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Evolve TESM
An event designed and managed by students, Evolve TESM was a week-long virtual career and educational event for IUPUI students, alumni, and industry leaders staged in November 2020.
Description of the video:
And again, her embryo. Yeah. 15. So we're gonna go ahead and get this session started. Hello everyone. And I just want to say thank you so much for joining us for the accessible travel, making programmes inclusive by making them uncomfortable, comfortable. My name is Kennedy read and I'm going to be your session lead for today's DEI evolve session. But before we jump in, I do want to go over a few housekeeping items just so that you do know how to participate in today's session. This is a live panel. So if you do have any questions that are directed towards our panelists, please go ahead and use that Q and a feature that's at the bottom of your screen. If you do have any general questions though, anything to do around TES I'm evolve or need to chat with an attendee. Please go ahead and use that chat feature that's located down there as well. Again, this session is being recorded. So this recording will be posted in the session details on the platform by the end of the day. And I would just like to remind everyone that you should engage as a professional as we all sign a code of conduct. So please adhere to that. Any resources, again, will be connected with this session and will be available on the resources page. And at the end of this session, I will be posting a session evaluation link for every session evaluation that you complete this week's, your name will be entered into a sweepstakes drawing for a price. So some of you may be unfamiliar with what T S M as t ESM is two, it is tourism event, sports management. This is a program that allows students to get hands-on experience in the sports and tourism and event industries. And you can also see a variety of minors and certificates that are able to compliment your degree. You can also climb some common acronyms that are frequently used to IVY. But you might also have seen or heard throughout this week, or you will see or hear throughout the week. But I want to talk a little bit more about that as a whole. To ESM is a week-long virtual event that has been created by 58 students. That is helping focusing, not force just students but for alum in the tourism, sports and events field, help focus on your career, build your tech skills, and understand how to design a more inclusive. But then these tracks will be delivered or haven't delivered throughout the week through industry speakers, panels like the one we have today, and workshops, as well as employer exhibits. I'd also just like to give a huge thank you to minorities Haas, minorities in hospitality, NPI and IEP, UIs, diversity equity and inclusion office. Kinda individuals from each of these organizations have spent a lot of time. But the nine-hundredths students that you can see pictured right there, to help bring in additional voices and perspectives to our classroom. So these contributions helped us learn a lot more about diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as bring these sessions to light and really just give the topics justice. So I would just say this, we couldn't have done it without their leadership. So I just want to give a big thank you for that. And now I would like to extend a huge thank you to our panel who's joining us today. It is until it is to see there's a lot of them. There. It is filled with incredible industry pros and some pretty powerful names. We're very, very fortunate, excuse us today West US seem to be able to learn from you. So to kind of get us started, I would like to first introduce our moderator, Mark strap for Marcus, the former regional sales director with American Airlines for Canada. In this role, Mark what a team of sales managers focusing on enhancing the airlines partnerships with powerful its clients in developing travel agency relationships, as well as overseeing the commercial Strategy for American Airlines. And our partners in Canada. Having spent the last 18 years with American Airlines and living in Chicago for about ten. Mark recently moved back to England where heat is going to be joining us today. And again, thank you so much Mark. And then he ended on over to you to introduce our panelists. Well, thank you candidate for the introduction and thank you for the opportunity today to join this session, speaking on behalf of the team, were all thrilled to be here with you. Our panel today represents parts of the travel industry, including suppliers like airlines and hotels, the travel agency community, and also corporate travel buyer who works for a large US corporation. We're also really lucky to have Brett from bread approved as our guide to this topic. And someone who was a real expert in this field. So today, our panel, and we're going to go ahead and do our introductions. So with that breath, can I pass that over to you to give the first introduction? You absolutely can't. Thank you so much, Mark, and first and foremost, it's an absolute pleasure to be spending time with each of you. I can't tell you how much this topic obviously means to me. As you can see there on the screen, I'm the founder and CEO of bread approved incorporate at home to bread approved.com. So bread approved.com is a traveling entertainment website for anybody with a physical disability or mobility challenge. And we have what we call the bread score, which is an algorithm that allows us to rate hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Ten is the highest and one is the lowest. And based on that scale, based on a bread score. You can tell just at a glance if a restaurant, hotel, or entertainment venues going to meet your needs. Prior to founding bread approved, that was enjoyed a wonderful career as a journalist, PR, public, PR in public affairs professional. And we'll get more into bread approved in a minute. But from here on, I'd like to pass it over to my friend Hector. Thank you, Brett. My my my story is one of always being in this supplier side up. It's traveled industry. I started my career earlier. I don't even know how many of you knew about Eastern Airlines Sue back then that's how I started my career with and I went to school is St. Louis where I am right now. That's in Louis University and studied aeronautical administration from then on is always being a career in the airline industry and through different airlines from, from Eastern to America and to quantised. And now we Delta Airlines. It's been, it's been an awesome journey, especially the journey that we were able to embark with these wonderful people that I talk about, these amazing topic. So with that, I pass it on to my friend Angela for her introduction. Thank you, Hector. Hi, I'm Angela policy, flow traveler manage our Pitney Bowes. I've been with the company over 31.5 years. Started with the executive admin to finance and then moved over to travel. While I'm I have a wonderful team with the GLP that we addressed to make awareness for accessible travel for invisible n those that have disability visible or invisible. I just wanted to say I'm honored to be on this panel again to represent to the university, Jeff. Thank you, Angela, and thanks for the opportunity to come and present today. I am with Marriott Hotels and I am based in Los Angeles. I started my career with Marriott and Houston 24 years ago. I never thought I'd be here today still a ferry up. Started right out of college with a hotel and restaurant management degree. And in my current role within our sales organization, I have global responsibility providing count leadership and management oversight for a handful of our top corporate customers. For Maria globally. So thanks for the opportunity and turn it over to Liz. Hi, thanks so much for having me today. Liz, kind I need regional sales director for American Airlines. I cared for a team of people that are out in the west. Yeah, I have that. The agency at corporate folks that are on my team so excited to be here with you today. Thanks for having me. Everyone. George calcu, Vice President business travel at foxhole travel. We are a travel management company. So the the folk we are kind of a middle ground for the folks that you have on our panel today Between Angela as a corporation and travel buyer and then the rest of the group as suppliers connecting those corporate travelers. It's my responsibility enterprise wide for our global sales are comp management and our operations teams at and I've been with the company going on yours now. And I have a I this is a very special place in my heart because I have a degree in hospitality and tourism management, but I'm a Badger from Wisconsin, so don't hold that against me today. But loved being in front of students and I can't remember that time in school, so thanks so much for inviting assent today. So today S panel is going to discuss our project, which focused on improving awareness for travelers that self identified as needing us accommodation when traveling for business as part of their companies money to travel program. But what is a Manoj traveled program will help defined what we mean by Manoj travel. Hi, all pieces of the industry fit in with this. Then we're going to chat about our key learnings during our project and how we as buyers and suppliers, can all help create a more ethical accommodating an inclusive event or travel journey. I should add that each of us, our companies on the supplier side, have teams that specialize in making that journey more inclusive for all travelers with a visible or invisible disability. Whether they're traveling for business or for leisure. And they are the true subject matter experts on the supplier side. So moving ahead and do our panel discussions, the team we all met when we were working on our global leadership professional certificate from GTA, the global business travel association. And part of this certification was to do a project. So I'll ask Liz, would you like to give a little background on the GLP program? How we picked accessible travel to be the focus of our project. And lives here on me. I now I can see I'm so sorry. If I have if I go dark, let me know I had my screen go dark twice already, but let me, let me share with you I'm our journey. If I go ahead. And first of all, just the GB TA, GLP program in itself tends to be something that is a lot of letters. But what a baby, right? There's GBT a, which is the global business travel association. There's GLP, which is this global leadership professional sort of a designation, if you will. And, and to be honest, it's something that takes sometimes a couple of years and it's a journey. It starts off with a lot of education without everything from management and leadership in finance to this final project that we get to do. And to be honest, the project is something that you do that's listed combine sort of discovery with practical units, right? And so when we were all thinking about what are we going to do for a project? Selfishly. I'll, I'll be honest. I was trying to write something that I really cared about, something that that meant a lot to me because we're going to dedicate a year of our lines to this, right? And so I'm going to be completely transparent here. I was lucky enough to meet Bret at an event. And Brett from bread approved, opened my eyes to this really important mission. Which quite frankly, I think, again, I'll be honest, was something that I kinda got sorted out back in 1890 with the legislation. I didn't realize how much we still have left to do. And so being a salesperson like I am, I