May marks Miller Tanner Associates’ 21st year in business!
You’ll see us “Valt-ing” into this momentous year by releasing the rebrand of our legacy, proprietary On-Demand Trainer/Learning Management System product to VALTs –“Virtual Assessment, Learning & Training Source”. It is not a new system. It is not a replacement. It is a rebranding.
This is a leap forward. Its new name implies security and a storehouse of knowledge. It’s flexible for all audiences. It reaches across space and time to connect people.
Although the “look” will be different, the goal to “Centralize Your Expertise. Propel Your Team.” remains the same.
With VALTs you can still:
Expand the reach and impact of your training sessions.
Deliver resources and event content.
Provide a simple path to reaching all onboarding requirements.
Create assessments to validate comprehension.
Generate completed training documents.
Refresh rapidly changing content.
Track your team’s progress.
All with security, cost savings, reporting, and ease.
MTA continues to work at digitizing your data; these efforts enable you to securely monitor your events and training through aggregate data and real-time tracking.
I am continually humbled to be able to say “Thank You” for the past 21 years. It is a pleasure to be of service.
Sincerely,
Marnie Miller Battistini
CEO, Miller Tanner Associates
With some creativity and flexibility in our planning and by using local venues and on-site resources, we garnered additional savings that helped us stay within our budgetary limits. Here’s how we accomplished it:
I had the date, location, and the budget. Now it was time to fit all my dreams and ideas, for a magical company experience, into the three days we had for the event. I had to create an agenda.
Admittedly, I had a big picture of what I wanted to create for the MTA team. Plus, I have a ton of experience on what works and what doesn’t work when creating an event combined with the internal talent to make it all come to life. My labor costs were already built into my annual fixed costs, so I used the MTA 2017 budget to pay for our activities.
It might be out of style to invest in company culture or its team, outside of salaries and benefits, but at Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) I believe that creating a strong company culture yields a strong, successful company. Company cultures are built on creating positive, memorable company experiences. After creating 18 annual events for the MTA team (I missed one year due to the results of the Great Recession), I’ve seen the investment in the MTA team really pay off. 2017 was MTA’s 20th-year-in-business milestone and a perfect time to invest. Continue reading “How To Plan an Incentive Trip on a Limited Budget”
MTA has been awaiting 2018 for a long time! Coming soon in 2018, our clients will have real-time, instant, online access to all their event management data!
What this means for our clients:
Access your event’s data from any desktop-based browser at any time.
Get instant access to track, record or report on an HCP learning plan.
Monitor the logistics spend per person for your event for better operational transparency.
Access real-time reports to see who has registered for your event.
Gain insights to support your event’s ROI.
Customize your event reports conveniently and efficiently.
MTA has moved from providing not only exceptional logistics and event services but to offering convenient, timely access to your event’s digitized data. We are going deeper with technology and using it in such a way that the data can give you a more comprehensive, in-depth understanding of your event. These are just some of the resources our clients will have access to in 2018 – MTA’s “Year of Depth”.
Whether the event is face-to-face, virtual, or a mix of the two event formats (hybrid), MTA is looking forward to introducing this new exciting resource to all our clients. For more information, reach out to the Miller Tanner Team via our website.
Concerned about cost, accessibility, and flexibility when it comes to your events? A virtual event can be the answer to your event challenges.
Virtual events are a highly effective way to deliver content without the cost and planning involved in a face-to-face event. Never tried a virtual event? Here are a few reasons to consider it:
And if time is of the essence for your event, virtual events help you stay ahead of the game. Virtual events take a lot less time to deploy which is a big win when you need to push out urgent updates and high-priority amendments. Virtual events can be planned and executed in as quickly as 24 hours depending on the content.
If you’re tight on budget and time, but need to deliver a message to your audience worldwide, virtual events are the perfect solution.
2. Increased accessibility.
Virtual meetings reach a broader audience with the same content no matter the location or time zone. Anytime. Anywhere. How’s that for accessibility!
And as a bonus, your live virtual events can be recorded so that the content can be accessed long after the event as a reference or for future training, improving the consistency of your message to every attendee. This can easily be accomplished with our proprietary tool, VALTs (Virtual Assessment Learning and Training Source.
Virtual meetings offer both exponential reach and accessibility by easily bringing the content directly to your audience.
3. Improved technology.
Virtual event technology has gotten better with age. Technology challenges are far less likely now with the improvements in virtual technology over the past 10 years.
Our expert team handles not only the meeting logistics but is also available to troubleshoot any issues a participant may have in real time ensuring a successful outcome. For instance, we have deployed last-minute invitations and had additional attendees join right on the spot thanks to virtual technology.
Don’t let your event hurdles keep you from hosting a successful event. Virtual events offer a cost-effective, efficient approach to your events and allow for access to content management before, during and after your event.
Discover the endless benefits of virtual events with the help of our Virtual Events Team to guide you through the process.
Miller Tanner Associates is looking forward to celebrating our 20th Anniversary, face to face, as a team this month. Gathering together is an event we invest in annually which we started in 1998. Back then, it was to recognize one year of being in business. Now we are celebrating our 20th work anniversary milestone. Our celebration will include refining our corporate event planning skills as well as working on our company goal of connectedness.
Testing event ideas at our last year’s annual training workshop.
