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Meet MTA: Emoke Szoverfi, Global Experience Specialist

meet mta emoke szoverfi

The Miller Tanner difference is our people. That’s why we want to introduce you to our team of superstars that bring our corporate meetings and events to life for our clients. Today we introduce you to Global Experience Specialist, Emoke Szoverfi. Always with a smile and with an impeccable eye for detail, Emoke works diligently to ensure that Miller Tanner Associates delivers the best event experience to our clients.

Meet Emoke Szoverfi

Tell us about your current role with MTA? What are your primary responsibilities?

As a global experience specialist, I handle travel-related event tasks. As a member of the Global Experience Team, I assist the corporate event team, vendors, and event attendees with acquiring visas to travel to the event country and arranging air and ground transportation.

What did you do before joining MTA?

I created, organized, and conducted cultural and tourism programs for guests visiting Europe and Hungary.

What’s the best part of your job?

The opportunity to work with individuals and travel agencies from various parts of the world is very exciting. I enjoy the multicultural aspects of our job. The challenges that come along with organizing individual’s travel to and from different corners of the world help broaden our knowledge and give insight into many cultures. The utmost satisfaction of my job at Miller Tanner Associates is, through planning clinical events, contributing to the amazing work of investigators to heal humans, discover new medicine and save lives as a result. I also enjoy meeting the people I work with face-to-face when I travel to an event onsite.

What’s been your favorite event destination as an event planning professional?

Spain is one of my favorites as an event destination country; however, I am looking forward to the opportunity of experiencing different countries from the perspective of an event planning professional.

Do you have a few great travel tips that you could share?

  • Prepare your suitcase thoroughly, and pack only what is necessary.
  • Travel in comfortable clothing and shoes.
  • Have a power bank available to charge your phone and don’t forget to pack an adaptor for the destination country’s plugs.
  • Don’t judge a country based on one negative experience at the airport, the hotel, or at a restaurant.
  • Only take home the memories collected on your trip or “useful” gifts and leave the unnecessary souvenirs in the shops to reduce the amount of plastic and clutter at home.

What do you do for fun?

I love being in nature, listening to the sounds of the forest and breathing in the scents of the wilderness. I love traveling, discovering new places and observing new cultures and languages with my husband. I enjoy laughing with friends and, when possible, while relaxing in one of the thermal spas of Budapest. I also have many creative hobbies and love learning new skills that involve power tools or a computer.

You are originally from where? What do you enjoy most about where you currently reside? Any favorite spots that you would recommend to tourists?

I am originally a Hungarian from Transylvania, Romania living now in Hungary. My home is in the northern area of Budapest, in a hilly, green environment. I enjoy the quiet surroundings while having the city center within easy reach.

I would recommend visiting Budapest to everyone, as it is a breathtakingly beautiful city, with an extremely rich history and architecture, with an unparalleled location on the Danube River. Budapest offers year-round cultural programs and also music and sports lovers can always find a lot to do here. Some of the many programs worth visiting include Spring Festival, Sziget Festival, Jewish Festival, Formula One, Hungarian National Day, Hungarian Flavors Festival, Night of Museums, Wine Festival, Palinka Festival, and Christmas Markets. If you happen to visit in between these, try a ruin, a pub, an escape game, or visit a thermal bath.

The region of the Balaton Lake is another spectacular area to visit in Hungary. The lake is surrounded by ancient volcanos, their wine is made on their slopes and there are many places to discover nearby. You can relax in thermal water even in winter at Heviz, go underground in Tapolca and take a boat into a cave system, or enjoy music at festivals like the Balaton Sound or the Valley of Arts.

What makes Miller Tanner stand out as a meeting planning company? What’s your favorite aspect of MTA?

The MTA team is unique, and I believe the power of the company is in its people. The members of the team represent outstanding professionalism and their approach to planning a meeting is of exceptionally high standards. The company is dedicated to innovation, which I personally like a lot. There is an opportunity for each person to learn and gain additional knowledge while reaching personal and professional goals.

