Imagine, you have five weeks to advance your company’s vision in these countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine. There will be a total of 8,000 participants. And, by the way, it should be as green as possible.
Malgorzata Brzozowska of Oracle successfully took on this challenge last fall with EE&CIS Oracle Days 2010. Not only did she manage these events, but she also agreed to report back as a Pilot Project for Oracle’s Global Green Team initiative. We applaud her incredible talent and courage. Here are a few of the the highlights in her own words:
• Compared to the past events in EE&CIS, delegate packs have been significantly reduced or replaced by electronic materials
• General rule of Oracle Days 2010 was to use generic branding instead of event branding, which is different than in the past. Some new branding had to be created due to change of company tagline and it will be re-used throughout FY11 for other EE&CIS events so no new branding needs to be produced in the rest of fiscal year.
• Transportation/Travel was one of key success areas. All events are planned in venues well covered by public transportation, executed by local staff and presented in majority by local speakers. International speakers’ travel is planned to minimize cost and maximize use of executives’ time spent at the event - by adding customer 1:1 meetings after keynotes and grouping events with close dates for a keynote speaker who needs to travel. As many EE&CIS countries are small, business is highly centralized in capital cities, where Oracle Days are organized, thus reducing significantly the need for customer travel.
• In addition to the above, many requirements have already been achieved with all suppliers like: serving soft drinks and condiments in bulk containers, not pre-filling glasses or use of individual bottles, using china service, limiting decoration to what’s edible or already existing as standard decoration in the venue, keeping lights and energy off when equipment not in use.
• Where possible, non-smoking hotels were selected. However, this poses a challenge in EE&CIS where smoking is still popular. In most countries, it is already regulated by law prohibiting smoking in public places – but still smoker places are designated areas within the same venue. Selecting a 100% non-smoking venue is also challenging in another way – as some attendees consider it as infringement of their “smoking rights” (!). However, with time and stricter laws also a non-smoking criterion will be gradually achieved in EE&CIS events.
Congratulations to Malgorzata and the Oracle Global Green Team who supported these sustainable efforts!
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