Carisa Bartelt:

People then get more excited when you are involving them and you're sharing that information and that impact. Then kind of just keep asking and keep justifying for their support, right. You're making them a part of the process and you're making that data work for you because you understand what they care about and what it means.

Alyssa Peltier:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa, and I will be your host for this week's episode of the Great Events podcast, a podcast by Cvent. Carisa, I would like to welcome you back to the show. We're going to be talking about some really fun stuff today. For those of you who have been previous listeners, Carisa has been a repeat contributor to the Great Events podcast. So we're excited to see what she's been working on in her product marketing role here at Cvent. Carisa, what's been going on?

Carisa Bartelt:

Hey, everybody. Happy to be back. Always good to talk to everyone. I think it's been kind of a wild year. It's been a couple months since I've been here. Think over the last ... We're about halfway through the year now. There's been this really intense focus on what are we doing and why are we doing it and how do we prove or justify impact or resources or anything going forward because I think there was such a fear at the beginning of the year. And now there's this opportunity to kind of reinvent, but there's still a little bit of caution of how much can we spend? What are cutbacks looking at? What's the economy going to do? So I've been doing a lot of work involving kind of understanding what the needs of event and marketing teams are to kind of survive and still execute decently and host great events within this current landscape.

Alyssa Peltier:

And I think we're here to discuss acutely what we need in terms of data, right. What data do we need to prove the impact of our programs? I know we talk loosely about that usually on every single episode in some capacity, right. But I think what's interesting about the work that you've been doing, and I'll let the cat out of the bag here, is that Carisa and her team and our larger marketing group have been working on a KPI framework that can help event managers, event organizers, event planners, event marketers all better calculate the value of their event programs in a more standard way, right.

We've seen kind of a lack of maturity in this space when it comes to data and proof of impact. And so I think the opportunity to have something that's a little bit more consistent in the form of a framework is advantageous to this profession specifically. So Carisa, let's dive into this KPI framework. I guess starting off with what are event KPIs? What are we even actually talking about? I think KPI is relatively widely known term, but there are organizations, associations, nonprofits that use different terms. So when we say KPI, what are we talking about?

Carisa Bartelt:

Data, KPI, these are all buzz terms that we all like right now. And I think the capability to understand what the heck they mean and how do I activate them is really something that we found as just a gap that a lot of us don't have. So I like to think of it in the sea of data, we can report on anything. Anything is reportable. I can give you numbers on anything that you want. And those things, what those are is really ... Those are metrics. Those are one single data point, right. It tells you something really specific, but it doesn't tell you something on its own, right. I can give you a number, 82 for this one thing that we tried to do, and you're like, "Well, great. What does that mean? What do I do with it? How do I improve it?" Right. And a KPI becomes then a combination of metrics or a single metric that you get a deeper analysis of that provides an insight to performance that matters to your business goals or your overall strategic objectives, right.

Alyssa Peltier:

So why does this matter now? I know we touched on this in the opening here. I have assumptions here related to the economic environment that we're in. But why now? Why KPIs for events in 2024?

Carisa Bartelt:

I hate to harken back to the last couple years, but events especially have been this untrackable thing that we just know works. We all do events because our customers like them and our prospects like them and they're great, and face-to-face connections are great, but now with so much of the digitization of just even in-person interactions and the ability to track things, all of a sudden now I've got all this data that I can report on. And my programs are getting cut or my events are getting cut. And I can't cut back on the experience at events because that is something that people in your audience tangibly feels. I think from a marketing standpoint, if I cut back on my Google Ad spend, my customers aren't going to notice, right. They're not going to feel that cut. But if I cut back on the food and beverage on my events or the types of events and the quality of the events I'm doing, they really, really feel it.

So for marketers and people in the event space in general, there's this pressure to ... You still have to deliver great events, but also, we want to give you less. And they need to find a way to justify, one, their impact, and two, the full scope of really the experience that they want to create. And now they have all this data everywhere, right, that's like, "Oh, I can report on how many people attended this particular session and what time everybody checked in. And did they have a great time? And did they like that particular activation that I did?" Are very, very granular. And events teams aren't used to dealing with that much data or dealing with them, that kind of granular nitty-gritty.