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Life Sciences Meetings Mash-Up

Life Sciences Meetings Mashup

We’ve curated a mash-up of some of our best blogs with tips for creating successful meetings in the life sciences industry. Use these strategies from the Miller Tanner Team to improve and maximize your meeting’s capabilities.

Investigator Meetings: Compliance Q & A

Investigator Meetings: Compliance Q & A

Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) Chief Compliance Officer Mary Long shares the challenges and best practices for addressing compliance when planning investigator meetings (IM). Read more.

How to Improve Investigator Meeting Engagement: A Case study

Case Study: How To Boost Investigator Training Engagement And Improve Event Management

Find out how Miller Tanner Associates partnered with our client to develop solutions to improve the training process for a more successful clinical trial. Read more.

Investigator Meetings: Maximize Your Training Strategy

Investigator Meetings: Maximize Your Training Strategy

Training, continuity in training messages, and documentation of training are all critical components of a successful clinical study. Learn how to maximize your training strategy. Read more.

Take the Guesswork Out of Your Medical Meeting

What Medical Event Attendees Want From Your Investigator Meeting

We survey every investigator meeting participant so that we can better meet your attendees’ expectations. Here are a few ways you can deliver an exceptional meeting to your medical professional attendees. Read more

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Meet MTA: Julie Hacker, Senior Global Experience Manager

Julie Hacker

The Miller Tanner difference is our people. That’s why we want to introduce you to our team of superstars that bring our corporate meetings and events to life for our clients. Today we introduce you to Senior Global Experience Manager Julie Hacker. With her extensive background in managing a variety of event types, along with her invaluable sense of humor, Julie makes event planning look like a walk in the park; however, behind the scenes, she is skillfully arranging each event’s staffing needs like a pro.

Meet Julie Hacker

Tell us about your current role with Miller Tanner Associates (MTA)? What are your primary responsibilities?  

As a senior global experience manager,  I manage an incredible team of global experience directors. One of my primary responsibilities is staffing and assigning our team members to our client meetings – both pre-planning and implementation on site.  It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle to work – good thing I like puzzles!

How long have you been with MTA? I have had the pleasure of working at MTA for the past 12 years.

What did you do before joining  MTA?  

The majority of work I did before joining MTA was in the non-profit sector. I had the opportunity to plan everything from incentive trips and advisory board meetings to international conventions and leadership trainings.

What’s the best part of your job?

The best part of my job would be the amazing Miller Tanner team members and a semi-clean email inbox.

What’s been your favorite event destination as an event planning professional?  

Top favorites on my list for event destinations are Barcelona, Budapest, Berlin, Cape Town, Melbourne, and San Francisco!

athens
Julie in Athens

What’s been your most memorable destination to date and why?

Athens, Greece was always on my bucket list and I’m so lucky that I was able to plan a meeting there.  Being able to say I’ve touched the Parthenon is pretty cool.  I never dreamed my job would create that opportunity, but it did!

Do you have a few great travel tips that you could share?

Dress comfortably, pack light and always carry an extra toothbrush. 

What do you do for fun?

I love sports! I enjoy watching my Ole Miss Rebels, Tennessee Titans, and Nashville Predators, but my favorite sport to watch is my daughter’s high school volleyball team.  It doesn’t get any better than that!

What do you enjoy most about living in Tennessee? Any favorite spots that you would recommend to tourists?

I’m originally from a small town north of Nashville called Springfield, TN. I grew up in the same house where my great grandparents first lived. My parents still live in the same house and although the Barbie dolls and Def Leppard posters are gone, my room is always waiting for me when I go back.

 I currently reside in Nashville and have to say, it is the best “small town, big city”.  It’s known as Music City USA, Nashvegas, The Athens of the South and Smashville – but I just call it HOME. I love it!

What’s your favorite aspect of MTA?

Our annual face-to-face workshop is my favorite. Once a year, our company has the chance to gather together to train, learn, and strengthen our professional skills. The outstanding spur-of-the-moment dance parties are pretty fun too. It has been awesome to watch our team grow year after year.