said, gosh, let me invite Brett to a golf tournament because there's a spectator golf tournament we can set we can get to talk to each other and spend more time understanding what his vision was and how I can help. And then I started thinking more about that. And, you know, I kind of talk to event planner and said, hey, you know, what, what are we going to deal with this here? I know that our box are suite is up to flights of stairs. There's gotta be something in place for that, right? There's gotta be a plan in place. There's there's gotta be something. And what came back was that the adjustment, if you will, that was available, was something that was going to be offering bread. A beautiful scene on a teeth overlooking the action. But it would be removed in away from what we were doing on the sweet side with all the business happening and the customers. And it'll be a very different experience. And I guess I wasn't okay with that. I thought that was was really unacceptable. I'm sorry. That will angry and I got a little frustrated and they started asking more questions. And, and I realize that this is something that I wanted to pursue no matter what. So then came that meeting that we had probably 2019 and gt a conference where there's not that pitch an idea. And so I pitched the idea that we would work on, on accessibility because there's other big important things that are kind of already been pursued, like sustainability and distribution. And no one had yet tackled accessibility from a travel perspective within the corporate buyer environment. And I'll be honest because I got so lucky because this is probably still just be an idea. If it weren't for the amazing team that's here today. Being able to work with Hector and Angela, and Jeff and bread and George and Mark was the biggest and whatever, because if it weren't for there, we probably wouldn't have been able to get we are today and just privileged to represent amazing people. And maybe just to circle back. And I'd love to answer. Learning from all of the folks on the call today mean that students really have a wonderful perspective. And I think that our future is really in years. So excited to be talking about this with you today. Awesome. Thanks, Liz, and I can say that I for one, I'm so glad not the bread had that experience. But that you opened up our eyes and opened up this opportunity for all of us to look at this. So I'll throw it off to the rest of the team. Anyone else got any thoughts if they want to share with the group with regard to being part of this project? I'll start I guess. So as they travel manager and meet and everyone in 2019 and reviewing all the topics. It was very interesting about the innovation and anything that we can provide to the travel industry has being a leader. But when Liz hits this one topic of accessibility of my eyes this open wide because I'm always trying to lessen travel, conflict and reducing friction and getting the satisfaction for our travelers to not only on the duty of care, but also not complying within our company. So we know that there are different challenges that any traveler can face. From weather to now Kobe, to all obstacles in life. But what an eye opener it is to actually address accessibility for those that have visible invisible disability. That was Keith. Thank you. I have to say let me give you a little example of what when our group got together for the first time after, after an amazing compilation of that desire that Liz wanted to work in this our subject. I think we all kind of it was funny. We were in this room and there was raised three, say about 20, some odd people, unless otherwise just TSCA emerge altogether because we, we, we understood the beauty of this project. If we do array, that it was important for us to, to bring this knowledge and to bring whatever we find out and, and awake in some, some thoughts as to what we need to do to be able to make it more accessible. We came from different backgrounds and we, and we started thinking and things to do and then we learn right there. We were a convention center. We call them in and find a wheelchair to make an example of what we wanted to talk more in a convention center. We call it final wheelchair. I had to walk, fly up the stairs trying to I can thinking, how can they not be a wheelchair in this place? How can there not be elevator so how can it be you? All ramps all away from where we were in the fourth floor, all the way down to the first lobby area. And that brought it home. That even at a place that is supposed to be hosted in a global business travel association we did inhabit together, and that is not acceptable. Not much else to add to that. For me, almost 20 years in business travel and capacity through my career, I was looking for something that was different and also many topics that were pitched, our milk toast topics. And this one, in addition to being something that's really unique, was a feel-good thing. And somebody where we felt we could make an impact on the industry and talk about something that people aren't comfortable, talked about all the time, introduce something that really isn't prevalent within our industry. And at the end of the day, it helps make people's lives better. So for me, it was just the perfect combination and a moment that this brought an outfit was how quickly she was like and making it, how quickly can we all gravitate over there and work with her? Yeah. I would say, oh yeah, I was just gonna say, I think one of the big learnings I had even at the beginning was the assumption that there's already processes in place. And to be able to go find a wheelchair is an easy thing or somebody else is doing it instead of taking ownership for something that you're assuming is already there. I think was the biggest learning. For me. So going back to like an Angela who's a travel buyer, understanding that all these processes are probably already in place to help and support travelers with disabilities, whether they're visible or invisible. I thought our companies are already doing that. And it was such an eye-opener to go through this process and really understand how much further we have to go, how much more awareness we have to create and how much we have to continue to educate not only our own companies, because we did some soul searching within our own companies as well too, but also for the industry as well too. So I think, you know, from the beginning, just assuming that it's there doesn't necessarily mean that it's there. And pulling back the sheets. Not to use a hotel reference, but collect the seeds and really finding out what's, what's what's behind the curtain was really eye opening. I think for me, I started Bread approved about eight years ago and we're a small but mighty company. I bring contractors in when I need to do to help with projects and things like that. But for the most part, when I speak, I've been privileged to speak at colleges, universities all across the United States and really all over, all over the world quite frankly. And the, what's, what's pivotal about this group here is that I need advocates as a person with a physical disability, I can tell you unequivocally that we live in a vertically bias world, right? Everything's better in the penthouse first-class as an aircraft is better if you're, if you're an able-bodied white male and you are over six feet tall for every inch over six feet tall, you are on average, you make $4 thousand more than than a white able bit, able-bodied male colleague who might be under six feet tall. So, so we definitely live in a, in a vertically bias world. And so I need advocates and people with disabilities. The 6,162 million American adults who have a physical disability, we need advocates, people who fight for us because while the ADA has been fantastic, 30 years old this year, it is not an aspirational ceiling, it is a floor, it is the bare minimum. And so we need to keep pushing forward. And so to have a group of passionate advocates like we have in this working group on this call today. It just means the world to me and to my comfort, pain, and to the people that we serve. Awesome thanks team. I want to talk a little bit about mileage, travel. Because in our project we focused on creating accessibility awareness and education within a managed traveled program. But what does that actually mean? So Angela, You're a travel buyer for your company. Could you give us an overview of what your role entails and why have why having a managed Travel program is so important for many companies today, as well as the global travel managers classifier, I'm not the travel agent. So with my colleagues in Europe, we review negotiate properties, airlines, hotels, car rentals, ground transportation, lemmas. As a liaison between suppliers, the travel management company, and the travelers, we ensure compliance, we leverage our contracts, but most important, the duty of care standards are met. So that means you need a man has traveled or RAM, because you need to know where your travelers are, right? We can help you if we can't find you, we want to make it more accessible for you. So we want to incorporate the technology and tools. So it's key to have a manage Travel program. Thanks Angela and George, from your perspective, coming from a travel management company or travel agency. Hi, does the travel agents and as part of the travel agent seats fit into this process. So for our role is really to bring to life everything that Angela or corporations and your organization, universities as well bring to life what they want, their employees, what they want. They're your case students or whoever might be travelling on behalf of their organization. How they want that to come to life. Meaning if they want you to stay in a certain hotel, if they want you to fly us or an airline, if they have a spend limit to how much that trip can cost. It's our role. Why all of our technology, both to our agents and then anyone who wants to do this in an online environment and book on their own to apply the process. This isn't practices behind it. So our role is to do that and then go accomplish all the things that Angela said she was set out to do so knowing where travelers are in there in case of a disruption or in events and very quickly being able to identify that, assist them with support so they can stay connected and stay informed. And really be the middle ground between the corporation because you think of an organization, even your university, how many tens of thousands of people will travel on behalf of your university? Completely unrealistic to think that each and every one of you would know the details of your policy of what you're allowed and what you're not allowed to do or what you should or shut. So our organizations like travel management companies, we'll help a company or university bring that to scale across tens of thousands of people. So it's a very consistent delivery and process throughout. And then we take an in turn, pass them on to the folks at American and delta and Marriot to essentially asset reservation. And they are the ones who take care of the traveler once they get onto the airline or they walk up into the hotel. Excuse me. Awesome. Thanks George. I'm just really is a big circle with all of us playing a part. I'll just throw it over to my supply or colleagues. And the thing you want to say from an airline or hotel perspective, I think gab between George and Angela that I've already covered it well, but just throwing it over there to you guys. I'm jumping on this one because I think that we kind of underestimates them times the power of that manage traveled program. And if I'm a supplier, I do everything I