Alyssa Peltier:

But let's talk about dealing with the data and what this framework aims to provide, which is a little bit more consistency, a little bit more structure around how to organize that information. Because like you said, it is a sea of information. And part of what we've been lacking historically is a means to make sense of it and categorize it, right. So what are some of these kind of specific examples of these KPIs or even categories of data and KPIs that we're organizing to help event managers improve their programs, to make sense of their programs, to make sense of the data that's part of their programs?

Carisa Bartelt:

Yeah. From a really basic level, getting really simple, because I think data is such a complicated topic and it's very, very intimidating to put your arms around, we're trying to build this framework for us to understand what, who, when, and where each data point kind of fits. We've seen a lot of people out there and they're like, "Here's 200 things that you can measure." And you're like, "Great. But why? What do I do with that? Where does it fit within my understanding of it?" So we've got the what, right, which is what you're trying to accomplish. And we're trying to assign a what to each data point that you might potentially get from an event. Is it to help with brand awareness? Is it measuring the participation and engagement of the people on site? Is it really just a direct revenue financial kind of piece?

Those are all different things of the objective themes, the what that we're measuring. Then we have who. Who cares about it? A lot of different data points are relevant to the event execution team, right. The nitty-gritty tactical. Or the sales team. I want to know about pipeline. I want to know about lead conversion. Or even the financial team, right. And for me, when I have all these things I can now measure, I want to know who cares about what so I can have better conversations with my stakeholders. And then we have it broken down into when, which are these maturity stages, right. When can I start measuring this? You can start measuring it right away. Or you need the foundation of data. Before you can start measuring this, you need this baseline. And then after you start measuring that, you can start looking at year-over-year information or cross event information. And that's that maturity of your data kind of approach. And then where. I think-

Alyssa Peltier:

You beat me to it. I was like, "Am I going to get her? Can I give her the where question?" But you're good. You're on top of your stuff today.

Carisa Bartelt:

Where? Where? Well, I think that's the really important part, right. Okay. I can pull this data. And there's this kind of growth of events as a part of the marketing organization as a whole where we understand not all of these data points are tracked or able to be ... Live in just my event management program or my event software, right.

Alyssa Peltier:

I think that's an important distinction, right. Because oftentimes we get ... There's a lot of event data within a platform like Cvent, right. There's tons of that. But we started this conversation where KPIs are often dependent on multiple data points. And sometimes those data points come with multiple data sources. And so I think the where is very important because we often take a very myopic view within our event planning profession, which is, "I'll just go to my event technology provider," but oftentimes the scavenger hunt exists beyond the tool that you are actively in every day.

Carisa Bartelt:

As we try to grow, I think everybody right now, you want to grow your event impact, you want to grow your personal career, you want to grow the contribution that you have to your organization. That doesn't just live in your specific data segment, right. I want to show impact to the org as a whole. I need to look at data points across the organization or across marketing channel. And that's where you start pulling data from your marketing automation platforms or your CRM or any of your data sources, right, to really get the full picture of what's going on. Not just to optimize the execution of an event, but to really optimize and show the impact that it has on organizational goals and [inaudible 00:09:59].

Alyssa Peltier:

And I also think also when you're looking at the tools and the ecosystem of data that supports your event program, the who actually is oftentimes intrinsically tied to the tool. So for example, use CRM as an example. CRM is a tool that's most commonly leveraged by your sales organization, your financial organization, your marketing organization, those that are responsible for the growth and revenue for your company, your organization, what have you. And so it starts to become clearer what stories you need to tell with those KPIs, with those data points when you know what tools are being leveraged for those particular KPIs. And sometimes the path forward becomes a little bit more transparent as opposed to this kind of opaque situation that we've been in for a really long time.

Carisa Bartelt:

Well, I think too, when you talk about the path forward, I really like the concept too of you need more of these other teams to make what you're trying to do a success, especially because resources are getting tighter. You want them to care about the things that you're trying to produce just as much as you do. And you need to make their involvement easier. And if the data is in a way that they can understand and you're speaking their language, and then also you're pushing information to them so they can see it in their own kind of system of truth or their tool, that helps them feel more bought into the process and creates kind of more organizational alignment.

