit down and have fun and have a nice conversation. Everything, every party is enormous. They have all of these beachfront concerts and there's thousands and thousands of people and people have these packed schedules, but everyone ends up

back at the Carlton for drinks. And then the Carlton is like overflowing with people. You can't find a seat. You can barely get to the bar. And so I'm like, we have this beautiful, amazing space. What have we built to speak easy? What have we built the hottest lounge in town? And like, wait, what if, what if I went and asked the most amazing global hospitality brand in the world, if they would partner with us and bring it to life. And so I called some friends over at Tao group and said, is this crazy? Like, would you ever want to do this thing with us?

and activate a Tao lounge in partnership with LinkedIn. And they were like, actually, yeah, I think we might. And so it went on many months of talking, but it was a crazy idea at first. We could have done it alone. Like, I think it was less crazy to just say, LinkedIn's gonna pop up a nighttime lounge. That would have been like, that's different for LinkedIn. But no, LinkedIn popping up a nighttime lounge with this amazing

hospitality brand and Tao group who drove insane celebrities and talent and musical guests and exclusivity and this curated this amazing environment. But at the same time, it is synonymous with who LinkedIn really is because we are a brand that is all about community and networking. so that is together. We bought that to life.

Yeah, and you know, when working with partners, it's really important to make sure, I

think, making sure that you're both being really true to your brand. But you also have to, you you have to give up a little and collaborate a lot to make it work. And so we curated this space. First of all, the space is beautiful. We're very lucky. It's called the Ruyia Restaurant. It's in the downstairs of the Carlton Hotel. It's a beautiful space.

We took everything out and we redesigned it. We built custom bankettes to make it look like a lounge. We had this central bankette, we had bankettes that went around the edge because we wanted it to have that classic towel group lounge look and feel. And also towel group properties and specifically the Crane Club, which is the brand that we bought to life in the space.

is very high end, very high touch, known for their beautiful design decor and interior decorating. so bringing in small touches from the Crane Club specifically, like the gold cranes, like their special logo, like they have a bonbon candy bar, making sure that... So the Tao team made sure that they bought in all of the specific items.

that are associated with Crane Club. And then we stayed really true to LinkedIn by using a blue color in our palette, not the typical Blinked in blue that you're familiar with, but a lighter shade in our brand palette that also worked with Crane Club. And so the whole space was this wash of this lighter blue. It felt very Mediterranean, which was perfect because that's where we were.

We leaned into those colors. We had our logo, but we partnered and had

this joint sort of logo system. had signature drinks and cocktails, but I would say the hospitality piece that is synonymous with Tau also worked with LinkedIn. The way that we want to treat our customers, the way the environment that we want to curate for our communities and our customers, the networking that happened naturally in that room, that is organically LinkedIn.

Yeah.

It's funny, I was actually thinking about this after because it was a really massive success is that I said it on a call. was like, I have this crazy idea and I think it would work really, really well. And I think we should do this. And everyone kind of was on board. think everyone also was feeling it. The year before was difficult for our top executives to like get the access that they needed to get the space to be able to entertain their clients and their

customers the way they wanted to without a hassle, without a struggle, without being like, my gosh,

Danielle, can't get that table. Like, who do we talk? It was frustrating. And so they were all on board and they didn't think that it was a big stretch. They were like, this is great. This is how we should start to show up. And I think we have a lot of new leaders at the company who are excited about changing how we show up and pushing the bar and just truly showing who LinkedIn is now, who we want to be continued to be and how we want to grow and become.

Like said, the platform has changed over the years and so have the brand as how we show up has changed. And it's been going really great and it's resonating with our customers. It's resonating with our consumers. It's resonating with the creators. The feedback we received on the ground was just overwhelming. The buzz that the activations created and the feedback and the posts. mean, people were posting all up on LinkedIn and Instagram about our activation and being so excited with how we've shown up.

Yeah.

Okay, so, I mean, there's a couple things.

the big flashy showy build, although I was just talking about how amazing Canva does at it. the builds that don't have the right intention, oversized builds that just don't create, don't have intention, aren't driving your purpose as a brand. You could do an amazing build.

create a larger than life safe, but it needs to make sense for the brand and for your community, your customer, your consumer. I think just trying to be flashy for the sake of being flashy, that goes with even like getting talent just for the sake of getting talent. I don't think that works. For years and years and years, was this, I'm going to throw a conference and especially I'm not even talking about something like I can, which is like it.

that event is a little bit different, in general, you're building your own owned and operated event. You're doing a huge conference or you're attending a big conference. And people would like, I need to have a big talent on the stage. I have to have a big name and we're going to put them up there and someone's going to have a fireside chat. And I just don't think it works. What is the point? If it doesn't make sense, just having a big name to be like, I'm going to put this big flashy name up. So I drive attendance.

so that these people can sit in a room and listen to this person. Not like these people usually get to meet this person. I don't think that works. I'd rather, and I have to say, LinkedIn is not a brand that is typically acted like that. We, for many, many years, didn't even have big talent names tied to some of the events I've worked on. It was more driven by making sure the conversations were going to be important to the people in the room. Actually speaking about things that your customers

want to hear from you about, whether that be things that they want to learn about your executives they want to hear from. Again, not even talking about yourself. It's better to be a brand and get up there and just talk about the state of the industry and where things are, where things are going. What do your executives think about what's happening in the world in the industry, obviously, depending on the industry that you're in, but what are they seeing? What are they feeling? Where do they see things are going? People want to spend time in a room with like-minded individuals.

learn from each other and network. That's the special sauce. And it's not that mind blowing, but when you're trying to overly force content down their throats over panel and then throw talent on stage just for the sake of talent, when talent makes sense, yes, all for it. But I think that's a big one for me. And then I would say the only other thing

don't know if it overrated or anything, but I think it's about the ROI conversation, which never gets old. People, we could talk about

it forever and ever and ever. And I don't know if we'll ever solve it. But we need to move on for how we look at measuring success for events and just how many people did we have? Obviously, we want to have a packed room. Obviously, we want to hit our attendance goals. Obviously, we want to make sure that most important people, the customers that we want to have there are showing up.

moving beyond just those metrics, obviously still keeping them, but moving beyond and thinking about this larger picture of, hey, we're investing a lot of money to build a space, activate out of space, get all of our customers together, whether that be at an owned and operated event or an industry event that you are attending and sponsoring. But what are we doing with what we're creating there? We spend months and months months planning it and then the content that we're curating and driving the

the right speakers and getting that to happen. And then let's say you have 200 people in a room, 500 people in a room, a thousand people in a room, 3000 people in a room. That's still, that's great. Impressive. But should it end there? Should it just be for those people? I think for too long, that's how people have thought about events. And then we went through COVID and then it was like, we were live streaming everything and that doesn't work either. No one wants to sit through a two day event on a screen. That doesn't work either.