can to make sure that I'm aligned with the needs of my customers, right. And so if during the middle of an RFP, whether that be for corporate business or potentially for meeting an advantage. If I want to pivot that direction. I'm always going to try to focus on what's important to that buyer. So if we kind of create this awareness where much like you buy certain things from a certain store because you like their approach on a particular thing, whether it be philanthropy or something else or sustainability. Maybe mutilation start thinking through buying from certain, certain places that, that are aligned with our philosophy. So let me kind of make that real for a second. So if for example, we decide that accessibility is important and it should be because it's part of inclusion and diversity. And we all have inclusion and diversity officers now accompanies and such. Then why not put that as part of the RFP so that when I'm going out to select a particular city for a meeting, I can, I can select that based on how much they care about accessibility if agonist to a certain location and how are they doing in this space? And I think there's, there's power behind the money where we put our money. And if we think through these kind of questions before we pick what locations we're gonna put an event in. I think it could have impact. And just a couple thoughts. Gray, tonal integer with Alice and I think we all, we talked about this a lot in the sense that Let's make it, let's make a flexibility and inclusion part of that RFP process. An RFP process, when a corporation like Angela goes out to suppliers like acid and says, okay, I have this much spent on travel. How can you prove what kind of proposal you have for me to be able for me to choose you as my partner line as my partner hotel. So we will advocate to do that, to have now accessibility and inclusion as part of the RFP process. So when airlines and suppliers provide that, provide answers to that travel travel company, make sure that we include solutions and how we are able to adapt to up to an accessible, inclusive in mind. Let's go ahead. And just, just to, you know, when I was raising money for bread approved, I would often be in silicon valley or wherever I happen to be pitching that particular day. And people would say, you know, the investors would say, well, you know, you're a great guy. It's a great concept, but it's a niche market, right? So again, roughly 61, depending on the stats you look at between 6,162 million American adults with if disability opened doors organization Chicago, but they do great work. I'm gonna read this directly from my folks. I want to make sure they get it right. They recently, recently released the brand new study almost a week ago. So it's hot off the press view. Between 2018201927 million travelers with disabilities took 81 million trips. And on those trips, people like me spend $58.7 billion. Okay. And the last time they did this was in 2015. And that spend was 34.6. Right. So so what I want to drive home to everybody is this isn't a niche market just because you have. A body that works the way that it should today. I don't want to be macabre or anything like that, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have that body tomorrow. And if something happens to you and all the sudden you need services at an airport, you're the same person, you have the same hopes, dreams, responsibilities. Just all of a sudden you sit out more, right? And so we need to really focus on not ignoring the disability, but really putting the person first. And that can get complicated because you want to put the person first. But as I said, you also don't want to ignore the disability because to ignore the disability would mean you're ignoring what makes my life so challenging, right? So it's kind of, it's kind of a touchy subject. Which is why I think the, you know, the title of the presentation making them comfortable, comfortable. So apropos, because the only way we're going to make that comfortable is to talk openly and honestly and compassionately about it and kinda destroy some of those negative stereotypes, which is, which is, you know, one of the things I'm most proud of in terms of this working group. Thanks, Brett. And I want to stay with you breath for a second because you are the business travelers here. And I've heard you say before that you've nearly started the company so that you knew you'd be able to take a shower whenever you stayed in a hotel. And perspective, what are some of the key issues that you've encountered? And that we in the travel industry come proactively. Think of ICT. I think. I think the key issue on the hotel side is just inventory, right? We have to, as hotelier's, We have to make sure that we do a good job understanding accessible inventory, right? How many rooms in your hotel have a role in shower? What is a rolling shower? Is a rolling shower the same thing as a 0 entry showered. I'll give you guys a hint. The answer is yes. Write a role in shower means it's barrier free. It means I could literally take my wheelchair if I wanted to enroll in. And so just understanding that imagery, I can't tell you how many times I've been traveling. And well-meaning folks at the front desk just have no idea what I'm talking about. I was in a data Miami given a speech. Maybe this was 2015. And I checked into the hotel. And there was an argument between the hotel staff and they said, well, your room has a role in shower as No, it doesn't. Yes, it does it. So we all went up. There is a group and guess what? I was right. Didn't ever role in showers. So just knowing the inventory. And then on the airline side, just I think there's so many processes in place, but we have to remember that, you know, traveling for anyone, particularly in a covert environment is super stressful, right? And so you can have the best training in the world. You can have the best intentions on the airline side of the world. But when, when the rubber meets the road and people are traveling and people are busy, that's when our training, we kind of forget our training. And so the big thing on the airline side is just to slow down. Take a minute, do the little things, make eye contact if something does go wrong, you know, who do I talk to you? Where's the complaint resolution of officer? And just kind of knowing. That that traveling with a disability, traveling with a $10 thousand manual wheelchair just adds an extra level of stress. And so what I always tell people when I travel on the airline side to say, hey, just, just pretend my wheelchair is somebody you love, right? Just treat it gently. It weighs 90 pounds, it doesn't fold. And so just be as proactive as possible to give them as much information to kind of I don't meet your needs, exceed them. So that's kinda the two, the two things on the airline and hotel side that I would emphasize. Awesome, thanks Pratt. John here her heart. Absolutely. I was going to kick it over to the rest of the grip there for, you know, our faults as well. So kick us off their George. So I think it's important for this, you know, students in group here to understand that as a consumer, this is a really natural choice for you. Brett can go on a vacation. He'd go make whatever choice that he wants to make as whatever mode of transportation, whatever hotel he wants to stay that in a managed program environment. It isn't that easy because the corporation will set parameters and the hotel that they want you to use may have maybe sold out a, B accessible room. The airfare they want you to take off. My oftentimes domestically isn't business class. And then the traveler, the business traveller can't make that choice on their own. Or if they do, they're met with a hurdle that they have to overcome being a policy that they've been violated within their company and they have to go seek out approval from someone to say make me an exception versus thinking of me first and planning for me. So that's why I'm raising awareness of this topic within manage travel is important and just vastly different than making your own choices that as a consumer, so the more that we talk about it, the more that we work on it, and the more, you know, people like Angela influence in their companies and say we need a policy for this. So when a traveler like Brett, something that they aren't met with an obstacle, rather they're met with a plan. And that plan allows them to have special accommodations that aren't available to the 10 thousand other travelers within the organization unless they meet that need light breath. So from our standpoint, I think it's just important to know that this isn't It is an individual trace, it comes down to the individual and their needs. But in a business traveler environment, it's not as easy as just saying, I choose this over something else. Oftentimes that choice is made for you at an enterprise organization model. Yeah, I think that's a wonderful point, George, Before I started Bread approved and I worked in financial services. And I was responsible for communications throughout Europe and throughout the United States, and we were headquartered in Georgia. And so from time to time I'd have to fly down there. And I remember having some very respectful but vigorous conversations with our corporate travel department about what I needed to close those deals and to do my job. And ultimately they were gray. But there were some bumpy moments because I definitely have hotel preferences. There are some hotels that do a better job with a rolling shower than others. And quite frankly, I'm not going to name any. And quite frankly, there also airlines that do a much better job, right? And so making sure that I can stay at that hotel that meets my needs without without getting a ping from HR. Because I'm already stressed out because I'm trying to close a deal or I'm trying to negotiate a communications with a, with a merger or whatever. So that's a wonderful point, George. I appreciate you bringing out maybe just to bring that home a little bit here. I think in the very beginning we care about, well, how do you define success at the end of this journey? What does success look like? And I think that if, if you, if you have a world where you know something like Angela as being proactive with a plan versus sort of putting all the onus on the traveler to just say, hey, help me, help me here. You know, that, that alone is a success. Got an awareness, an athlete in a perfect world, there's communication that goes both ways where there's information that's set up that says, here's kinda what we got going on right now. And then there's that that opportunity for someone to also express their individual in Iran. I did. Adjustments may be. So keeping, keeping on this topic, would anyone else like to share or any of the key learnings that they have learned as part of the project. I think Angela, you have a lot of examples whenever we were doing our presentation about how you were actually able to take what started off as Liz's concept and actually made it work within your travel program. As I mentioned before, it was an eye opener because you do need to know and understand what resources are available to you to work with your stakeholders, whether it's legal, HR, your travel management companies, suppliers, but also again, to listen to your travelers, you have to review what policy exceptions, how can be made, as George mentioned, but always to make sure that you're communicating to your travelers, providing them the resources and the training they need to book a travel that is assessable. I think from my perspective, what one thing that wrote at home when we were working on this with the connecting the dots. How do we do internally connected that's in a situation like Angela cheat. She had a great example on how she needed to go and explore different areas or her company and to know exactly whom she needed to to talk to within their company to be able to provide that level of of approvals so that they so that a client in which in this cases is the employee willing have any type of inconveniences, not only free trip during the trip or posture, because then when you have to do an expense report and then someone is going to flag it because you stared allocation that is not approved, as George stated before, is not approved within your program, then you want to make sure that those things are already taking care of. Another thing that we talked about, ways that we need to communicate clearly with all our employees to make sure that they do. If they need help, they need to self identify as needing help. It's oftentimes because of many, many, many policies that are out there to protect identity. We can ask people to tell us. It has to be, has to be given to that. They, they have to come up forward and talk about it. So in spite of that connecting the dots, making sure your employees, the people within the companies know exactly what the processes are. But then also traveled manager as a child, know exactly what we need to do to make sure that that the travel experience cause well, from beginning to end. Yeah. Actually that's a wonderful point and just kind of play off that a little bit. You know, 70% of those, 61 million American adults that I mentioned, you will have a permanent physical disability. 