Alyssa Peltier:

Organizational alignment and opportunity for scalability, for growth of the event program. I think so often we're in a position of defense, right, to defend the program, to justify the spend. But how nice would it be for event professionals to be on the offensive? For them to be able to say, "Look at all the good that we're doing as opposed to look at all the spend that we're trying to defend," right. And so again, KPIs are really the secret behind that. But knowing who you're talking to, where to find that information, what KPIs are of importance not only to you, but also to others, I think, is where the industry is headed.

Carisa Bartelt:

And then you can also help measure how they are impacting what you're doing. And that's kind of that proactive offensiveness of you're giving everybody a nudge because they're all contributing to selfishly your own goal, right, but they feel like a part of the process and they feel ... They can see their own impact of if you participate or if we help activate the sales team here to help drive registration. Or we want better conversion at the end, how can we get better about our nurture programs? People then get more excited when you are involving them and you're sharing that information and that impact. Then kind of just keep asking and keep justifying for their support, right. You're making them a part of the process and you're making that data work for you because you understand what they care about and what it means.

Alyssa Peltier:

No, I think that's great. I think that's perfect. Okay. So I don't want to gatekeep on this framework here. So I know I heard really positive praise from a session that was conducted at Cvent CONNECT just over a month ago now that was related to developing a KPI framework for your own organization. And I do believe, Carisa, there is either an upcoming webinar or a webinar that was just done that might be available on demand. Can you talk about some of these assets that we have for people to learn more about developing a KPI framework and tapping into the KPI framework that Cvent is developing?

Carisa Bartelt:

Yeah. Absolutely. So we've got a webinar coming up, I think it's the first week of August, so two, three weeks, that we're hosting, outlining the framework and what they are, what all the different categories are, what we've identified as the way to categorize your data. We just did a really nice presentation with AMA at their analytics marketing conference. So we've got that also on demand. And then we're working on putting together an asset or a resource for people so they can see individual metrics and how we're tagging them to fit within these themes, these categories, these stages, right, and then where they can find it as a starting point, right. Here's how you can start thinking about it, and here's how we're thinking through where this point fits. But it's really all about the framework of the categorization so that you can learn how to take a metric and fit it in within how we are organizing and teaching you to understand your metrics.

Alyssa Peltier:

I love that. I remember seeing kind of in the chat from the session that happened at Cvent CONNECT. Obviously, this webinar will be an accompaniment to that, and also this conversation that we're having here today. But I think I noticed in the chat this is the best session and the most practical information at Cvent CONNECT this year. So when we see stuff like that, we're like, "All right. We need to continue this conversation." So listeners, I hope you dig in more, dig in a little bit deeper on the data conversation and the data goldmine that is within your event programs to develop those KPIs, to justify the spend, but more importantly, to grow your programs more than ever before. With that, I want to say thank you to Carisa, our repeat contributor on the podcast. We will be happy to invite you again, Carisa, as always, but thoroughly enjoyed this conversation today. So we will see you next week, listeners. Have a great rest of the week.

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews:

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.

Sam Bethel [00:00:00]:

Having a system like Cvent allows us to organize all this information, keep track of the registration, message, the audiences effectively, so they know where to go, when to go, and then for these required sessions, we can mark them as participants.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:17]:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village, and we're that village. 

My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:29]:

I'm Rachel.

Rachel Andrews [00:00:30]:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier [00:00:32]:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing. 

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa, and I will be your host for this week's episode of the Great Events podcast. Now, today we're going to do something kind of fun. We're going to continue a conversation that we started a couple weeks ago. Now, you'll see it in a former episode on the life cycle of a student. So in order to kind of kick off this conversation, I'm going to bring back to the great Events podcast my colleague, Stacey Sheppard, who is somewhat of a subject matter expert in the higher ed event space, and she's a Solutions Marketer here at Cvent who's going to talk a little bit more about our guest speaker that we have today. Welcome back, Stacey.

Stacey Sheppard [00:01:24]:

Thank you so much. Alyssa, you're not going to be able to get rid of me now. Done two of these, and it's too much fun. But thanks for having me back. And I'm really excited to continue a little bit of what we had touched on on our last episode on the lifecycle of student events with actually one of our customers from the University of San Francisco. So I am so excited to welcome Sam Bethel to the podcast, and I want Sam to introduce himself and share a bit of information around his role, his team, because his role is actually very unique to the higher ed space. And I think a lot of you that are potentially listening to this podcast are going to be interested in how things are set up at the University of San Francisco. Welcome, Sam.

