An Academician's Guide to Managing Seminars, Conferences, Conventions, Symposiums and Workshops. It is written by tkjain under tkjain's 10 simple principles of management series. It is useful for beginners. It is a helping guide for scholars, writers, thinkers, activists, researchers, educational institutions, business schools, universities, colleges, schools.

1. 12/28/2013
10 simple principles on managing seminars | Trilok Kumar Jain
TKJAIN’S
10
PRINCIPLES
SERIES
[Type text]
AN ACADEMICIAN'S GUIDE TO MANAGING
SEMINARS, CONFERENCES, CONVENTIONS,
SYMPOSIUMS AND WORKSHOPS
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2. AN ACADEMICIAN'S GUIDE TO MANAGING SEMINARS,
CONFERENCES, CONVENTIONS, SYMPOSIUMS AND
10 simple principles on managing seminars
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3. WORKSHOPS
By : -
Trilok Kumar Jain
Professor and writer of Management, Entrepreneurship and
Spirituality
Jain.tk@gmail.com
Mobile : 9414430763
For whom:
Teachers, Scholars, Faculty members, Writers, Social workers who wish to organise seminars and
workshops for knowledge dissemination.
About the author: The author has experience of orgainsing and managing hundreds of seminars, conferences, workshops,
plays, puppet shows, MDPs, specialised talk shows etc. The author was part of the organising team
when Tom Alter’s plays were organised in Bikaner (organised by the Ajit Foundation for Social
Development). The author was the part of the organising team of a series of seminars by Gandhi
Research Foundation in Bikaner. The author was the organising chair during C3W 2012 and 2013 (C3W
stands for Convention on Climate Change and Water Crisis, which attracted over 160 environmentalists,
NGO representatives, Corporates and activists). The author believes that there should be continuity of
seminars. The continuity of seminars will enable success in the seminars and people will remember and
wait for the seminar (for example, C3W is organised every year and therefore people wait for it).
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4. tkjain's 10 principles series: About tkjain’s 10 Principle Series
As an author of management, I have written e-books on 10 principles – which are simple, easy
to remember, easy to understand and can reflect the most important aspects. These e-books
are freely available on internet. Some of these are as under : Entrepreneurs’ guide to Managing Human Resource
Time Management
Problem Solving and Decision Making Techniques for Administrators
Strategic Decision Making
Digital Marketing and Webpreneurship
Edupreneur’s Guide to Academic Excellence and Educational Administration
tkjain's 10 principles for managing seminars, conferences, symposia, conventions, workshops, street
plays: -
1. student organising team
2. sponsorship
3. stay arrangements, logistics, receptions and overall hospitality arrangements
4. online marketing for registrations
5. globalisation
6. session planning
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5. 7. publications
8. amazing rewards based on research paper performance, presentation, participation and
interactions
9. concrete results
10. entertainment, exhibitions, films, sight seeing, networking and other attractions
Brief descriptions of all these is discussed as under : -
11. student organising team : There should be a strong students organising
team. The students learn a lot by organising these events. In C3W 2013, we
had a four student team, which continuously worked and didnt sleep for 72
hours non-stop and did an amazing work of hospitality to 160+ delegates
under the guidance of one senior faculty (who was CEO of the convention).
These four students didnt say that they were tired, rather they said that
they were highly satisfied as they learned a lot in managing the hospitality
(logistics, stay arrangements, hospitality etc.). These four students have
grown in their maturity, personality and presentation by the orginsing an
event. the student organising team shold have lot of discussions and lot of
debates regarding how to orgnise it, this will help them in their own
development. The organising team should be prepared to spend sleepless
nights for ensuring success in the event.
12. sponsorship : There should be a core group for securing sponsorship of the
event. The core committe of the sponsorship should use emails and contact
UGC, AICTE, ICSSR, Fortune 500 companies, local companies (companies of
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6. neighbouring region), International funding agencies like UNDP, EC, etc and
should also contact government departments like Ministries etc. A very
responsible person should be a part of this committee. All the medium /
large companies and organisations from the neighbouring region should be
invited to be sponsor of some or other event. Media partnership is very
important. One newspaper should be the media partner from the beginning
to highlight the progress and proper publicity should be there for 10
months for success. Invitation committee should work in close association
with sponsorship committee as many sponsors will be requested to send
some nominees for the seminar.
