What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

I recently had the honor of guest lecturing at NYU on entertainment production for special events.  Richard Aaron (President of Biz Bash) teaches the class and he includes guests to bring the theories he teaches to life through their practical work experience.  I had a blast.

Where was this class when I started in the industry 20 something years ago?!   They even had a textbook “Special Event Production” by Doug Matthews!  I was thrilled to see this photo of our BKA production of the musical CHICAGO, which was performed in China, in Doug’s book.

It amazes me how much our industry has changed.  Back in the day, working in events was a mysterious profession.  No one really knew how to break in and we all kind of found our way into one of the most fantastic industries I know.  Except we didn’t even know we were working in an industry.

One of the students asked me where I studied Event Management.

I didn’t.

How did you learn to do events?

The hard way.

Well what did you study!?

Hmmm…..long list….cultural anthropology (more on that in a future blog), psychology, public relations, theatre, music, dance, advertising, journalism. All helpful. I also worked as a tennis instructor, waiter, actor, director, writer, public relations VP and stand up comedian.

By the way, the waiter jobs helped the most — you really learn how to multi-task and serve the customer.  The stand up comedy job convinced me that I could do anything. During all of it, what I studied most was people. How to listen to them, what makes them tick, how we are different and most importantly how we are the same. I’m most interested in how we learn, how we communicate and how what we experience influences our behavior.

While I studied and worked I had no idea where I would end up.  But when I look at what I’m interested in — people — I guess I ended up in the right place.  My friend Lori Martin from Performance Improvement Incentives told me that I did end up being a cultural anthropologist.  I just didn’t know it.

I envy today’s event management and hospitality students — they know what they want to do and they are busy studying it and readying themselves to be the next generation of event professionals.

Let’s support them — by teaching, mentoring, providing internship opportunities and hiring them as soon as we can.   This way we fuel our industry with new ideas and fresh energy.  And help them be who they want to be as they grow up.

Fun fact: Three of our current staff started out at BKA as interns and have now been with us in leadership positions for 10 years, 6 years and 5 years respectively!

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