Sam Bethel [00:02:07]:

Yeah, thank you, Stacey. Alyssa. It's great to be here. So, as you mentioned, my name is Sam. I work for the University of San Francisco. I'm the Digital Communications Manager for USF. I work on a centralized marketing team, so in the office of Marketing Communications, and I'm the system admin for Cvent at our university. So I work with clients partners all across campus to help them launch events, make sure that their events go as planned.

Stacey Sheppard [00:02:34]:

It's quite a unique approach, having a bit of a centralized role within your team and your role within the university, which I do want to get into a little bit later. But as we kick off this episode and talk a little bit about your events program, Sam, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share a little bit more about the University of San Francisco's events program and your strategic approach to events. You know, you had mentioned to me in other conversations that you have a bit of a unique mission statement or core value that really drives how you're looking at the student perspective in a more holistic way. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sam Bethel [00:03:11]:

Yeah. Cura personalis. So this means care for the whole person. It's a Jesuit principle. The University of San Francisco is a Jesuit university. It's a value principle that informs a lot of the decisions that are made at the university, including the kinds of events that we host. So we really are looking at it holistically, like you said. So we have a lot of different kinds of events on campus, which means that we have to have a ventec that is really flexible and does a lot of different things well.

Stacey Sheppard [00:03:41]:

Yeah, you definitely need a unified approach. Right. With one central team, you certainly can't, you know, have each person be, you know, planning or organizing in different ways, streamlining, that really just saves all of us a lot of time and headache. So tell us a little bit more about your team. You know, you had mentioned that you sit on the marketing and communication team. How does that impact the way that you plan events across campus or even interact with other departments and other teams?

Sam Bethel [00:04:07]:

Sure. Well, because we're a centralized marketing office, we have the privilege of working with everybody on campus, from the smallest department all the way to the office of the president. So it means we're really well positioned to help folks, you know, all across campus. So we're building registration templates, event templates. We're training users on how to use the system, how to take advantage of all the advanced registration features. And we're also building registration pages ourselves and then reviewing other pages so, you know, we can make sure that events are published with consistent branding, that they're streamlined so folks can register without any issues. And that really just makes sure that the folks who are registering for the event have a seamless registration process.

Stacey Sheppard [00:04:54]:

Yeah, you know, you mentioned brand there, and I think that's such an important concept. And something that's top of mind for really anyone who's organizing events on campus, off campus is really just keeping that experience consistent. And, you know, you'd mentioned, you know, talking about the student experience from a much wider lens than most. And tying that back to the University of San Francisco brand, what best practices would you, you know, recommend to others as they're looking to streamline or create those same type of templates and maybe some of the impact down the line that those make?

Rachel Andrews [00:05:27]:

And I will say in the absence of potential centralization, right. Because we know that that might not always be the structure, but you might be able to fabricate that through the use of technology. Right. So I'll just add that in as kind of think outside of the University of San Francisco box for a second. How can we expand on that?

Sam Bethel [00:05:46]:

I think for us, one of the motivating, driving factors for adopting Cvent, we wanted to have our events, you know, we wanted them to feel like they were a part of the same design system as the rest of the university. Specifically at USF, we wanted folks who maybe students who are coming to the university that are registering for orientation to have the same experience that they will, you know, years later as they're signing up for their alumni reunion. Right. And so I think maybe at a less centralized university, really looking into events templates where the design, the branding is dialed in for your university and can be duplicated for other units on campus, it helps create that unified look and feel from event to event, regardless of who the event planner is.

Stacey Sheppard [00:06:35]:

I love highlighting as well that it really starts with that first interaction, that first experience, you know, regardless of if that prospective student does decide to enroll and become a student, that regardless their experience will be consistent from start, you know, hopefully to finish all the way through, through commencement. That's great. So, you know, we're talking a little bit about event tech. So I want to dig into a little bit more around your evaluation event tech for your program. You know, can you share a little bit about what went into that process and what you were looking for when evaluating the right event tech for your university?

