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Innostutaan metsässä!

Event Studies - Theory, research and policy for planned events

The book I have chosen to read for the Inno58 is Event Studies – Theory, research and policy for planned events by Donald Getz. I decided to read a book regarding event management, since this topic is directly related to our customer. After looking at possible editions at the library, I chose this book, because it seemed to be the best choice, as it is covering a wide range of the event business.

The book covers many aspects of event management, but I focused on the importance of service design and the quality of events. Since events are a kind of service and therefore intangible they can’t be measured as such in terms of quality as a product. How an event is perceived is strongly related to a person’s experience. Two people can experience the same event in a total different way.  

To assure that customers have a good experience at the event, the organizer can design the following:

• Setting (site and venue, layout and décor)
• Theme and program design
• Services (service blueprint)
• Consumables (food and beverage)

Furthermore sensory stimulation like for example lightning, color, sound and smell can affect the experiences at events.

Another important aspect of service quality is to create tangible evidence, since the customer can’ experience the service beforehand. One example of a tangible evidence is the staff appearance. According to the SERVQUAL theory the staff is supposed to show the following:

• Responsiveness
• Assurance
• Empathy
• Reliability

In the book were much information I already knew, since I had lectures on this topic back home, but it is well written and points out the aspects one should be truly aware of when planning events. Furthermore I am sure that my practical experience in the field of organizing trade fairs and congresses will be helpful for our work at Kunstenniemi.

- Anja -

Smile More Often

We did finally have this unofficial meeting with our whole Inno-group! We went to Koulu for a pint and some nice snacks to truly innovate but also discuss about how to keep on going!

This was great place to chill out and get to know each other better. We made some organization changes and updated action plan for our group. We also decided about things that we should still find out before Monday and Kunstenniemi.

Organization changes:

Team Leader - Minna
Responsible for communication - Sanna
Secretary - Anja
Responsible for group to be Innovate - Marko


New actionplan:

Searching information about:
* Unusual ways of marketing (guerilla marketing)
* Viral marketing and marketing in social media
* Marketing strategies that could help to advertise the winter season
* Marketing strategies that could help to create relationships with new customers
* Tools to innovation

- Marko, Minna, Sanna, Anja -

Some useful links

Here's some really interesting sites I found. Some of the sites are about Viral-marketing and others about social media. Most of them are in finnish, but two last ones are in english :) Check them out:

http://publications.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/22726/ojala_tiina.pdf?sequence=1

https://wiki.uef.fi/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=16090458

http://www.akvamariini.fi/blogi/2010/05

http://bloggaajat.com/tarkein-salaisuus-hyvin-toimivan-viraalimarkkinoinnin-taustalla/

http://socialmediatoday.com/node/585936?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

-Marko

New Design in Hospitality

This is something I found really open-minded thinking. It's focus is on Hotel management
but it's main points are easily adapted to other Hospitality industry as well.

http://library.the-group.net/ihg/client_upload/file/The_new_kinship_economy.pdf

I hope you find it as useful as I did!

-Minna

Second working day @ Novia

The day started at 9 a.m. by Johanna and Sari from "Get a Life" telling us about the future and progresses in innovation processes. As there were only two group members present in the morning, we decided to join the team Lightbulb. Our task was to brainstorm the future needs of our clients customers and the basic needs that result for the company. After that we chose one topic. The topic we chose was about the winter season in Kustavi. See picture.

The last task was to write a short story about Kustavi's winter season in 2025. One team member of Spark Plugs joined us at this time. We finished the task and presented it to the other Inno Groups and Coaches before the lunch break. The rest of the day we discussed the information we received from the client Pekka Kuru. It was really fun to cooperate with the team Lightbulb and to get to know new people.

 - Anja, Sanna, Marko

The meeting with Pekka Kuru

So we met our client Pekka Kuru yesterday at TuAMK. The meeting started at 12 o'clock and it was arranged together with team Lightbulb, check also their blog at http://teamlightbulb.wordpress.com/ :) The meeting started by Pekka Kuru introducing his company and telling about his company Kustavin Kipinä values. We found out about the idea behind the project which is to increase customer revenue.  His wish is that we find the way to make people to travel to Kustavin Kipinä even from a distance and expand customer arriving off season (winter time). We asked some specific questions about marketing and other customer segments. Overall the meeting went well, and things got more clear. 

The picture above is about the information we gathered as a mindmap after the meeting.

Now that we know our task, we hope that this will give us more courage to work harder for this project.

-Marko, Sanna and Minna