What makes Miller Tanner stand out as a meeting planning company?

We are made up of a collective group of outstanding people that truly care about the experiences we create for our clients. At MTA there is always a time to foster learning, share a smile, and make an impact.

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10 Benefits of a Paperless Meeting

paperless meetings benefits millertanner.com

10 Benefits of Paperless Meetings

Does the idea of paperless meetings sound daunting or liberating? Here are 10 convincing reasons to shred the paper and embrace the digital devices at your next meeting:

1. Mobile access from any device.

In the digital age, access from anywhere at any time has revolutionized how we work. Having all meeting documentation accessible on mobile devices creates a seamless experience for your attendees.

2. Reduce costs and save administrative time.

When you go paperless, you eliminate the costs associated with printing, ink, and mailing in addition to the administrative time involved.

3. Increase engagement.

By making documents and agendas available from any device, your attendees can prepare in advance and participate more effectively at your meeting.

4. Personalize event schedule with sessions and presentation details.

By digitizing your meeting, you can also personalize the attendees’ event schedule so that there’s no question where they need to be and when they need to be there. This is especially useful for breakout and/or departmental sessions.

5. Distribute real-time notifications.

Keep your meeting’s agenda running smoothly even when change occurs. Last-minute agenda updates and announcements can easily be sent to your attendees through electronic notifications.

6. Consolidate travel and event information in one location for easy access.

Not only can attendees quickly access all meeting details within one source but also all travel details to and from their meeting.

7. Aggregate meeting data automatically and instantly.

A digital dashboard generates more accurate insights into your meeting data giving you the ability to analyze and view metrics visually in real-time with no additional mental effort.

8. Ensure data security. Sensitive information and digital documents can be easily tracked and managed in a secure portal.

9. Manage more effectively with less effort.

When you consider the amount of time and effort spent managing a meeting and its paper trail – from creating and distributing copies, organizing and filing, and protecting and shredding (for security purposes), it’s much more than you might realize. A digitized meeting frees up time to focus on more important matters like ensuring that your attendees are happy and engaged.

10. Reduce your meeting’s carbon footprint.

U.S. businesses use around 21 million tons of paper each year and discard enough to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City. You can have an impact on these staggering stats when you choose the environmentally-conscious paperless meeting option to reduce your paper waste.

Contact our team at Miller Tanner Associates to learn more about how you can plan a successful paperless meeting.

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Blog

Advantages of Hiring a Corporate Event Planner

advantages of corporate event planner

You’ve heard the saying, “no man is an island”. The same holds true for events.

Events simply cannot survive in and of themselves. Successful events require an abundance of resources – research, focus, knowledge, and logistical savvy – in order to orchestrate their many moving parts.

Many companies try to go it alone and assume that planning an event using internal resources will save money when that’s usually not the case; companies often spend more either financially or in taking up other resources by not hiring a professional planner.

When you hire a professional planner, like Miller Tanner Associates, you are also employing our professional planning expertise and our extensive network of vendor relationships with hotels, rental facilities, AV companies, and more. Planners have access to discounted rates that typically aren’t available to those outside the industry. Our MTA event planning professionals also have the unparalleled skillset and know-how to negotiate the best rates and in turn, pass those savings on to you, our clients. We have the processes in place to efficiently manage your event through our intuitive event management tools and to keep your event on track from start to finish.

Beyond saving your company money, time, and resources, professional planners are passionate about what they do and have the aptitude for doing it. Because they are engaged in planning events every day, our event planners possess a deep reserve of knowledge, creativity, experience, problem-solving, and vision that just can’t be easily replicated. By relying on a planner, you’ll have the confidence that every detail of your event is thoroughly planned, seamlessly executed, meets compliance requirements, and, most importantly, is delivered within budget.

Contact us to learn more about how our team can partner with you to plan a successful, exceptional event experience. 