Sam Bethel [00:07:07]:

Certainly so early on, some of the driving factors were creating that consistent look and feel from event to event, but then also creating some operational efficiencies. So we wanted a system, one system that integrated with our payment gateway versus having to manually process transactions from a bunch of different systems on campus. So that was sort of the starting point, the catalyst to look for an enterprise system. We met with stakeholders all across campus to kind of get their list of requirements from the must haves all the way to the nice to haves. And that list was long, as you might imagine, when you're talking to various stakeholders on campus, I think, you know, hundreds of requirements. And so we created that list, and then we sent a request for proposals to several vendors, and we demoed a lot of different tools. We ended up, you know, going with CBen, obviously, in no small part because of the flexibility that the tool has. When you are onboarding an enterprise system at a university, you need to make sure that it's nimble and can be flexible and can accomplish, accommodate a lot of different kinds of events.

Sam Bethel [00:08:19]:

We work with so many different people, and the requests we get, there's huge variants.

Stacey Sheppard [00:08:23]:

I was gonna say, how do you go about prioritizing those, especially because everybody's event is the most important event to them, right? They have already prioritized this. So how do you guys go about scrutinizing that?

Sam Bethel [00:08:34]:

Yeah, certainly. I mean, that's kind of part of the fun of our jobs, certainly. But we really do empower our event planners on campus, so we make sure that the folks are trained, can use the system, so that they can build out their registration pages, their website. We're always happy to help where needed and, you know, we can review pages, but we really want to make sure that our event planners are empowered to build out their events directly.

Stacey Sheppard [00:09:01]:

Yeah. Well, now I want to hear about some of these events. Do you have any examples? And I might just tee this up for you. I know we want to get into your new student and family orientation. I think it's a great example of everything that you've shared so far around how you evaluated event tech and the importance of that experience, starting at an event like orientation. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that event and how these event tech has really, you know, supported your team and supported the students and their engagement across campus.

Sam Bethel [00:09:32]:

I'm happy to give you an example or to talk about orientation. I have other examples, too. Orientation is a great one, though, to start with, because really, that's, I mean, the first major interaction that our students have on campus. So it's an important one. But orientation is a multi day event. There are multiple sessions, optional sessions, required sessions, and we have parents and family members who are attending. There are different sessions for that contact type. Having a system like Cvent allows us to organize all this information, keep track of the registration message, the audiences effectively, so they know where to go, when to go, and then for these required sessions, we can mark them as participants.

Sam Bethel [00:10:18]:

That's data that we can refer back to and make sure that they are, you know, going through and, you know, making sure that they're checking all the requirements.

Rachel Andrews [00:10:26]:

Are you measuring that in any way, Sam? You know, is there any kind of tie back to student progress or student engagement or what that means, even in terms of alumni donations? I don't know. I'm thinking about the whole life cycle.

Stacey Sheppard [00:10:38]:

Right.

Rachel Andrews [00:10:38]:

Do you tie that to events at all?

Sam Bethel [00:10:41]:

Oh, certainly, yeah. I think one of the most important KPI's that we take a look at is participation. Obviously we're focused on registration numbers, certainly, but because we have the on arrival so we can check folks in to events, we're really focused on the number of students who register, but then ultimately attend the event. And we can use that data to look at over performing, underperforming events and see what lessons we can glean and that helps inform best practices. So how we can really, like ensure that we're getting the students who registered to actually go in and participate in.

Rachel Andrews [00:11:16]:

These events and active and activated within the community of the university, I assume.

Sam Bethel [00:11:21]:

Exactly. It's all about building community and we want to make sure that we make the barrier to entry as low as possible.

Rachel Andrews [00:11:27]:

I want to go back to something that you said on all your different audiences. Right. And I traditionally come from a very corporate leaning event marketing background. Right. But the way you were describing, even through oriented, you have all these different audiences that you're supporting, the new student, the parents, whomever. Right. You're thinking about all of those unique experiences and what they need out of it. I'm new to the higher ed space.

Rachel Andrews [00:11:49]:

This is very akin to what goes on in any traditional marketing sense, where you're thinking about optimizing experiences for a very personalized approach and what that individual needs. So just something to call out. Not necessarily a question, but interesting that you're leveraging event technology in order to do that.