But where is that happy medium? And in my opinion, and in the opinion of LinkedIn, it's that, listen, there are some things that you shouldn't just be gatekeeping to this smaller group of people on the day. We love to use our own products, LinkedIn Live and live stream or live to tape and get that content out there. Get it up on the platform, get it up on the feed and get people engaging with it.

And then that, your message gets out there. The content and the thought leadership that you've worked months and months and months to produce doesn't just die in that room. Now it's out there for a massive global audience to see. And so an example of that is we just did this at Cannes. We hosted this event on the very last day for event marketers actually. And we had a bunch of little mini conversations. We recorded it.

We posted it

two days later. We had 100 people in the room. I just looked yesterday and that conversation had over 81,500 unique viewers since it aired.

that conversation has reached massive amount of people. So I think that's how you measure it. I think measuring success has to change and getting that content out there to that scale. then having, again, in the feed, there's comments, there's people engaging with each other. There's just like so much goodness going on that to me, that's where the industry should go.

And yeah, I just kind of it off the cuff on stage at that event that I was just talking about. But it's truly what I believe. Because if you are only investing all the money that we invest, spending the hours, when the blood, sweat and tears across all the different teams. mean, again, these events and these experiences that we're talking about at this scale, there's hundreds of people working on them. I mean, we have all of the agency partners that we work with, all the production partners, all the internal teams that are spending six months, eight months.

planning this to have it just like that it that's it. It's just this one moment and it's special. It's very special for the people in that room. But there is so much more that can come from that and so much more value that can be shared with this larger audience that's dying to hear from you. And again, like especially for things like we go to Ken Lyons, we go to the World Economic Forum. Those are events that are very hard to attend. So many people don't have the opportunity to go to those spaces and hear.

and hear from the leaders that are speaking at those events. And there's amazing thought leadership happening and there's no reason to have it just die there. So it

should be put up on our platform. Our platform is the place that makes the most sense for these business conversations and get it out there for the world to learn, to listen, to engage. And that's the real return on the experience.

Yeah.

I would say I was surprised because I didn't know as much about the EventX Awards and the sorts of companies and brands and submissions that I was going to be exposed to. I would say, listen, I've spent 12 years producing global events and I was so inspired to be

judging work at a completely different scale. The stuff that is part of the awards is things from Olympic ceremonies and citywide festivals and iconic cultural moments. It wasn't just like small brands activating these or countries activating. I mean, it was really so inspiring and impressive.

It almost made me like, God, what I do is not even compare to something like this work that I'm getting the chance to spend time learning about. was, listen, we get to read the submissions, we get to see the videos. And I really truly was like, wait, this is cool. And taking notes, being like, maybe I can put this to work in one of my smaller activations.

I mean, this is, it truly was. I some of these activations had millions of people at it.

I think some of the really other stuff that I was impressed by was the use of AI, the use of technology, audience design, storytelling, how they could have these cultural moments for millions of people and truly have it be this shared moment for this audience. I don't know. was great. I really, really did love and enjoy it and I'm excited to hopefully do it again.

I am.

Yeah, I'm always like, maybe I should take some of those things off my LinkedIn profile. No, I'm just kidding. Yes, I moved around a lot in the beginning of my career. think I was like a year here, two years here, nine months here, but I was, listen, I was in my 20s. I was figuring it out. I went to college. I wanted to be in marketing and communications. I went for what I wanted to do. I graduated so happy.

super excited. I wanted to work in advertising. I wanted to work at an advertising agency and I got to do that. My first job out of school was BBGO. It was an epic job. I worked for John Osborne on his team, which he's an icon in the industry. And actually I still see him from time to time and I always thank him to be like, I've learned so much from you. listen, you're chasing what you think you want. I hopped around, moved into media, moved into television.

And then there's also like what was happening in the economy and the world at that time. I I went through 9-11, we went through massive stock market crashes. I mean, I got laid off from a lot of jobs. And so there was a lot of change that I had to navigate. I was also chasing a salary. So was trying to move out on my own and then pay the bills and afford to live in New York City.

which is where the bartending came in because I was like, I need more than one job because I'm not making enough money to pay rent. And so I took a second job and I bartended on the side in college and I waitressed in high school and college. And so it was just in my bones and it's a great

way to make money and especially in New York City. And so I had these two parallel careers literally and I'm still friends with a lot of people that I worked with my first jobs in.

in advertising and I'm

still very close with my friends who I first worked with in hospitality. I used to sleep on my friend Nicole's couch. I lived at home. I'd go to work, work nine to five, leave, go and bartend until one, two, three, four in the morning and go sleep on her couch because she lived around the corner and then get up and do it all again the next day. And so I looked back at that and it just like, I had a really good work acumen.

needed to do what I needed to do to be able to like have the life that I wanted to live. But over the course of time what ended up rising was that like I was always planning events. I was planning events since I was in high school. I was social chair in high school. I was in social chair in college. I was on like the beach committee community at Fairfield helping plan all of the like parties. I did it out of college. Oh, who's turning 21? Who's turning 25? All through the party.

At my day job, I'd raise my hand like, who wants to help with the Christmas party? I'll help with the Christmas party. I just loved

it. listen, it comes from my family. My mom threw me epic birthday parties my entire life. And so it just, I'm 100 % Italian. We have a big family. We love to throw a great gathering. And so it just kind of in my blood. And so at one point when I finally did meet my boyfriend, who's now my husband, and he ran and operated restaurants and bars, he hired me as a bartender.

and I was doing this thing on the side. He's like, why are you doing this on the side? That's what you love. That's your passion. Make that your career. And so at that point I was like, okay, let me figure out how I can do that because now I have all these different experiences in my background. And so I was like, I'm gonna become an executive assistant because that's an easy transition. I had been working in finance a little bit. Again, randomly ended up there, but that's a long story. We won't even go there. And so.

I was like, I could become an EA. Let me figure out how I could do that. I have enough experience and I don't have to start over because if I really wanted to go into events as a career, I would have had to like go back. I didn't have any technical real experience and someone would have had to take a chance on me. So I went and did the EA role for a couple of years at a couple of different companies. You're planning someone's life. You have to like build all the skills that you need to be a great event marketer, which is lots managing their calendar.

Yes, yes, but managing their life, managing all of this stuff, is like man, know, planning an event is project management, organizational, good communication, all of those things. And so then after all of that, I had an

opportunity, I had a contract job at Google, which exposed me to some amazing teams and amazing people. I actually got a chance to work for Tower Walport Levy, who is, and again, another icon in the industry.

I got a job at Morgan Stanley as the executive assistant to the CIO at the time his name was John Sacks. I worked and spent time with amazing people, had great mentors. All of that rubbed off on me. And when the Google contract ended and the full-time job I was looking for didn't work out, I'm also a big networker. I believe in networking. I believe in maintaining relationships.