Corporate Event Toolkit

10 Signs You Need a Corporate Event Planner

Event planning can be challenging if unprepared. It demands time, focus, research, budgeting, logistical skills and relevant knowledge that many corporate leadership teams simply don’t possess. Full article

Corporate Events Q & A

Global Experience Designer Jenny Decker, CMP, shares with us the latest trends in planning a memorable corporate event experience. Full article

corporate meetings

Corporate Meeting Mash-Up

Supercharge your internal events, meetings, and trainings with expert advice using these strategies from the Miller Tanner Team. Full article

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Blog

Meet MTA: Susan Bridges, Transparency Operations Analyst

The Miller Tanner difference is our people. That’s why we want to introduce you to our team of superstars that bring our corporate meetings and events to life for our clients. Today we introduce you to Transparency Operations Analyst, Susan Bridges, who ensures the accuracy and quality of transparency reporting for our clients.

Meet Susan Bridges

Tell us about your current role with MTA. What are your primary responsibilities?  

My role is to ensure the data for transparency reporting is accurate and reliable for each client, according to their specific guidelines.

What did you do before joining  MTA?

I worked for a telecommunications company as a senior financial analyst.

What do you feel are the most fulfilling aspects of your job?

I get to work with an amazing group of people from all backgrounds that are passionate about helping our clients and each other.

What are some ways that the Finance Team takes the burden off of the client when planning an event? 

In transparency, we provide the spend for each reportable healthcare professional within the guidelines of the Sunshine Act.

What makes Miller Tanner stand out as meeting planning company?  

MTA has the ability to put together a meeting at the last minute and still give a high level of excellence.

What do you do for fun? I enjoy shopping with my nieces and hanging out with family and friends.

Where do you live and what do you love most about your state/city?

I live outside of Nashville and my favorite place to take anyone who comes into town is to Lynchburg and Miss Mary Bobo’s.  You can take a tour of the distillery and then eat a home-cooked, family-style southern meal.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I love that MTA gives back to the community.  MTA gives us the opportunity to volunteer our time throughout the year. Recently our team volunteered at Joseph’s Storehouse Food Ministry.

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Event Technology to Boost Engagement During Presentations

Use Technology to Boost Engagement During Presentations

Studies suggest that every 15-20 minutes a listener’s mind wanders. In fact, 91 percent of business professionals admit to daydreaming during meetings and 39 percent confess to falling asleep, according to a “Meetings in America” study conducted by MCI.

Given these statistics, how can you be sure then that your audience is understanding your message and retaining the information you’ve worked so hard to deliver?

The meeting planning experts at Miller Tanner have a few proven ways guaranteed to make your presentation more engaging with the help of technology.

Go Bold (or go home) with an LED Screen

Use an LED Screen for Your Presentation

Your presentation is only as good as its display capabilities. So deliver it in a way that captures your audience using a dynamic LED screen.

You just can’t compare the clarity and vibrancy of an LED screen to a projector. The quality is unmatched.

What’s most impressive is that an LED screen has much greater versatility and resolution than your basic options. The presentation possibilities are virtually endless – from delivering highly-engaging video content to interactive Powerpoint and Prezi presentations displayed at scalable sizes. Visually-rich presentations boost engagement and knowledge retention. There’s no need for boring presentations ever again.

Presentations with Visual Aids are 43% more persuasive
Source

Use ARS to Interact with the Audience

Gone are the days of simply giving a speech. Your audience wants interaction. Use Audience Response System (ARS) to enhance your meeting’s engagement and launch your interaction. By using these small yet powerful devices, transform your presentation into a more interactive discussion. ARS offers real-time live discussions, instant feedback, and instant polling.

Live audience polling at meetings expected to grow
Source

You can ask your audience questions in a wide variety of formats, such as multiple-choice, rating, text response, polling, voting and even fun game challenges, which are great for team building. These options add more exchange of thoughts and ideas within your presentation so you know that your message is getting through to your listener. Your audience will feel more involved and invested in the discussion and less likely to tune out your message.