70% of those folks have an invisible disability. Angela referenced during one of her answers. And so for me, it's very easy to ascertain very quickly that I navigate the world a little bit differently, like as much as I'd love to. I can't hide my my Polish itanium, rigid frame wheelchair, right. But especially in terms of Cove it, we're going to have even more people who may at a very surface level look healthy. But they might have reduced lung capacity, reduce stamina. My wife tested positive for Cove it in early July and and she's still, you know, she's on the road to recovery. Thank goodness, but she still has some some challenges in terms of stamina and things of that nature. So It's not a one size fits all approach. It really requires something that I'm, I'm a big believer in, which is simply, you know, compassion. You know, provide an environment where employees feel comfortable coming forward. You know, there's no doubt in my mind that if I if I if I was looking for a job tomorrow, I'm going to Pitney Bowes because Angeles, fantastic, right? And it's all about compassion. It's all about caring for people beyond what they can do for you. And I think that's critically important when learning. I'm just to kinda go than that is that there's so many people out there, so many of our organizations that really care a lot about this. But everybody kind, it was somebody else's responsibility. And so that was a big learning that we had as well is that there's a, there's a big like, oh, this is super important. But somebody else does. That group does it. And so just the bringing together of all the different groups was something that I think was useful and helpful. And then just from a personal standpoint, I think might my biggest learning was that when my my daughter got hurt last summer, which was well after we started this project, I walked a mile, right? I do familiarization trip. I got out there and I was I was I was using the same services that Brett's use, GZ and I was I was dealing personally with that need for compassion. And, and I sort of give a whole new perspective. And you know, I think that if I were a person organising an event, for example, in the meeting space, I wouldn't assume that what someone tells me is what's going to happen. I would probably make sure that I did that that homework to go out and actually walks and space and make sure that what you think it's going to be like is going to be the same experience and so and maybe a little bit off track. But that to me was one of my biggest learning, was just that the walk a mile maybe. But you bring up a good point, Liz, just in terms of the research that we did, we actually created a resource. And through that research, we uncovered. Quite a few companies that are doing a really good job in this space. And Microsoft is actually one of those. So as you guys, especially the seniors that we've talked to, you guys, you guys look forward. I would assume diversity, equity and inclusion as part of your requirements when you're looking at companies of future employment. So they're actually in our, in our documentation. Microsoft is a really good one that is leading within this space. And their approach to to this particular segment is really encouraging. And there's also another resource called The Disability Equality Index, the DEI. And they list the best places to work for people with disabilities, which I think is speaks to the culture. And I think that's one of the things I love about Marriott is as a hospitality company. We're, we're focused on welcoming all from our guest or associates to hotel owners, suppliers regardless of race, gender, gender, identity, age or ability, open arms, or in our DNA, which is only natural for a hospitality company. And part of this work made me go back and do a little research internally. So come to find out we're actually working closely on developing a room for All initiative where we're exploring concepts for some of our REM designs and the future will dramatically improved the traveler experience for guests with disabilities. So think about the features such as voice activated technology to control the room temperature or lights, or room layouts to ensure mobility space for our guests who have or use wheelchairs. And the other thing I thought was really in our research was the ADA only requires for every 100 grams of a hotel, for rooms be allocated for people with disabilities. So that's a pretty small number. And if you're in high demand market or downtown Indianapolis and demands pretty high at the Indy 500 weekend, they're probably going to sell those rooms. So somebody with a disability is going to have to probably go somewhere else. And yes, that's a wonderful point and I appreciate you bringing that up. And of those four rooms that are accessible, only one and that 100 only one has a room with the Roman and shower. The other three have bathtubs With grab bars and people. I recently did a lecture at virtual of course, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. And people always ask me, well, why are they, why are there so many fiberglass bathtubs in hotel rooms like especially, you know, your your Hyatt places are kind of a mid-level hotel room. The answer is economics, right? I mean, it's a lot cheaper to throw fiberglass tub and a cupola, grab bars in a room than it is to really truly get a role in shower. Well, yes. So that's that's something to keep in mind and I've spoken at conferences, you know, their disability focused. And if you have a cadre of speakers in wheelchairs. I mean, you know, trying to find a room at the hotel that's that's a role and shower. It's like it's kind of a Mad Max situation. It's a little beyond the Thunder Dome. You know. It's like calling into a radio station back in the day trying to when I'm trying to win a prize, right? And you know, it really, with that focus, marry outside towards universal design. That's really in my mind. You know what it's all about. Let's make every room accessible for every guest and let's make every room someplace that at the end of a long day, people want to be. The challenge with access. A jury in a hotel is often it doesn't look as nice or it's not as welcoming as the other inventory. And so that's, you know, I really applaud, you know, Marriott's efforts on on all those fronts. Then maybe it kinda tie a bow on some of the, the last learning that I didn't hear us talk about yet was just how under prepared our corporate travel industry is around this topic. It is, it's obvious, right? If you ask anyone, should we be taking better care? Should we take care of travelers with a disability? I challenge you to find someone who says no. But the biggest thing that we found through our research is there's nowhere to turn because there's not a lot of resources for for any of us, especially Angela, to go navigate this and the work that Angela Did, you know, she charted the way within her own company. So for us to create some sort of what companies are doing from a best practice standpoint, what we all can do and the questions we can ask to have that resource when you're ready to tackle this. So you're not starting from nothing and that's what in that potentially is one area. Why isn't prevalent within corporate travel yet? Business travel is because it's a huge topic to tackle and there's not a lot out there on it. This can go down to, you know, Jeff, a flawed Marriott for connected room. Think about a traveler with an invisible disability. Maybe they're a hypochondriac and work traveling and a very health conscious environment right now. So for that traveler to be able to choose, that room may benefit them. And that's how deep that this can go. So there's a lot of layers within an organization that you can look at. It isn't just the very visible things that are in front of us. Brett said it. It's those invisible disabilities that are often overlooked and ignored. Judge, I was just thinking that what you're saying and it's such an important point, I'm really glad that you brought that Baghdad. And I think that just if there's sort of a call to action again or that idea of, you know, we have a lot of folks out there that are really working to do things right? And so I think that if we could continue to create awareness around the companies and the organizations that are, are, are doing things that are working and not, not B is worried about those that are, or maybe not there yet. I think it's okay to, to share what's working and make that I'm sort of a new benchmark. And then educate folks that maybe aren't further on that journey. And so I think it's really important that we're not out there trying to shame anyone who's not there yet, but instead, educate them and show them what is working from those that are further along in that space. I think that yeah, I lose, I'm sorry to cut yet, but I think that's a wonderful, wonderful Point. One of the secondary taglines of primary tagline of bread approved is travel confidently, right? But the secondary tagline is celebrate what works went out about. We're not about shaming companies that don't meet our needs. That, that's, that feels good in the short-term, but ultimately it's counterproductive. What we do is we tell people the best hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues to visit, where to spend our money, right? Because I share those economic stats. And there's kind of a misnomer out there that people with permanent physical disabilities don't have a lot of money to spend. And while it's true that some of us are on fixed incomes, it's also true that some of us have money to spend and we are loyal consumers. So it's all about celebrating what works. And I'll tell you that my wife is from the great city of El Paso, Texas. And in healthier times, we visit a couple times a year. And I always say that a particular hotel down there because I know that it works. And she'll say, well, we can get its 15 bucks cheaper at night if we go over here. No, no, no. Because I want I'm going to stay a room 307 the role and showers. Awesome. Staff