I had started spending time with the Female Quotient at that point in my

the Female Quotient is this amazing women's community. Shelly Zales is the founder and CEO and Tara, who I worked for at Google, was heavily involved. And so I got exposure to them and the community working for her. I had also gotten the chance

I followed them a little bit on LinkedIn. were posting and then I got the chance to attend a few events. so even after I left Google, I kept attending the events and I was networking with these amazing women and going to a couple of those events. was mostly the women at that time mostly was from the advertising media industry. And I met a woman at this cocktail event and

We started talking and she was going to be hiring a director of global events for a company called Adara. Never heard of it. It was a startup. I told her about my experience, told her I had just planned my own destination wedding and like, which was this crazy epic challenge I took on while doing my own daily job and planned my own wedding without an event planner, which I don't recommend for most people. And she took a chance on me.

She made me come in, I talked to her and she gave me the job. Her name is Anna Chalmers. And again, someone I love and respect and who I learned so much from. And while at this company, Adara, I other amazing people, other amazing women leaders, a woman named Elizabeth Harz who was our CMO at the time. Again, learned so much from her, planned my first Can Lions at Adara. And just all of it just kind of, I don't know.

randomly came together and I ended up in events and I've been here now 12 years and love it. Couldn't be happier. People ask me all the time. I get to do what I love every day. And like so many people don't. It's not easy. It's really hard. It's exhausting. And like I said, sometimes you're the one working round the clock leading up on site and sometimes

actually not too much. think people are starting to recognize how hard this work is and really respecting the teams and the people that are behind it. And experiential and events is really having a moment right now in this world of AI and in this world where people want connection more than anything. And finally getting some more of the respect that we all deserve, which is, which is nice.

I do have a story. in general, listen, the thing about events is that they're unpredictable. Things go wrong. Things don't go as planned. I always tell people that. Even like at a wedding, same thing. had my wedding, something that was supposed to happen, the song that was supposed to be played, this musical trio, it didn't happen. But no one knew. No one knew that that was supposed to happen. And that's true at any event that you plan. As long as

your audience doesn't really know what was planned. You can hopefully smooth it out and just keep things going without any sort of real bumps. And I always say this too, that events are one of those things that, what's going on backstage, like theater, the people in the audience aren't supposed to know what's happening backstage. When an actor falls and twists their ankle and the understudy comes on, they don't really know, right? Or the set changes. That's how events are. Events are like live

theater, I always say that.

The hardest thing that I've ever dealt with at an event was

many years ago, I planned it was an internal event, like a sales kickoff sort of event for our internal team. When I worked at Adara, we were in Napa, actually no, were in Sonoma and we were there multiple days. This was the last, the big dinner closing event. I'd been planning it for months. I so excited, found this gorgeous vineyard when we hadn't done a vineyard night.

first two nights. So this was our big closing dinner. We were going to this amazing vineyard, transporting everybody there, doing a wine tasting, doing a tour, and then having this amazing chef curated dinner experience. And I'd been communicating them for months. get there, you know, I show up two hours, three hours, whatever early to make sure I'm accepting flowers and making sure the caterer is there and there to prep and set up. And by the way, just to be clear, I didn't have a large team. So was like me.

showing up by myself with

one other person to set this thing up because it was a startup. We didn't have large teams. And I get there and okay, the flowers are there and the linens are there and we're working with the vendors that are there and they're setting up the wine, the vineyard. And I keep looking at my watch and I'm like, where's the caterer? The caterer is supposed to be here and they're not here yet. So now I'm calling incessantly, calling, calling, calling. They finally answer and they're like, yeah, no, yeah, Danielle, we've got you down.

it's tomorrow. We have you tomorrow. The events on,

on, on, on Wednesday. I'm like, Nope, Nope. The events Tuesday today. I'm here now. And they're like, no, no, no, we could swear. It was always, and I didn't have time to debate them at this point. And I'm like, we will deal with this tomorrow. But I was like, is there any way, any chance in hell that you can get here? And they're like, no, like by the way, I was in Sonoma and they were like in San Francisco or something like they were like far away. and not even that they were like, we don't have the food prepared.

So I now literally have a mental breakdown and I'm sweating about to like fall apart and I run over to the girl at the vineyard and I'm like, okay, do you have any sort of food? Like I need some sort of food. This is now not going to be a chef sit down dinner. We're just gonna have to make it a cocktail party. And so also now stressing out because I'm like, how do I call my boss and be like, hey, we don't have food and we don't have dinner. And so I did call him and

I was like a mess. And he's like, listen, this is not the time to stress. Like we're just going to make it. Let's figure it out. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to get in the car because I had a car. I'm like, I'm going to just drive around and go to like whatever's open, supermarket convenience store, whatever I can find. By the way, I'm in the middle of nowhere in Sonoma County and find some snacks because the vineyard was like, we don't have food. have like nothing here. We have wine. And he's like, like

250. And so

He's like, what we're going to do, we'll just make this a cocktail party. he's like, and he's like, we'll come back here and we'll do dinner here at the hotel because there's a restaurant here. they, dealt with the hotel, getting it all set up. Now I'm in my car running around. find a gas station convenience store. buy every snack that I can find. I

go back, we fill bowls with like pretzels and nuts and all like gourmet chips. Thank God it was Sonoma. So like the snacks were actually like quite gourmet. And that was it. And I was literally shaking for the next two hours while this event happened.

And then once it was over, everybody got back on the bus and went back and they got Mexican or something and they, nobody was, nobody, people knew, people came over to me during the evening. I'm like, my God, we heard, don't worry. It doesn't matter. This is beautiful. This is amazing. We had gorgeous florals. We had amazing wine. we had cheese. I was able to get cheese, but they were fine. They didn't care. I cared. I cared because I felt like I had failed and

I fell apart when I got in the car. called my husband and I was bawling hysterical. like, I'm going to lose my

job. I'm going to be fired. This was on me. And he was like, stop, just talk to your boss. But he's like, it's not just on you. like, there's an entire caterer that screwed up and that's not just your fault. And I took it really hard and the caterer, the right date had always been in my emails.

she just in her calendar, like she just, she got it wrong. it was human error, right? It just happens. But, and listen, my, at the time, the people I worked for were very kind about it. And like, they're like, listen,

you know, this stuff happens. We get it. Like, this is a live event, but I'll tell you something. I never have not quadruple, triple checked and called

a caterer or every vendor a hundred times to be like, this is the day. It just makes you start to think differently about everything. And

I definitely was a learning experience, but I always tell people on my team the same thing that like, you know, I've had more mistakes and more mess ups and things that didn't go right. Cause people get upset when those things happen, but that's live events. Like things go wrong all the time and it's okay. It's just how you deal with it, how you turn it quickly. That's not a big deal. And that the people that you're entertaining or the audience or whoever it is doesn't know the wiser and still has an amazing time.

Wow.

Yes.

Absolutely. mean, and I think there's the best, the best thing that anyone can do is always be forthcoming and upfront and

honest. And then no leader wants to hear, have a problem, I have a problem, have a problem. They want to hear, I have a solution. I happen to have a problem, but I already have a solution, right? You don't go to leadership with just a problem and then look to them like

you show your true value when you show up with the solution. And so I had said, listen,

this is going to be a cocktail party right now. That's what this is going to be. And I'm going to go get some snacks. And

you know, I was upset, but I was like, listen, this is, just telling you what's happening. And can you order food so that by the time everybody gets back, you've got a dinner for them. And he was like, absolutely. I'll handle everything here. You handle everything here. Don't worry. Don't worry about it today. We'll talk about everything in like the learnings after, but like, thank you for calling me. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for figuring it out. Right? Like that's.