Sam Bethel [00:12:07]:

Yeah, certainly. And it requires, again, like a flexible tool because our audiences are so different from one to the next. So it really does require that flexibility.

Rachel Andrews [00:12:18]:

So nice that you're able to gather all of those requirements and see all of those audiences holistically within the space that your team sits. Right. Again, to stress how a decentralized approach may not be as advantageous as it seems. While agile and nimble, you know, speed is always good when you're decentralized, you don't necessarily have the ability for growth like you do in a centralized plan.

Stacey Sheppard [00:12:40]:

So it's interesting, as we continue talking through this, it's so eye opening to hear just the impact of what one system means in terms of this data, but then in terms of activating that data. Right. And it's all about that attendance. We hear this all the time, that there are actually some very measurable data points that you can tie back to whether that student or prospective student had just attended one event and the likelihood they are to become not only an engaged student, but potentially also an engaged alumni. It's so interesting to see that throughout the student journey that we're here to talk about. And I'm curious, Sam, if your team's looking at that in any way or you can share any unique insights that you've seen from truly the data telling the story of the student journey.

Sam Bethel [00:13:23]:

Yeah, I mean, certainly it ties into another event that I was just working on this semester that I think was a success for the university. So I. I worked with our career services center on a career retreat at Google's office in San Francisco. And this is an event that Career Services has hosted in the past, just not in C Vent. So I met with the event planners and we talked through some pain points and I learned that it was logistically very difficult event for them to manage. And so by hosting the event in C vent, we were able to address some of those issues. So we created, you know, a capacity automatic waitlist. We sent out reminder emails.

Sam Bethel [00:14:04]:

We had on site check in. Really took a lot of the guesswork out for the students. We met our capacity, but then we had a really high turnout rate for the event. And I think the back end process was so much more efficient for our event planner. So it was a win all around. But, you know, events like that help build that connection to the university. So when students are able to get a job after graduation, they have that connection to the university and, you know, they're more likely to, you know, stay in touch with the university community, attend future events.

Rachel Andrews [00:14:36]:

Can I ask a dumb question? Why is that so important to the university? You know, why is that continual connection? I think I know the obvious answer, but for those obvious, you know, for those that are lesser obvious or lesser known to the higher ed space, what is that value to the university?

Sam Bethel [00:14:50]:

Well, you know, we have a number of events open to alumni and, you know, it's about building community, engaging with, with our alumni. And I think that relationship is really important, but it's also about cultivating donors as well. So the stronger that the relationship is with our students and as they become alumni, the more likely they are to continue supporting the university even after they graduate.

Rachel Andrews [00:15:17]:

Got it, as I suspected, right? Follow the dollars.

Stacey Sheppard [00:15:21]:

It's such a unique way to create more value for your students. Right. By showcasing those relationships, the way that the community can come together with the university and provide them more value as part of their education.

Sam Bethel [00:15:33]:

Yeah, exactly. That's what said.

Rachel Andrews [00:15:35]:

Sam, this has been such a great conversation. I wanted to circle back to the first thing that you said. What was the ethos, the Latin verbiage that you kind of called out in the beginning? Cause I feel like that's such a perfect way to wrap this conversation for us. Yeah.

Sam Bethel [00:15:47]:

Cura personalis means care for the whole person.

Rachel Andrews [00:15:50]:

I love that. I think that's really important, not only just in the higher ed space, but for any event that you're hosting. Think about that entire attendee experience, who they are as an individual. Not just them in their business life, not just them as a student, but everything that they need from your event experience. So with that, Sam and Stacy, thank you so much for joining this week's episode of great events. Loved having you, and we'd be very, very excited to have you back. So, always leave with an invite to come and return.

Sam Bethel [00:16:15]:

Thanks so much.

Rachel Andrews [00:16:16]:

All right, we'll see you all next week. Bye. Thanks for hanging out with us on great events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews [00:16:31]:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you. Discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu [00:16:40]:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind-the-scenes content updates and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews [00:16:48]:

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM or drop us a note@greateventsevent.com.

Alyssa Peltier [00:16:57]:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Rachel Andrews [00:17:06]:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.