What I love about events is its transferability. Regardless of industry, company size or  budget ;) - field marketing can be a really strong tool to increase visibility, maintain customer relations, and produce revenue for all companies and organizations. After spending the past 2+ years planning events for a finance company in Midtown Manhattan, I took a bit of a leap in moving to San Francisco a few months ago and entering the land of tech start ups. In my short time in this industry there are a few outstanding themes that I think all other industries should be taking note of. Here’s what I’ve learned from tech:


Diversity is essential. Duh! At risk of addressing something seemingly obvious, I’d like to explain why this has struck a stronger cord with me since entering this world. People are talking about it! D&I initiatives are all over tech, whether that’s having a panel of speakers from a diverse background or building a company culture of inclusion and hiring talent from underrepresented backgrounds. Not to say this will solve all of our nation's problems around this issue, or to say that I am an expert, but highlighting that there is a lack of diversity and working to solve for that seems like a strong start. 
Done is better than perfect. I’ll admit, at first this one was nails on a chalkboard for a type A, logistically driven event planner. But after some time and no real other choice I came to accept this as fact more than a style. If you are on a team of 15 and each person has the luxury of triple checking every minute detail of a LinkedIn post, great! Knock yourself out. In startup land however most of us are taking on multiple roles and are running around like mad making sure everything gets done. Take this blog post for example, I woke up in the middle of the night to draft it before waking up tomorrow and getting ready for our SDR Meetup. Though I still believe it’s essential to be as thorough as possible, execution is much more important than formatting or spell check.
Collaboration is key. What a concept! This immediately struck me about the tech culture, a willingness to work together with other companies in order to get the best possible result. For field marketing in particular this has been a saving grace as we jump start AlwaysHired’s program. Being able to tap into other groups resources and outreach and combining that with our own in order to put on the best possible events has been invaluable. Could we put on a successful networking happy hour by ourselves? Sure. But we can double the quality, value, and reach of that event by teaming up with others.

by Kelsey Brazill, Events Manager, AlwaysHired