is great. And so once we find something that works, once we celebrate something that works, were very sticky, loyal consumers. And Liz certainly knows that on the airline side as well. Awesome. Thanks Brett. Well, from the rest of the panel were nearly either time. So add before we move into the Q and a section, I just wanted to throw out one last time. Is there any other final thoughts? Some would like to leave our audience with me because I'd love to hear from you. So if there's something that you are thinking about or that you're hearing about, that that resonates. You know, I'd love to learn more from you because I think everyone on this panel is that we're sort of starting this outward. This is the beginning. So, and we don't pretend to have all the answers and we think that we can get those from folks that are interested. I agree completely. If anybody wants to contact me directly, bread bread approved.com. We have training mechanisms in place to train staff how to treat people with disabilities, travelers with disabilities with dignity and respect. And we have all manner of training. So if you guys run up against something, run up against a challenge, just reach out to me via e-mail and will conquer it together. Awesome. Well, thank you to everybody. At this point, I'll hand it back over to you candidate. One last without really great conversation. Felt very eye-opening. I took a lot an Alex because I mean, rest statistics that brought around I would have never known that. That was pretty incredible. But I do want to give our attendees a chance to ask questions. When we get to the Q and a real quick for you to use the one here, it says, as a young pro trying to improve your travel accommodations and policies, do you have any commerce eight, How do you have conversations with leaders like senior leaders? That might not be as open to change. Blunder, Angela? Yeah. You want me to jump in? I mean, review our policy of a few years. And of course, if you have a 32-page policy, no one's going to read it right? So the best thing to do is just highlight what is key importance within the travel to try to look to see upper management to prove. It's not always about cost. It's about the duty of care compliance that you need to address and the importance of the safety of your travelers. I think as you as as any senior leader is presented with a case for it. You've done your homework, you've done your research, you have a recommendation, you demonstrate the need. I don't know many discussions that I'm part of that you want welcome. You wouldn't welcome that. So I think it's having the confidence and knowledge and doing some of your homework, come prepared and then knowing what is the point that you want to drive home with that group. And that's, that's tough to argue with, especially on a topic like this where you're it did, but it must be done, right? We have to do these things. Maybe one last comment would be, you know, even if you get it wrong, do it right because it's better to do it and they have to go back and redo it later than so. Not not a, not a tried. I think part of the fear of this subject is that we're gonna get it wrong. We're going to say the wrong thing. I can I can personally say that had done the wrong thing many times, but I'm still happy that I went down that journey because I keep getting better and better at it. So so just do it. Yeah. And just real quick. I mean, you know, I am an anomaly in terms of of people with permanent physical disabilities. You know, I'm proud graduate of the Ohio State University. I tolerate George and his badger background. I'll just kidding. He's wonderful book. Most people with permanent physical disabilities don't have the opportunity to graduate undergrad, right? Eight out of ten people with a permanent physical disability between the ages of 1664 aren't even in the workforce, right? They're not even in the workforce. And so the temptation on the business side can be, Well, it's, again, it's a niche market and it just really isn't. And when you're coming up against senior leadership who may be a little resistant. I echo what George said. Take the emotions out of it and come at them with facts, come at him with Spend, come out and with facts, and come at them with ideas. As a boss, I don't want somebody to come to me with problems. I want them to come to me with solutions. He bred isn't worth talking about that talent. You gotta live. Discussion prints or not. I think we'd all that were not addressed and if we don't make this work right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the number one question I get from people with disabilities who contact me, believe it or not, isn't about travel. It's about, hey, I want a job. Can you help me get a job? Right? And that depends, of course, on their qualifications. And so never for a minute what I what I suggest, you know, hiring somebody who isn't qualified, what I would do is say, hey, if you know, if somebody who's qualified for a position who hasn't permanent physical disability, give them a chance. Give them a chance. I feel a tremendous amount of pressure as someone in a situation I am to be excellent. You know, I can't be average when I was in corporate America, I had to be an overachiever because my logic was, well, if I if I'm not excellent, the next time somebody in a wheelchair rolls in a job interview, they're going to say, well, we give that guy a chance and you didn't really pan out. So I have no choice but to be excellent. And so if you in your coming years as you, as you graduate from school and come up through corporate America. If you have an opportunity to hire somebody with a disability, I would urge you to do that. I guarantee you will not be disappointed because so many of the people who talk to me every day via email, via phone, all we want is an opportunity. Thank you for the great points. I also had a kind of a question with, I guess, like the luck Redis countless. I made me think about the airline industry with like structure of claims. Is this something that will change in the future or is this not something? I mean, this is something that has a discussion. I don't even know if that's a question that can be answered. So is this about the reach of the structure of the plains and Brad was talking about like, I mean, I think I had an aunt who's in a wheelchair also, but I've traveled with personally. For me. She has to go in like go small seats nasal to fit down the aisle. Is that something I guess like in the future, will the structure of the planes always stay the same or is it going to become, I guess, more accessible forever? Attention that hey, I'm happy to jump in on this because there is quite a lot going on within the airline industry. There's one organization called i ADA, which has the International Air Transport Association. And what they are trying to do is basically standardize high we as individual airlines offer a walk who we use in order to identify different types of wheelchairs. And really bring some standardization across the industry. Not only in North America, bought on a worldwide basis. So there's a lot going on at that level in order to try to standardise things. But to take it down to what you are talking about, the actual airplane itself, there are actually trying to work with the airplane manufacturers. You're bowing your air buses of the world in order really to come up with a new concept of High, we deal with this in the future. So something like that, you know, doesn't change over night, but it is definitely something that is on people's radars. And they're looking for new opportunities in the future to really try to make a much more inclusive on that on board experience as well. I did see a prototype merge that was and this is just a picture out there. I don't know if it's a reality yet or not to be honest, but I can do my homework, but it actually shares and a chair that's in me and the gate area. That someone would move into and then that actually wheels onto the plane and gets clicked in into, into a certain area. And so how far away we are from that, you know, I'm not sure. Obviously all the airlines and the whole industry right now is, is is a crazy place because of Cove it. But ultimately I, I've seen a couple of really cool things in that space and and so, yeah, thanks for the challenge. I'll find out more. I think that's really all we do have a question. But I just want to say again, thank you to our incredible moderator and our panel discussion and for giving up your time to be with us today. Really appreciate it. I think all that ten joined. I really hope everyone learn something I know I definitely did. And again, you can connect with our speakers on LinkedIn. All of their links are on our resources page. And also if you'd like to continue our discussion, we would love for you to keep talking. You are not working on this topic and join us and our evolve lounge. That is also where you can have our help desk staff answer any questions you may have about this week or anything else. I am also going to now drop the let me get there maybe. And I'm going to drop the link for our session. Let me make sure it can go to everyone and should be in the chat box now, please let me know if it's on. And then again, this session is recorded and will be posted and the details are on the platform by the end of the day today in case I seem to re-watch any of proportions. I would also like to give a big thank you to GPA for connecting us with these incredible speakers who again, they made time for us today. And they adjusted this entire presentation to make sure that it was delivered in the best possible way for us young pros and students to really understand the again think. And tomorrow, I would like to say Our next session is creating inclusive networking activities for diverse, diverse audiences. It'll be a workshop and it's at 01:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. If you do have time to come and be with Katrina Kali, she will be our speaker tomorrow. I would really encourage you to be a part of it. Other than that, I want to thank everyone again for being here today. All our panelists, our moderator, and I hope you guys all the great yesterday. Thinking both. Thank you so much. I've I get everybody. Thank you.Description of the video:
Good morning. Good morning. We will get started here in just a minute. To flow into the webinar palm, right? It's ten o'clock. Let's go ahead and get started. Hello everyone and welcome to evolve TES M. Our students have been working so hard all semester to bring this incredible week long virtual events alive. We're finally here and ready to share it with everyone. It's so exciting. Thank you all so much for joining us for the opening keynotes on career planning in the tourism, event and sport industries. Now, with the best figure in Indianapolis, Mr. Leonard, Hoops, I'm Erica Shonkwiler lecture and the tourism event and Sport Management Department at IUP UI. And one of the very proud instructors to the team of students that made this week possible. Before we jump in this morning, I'd like to go over a few housekeeping items and you know how to best participate in today's session. This is a live session for your questions for our speaker, please use the Q and a feature located at the bottom of the screen. We will have time at the end where your questions look at answered for general questions about tea at all to ESM or chat with other attendees, please use the chat feature instead at the bottom of your screen. This live session is being recorded and a link to watch this recording, as well as all of the other recordings from today's sessions, will be posted on the platform by the end of the day. At the end of this session, I will post the session evaluation link in the chat for every session evaluation and you complete this week, your name will be entered into a sweepstakes drawing for different amazing prizes. Things like maybe 500 tickets for next year. Lastly, a kind of reminder. Please engage in this session and as a professional and adhere to the Code of Conduct you signed in registration to ensure that everyone has a great experience. In case you're not familiar with T ESM. The tourism event in Sport Management Department is the host of this event. Tn is a part of the School of Health and Human Sciences at IU PUI and has two degree options and many certificates in minors focused on careers in tourism, events, hospitality, and sport management. We are proud to be in the heart of Indian Atlas and events and sports destination that provides us the opportunity to teach our students many hands-on experiences just like this event this week. To share a little bit about TES and evolve. It is a week long virtual event created by 58 students focused on helping not only students, but alumni in the tourism event and sport fields to find their path forward during this very difficult year and compete for the careers that they're so passionate about. We will focus on career development, building tech skills, and understanding how to design more inclusive events. These tracks will be delivered by over 50 industry speakers, local, national and international. Handles workshops and employer exhibits. Alright, I've shared enough. Well it gets the man of the hour, Mr. Leonard, who's literate, who served as the president and CEO of visited E since 2011. Under his leadership, visit NDI has shatter all-time records and convention and tourism sales at Indianapolis has been named the number one convention city in America, a USA Today. He was recognized as one of the 25 most influential people in the meeting industry, successful meetings magazine, one of the top 25 most extraordinary mines in hospitality and travel sales and marketing by hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International. In addition to many more awards he's received for his forward thinking and outstanding leadership on behalf of our program and everyone in our collective industries here in Indianapolis. Thank you for joining us today and everything that you and everybody at visit and he does to support all of us in the city forward. We couldn't ask for a better ambassador and champion during this tough year. Well, thank you, Erica. It's a pleasure to be with you all today. I want to thank also my friend Whitney will for inviting me to participate this and to Dr. Amanda Cecil, who was once a visit in the intern. True story will ask at Baskin mad about that. I have got kind of four different segments I want to share with you today that I hope will be of value both to you personally and then also give you some confidence that the industry that you are all hoping to enter shortly. I think if you're not already engage it in some way, part time while you're erupt bashing up your studies is going to be fine. And Indianapolis in particular. Is really well positioned to do well in what's next or whatever that it actually looks like. So let me start with guests sharing some thoughts about what I think builds a great organizational culture. And what I think that relates to for those of you who are watching right now, is what? Maybe they're not thinking about it the way I think about it. But what a lot of employers are looking for when they're doing that first interview, looking for that, that first entry level opportunity post-college, the kinds of attributes they look for and team members. And so I'll kind of summarize for you all the three attributes. I look for its the same three attributes that we use at visit India to actually do performance evaluations of our team members. And so it's really ingrained in our culture and it's helped us become a five time best place to work in Indiana. There's something called the best place to work awards every year. And for the past five years we have been one of those handful of organization statewide that continues to get that recognition. And I do believe it's because of our culture. So I call it the three Ps of a great culture. They are productive, positive, and progressive, and I'll explain a little more detail what those three mean. Productive is pretty straightforward. It's really about your ability to do the job you're being hired for. And that's kind of where I think most performance evaluations and most job interviews overly focus on. And there's nothing necessarily wrong obviously with making sure if somebody could do the job. But there are other attributes that an individual brings and that are exhibited in a great culture that make it for sustainable success. I think you can have short-term success simply by being productive, but I don't necessarily believe it's a sustainable success attribute. Productive is, if you're a t ESM student looking to, for that, that first major opportunity and your steps toward a career. Then it's just going to be you've demonstrated your understanding of whatever position you're applying for that you have the ability visit India, for example, we've got people in convention sales can Making Services, operations, marketing, partner relations, destination development, which is more of kind of place-making and, and thinking about the future. And everybody in those jobs has demonstrated they have the ability to do that specific job. There's different things that make a great salesperson that VS a great convention services person versus somebody who's in marketing or in accounting or I, IT kinda position. So obviously those are all different skill sets. But the one thing that everybody, whether you're an accountant or a convention services director keep demonstrating is that they are more than capable of doing that job. They demonstrated time and time again and and they deliver the results of your salesperson. You're ultimately measured by your numbers. If you are in convention services, you tend to get measured by a customer feedback on you, that sort of thing. If you're in accounting, then you've got squeaky, clean financials and you're doing that job. That sort of thing. So pretty straightforward. The other two p's are really, I think, what differentiate great cultures from average or good cultures. Positive is maybe a little deeper than it seems like on face value. It's really about the positive energy you bring to a team environment. So it's not like yay, I'm happy, positive. In fact, I would imagine that of the 300 or so as I understand it on this evolve webinar today, there's probably a few people who were like, I don't like those people. They annoy me. They're overly positive, positive, unwanted positive. Maybe the circumstances don't call for that kind of Pollyanna kind of perspective. And so I'm not really cancer. We've talked about that person who's always happy. I'm talking about when you walk into a room, does someone look at you and feel, wow, I'm so glad that you walked into the room. You brought energy to the team. I don't care if it's a scavenger hunt or a significant project that will determine the fate of the company a year from now kind of thing. Do people feel like you brought a positive energy into the room or did you suck it out of the room? We also all know people. They could be coworkers. If you're working someplace right now. They could be other students, you know. They could be family member is that suck energy out of the room. And so they just always have something about them that takes away from the team environment. Either they are overly focused on themselves. The old, there's no I in team kind of thing. Or perhaps they, they they just have an overly negative attitude. I'm not talking about also devil's advocate types of thought processes. You need devil's advocates on teams. But there's a way to be a positive Deb, devil's advocate asked questions in ways that are thoughtful and productive and positively framed, even if you're coming at it from a different perspective. So positive is really about the energy you bring to the team or the energy you take out of the team. And then finally, progressive. Progressive is really about the ability to adapt, to change and to innovate. And so the thought process, their visit AND pre pandemic at least had 62 full-time team members. We have 51 now, so we've actually done better than most. And holding onto a team member is. But if you, if you have 62 people who are all able to fairly nimbly adaptive change like a pandemic. Like working remotely, like figuring out how to work effectively in an office. I'm in my office today. We've been back in our office on a voluntary basis since August and I come in typically three or four days a week. And and you can tell there's kind of a difference in terms of of of what you can get done in the office, especially if there are teammates, you can just walk on all mashed up, ask them with less and walk right back. That's a little bit different but progressive, Again, it's guessed that ability, somebody demonstrates the ability to adapt, to change, to, to innovate. If you've got 62 people who are all innovating. And you're going, I visit Nashville or visit that choose Chicago or some of these other cities that we compete with on a regular basis, particularly for convention business. If I've got 62 people who are thinking aggressively about how do we do things better. And maybe they're not as focused on that. A year from now, two years, now five years now, that makes a difference. You start to see organizations evolve and improve rather than rest on their laurels. So when we actually interview people, we have questions that are designed to to figure out your understanding of the productive part. So yes, is, is candidate a from IT UP UI clearly capable of doing the job of the answer is yes, that's great. But typically when we're interviewing people, we might interview a pool for five people in person after they've gotten through phone interviews. And almost always off all those candidates, all 4-5, will show the bear capable of the Frisbee. They probably didn't make it to the face-to-face interview without having demonstrated their ability to be productive for the specific job. And at what really comes through in interviews is whether you are going to be positive energy to the team and whether or not you have the ability to adapt to change and to demonstrate that you've demonstrated innovation. So I'm always looking for candidates, additional skills and things that they do that are outside of kind of the direct education maybe they've organized. So they were in a sorority or fraternity, they organize something for that. Maybe they did some charitable work that showed an innovative way to look at things for that particular charity, that sort of thing. And that to me is the difference maker isn't particularly getting that first opportunity for your dream organization dream job type of thing is demonstrating that you're going to be positive energy, the team not suck it out of the team. And also that you've, you've demonstrated the ability to innovate, adapt to change in the past where I go. Okay, this person is going to help us be part of a sustainable success model. That's the three P's, Eric, I don't know if you want me to take any questions at this point to just jump into and apart to them, we're all doing it at the end. You might just keep Dellinger correctly, otherwise, gasolines keep going. We've got a great opportunity for Q and a. I'm okay. Thank you. Alright. So let's