13. stay
arrangements, logistics, receptions and overall hospitality
arrangements : - In C3W 2013, with 150 delegates, our hospitality team had
sleepless nights for 72 hours. The hotels should be booked in advance and
logistics, hospitality and arrangements should be outsourced through some
event management company. The delegates should know in advance about
the name of hotel, the address of the hotel, the contact persons, the
approximate distance from Railway Station / Airport to the hotel and to the
University so that they may hire taxis and reach on their own (they should
be provided detailed map showing the venue, the hotel, the important
locations with help line numbers). All the delegates should be provided
with ample food coupons so that they can take tea, breakfast, lunch and
dinner as per their choice from the Food Exhibition / Food Counters. There
should be large number of food shops / counters with varieties of food and
the delegates should have ample choice for the food (they should have
coupons which they can use in any counter).
14. online marketing for registrations : It should be started 18 months before
the event. The conference should be properly publicised through online
marketing using various websites like www.Conferencealerts.com etc. so
that scholars and researchers can come to know about it well in advance.
Do post your seminar’s homepage on websites like www.linkedin.com,
www.twitter.com, www.facebook.com .The registration fees should be
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7. different for the following categories : - a. Corporate Delegates b. Invited
Participants c. Academicians d. Research Scholars, f. NGO representatives g.
Students from Schools h. Students from Colleges /Universities. Following
should not have to pay any registration fees : - a. Invited speakers b. Invited
delegates c. Invited innovators d. Invited VVIPs e. Invited social activists,
writers, journalists, media representatives, film makers, dramatists and
artists. I recommend to use the following website for starting registration
panel for the seminar: - http://cmt.research.microsoft.com/cmt/
15. globalisation : In today's time every conference, seminar, workshop should
be globalised. Partnership with foreign universities, educational and
research institutions will improve the quality of the seminar proceedings.
16. Invitations for sessions, exhibitions and event planning: - Along with a
seminar, following exhibitions should be organised : a Exhibition of related
products/ services b. Exhibition of ethnic food / food festival c. Exhibition of
latest technologies/ govt. departments on related themes d. Exhibition of
folk products / local products from that region e. Exhibition of new
traditional products / folk products e. Students' scientific projects. These
exhibitions / shows should be open to the public and a media partner
should regularly give information on these. These should be properly
publicised so that people may come to attend these exhibitions. Companies
will also benefit by participation in these events. An event management
company may be hired for helping in success in these activities.
17. publications :
- the proceedings of each session should be published
immediately on youtube / webposts / webinar format so that these are live
instantly and watched by people from across the globe. The texts of the
sessions should also be uploaded on the website regularly. In addition a
seminar newsletter should be started by the students highlighting the
progress / achievements / participation.
18. amazing rewards based on performance, presentation, participation and
interactions : - there should be attractive awards and rewards on good
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8. presentation, good contents - like Best Paper Award, Quizes, Environment
oriented play awards, Best Presentation Award, Best Innovation Award,
Best Photography / Coverage of seminar Award.
19. concrete results : - Every seminar should result in concrete results and
should enable the participants to go with some great benefits. These
concrete results could be in the form of acceptance of projects by funding
agencies / government / banks or development of some code of conduct
(during C3W 2012 we had developed a code of conduct about Corporate
Social Responsibility).
20. entertainment, exhibitions, films, sight seeing, networking and other
attractions : - participants also wish to participate in entertaining events.
During the C3W there were Creative Cultural Nights, which were extremely
liked by the participants. There should be entries from other colleges,
schools, institutions, film makers, play groups and artists for cultural nights.
All the entertainment events should be theme based - and the theme
should be related to the theme of the seminar. Feature Films / Art Films
on the theme of the seminar should also be shown. In the mornings there
should be Heritage walk with a visit to important places for sight seeing and
for appreciating the cultural heritage of the city. The curtain raiser event
should be organised in joint collaboration with all the industry associations
with invitation to all important persons, leaders including political leaders
so that the event gives an opportunity to interact.
Send your feeback, your comments and your support to jain.tk@gmail.com
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