That is the lesson there.

there was an event that we hosted in London a couple of years ago, and the venue had given us one number and was like, this is the capacity in our space. And we took over the whole venue for the day. And there was a main floor and then a second level, and there was a number they gave us. And then on the day of the event, they decided to tweak the number and say, well.

We're we're pulling that number down a little bit. You know, we feel like it's getting too because we had rows of chairs and like it just feels like it could be too crowded. And I was like, no, but the space, the fire limit is still the fire limit, and

we can comfortably fit these people in there. Plus, we had a second floor. Their security were not the nicest. they would not budge. Our security team got involved and was like, hey, I was on the

We have regular calls, our security team and and venue security

all the time before events. And our security was like, That I have notes. Like this is what we agreed to.

we had a bunch of folks showing up and we were the door again, not us, but the security of the venue was like, sorry, we're shutting the doors. You're no more people are letting. And and of course, at that point, you know, it's it's a first come, first serve. People are flowing in, but again, we're the numbers were gonna work for us until the venue pulled them back. Now we have very senior executives who are showing up.

Slightly later than the first few people that got there because they came from a lunch or they're late from a meeting. And now we had to go out, we had to like go through the line and be like, who's in this line that definitely needs to come inside? We were kicking people out internally because we had let internal folks come. We said, we can fit 50 people internally because we have the capacity. So now I'm walking through the venue.

telling all of our internals, I am so so sorry. We're having a capacity issue and we're gonna need you to leave. And I'm I and of course they don't want to leave because their customers are there. But we had to again in the moment, this is that stuff

that like in real life, not awesome, but the customers are the most important to get inside. So you know we explained and we pulled out the people that we could. Of course certain executives needed to stay because that was their relationship. We did the best we could and

You know, we got it it it worked out. People were not happy though. People were IRSVP, I was told I could come in and we were doing line control. We were out there apologizing. We ended up also, so it is what it is. We had a like a bunch of people had to leave. We had some of our sales folks take their customers and clients who couldn't get in, like go take them to a pub, go take them to dinner, go, you know, entertain them. And then we sent everyone who couldn't get in very, very nice gift baskets after and apologized profusely.

for the issue. But again, something that a venue that we had relied on that we had a contract

with completely decided day of nope, we're not comfortable anymore with this many people coming in. I mean, you can't predict that stuff, but you have to be

prepared to deal with it.

Exactly. You have to make up for it. And then of course, you know, we went out of our way to make sure that the sales team had notes to send and gifts to send. And, you know, and and and you really do feel horrible. You'd never want to be turning people away from your own event. It it really was a horrible situation. And we had a debrief with the venue and and went and I but this is the thing. I on that call, I mean, they were still being like, Well, it is what it is. And I'm like, no, no. See, that's the thing. It isn't it what it is. You put us

in a really bad situation. We were embarrassed in front of our customers.

And and we had to deal with that, you didn't. And I was like, and now I will never come and do another event at your venue and I will never recommend your venue. And so like that's they burned a bridge with I, if

I love my venues or if I'll recommend them to the whole anybody I know in the industry.

So I have been doing it a little, listen, most of the dabbling was like personal friend birthdays and things like that. But I would

say that all along, like throughout that time of helping people plan everything from like bachelorette parties, birthdays, showers, everyone would always be like, you're so great at this Danielle, because there was no detail that I didn't think of. I'm very particular and still to this day about the small touches, the things that.

People do notice, but they don't think about, right? It's like, what is the napkin? What is the straw color? What is the tablescape? What is the music playing? What is it? All those things that come together to truly make an experience, like how someone feels in a room. And so all of those small, I planned my parents' 60th birthday. And people kept over and over and over. Every time I would do something like that, people would be like, you're so good at this.

It's like every little detail. You're so thoughtful. I would join some boards for nonprofits. I was helping nonprofits throw galas and all people again saying like, you're very, very good at this. And so that's what like catapulted me into being like, I want to do this more as a career.

And then there was a, there was a event when I worked at a Dara. Cause again, that was like really my really big first role, like leading larger global events.

where I was working on our internal like summit and then an external face and they happened back to back. The internal was the first two days. The external was the back two days and it went really, really well. It was an event in Miami and I planned it was over four days. So for four days we didn't replicate one thing, right? Like every single moment along the day, every activation, every dinner, breakfast, lunch was different. Every single thing was different. And I didn't

have a large team. was like me and one other person. So

I did this by myself for four days, curated this for our top top partners and for our internal teams. And it really, was a big success. It went really, really well. And there was rave feedback and especially from the external partners and that partner event. like, you're like, people loved it. And there was lots of, I was like, wait a minute. Like now I'm doing this for a corporate and like, I've always,

I've always thought I was really good at this, it

went really, really well. And it was something I took on much bigger than anything I'd done before. And then once I did my first can, same thing, every time it was the first, I was like, And listen, there was learnings along the way of how to get better and better, but yeah, it

clicked.

Less and less actually.

I mean, I would say the first couple of years, like when you're small and scrappy, like, yeah, there was always

jitters. I actually think I get more excited than nervous. I'm, I always say this, like I'm a big gift giver. It's like, it's like my favorite thing to do is,

buy gifts and give gifts and it gets, I'm so excited. I can't wait for the person to open the gift. Cause I'm like, I know they're going to love it. And it's kind of how I feel about like the minutes before an event. I'm like, I know they're going to love it. I know we built this for this audience. We built this like, we're so thoughtful, so intentional. It's, and again, over the course of my career, and especially this past six and a half years at LinkedIn, we get better and better. We

We talked about this just yesterday on a call with my coworker and we're like, we've gotten things down to like become a well oiled machine, right? The more you do it, the better you get. There are always learnings. You're always going to continue to up level because that's just who we are, but it gets easier. It gets better. It's not as the works, not hard. It's not that we don't take up. took on so much more.

But it's just that you're better prepared and you know what to expect. I I will say with like some of the new stuff we did this year, like I talked about that speakeasy, was like, it was like good excited, a little bit nervous, but good excited. But I was like, it's gonna, I was just like, it's gonna work. Like these things are gonna work. I know they're gonna work. And so then when the door is open and it's live, you're like, you can like take that breath

and be like, it did work.

Yeah, mean, I just, I guess the idea was always that maybe at some point I could leave and just go off on my own and I haven't yet

because I too early really like where I'm at still and

the things that I get to work on and the people I get to work with. But I love consulting and so, and consulting jobs were kind of just like coming to me. People would call

me and again, there's my husband, he'd be like, you're working for free.