Interactive content is important for audience engagement
Source

Integrate the Latest Tech Tool

As event planners, our job is to find creative solutions to deliver a successful event or meeting. With your goals in mind, our team can determine the latest innovative technology solutions to ensure that your presentations don’t fall flat. We work with top-notch vendors to bring creative solutions to the stage so that you can have the best interaction with your audience…and have fun while doing it. Virtual reality (VR), hologram technology, Catchbox, and ARS are just a few of the options that you can use to design a presentation that will captivate and engage your audience.

Miller Tanner uses cutting-edge meeting technology

If you need the expertise to improve your presentations using the latest technology, our team can provide guidance. Contact our team today!

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Corporate Events: Q & A

Corporate events questions and answers

Corporate Events: Q & A

Global Experience Designer Jenny Decker, CMP, shares with us the latest trends and insights for planning a memorable corporate event experience.

What part of the event do you personally handle?  

My role begins once the location and hotel have been determined; however, because we have a more continuous relationship with our clients, sometimes we are involved earlier and make suggestions based on what we know about the attendees and goals of the next meeting. 

Which details would you consider the top priority when planning a corporate event?  

First and foremost, we always like to find out the client’s goal for the meeting.  Once we know that, we can hone in on more of what the top priorities are for the client.  We find that giving the attendees an “experience” that is unique and memorable seems to resonate the most with all clients. 

What is one essential that no corporate event should ever be without? 

Good food and time out of a hotel ballroom to truly connect are essential.  Training and lectures are needed but, especially for corporate events, your attendees are much more productive when they can sit in small groups around a fire pit or in a local pub and share ideas.

In your opinion, what’s one benefit of hiring an event planner?

When you are hosting an internal event, your focus should be on connecting with your colleagues, engaging with your team and getting the full experience of the event.  There are so many details, decisions, and frankly, too many “fires to put out” when you are on site; It would be difficult to master both – juggling the details and enjoying the full experience.  Having experienced event planners plan your meeting allows you to disconnect from the logistics and focus on your team. Our planning team can see “fires” before they start; we know how to pivot when it goes off track. We have plans and processes to make the entire event run smoothly.

How far in advance do you recommend planning a corporate event for companies considering an incentive trip for their team?

For incentive trips, we recommend a year plus. Depending upon the time of year, you usually have a lot of leisure travelers at these locations which are typically more upscale destinations. The options for availability at hotel properties sell out much more quickly so it’s important to start planning well in advance. 

What are some corporate event destinations that we’ve planned recently and why were those locations chosen?

Charleston, Scottsdale, Philadelphia, Cayman Island, Mexico, Key Largo, Las Vegas, Santa Monica, New York, Orlando, and Turks & Caicos have been the most recent destinations.

Each client has their own reasons for choosing a location but most of the time it comes down to convenience and ease of travel to and from the city.  Also, depending upon the goal of the meeting, sometimes the time of year and weather preferences are high on the list of musts. 

The location of the actual property is one of the most attractive things about these events.  If attendees are immersed in the culture of the city and able to walk and explore on their time off, it makes the experience of the event that much more enjoyable.

What is the most exciting part of planning and executing a corporate event from your perspective as a planner?

Finding new ways to engage the attendees and bringing in new vendors that offer something completely unique is an exciting aspect of planning.

Based on the feedback from event attendees, what element of the corporate event seems to be the most impactful?

Attendees seem to prefer events where they can “choose their own adventure”, have a surprise gift that they can personalize themselves, or choose which gift they want from a variety of high-end options.

What’s one activity that was the most fun to plan and see executed?

Any of our incentive trip events would be high on the list.  We get to create fun, themed nights for a small group of people and really get to see the surprise and impact that it makes on the group.

What’s different about MTA events compared to other companies?

We aren’t just checking things off lists—we listen. We make sure that it’s the event and experience that our clients want to bring to life.  And we use our expertise in logistics and design to make sure that it is truly a remarkable event that your attendees will talk about when they get back home.

Our Global Experience Team can help you design your next incentive trip, global sales meeting, or other corporate event. For more information, contact our team today.