Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Experience vs. Degree


While other children typically experience movies, theme parks and occasional family vacations, this kid did that and more! I traveled more, was exposed to more and got to observe the positive work ethic of my mother - which had a large effect as I grew up and started working. It was an experience that would give any young person a "leg up."
 
 I literally grew up in the business. When Extraordinary Events produced the opening of GM Place in Vancouver, I took a few weeks off from college, and my role was to be Shania Twain's hospitality manager and take care of communication with the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. Not bad, right? My friends were pretty jealous, and all wanted to change places with me.


As I grew older (late 20s), I was in charge of some fun tasks like driving Kenny Loggins or Ziggy Marley around Las Vegas. In fact, on one of those days, while driving Ziggy and his band, we stopped by Guitar Center for some items. Once there, about four or five of them grabbed instruments and put on a nice little acoustic show for the customers. It was certainly a highlight!


Over the years as I was growing up, I attended entertainment showcases and traveled to MPI meetings nationally. A great bonus was meeting all of Andrea’s closest friends in the industry, whom I am so lucky to work with now.


Even with this great experience under my belt, I went off to California State University Northridge to explore journalism and got an opportunity to try covering high school and junior college games for the Los Angeles Times. From there I went to work for another Southern California paper, and that turned into 10 years of on-the-job education.  


So, here I was, with a job I loved covering UCLA athletics, local sporting events and being at Kings, Dodgers and Lakers games, and winning awards for doing it! But, even though I loved it, the pay was never good, and I never saw my wife, since she worked days and I was always working nights and weekends. Something had to give. A family meeting determined that a move to Extraordinary Events would be good for both Andrea and me and the future of EE.


At that point, I took the opportunity to get my Master’s degree in Business Administration at the University of Phoenix. It was the perfect opportunity to balance my home and work life and earn the degree. The advanced education allowed me to use EE for data and explore our internal management practices, discover business ideas I’d never considered in the past and improve our processes.


This was a stark difference to my days at the newspaper, which were all about learning through experience. So, when other event producers ask me how I compare having a business degree to practical experience, I have to say they both have a number of strengths and weaknesses.


There’s something to be said about learning under fire and working on your craft. In my first two years at the newspaper, I learned more than I ever would in two years of school studying the subject. I found a few really strong mentors who were open to sharing their knowledge, and I would advise anyone starting in the business to do that.


And to be fair, I had the mentor of all mentors in the event production business as well! The most valuable experience (my big takeaway with having Andrea as my mentor) was seeing how she deals with vendors and clients. Her communication skills and the way she rectifies situations are amazing to me. She’s fair, compassionate and listens to their needs without making emotional decisions. These are the values of having a mentor to emulate.
  

“The benefits of experience vs. book learning - If you need to have brain surgery, do you want a medical school’s most recent graduate who has scored well on many tests or a doctor who’s successfully performed such surgery many times before?” –Andrea Michaels


For people starting out in the business, unless their goal is to own a company, my advice would be to reach out to quality event production companies and offer to support them in pre-production and on-site projects. This provides an opportunity to gather work for resumes and gain valuable experience. Working hard and showing a company how much you can help them is an invitation for them to let you stick around!


For those who want to become owners, a business education is crucial if the company is to grow from a small, tight-knit company under five people into a true event company. The knowledge and education you’ll receive will help you organize the firm correctly as it grows. Otherwise, once the business expands, you will experience too many growing pains along the way!


I have to admit that my road hasn’t been perfect, but each challenge has led me and EE to places of which I am proud. Ultimately the decision to join Andrea and EE was the best business choice I have ever made. Working with family is not the easiest thing to do, but there are far more benefits and rewards from the experience.


Best of luck to you in all your endeavors,



Jon Michaels, co-owner/EVP, Extraordinary Events

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Story behind EE’s Good News-Letter

A Little Good News...

 Wherever I go, whoever I meet, here’s the first thing I hear….”I love your newsletter; I wait for it every week.” These are inevitably followed by comments on Taylor’s Tunes or Chris’ recipes, my messages…most of all, comments on how good it makes them feel. Often I’m asked what gave me the idea to get it started.



Let’s go back three years and a couple of months to January of 2009. Everyone was miserable. Everyone was depressed. The economy was tanking and showed no signs of recovery. Businesses (like those of my competitors) were closing their doors; companies were being downsized; salaries were cut, benefits cancelled. Newspapers were filled with doom and gloom. And I was fed up with it. I don’t like being unhappy and being surrounded by depression. So I made a conscious decision that I was not going to fall into that trap of “oh, no, poor me…I’m suffering.”



Instead I knew that the pendulum of life dictates that though it swings in one direction, it will invariably swing back, usually landing somewhere in the middle…and that is called stability. I decided that I wanted to surround myself with just good news, and thus our Good News-Paper was born, in utter simplicity.



See my opening issue that the EE team produced. We emailed it to our entire email contact list and lo and behold got some very supportive messages back. People liked it and encouraged us to keep going. Even without their support, I had no intention of giving up. Why? I wanted to feel good. So I scoured the Internet, the newspapers, and all media to seek out only good news. I promised myself there would be no promotion (and oh, it’s a temptation to promote) but only happy tidings from all over the world.



At the next trade show I attended, the feedback was incredible. I was stopped in every aisle with a “thank you” of some kind and the question, “Can I send this out to my friends and family?”  Soon we started getting contributions and our reach grew and grew. Every week people contribute, and my team (bless them!) is fully engaged. The only time we ever hear a negative comment is when one of Chris’ recipes does not appear, or Taylor misses a week and then one of their fans is disappointed.


 Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! - Anne Frank


China. India. South America. Everywhere I go people are still stopping me. Since I write about my grandchildren a lot, they now are known in almost every country and their adventures (some with me) are commented on worldwide. I can imagine when they are old enough to travel with me that they will have a lot of friends.


 I will never regret that in 2009 I put the misery of the world behind me and sought to instead be pro-active. I don’t believe in waiting for someone else to bring me joy. I’ll create it…for myself. And if in doing so it brings happiness to someone(s) else, it’s an extra bonus. But I confess.  I started this just for me. So maybe being selfish sometimes isn’t so bad, is it?

 As Always, thank you for taking this journey with us!

Andrea