Why are you working

for free? You're giving amazing advice. You're spending hours of your time

helping. He's like, should really build a business and you should really build a consultant business and charge for your time. He's like, because you're really good. And he's like, I know you just want to be nice and offer free advice. He's like, but this could be a business for you. And so that's really where it stemmed from. And over the years, I've taken on smaller projects or helped friends who are struggling. And a lot of smaller companies don't have the budgets to hire.

true of that marketers and so a lot of times that's where I kind of help and consult.

Yeah, I mean, one was definitely like actually activating a business and getting a name and LLC and formalizing all of it.

And then having those conversations. But you know, it's funny is everyone I was talking to was like, my God, yes, you should be charging me for that your time.

And no one was shocked or, and sometimes it didn't work out and sometimes it did.

One of the things is that you're getting to work across different types of industries, different

size companies, again, working with different people, different personalities. I think it just helps you grow as a person. It builds...

Again, learning how to consult is different than like being an employee at a company as well

and the kind of role that you have. It's nice. It's a nice change, but it helped me grow in general. I learned a lot from some of the smaller companies I was consulting with, take those learnings and apply them back at my corporate job. And so it's also relationship building. I've built and made a lot of.

relationships and still have them. And they're also recommendations now as well. And so it's worked out really well for me.

One of

the things I would say is my early career working in advertising and media.

Back then I thought that that's what I was going to do forever. But I was a sales assistant. I was an assistant account manager. There were small roles at the time and you

didn't really know where it was going to take you. But now many years later, I actually still work.

in the advertising and marketing industry and media industry, because those are the events that I spend the most of my time on. Or even prior to LinkedIn, the companies that I worked for were still in the ad tech media advertising space. And LinkedIn, I've been able to work across multiple parts of the company and business, but spent a good chunk of my time also

in the advertising side of their business. And so, so much that I learned then.

is so important now because I understand the industry. I've also stayed really good friends with a lot of the folks that I met back then. Like they are the people you worked around the clock with and know, blood,

and tears during like upfront season. And so I have all those relationships still and a lot of those people are very senior in that world now. And so having those relationships still has always been really great for me. I have a very large network from many years in

that world, not just advertising, even from being in ad tech and publishing and marketing and all those relationships from all those years are important now and have helped me in my career today. And even I would say the hospitality side of my career. Like I had a 15 year resume that doesn't show up on LinkedIn, which was working in bars and restaurants and nightclubs as a bartender and a cocktail waitress. have an

entire Rolodex of friends and network and connections that I've met in that world, that

at the time, barging in to make some money to pay my rent, I didn't realize how important those relationships would become. Now, in the past 10 years being in events,

I work with those venues that these people work at. I need to work with them and have those relationships or some of the vendors.

A lot of those folks that we worked with now are all over a different, whether they

be restaurants, bars, hospitality companies, hospitality tech companies, vendors that I work with, those folks are so important to me now as well. And so I just think if your younger self didn't realize exactly what you were learning and how important it would become, and that I think to say to a younger generation that like every single thing that you do and every single place that you are,

and every single person that you meet, they're part of this larger web that you're building of your career.

And you don't know when that person or when that lesson is gonna come in to be valuable to you, but they always do.

It is exhausting.

something that was different there. was like the people that you work with, everyone was so nice, but everyone is.

It's not a negative, but like a little bit competitive, right? Like not in a bad

way, in a good way, in a way that like everyone's there. They were doing their job. They wanted to do better. They wanted to learn. They wanted to like, they're taking conversations with other people in other departments so that they can learn more. And like, where's their career going? How are they,

how are they learning and growing? how, and like everyone was so kind to me that I was only a contract worker, but everyone I learned and spent time with so many people.

It made me want to work harder. It made me want to do better. It made me want this career in events even more.

think the challenge with this year wasn't like one specific tactical thing. It was the

overall, fact that for the very first time we had the largest footprint that we ever had that we were activating. So we have three floors in the Carlton residences in the hotel. So we have a fourth floor, fifth floor, sixth

floor rooftop. Then last year we added this Rui Restaurant, which has a large terrace and internal cafe or restaurant.

that we, last year we didn't use it in the same way, but this year we activated it all day and all night. So activating these spaces almost 24 seven was a big change for us. We had our rooftop open to the public for the first time in a long time. And so that's an always on, we had more content than we've ever had. We had more events happening. We really wanted to use this space. We spend a lot of money on this space. And so

we wanted to make the space work for us, right? Like have it work harder,

maximize it, right? And so everything was always on and then we had other like third party events happening as well in the space. So it was so busy. We had bought in a lot of different partners this year for the first and there's a lot of firsts this year

and they all went really well. They were great. There's still tons of learnings, but it was, it was a lot. It was a lot to manage.

was extremely exhausting. There was no,

downtime. We had something

constantly. We really don't have a massive team. mean, we probably had 25 marketers on the ground and

they were the marketers that were actually like working the experience. That's not enough people. To be honest, it was not enough people

and people were exhausted. And then we, of course we have our agencies that we work with, but even then it was a lot.

It was a lot for the agencies. was a lot for us. It was a lot for our security teams. Everyone was tired. It was also insane heat. It was like a hundred degrees every single day.

So standing, working nonstop, it was hard. It really was. It was massively successful. We walked away so

happy. Our executives were so happy. Thank God. That's what we always want is our executives and our customers to have really enjoyed this experience and taken from it all the goodness.

But it was hard. It was hard this year to be that busy and to have that many things and not as well staff maybe as we might need to be.

Yeah,

listen, we have all this amazing space. We still want to use it all. But I do think we have to invest more heavily in staff internally, externally with our vendors and agencies. It's money, that's budget. And so,

you know, we all live in a world where, you know, the companies and the brands want to keep cutting our budgets and wanting us to do more with less. I talk about this with event marketers all

the time because this is a common theme. Do more with less,

do more with less, do more with less.

And the problem is that we do more with less. And so they want us to keep doing more with less, which it's hard. And so, you know, that's an area that I think for next year, we really just, we just can't cut back in staffing. And then I do think it's rethinking how much we have going on. I think there needs to be a little bit of a reset on what the real focus is gonna be. If we want to be a public open roof and have more creators through our space, then we can't have constant content all the time.

And so I think we just really need to rethink the schedule and streamlining it a little bit more so that there is more breaks and more downtime and more breathing room next year.

Yeah, I mean, that's happened. I don't know that I can call out a specific, but that's happened. That's happened a ton of times, right?

And you're just kind of, you're kind of bummed out. Like,

that's not, that's not how we envision this going. Maybe customers didn't appreciate leadership didn't, or just didn't work in that room on that day or that time or that night. Or, you know, maybe some sort of

experiential engagement activity just didn't get engaged with people just walk by it that happens sometimes like you build these beautiful things and then People are kind of like I don't really care about that, right? And so you're like, oh god I invested all this money in

building this thing We've definitely had that happen before we build these things and people are like, yes No, it's not, you know, and then it just sits there all week and you're like, okay. Well, that was that's a learning right? So it just they should become learnings It's just like you fill your notebook with okay. Well, let's let's be

better, let's think differently next time about how we do this. And then it teaches you about what your audience really finds important and valuable to them as well.