This year, we will be testing drone capabilities so that when we are bringing our creative ideas to your corporate events we can provide first-hand experiences on what worked and what might need to be rethought. Videos? Stills? Both? Capabilities to fly under a car? These experiences are a way to identify and test new types of resources in the form of not only machines and their capabilities, but other service companies as well. It also gives us new insights into cost-saving measures for our clients.
July is a good month to start planning your corporate events and building your messaging for 2018. Miller Tanner Associates can weave your message into the location, the venue, as well as the audio options.
Virtual meetings are an ideal option for many companies needing to provide the latest information to attendees without the need to consider travel, hotel, and other logistics. Since the cost is a small fraction of a face-to-face meeting, more and more companies are finding this option to be a valuable solution to educate and update attendees, especially within short time frames.
Reasons for a virtual meeting might include:
Budget: Virtual meetings are roughly 10% of the cost of a face-to-face meeting.
Convenience: Virtual meetings allow for efficient training with little impact on attendees’ and presenters’ busy schedules.
Reach: Virtual meetings reach a broader audience across multiple time zones and countries.
Attrition Redux: When training newly assigned people on your team, the virtual meeting may be the best method because there are limited logistics hurdles to overcome. You are able to interact with the attendees and pass on your very important message.
Important or Urgent Updates: Protocol amendments and other updated information can be shared in an open forum.
Virtual Meeting Tips
To ensure that your next virtual meeting is a successful one, our Virtual Events Team has compiled some useful tips:
Be Time Efficient
It’s a challenge for attendees to sit in front of their computers for hours on end. So make every minute count. We have some suggestions to ensure that your virtual meeting is time well spent.
Streamline your meeting by compressing your agenda so the meeting fits within a 4-hours or less time frame.
If more time is needed, consider a ‘multi-session’ meeting in which the agenda takes place for several hours over the course of two days to ensure that your message gets to your audience while avoiding meeting fatigue.
If time is a constraint, create a ‘pre-trainer’ that allows you to capture certain presentations prior to the meeting. Invite the attendees to view it prior to your meeting via our proprietary On-Demand Trainer/Learning Management System. Presenters can concentrate on the specific or new content for the attendees during the meeting.
Have the Right Equipment
To avoid the common pitfalls of virtual meetings related to audio and visuals, make sure that you have the right equipment from the start to support a seamless meeting.
If your virtual meeting consists of audio and slides only, the equipment needed is as simple as a headset and computer with an internet connection.
If the virtual meeting includes videos of presenters, high definition webcams are a must. MTA provides these webcams and can support you with the setup. We can even go on-site to assist.
Be More Interactive and Engaging
One of the most important elements of any successful virtual meeting is to make your meeting highly interactive and engaging. This can vary based on the audience and the information that needs to be shared.
In-session polling questions are very useful when engaging your audience. This gets the audience thinking about the content and it helps create additional questions around the information being shared.
Ask your audience questions in a wide variety of formats, such as multiple-choice, rating, text responses, polling, voting, and even fun game challenges. With these methods of engagement, your audience will be more inclined to participate and interact with the presentation.
Pose questions regularly and make it a priority to interact with participants throughout all your event sessions.
Be Prepared
MTA can walk you through every step. We understand there can be multiple scenarios to a virtual meeting with many questions to consider such as – is it global, who is the target audience, and what message do you want to share. We are able to help you decide the best route to take when targeting your audience.
When preparing for a virtual meeting, technical rehearsals are essential to your meeting’s success. MTA walks the presenters through the meeting platform in addition to the process of presenting virtually, which can be very different than presenting to an in-person audience.
Among virtual meeting best practices, reviewing housekeeping information with attendees prior to the virtual meeting presentations ensures that your attendees are comfortable submitting or asking questions and understand where to access all support documents.
Implementing these key tips at your next virtual meeting can greatly improve its effectiveness and enhance the overall experience for your attendees. But you don’t have to go it alone. Miller Tanner Associates can walk you through our virtual meeting best practices to ensure an exceptional meeting for all involved.
For other great resources, check out our previous blog posts related to virtual meetings.
Welcome to 2017! Every year Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) begins the year with a theme. In 2016, our theme was “Efficiency” which we hope you’ll continue to see applied in 2017. This year’s theme is – “Time”.
Of all our resources, time is one you cannot make more of – time is finite. I chose “Time” as our 2017 theme for a number of reasons – one main reason is to recognize an MTA milestone in 2017 as May 1st will mark the 20th year that MTA has been in business.
I am grateful to report that you have been on this journey with us for a long time. On behalf of the entire Miller Tanner team, we want to thank you for (1) investing your time(2)using your time (3) spending your time with MTA. Time after time you think of MTA and give us the opportunity to be of service planning your events. THANK YOU!
As we look toward 2017, we are planning to release another tool that should help you “save your time”. We are calling the tool the Event Planner (EP) which will provide insights into your events through a secure online portal access linking to comprehensive data reports such as attendance ratios, registration details, and online deviation requests and approval.
In addition, we will be rebranding our On-Demand Trainer/Learning Management System (ODT/LMS) product making it easier for our clients to understand its functionality and purpose without having to write a book when referring to it! If you are not aware of our ODT/LMS, please take the time to reach out and schedule our demo. We think it will be worth your time to see how you can repurpose your event content or push out timely updates to your teams as training is updated.
We look forward to hearing from you from ‘time to time’ as your event needs arise in 2017.