I mean, there's definitely,

there's, I mean, over the course of my career, there

have definitely been decisions that, listen, I'm still not, I'm not boss boss, right? Like I still work for people, I have to work and listen and top down, there's

somebody who's like, I want this. And you're like, I don't think that's the best use of money. I don't think that's the best way to activate the space. I don't think that's the best experience.

And they'll be like, no, but I want to do that. And you're like, okay, all right, then we're going to do it. And you do it. And listen, usually, usually in the end, I've had people come back to be like, yeah, you were probably right. Maybe we shouldn't have done this. Or the other way around, sometimes when I've pitched things and they're like, no, we're not going to do that. Nope, we're not going to do that. And then they come back at the end and they're like, yeah, you were probably right. We probably should have maybe done that. So that has happened. And listen, and sometimes what they want works.

And you're like, I've

learned something. I've learned something to be like, I didn't think it was going to work. And it did land. It did land with the audience or it did land as a great experience for the audience. so I listen, yes, big corporate, there is politics, obviously. But I think if you're lucky and you're respected that you can just have an open conversation and respect each other's opinions and listen.

And then, you you learn from that experience and you learn from on both sides, whether it works or whether it doesn't, it's a learning for both parties.

Yes.

I mean, 100%. I think if

you are so committed and you are as passionate as I am, there is, it's tough, right? Like the, my husband, many at a time has been like, you gotta stop, you gotta stop working so hard. gotta turn it off. Like it's too much. Or, you know, I have a son now, he's three. And so there's this balance that doesn't really exist. And so figuring out how to make it all work, this

work as everyone that works in this industry knows is exhausting because there's the constant and by the way You're working six months to plan one event, but we're not all just planning We're planning a lot of things. It's not like we only plan one thing

Yeah, there's a lot of balls in the air when you work in corporate america You're not only just planning events. You have all this other corporate stuff that you've got going on You've got your your okr's and you've got your tons of other meetings and you're you're working on other side projects with people and there's other things you get pulled into and so

It's not that you can only hone in and focus on one thing. There's a million other things happening in your day job. Plus, like I said, sometimes I consult, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm doing just personal side projects. I'm also trying to be more intentional in building my own personal brand. And so it's exhausting. It's truly exhausting. And especially this work because it doesn't... I'm trying to get better about having a true, like, I turn off and don't get back on my laptop. I am someone who struggles.

There's just always something. There's always an email to answer. There's always a project, a deck, a call, a pitch or whatever. So not always getting back online. Like I had a bad habit of doing it it's really not good for my mental health or my health health. And so turning off and truly turning off and saying the night is over. I'm done and I'm not getting back on until tomorrow morning. Um, like I need to be better about that. Or if I need to like walk away during the day for a couple of hours, cause I have to pick up my son or I want to go like squeeze a workout in, like I need to be better.

There was a period of time where I've just sat at this desk for 12 hours, 13 hours. That's not okay. And so being better about that. You also travel a lot in this world. I travel a lot for work. I travel a lot now as well to go to events and see other people's events and speak at events. then there's also the going on site and working the events. So then you're there for the bill and you're there for the event. So I was literally gone from my husband and my son for almost 10 days for CAN.

That's a lot. have an amazing husband who is, says okay, and then does it all. And so it's a lot. It is a lot. And so learning how to then like come home and like just shut down. I like shut down for two weeks. This is, I didn't want to talk to anyone, didn't want to see anybody. My thank God LinkedIn has a company shut down that is part of those two weeks. And so, but it is really, I think getting better and better. I've been trying harder to be more respectful of my own health and time.

And being like, know, at the end of the day, as much as I do love it and as much as I'm passionate about it, it is work. It is a job. like, you know, we're not all here forever. The time with my son is fleeting in his like toddler years and his baby years were like that, a blink, I can't believe they're over. And so really trying to just be more present and spend more time doing the things that I love.

I mean, I love it. I love this kind of work. I love being busy doing these things. I'm excited by the work. I love being creative. I love trying to think of new ways for us to constantly show up and do different things. And I'm also trying to get out in the industry all the time, attend other events, have coffees and meetings with other people, spend time talking to other leaders like myself across other brands to get inspired and learn. Right now I'm also trying to like figure out.

more about AI and like how I can integrate AI more in my everyday, into my workflows for the team and then for the events themselves. And

that takes time to learn as well. And so I love it. I get excited about all these things. I get excited about the ideas that I have and the busyness and the craziness. That's just me. I thrive on all of that too. And I think it's, you know, learning how to balance it all. And it has made me

I mean, time management wasn't always my strong suit and in my personal life it definitely does fall apart.

I'm like, wait, what do I have to do personally for myself? But it has helped me the work part of it, like, cause you have to be able to manage your time and prioritize,

ruthlessly prioritize and organize

your life. it has filtered into my personal life a little bit more because of that.

I mean, yeah, because

it's exhausting and sometimes I say this, for a long time, events, event marketers were like the first people to go. I was been laid off multiple times. It was seen as the thing that was like the extra, like in your marketing strategy, your marketing flywheel, you're like, now let's get rid of events. A lot of startups that I worked for is like, that was the first thing to go.

You maybe didn't get as much respect, you know, this part of marketing. It's like, they're just planning parties. And I do really think for like, recently and more than ever, this industry specifically, event marketing, experiential marketing is having its day right now. Like

there's been a lot, you know, leaders, Mark Cuban and Gary B, who are talking about it regularly

and just knowing how important in real life connection is.

and how important it is for people to spend time together. This Gen Z, this generation wants

analog everything, right? Like all of that has come back. And so in-person experiences are so, so important. The brands and businesses recognize this role now in a different way. I'm linked in is the LinkedIn job boards have more event marketer roles, experiential marketing roles, I feel like than ever before. Companies that

wouldn't normally hire this sort of role or hiring this sort of role and paying well for it. Companies that didn't have that marketing departments or experiential marketing companies are starting those sort of departments or building agencies that were focused maybe on, you know, ad campaigns or creative now are building experiential marketing arms as well

because of the focus on this right now and how important it is to build experiences.

Yeah, so it's

good to be in this place right now.

I think, I mean, there's a balance, right? So Pinterest

and the amazing Judy Lee, they just did an activation that they did at Coachella and then they also did it at Cam, but it was like to be present, to put your phones away and be present. And it got rave reviews and people loved it. And again, there's a balance though, because you've got this generation who's on their phones all the time, they're filming everything, they're posting everything and we're LinkedIn. So we want...

We want people filming and posting and creating a busy feed and bringing our experiences to life in the feed. And so we create spaces for creators. We create spaces for them to come and create content. So we encourage them to be on their phones, to take content. But then we're also providing thought leadership and experiences and moments, networking

for them to put their phone away. So it's like the balance, providing both. It's like, come create the content, take the video, but then also come sit and listen to some amazing leaders.

and us talk about some amazing topics or come and network and put your phone down and have a cocktail or a mocktail and have a conversation with someone you just met or network with your, spend time with your network or

network and make new friends. And that's when people put their phone away and are having, you know, real life connection. And then of course we want them to connect on LinkedIn. And so we've also bought into our space this activation called the network exchange where you can literally come in

scan your QR code and print it and like either stick it on your badge, stick it on your shirt, stick it on your phone. And then that way it's easier to network in real time. Your QR codes right out there and more people are figuring out how to do that as well. And so again, bringing the feed and the network to life in real life is something that we always try to do.

Yeah?

I first of all, think it's important. I think you need to be using it. Specifically, I find it to be extremely valuable on the operations side of things, right? The project management side of things. I'm finding, and

I'm still learning, I am still a novice here. I'm not pretending to be seasoned at this or experienced, and I'm trying actually to find ways to take more courses, to learn even more ways to integrate it.

Yeah,

there's courses on LinkedIn. There's a bunch of creators on LinkedIn that are like AI gurus and I follow

all of them and I'm constantly learning from them and trying to go down rabbit holes on like how to use Claude, how to use chat GPT, to use Copilot, how to use all of them, all of the different ones. But

how to use them in the workflow to me right now is so valuable to make, like we said, there's just so many tedious tasks in event marketing.

And there's sheets and decks and lists of, you you've got who's attending what hotel rooms, whose flights, foods, menus, the run of show, the production, all of the things. So figuring out which AI tools that are out there to implement and integrate into the everyday for an

event marketer. And then.

Now the fun stuff is like, well, what's some of the cool stuff we can do with AI when it comes to the actual experience and integrating it. We've done, I've done a few small things. Like last year we had built on our terrace and can UGC activations, right? So, so builds that you could come up, stand behind this beautiful backdrop. There's light rings and place for your phone. And we had like a little makeup

counter, come and

If you're a creator, come and film content. you're just anybody else and you want to come and film content, learn how to use the platform and learn how to post more consistently. We had our community managers there helping, but again, this created a line. And so while standing in line, we created this quiz with AI that was like, find out who your personality is. What's your marketing personality? by answering

a bunch of fun questions,

It then popped out to you, you're a, I don't know, I'm not gonna make up something, you're a.

like the communications got or something like that. don't know.

But like it popped out this really fun name. It told you like what you were best at. And it says, because of that, this is the prompt that would work best for you. So it gave you a prompt so that now you could prepare yourself as you got up to film your content. gave you something to think about that be based on your answers and who you are as a marketer.

this is the prompt that you should use. And so it was just a fun way to integrate AI into an experience and it worked and it helped people not realize like they weren't annoyed by waiting in line at that point. And then they were prepared when they got to the front of the line to film some content and they had some inspiration of what they should be filming and talking about. And so that was one way, but there's going to be so many fun, exciting, creative, cool things that we're going to be able to do with AI in real life experiences. And I actually think being on these

juries and being part of looking at other work is going to be inspirational when it comes to that specifically.

Hehehehehe

You cannot replicate creativity. You cannot replicate

human connection. You cannot replicate physical build. mean, AI is not going to physically build anything right now. And so I feel the true creativity, the true, the ideation, the planning, sure they can do the sheets and maybe help with decks or the organization operation, but.

They're not coming up with an experience that is going to resonate with an audience. They're not going to design the whole experience, nor are they going to build the entire experience, which

employs a lot of people. And I think figuring out how to use it to become more memorable, to become more creative, but it doesn't take away. It's added value. It's not going to replace anyone. And it's definitely not going to replace in real life connection. I don't think events are going anywhere because no matter how

five years, 10 years from now, being in a room, sitting in front of someone, being able to physically sit, talk, enjoy someone's time, that's not going anywhere.

Mistakes and learning from your mistakes is something I think when you're younger your younger self doesn't realize That it's okay to make a mistake that it's okay to to mess up also to tell your younger self that like and I say this a lot actually to That younger generation all the time like sometimes people be like well I don't know like what am I supposed to be doing like what am I where am I going? What am I doing? I think

you don't have to know what you're supposed to be doing. You don't

have to know

what your life is going to be, the career that you're going to

have. Because at 21 and 22, I thought I wanted to be in advertising. I'm still technically in advertising in some way. But my life has had so many twists and turns. if someone just told my younger self, like, don't need to know what your career is going to be for the rest of your life today. And technically, even to my younger self, when things didn't work out, and being so upset that, oh god, that didn't work out, and I'm not doing the job that I thought I'm supposed to be doing.

that it all ends up being, that it all actually is meant to be, that everything happens for a reason and that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and you will get to where you're exactly supposed to be.

So there's a lot of people and I think sometimes in a lot of companies, people who don't actually have real experience in event marketing that end up having to do events or throw events where there's people forcing them to do events.

And listen, not everyone starts out as an event marketer. didn't, and you can become that. But I do think sometimes there's like a glaring red light of some things being planned and people on the team have no idea. never zero insight into like what it takes to run an event. It's

always a big red flag to me.

But I do think it's really truly making sure that A, an event is actually necessary and the thing that

you need and B, when you have no experience trying to search out and get some advice versus just trying to plan on your own because there's decisions that get made that you're like, that's not going to work or that's not going to land well.

This happens more frequently than not.

I have definitely had

events come to me, drop in my lap, or be asked to kick off an event in a

much shorter time window than we actually have. We actually planned new fronts two years ago in like six weeks. So

and we were just like, this isn't possible, but you make it work, right? Like it's your job. You need to figure out how to get it done, whether the timeline is really short or whether, I mean, listen, the budgets are never what I want them to be, really. but

and and listen, and and I feel like

we talk about this as event marketers. I talk about this with other folks in the industry all the time. Like it feels like budgets are always getting cut and they want you to do more with less. And it does feel impossible. Like I'll look at this and be like, I don't know how we're gonna do this. And we just figure it out, you know, because you know, A, yes, do we try to like bring the case forward and and and pitch for more budget and explain the reasoning? We do. but when the answer is like it is what it is,

And we still need you to put on an amazing event and and and do more with less. I feel like that's another way of getting creative, right? Like creativity

just isn't about designing beautiful experiences. Creativity is figuring out how to still create an amazing experience with what you are given to work with, whether that be a small team and few resources, whether that be a short timeline, whether that be a limited budget. And really.

working hard and putting on your thinking cap and being like, all right, what am I gonna do to figure this out? Some of the things I, you know, you do is with a short time line, it's like, okay, what are the venues I know and the relationships I have that I can go tap and

be like, I need a space, what can we do?

also just like pulling together, bringing people in with existing knowledge that like know how that know how that event works or knows that space or knows

those people or can jump right and and and and move the project forward quickly. What

When it comes to budget. Okay, well, how can we get creative? Where can we cut? to be sensible, right? Because there's always probably places you can pull back. Listen, I've made cuts and you feel them, right? But figuring out how to optimize your resources or figuring out, for instance, I cut a expensive coffee bar item this year in Cannes because our budgets were cut. And so where were the frivolous areas we could cut? Okay, well, an expensive barista seemed like

We could probably live without that in in the south of France. But I got creative and then I w went out to the street to talk about like friends, like who can we, what can we do? I'm looking for unique ways to like still bring the value back in. And

we found that Nespresso was looking for a way to activate and can. And so Nespresso activated in our space, built this beautiful coffee barista bar, bought Case Kenyan to do these morning mantras, which was an an up-level, really wonderful experience

for our guests.

And I didn't it was a sponsorship, right? So it was a it was a way for me to still get what I needed without having to put the budget out, but adding more value than just a regular Boris de Bar would have done and creating an amazing relationship with the brand Nespresso and and their executives and inviting them into our space. And so I think just continuing to push harder to become creative

when there's impossible tasks given to you.

Mm.

just being flashy to be flashy or just building some

crazy fun build, just cause, like

just trying to get

people in a room, you know, you like again, whether that be talent, whether that be a big flashy build, whether that be some really cool interactive experience. But if it doesn't tie back to your brief, or if it doesn't

make sense for

your audience or if it doesn't make sense for your your goals and your KPIs for this event, why are you doing it? So sometimes I've I've attended events and I'm like, what is this? And how does this have anything to do with this brand? Or what is this here? Like, what is this big thing that they've built that has nothing to do with like the the story they're trying to tell here or the message they're trying to convey or like this is the wrong audience they're trying to impress? Is it just to get pictures and posts?

And sh you know what? If the goal is, we just want to go viral, sure, then maybe that works. But I really think it's the the audiences these days just don't want a bunch of gimmicky, big, splashy activations or games or engagement activations that don't make sense.

Right. Like, what

are you why am I here? And what is this doing here? If it if it's something that's extremely intentional and seems organic to the brand and the experience, then yes, all for it. And who doesn't love a fun, amazing build? Of course. But I just I think just making sure you're you're staying true to the brief.

Creators. I feel like creators is still I know they've been around for a while. They're not new.

I just feel like I just witnessed at Cam Lions like an influx of creators on the ground and how much value they actually bring to these in real life experiences. There was more than ever before this year in Cannes specifically. And they just bring a whole different sort of energy and they have

a whole different perspective. And like for the very first time, my Instagram feed.

was blowing up about Can Lyons. I I have never had that happen before. Can Lions ends up on my LinkedIn feed, of course, because it's a business event. My network is there, people in events, people in advertising. Okay, so I expect to see my LinkedIn feed blowing up with stories from Can Lions and posts from Can Lyons.

My Instagram feed was going crazy. And I was like, whoa, this is new. And different perspectives. How what I'm wearing in the heat in can, how to prepare for your travel. my God, I had a horrible first day. This is how I've pivoted and now how I'm approaching this way. And Cant Lions is.

An aggressive event for four days in the south of France in extreme heat. And it's overwhelming, and there's so much to do. And these creators going and have sharing their perspective. And I'd say the same thing: the feed of LinkedIn also changed a little bit because you're not just getting a CEO's perspective or a publisher's perspective. You were getting creator perspectives and creators from all different industries, creators from all different backgrounds with all different perspectives.

Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, doesn't matter.

Everyone's showing up with a new perspective, a new take, posting articles, sharing their insights, showing their true self, showing what's going on, taking you on the journey with them. And I I was like, this is a whole new version.

Of can for people outside of the event to take a peek into, or even for those of us on the ground, I

don't get to see everything that's happening there. I'm tied to my experience

and maybe I go to one or two other things or a few other things, but you're so busy at your own activation that you really don't get away. So I was even loving getting this other insight, these other view, these other perspectives, these other videos taking me through other experiences and sharing

their how their week went.

And I just think that was.

one example, but that I think this is just the way that this is going. That creators, it's not just, it's not a TikTok only, Instagram only, I'm showing you how to cook from my kitchen or I'm I'm sharing business advice. It's it's I'm gonna take you along on my journey where I'm going. And these experiences get legs. They get life. They have you're expanding the audience by these creators being there. You're getting new people to pay attention. And so I think

It's not new, but I think it's where people need to be doubling down is integrating creators into your strategy just more consistently and and figuring out how they're part of of your experience.

No.

They're also amplifying the event for you, right? So they're taking it

to so and again, sure, do there's

again, brands have relationships with creators. There are contracts in place and deals in place, but there's also this world of like a lot invite them to just come, invite them to be part of it. There's no, you know, you they you if you don't ha have a contract in place, they love just being invited and being accepted. There's a lot of opportunity for them at events like this, like a Can Lions or some of these larger events or

brand owned events and

just even getting them there and then they're just organically sharing their experience. That's

just that's getting you reach

amplifying your event and you didn't even ask for that. Like my entire feed

is people talking about the LinkedIn experience at Can. And like, this is crazy. I we we didn't, you know, it's it's it's

It's, I think, just a really special way that the world is working now. And and more and more people, this is the other thing too. You know, creator means a lot of different things. You don't have to have millions of followers in this to be a creator necessarily, especially on LinkedIn. It just is like, who are you engaging with and who is interested in your content? And

There's more and more people jumping online to be like, hey, I have a perspective and I'm gonna share it. And and maybe

that person is now a creator and they're considered a creator. They come to your experience and they start posting about the things that they're hearing and the things they're learning and the relationships they're building. And that's just getting more eyes on the thing that you built and that you worked really hard to build.

Yes.

The thing I keep meaning to do, well,

I keep meaning to build my personal brand. I'm working harder on doing that. It's a lot of work though. It's actually not as easy. Well, and I don't think anyone thinks it's easy, but it's not just about like, I'm just gonna start, I'm gonna start posting or I'm gonna, you actually really have to have like a true

angle and focus and you have to be really consistent. Yes.

It's and it's ex and that's time consuming. And we all know we've talked about how busy we are in these roles. But it's something I've always wanted to do. It's something I keep it's on my little like personal to-do list and it just keeps moving down. And I finally said this year like I'm gonna like move it to the top. I really want to be more consistent and become

more focused on building my own personal brand in

in a way this year. And then I've had a lot of different over the years ideas on things that I'd love to build and things I'd love to start. And there's one thing that I've talked about for a long time, which is this women's community that I've been thinking about. And and I keep saying maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe this year, maybe next year. And I would love to really dedicate some time to it this year and and try to get it off the ground.

And the kid,

my lovely toddler. I know it's so true. I actually say this there's not enough hours in the day to do all the things that I actually

would love to do. I'd love to work out more. I'd love to like walk outside more. I'd love to travel personally more. I'd love to build a brand. I'd love to build a business. But it's so true. There just are only so many hours in the day. I think.

One of those things we talked about, which was like that prioritization and time management that like you bring to the office.

Really, I'm trying to be really good about like making sure I'm carving out that time personally as well.

Thank you. It was such a pleasure to be here, Laura, and speak with you. I've had a wonderful time. Thank you for having me.