talk about what I call the four attributes of good leaders. And my three P's and my great culture, my, my four attributes of late leader is, is something that I've kind of just personally come up with over the last 25 or 30 years, I worked in the corporate world for about 6.5 years for Fortune 100 company out in California, it was about the size of what Eli Lilly is to give you perspective on, on kind, to give you some context there. And then I've been a little over 25 years in this industry and for different cities last 1080. And over the years I started thinking about what am I looking for is I started getting more involved in hiring people, promoting people, visit India, obviously being responsible for the organization as a whole. And I came up with what I think are four really critical attributes to leadership. So this is more to think about as you evolve in your career. If you take any notes today and you start thinking to yourself, five years down the road. When that next opportunity up for me, either in the organization you're working for the different one. But it's a chance to step up into more of a leadership role. These are the sorts of things and maybe they organize their criteria differently. But I think these four ways of evaluating yourself will be helpful. Or the first one is vision, then that is judgment, persuasiveness. And finally is fit. And so I'll explain, I'll, for those vision is simply the ability to very succinctly capture what the state of an organization or a specific plan or a department is right now. So you can do a snapshot and you can go here is what I'm dealing with it, this is good, this is bad. This is ok, et cetera. But you kind of know, that's point a on your map, you kind of have a good idea of what point a is. It also means you have an idea of what point z should look like. You have a vision for how to improve whatever it is you or your organization, your department, your specific role. You've got some concept of a future state, something that is different than what it is today. It's better than what it is today. And so you've got a point, you understand point a. You've got a point x0 in mind. And you can, you can provide with some sort of clarity to someone who's looking you for the leadership role. What point z might look like? Judgment is the fact that no plan ever goes according to plan ever. And the more complicated the plan, the less that ever goes according to plan. So how are you going to in the numerous judgment decisions you'll have to make as you pursue that path of a to Z. What's your judgment like? How have you demonstrated your ability? What when you've been faced with problems or challenges in the past, what was your judgment call? And we make judgment calls every day and 99% of them are irrelevant. It's like am I going to have Panera or I'm not going to object fillet for lunch today. That's probably not that relevant of a judgement call. How will I adapt to Covitz shutting down my office and saving budget funds for the next six months so that we can survive the pandemic. That's a pretty big judgment call. And so there are obviously big differences there and your ability to demonstrate that you have issued great judgment on something. Again, it could be the dance at dawn or it could be a it could be something you plan a family reunion or whatever. Yes. Something where something happened. I change the equation and you figured out a way your judgment call was the right judgment golf. I also don't market against someone if they've had judgement calls that went the wrong way, if somebody demonstrates that they learned from that, you know, I made this call that time it seemed like the right call at the time. It didn't work out. And I really learned a lesson from that day and that'll help me in the future. And so sometimes a lot of people will say the great judgment is based on experience and experience. Often it comes with some bad judgment land away. And so, so that's a vision than judgment. One way of looking at it too is I talk sometimes about vision to being roadmaps, not blueprints. And so a blueprint, it's pretty much something you have to follow exactly. Otherwise, the bridge falls down to the alcohols down. If you don't follow the plans the engineers at drew up a roadmap essentially says at some point that highway is going to go from four lanes to one lane, there's going to be a break out, there's going to be a detour, there's gonna be something and then I got to figure out, you know, I gotta turn left it Albuquerque now and I wasn't planning on turning left it Albuquerque. But if I want to get from San Francisco to Dallas, I now I now need to make that left turn because to change, the roadmap along the way tells that we still get to my same destination. So that's judgement. Persuasiveness is kinda my catch-all for your ability to get people to follow your vision. And so some people will say, oh, you need charisma to be a leader. You know, certainly if you have charisma, if you have something where something intrinsic about you that makes people want to all you, that's great. That's one variable u could be. You could be some quiet leader though, somebody who's, who doesn't necessarily get on that. So box and rally crowd and that sort of thing. But because of your intelligence or your, your, your sense of confidence or some other attribute in your persuasiveness. Something about character was persuasive to make somebody go, Oh, I want to follow. Leonard said, we're going to do a, B, and C to get through the pandemic. Based on what I've seen us accomplish over the last couple years, I'm a 100% all internet cuz I'm confident that that's going to happen. So persuasiveness is just a matter of whatever attributes you add. Somebody says I'm going to follow your vision. I'm going to buy into that vision. I'm going to row in the same direction. All the orders will be going in the same direction so we can get the ship to where we want to get it to. And so you can be acquired leader. You can have charisma. You can be a great orator. You could not be a great orator. Maybe you're great at, at, at, at writing things like you're not a great speaker. Maybe you are someone who, who has great empathy and as a result, people are drawn to you. Whatever that attribute is that makes you persuasive. I think about that for yourselves. What is it about you that can be persuasive in a leadership role that we'll get somebody to buy in to your Beijing. And last but not least, is fit. Fit is it's a, it's a tricky one to describe because sometimes people will say, oh, you know, then you have to look or be a certain thing in order to be part of an organization. And what I really describe fit like is to be more like the, the right missing ingredient and a recipe. And so for example, if you're, you know, you're baking a cake and you already have sugar and flour. You don't need a bunch more sugar and flour. You need vanilla extract, or you need eggs, or you need water. You need milk or whatever it is that goes into that cake recipe. And so fit is, as I'm looking at leaders, does this person fit or they are 3p person? I did they demonstrate the vision, judgment at persuasiveness that I'm looking for and leaders and okay. Gs, we have an executive team right now that is for men and two women. I'd really prefer a woman BY this next person because it's a better balance on leadership. We only have one person of color on the leadership team. Maybe I needed, you know, and so, or maybe I've already got five people of color and one white person. Well, the white person might be the better fit in a situation like that. And so there is no kind of right answer to fit. It's, we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion more than ever these days following the civil unrest and the discussions about systemic racism and other things of that nature. But I have a little boy who's he's got that little anybody's almost 16. You'll be 16 in three weeks. Who is got a disability? He was born with cerebral palsy at birth injury. And when I think about diversity and inclusion because of my own life experience, I think about disability more than probably the average person does. If you are a minority of some sort and I'm a little bit from both worlds. My father was English, Scottish, and Irish, and my mother is East Indian from a little Caribbean island called Trinidad. And so I, I look at that from a couple of different lenses. And my wife is a Mexican-American and so she grew up in a Latin Latina culture or Latin culture. And that comes from a different perspective. He had grandparents who were picking fruit and feels and you know, my, my, my side of the family on that side came to America in 1683 with William Penn. There are a bunch of Quakers who decided they wanted a new life from England. But my mom's side of the family was indentured servants who got sold off by their own families in India and came to Trinidad to work on sugar cane plantations. So fit can be all over the place. I mean, people bring with them all sorts of different experiences and qualities and things like that. So are you the missing ingredient to the recipe? Are you going to help finish off whatever it is that, that, that leadership team is looking to do. And so that doesn't necessarily mean you, you look like anybody else on the team. You could look different or you could look the same. There's diversity of thought as much as there are. There is diversity and inclusion of specific ethnic and other racial types of characteristics and things like that. So the four attributes of leadership that I look for are Basian, judgment, persuasiveness, and fit. And that last one being a pretty tricky one in the sense that you just kind of complete in that recipe. So you've got your three P's, you've got your four attributes of leadership, my own kind of formula for those two different things. And then let's talk about now about the future of our industry and why. I'm very confident that you all have jobs to look forward to. Perhaps the first quarter is not going to be particularly robust as Risto going to be. I saw this morning advisor announced that the first results are back from their phase three clinical trials. And there, in those results, there vaccine has been shown to be 94% effective, which is awesome. A lot of folks were worried it would only be 50 or 60% effective. But if that holds true and they have something that is 94% effective. All the more reason that I think you're gonna see our industry. I don't, I think it's inevitable that our industry will come back anyway and I'll tell you why in a second. But It's not necessarily going to happen sooner rather than later it may take. Effective vaccine is going to speed the, is going to accelerate our recovery more than obviously an ineffective vaccine. And so we could be seeing widespread distribution of that as early as the first board. And there's a lot of worry that maybe we wouldn't see it as an effective vaccine or it wouldn't be available until much later in the year, while widely available much later in the year. So I think you're gonna you're gonna start seeing opportunities accelerate for those of you who are seniors, I think most, if not all of you students who are on these sessions for evolved this week are in that category. You're going to see 2021 have many more opportunity than, than what it felt like a month ago or certainly five or six months ago. I wanted to talk about what I call the four Cs. I love my three P's and my forces. This is a brand new construct for me, these four C's. I only came up with this about three weeks ago and it was because I was a panelists for an organization called AWL, integrating women leaders. And this goes back to fit. I just talked about fit. I'm obviously not female or I think I'm obviously not be milk. And I was asked to be a panelist with some women executives. Somebody from Amazon Web Services, someone from Roche Diagnostics, and someone from sales force, and a couple of others were on that call all females and I was the guy. And I was like, why are you asking me? I mean, I'm honored and happy to do it. And they basically.Description of the video:
Use you actually visit Indy actually has more women than men. We have a significant amount, a number of women on our leadership team, both at the VPN director level. And some people knew about that and wanted to know how that came to be in and saw me as a, I guess a male ally as they described, which I'm I'm happy to be perceived that way because I feel like I am, but it's nice when somebody else tells you the same thing. But at AWL on that seminar, they had kind of done some pre calls and said here is what we would ask you to think about. We're going to ask questions of the panel. And one of them, they said Leonard specifically for you. We're going to ask you about your industry. Obviously, we're doing a virtual conference here for evolve. Iw else conference with a virtual conference, except for the fact that the panelists, that person from sales for us and the Roche in the amazon web services, et cetera. They were all in a studio at marquee. Some of you know, marquees, Whitney will fall from IUP lies a former marquees team member. They had us in marquee studios over in another part of India up, up the downtown. And so we were in-person mass step off to the side, and then we walked into a stage socially distance and they filmed us onto a single stage. And they told me to do to be prepared to answer the question about why I was still bullish on the future of our industry. And so I came up with what turned out to be four, it's easy. I started thinking about, well, I start thinking about all the different conventions in citywide events that we have in Indianapolis. What did they have in common with each other? And then I started thinking about what does virtual due as well, or better or worse than what the face-to-face events do for these different types of events. And it ultimately came down to four different deliverables, these face-to-face events that we have been hosting and indeed for many, many years had four different deliverables. And then I figured out a way that they all had see letters in them. And so the first C would be content. Now the second C is connection. The third C is commerce, and the fourth C is competition. So content connection, commerce in competition. It's so new, I'm still having to rethink it every time in my head. So let's start with content. Content is the one thing that virtual events do well as well. Maybe sometimes even more conveniently and better. Not always, but there, there could be cases where a virtual zoom, web, WebEx teams, whatever platform you're using can deliver content as well or better. And so your ability to hear me at this during evolve week versus being in a an Auditorium on the campus of IUP UI. For a lot of you, especially those of you who are not in downtown Indy. This is a way better platform for that content. And because you don't, you didn't have to fly to endure, drive to endure anything like that for others year. You're thinking, okay, well, what was nice is I rolled out of bed, I've got a bowl of cereal on a table next to me. Nobody seeing me, my camera's off. I can listen to whether Leonard as anything decent to say or not. And that's great for me. So that you know, the, the biggest take away, I think, from life in the pandemic is that the content will continue to be delivered often and effectively by virtual platforms like like x2. Alright, that's not going to go any doorway anytime soon. And you don't necessarily get the same energy of a room or the same feeling you get when you're in a crowd or with your peers and friends and things of that nature. But in the actual information being shared with you pretty much gets delivered fairly well in this platform. But however, connection is not delivered well versus that these black ones. Think about those of you who simply have our, you know, you're looking at the participants or the Q and a or whatever different kinds of things are on these these sessions. The you're not seeing it necessarily. Your friends, you're not talking to them, you're not having a side conversation with them during the break. You're not chatting with them about the class you took last semester or this teacher or the job you want to apply for, you're having, you're not really building any sorts of meaningful human connections. In most Zoom type calls when you aren't simply an attendee, The same way you would if you showed up at the Indiana convention center, you walk into a general session and the sag and more ballroom IS sat next to a perfect stranger. And by the end of the session, you guys just started chatting and the next thing you know, you've made a contact with somebody you didn't know before. It turns out that contact you just made has a connection with an organization that you'd love to work for one day. And that's how human interaction works and why a connection is such a key deliverable and face-to-face events. A perfect example of this. It goes back to this AWL, a convention again, that was happened a couple weeks ago. So I did not know the general manager for Salesforce is web communication. I think their messaging and Web Services Division here in Indianapolis, wikis to be exact target. I didn't know her before. I met her at the panel in the session at marquees. And we started chatting. And all of a sudden you're not a stranger to one another. And a week later I'm on a zoom call with my own board nominating committee for visit ND. And we are looking at the openings we have for our board of directors. And somebody said, I sure wish we could get somebody from Salesforce on our board. We already had some funny from Lilly. We have somebody from Commons, though we've got big corporate partners in addition to the hospitality and tourism organizations of that nature. But they wanted somebody from Salesforce and I said, well, I just met the General Manager of their messaging and web services group. Basically the number two person for all Salesforce in Indianapolis. And I connected with her in person and I bet you he would at least take my call and want to chat about this. Well, she didn't take my call, was immediately interested in it. And right now, it looks like tomorrow we have our followup board nominating committee meeting and it looks like you will be nominated to the board and we'll accept that would would not have happened. I'm 99.999% sure that we do not have a salesforce births and joining our board if I did not me her three weeks ago. Her name is Marla. If I did not meet Marla three weeks ago interested at the market stage. So that's a perfect example of how connection comes into play. Not a break. So that's the second one. And I don't think Zoom does anywhere near as good of a job. Even scratching the surface on developing connections among the audience. In particular, the way the face-to-face events you. The third one is commerce. And commerce is really more applicable to things like trade shows. We have things like, again coming because a big trade show component or PRI, the performance racing industry showed that comes here every December. Fdic live, you know that it's the firefighters showed our fire department instructors conference every April. They have a huge range of a literally you got fire trucks with the ladders, raise their Lucas all stadiums. They can raise up the ladders and show how these, you know, the newest models of firetrucks, worker or protective equipment or any number of things. And there are people who will show up to like an FDIC who are responsible for spending tens of millions of dollars I in purchase orders for new firefighting equipment for a city or a state. So somebody from California comes out and they are with the I don't know, let's just say the Los Angeles Fire Department and it's time to replace ten fire trucks and the LA PD, the LA AFT's fleet. And that's going to be in the millions, if not tens of millions of dollars for all the new equipment that they need because these are not, you don't, this is not going onto the lot at Subaru and buying an outlet or these are big high ticket high maintenance types items that that the fire department uses to rely on for the safety of their people and to save you if you're the one needing help from the fire department. Long story short, it's awfully hard convince a buyer and to help a seller in a virtual trade show for FDIC, you're, you're not only try and understand the product that you're trying to buy, you're also trying to size up the salesperson you're working with. Are they going or they salespeople you want to work with? Do they seem like they have integrity? Are they going to back up their claims? Are they going to serve as their equipment? You know, all these sorts of things. In the short term, a lot of folks are getting by on existing relationships. So it's not difficult. Took maybe last through one cycle or even two cycles of commerce. Where OK. I know Joe Smith or Mary Jones from XYZ fire truck company. I have a good relationship, that person, but as time goes on and people leave organizations you don't know you're dealing with anymore. You don't have that relationship with that person. You've only met that person on a zoom, you don't know much about him, you don't know anybody who knows that varies. And so Commerce is one of those things that is going to come back strong right now, trade shows are canceling For the most part. And it's mostly because the corporate market is afraid not only to send people back to the office, I'll go back to Salesforce as an example, Salesforce announced a couple months ago, they likely will not being bring people back worldwide to their offices in San Francisco, in Indianapolis, in London, et cetera, until third-quarter August or so next year. And in the meantime, they're just going to have everybody do the zoom and virtual platforms and remote working. And that same mentality is driving their decisions to say, well, if I'm not sending you back to your office, I probably shouldn't send you on the road if you are the exhibitors for our exhibit at a trade show about CRM software. And and so we're finding the trade shows right now are struggling because the exhibitors are being told by their accompanies. You won't travel, you won't attend, you won't participate in an in-person trade show. So you're going to see some trade shows coming back when companies started sending people back to the office. Now, I think companies going to be way more flexible with remote working moving forward even after vaccines and endemic fades into the sunset. Although I think you're going to have a permanent changes to how we all work as a result of what we've been through the last six months. But you, you are going to see commerce inevitably come back because you just can't sell big products with big ticket items. So effectively, it's one thing if you are on Amazon buying a personal product for yourself, but you're not buying a house on Amazon, you deal with realtor is most people, if you're buying a brand new car, have any significant expense, you still want to go look at that car, take the test drive United is going to buy it a purely on an online experience unless you know exactly what you want to get, kinda think. So. Congress is going to be another one that the virtual platform just doesn't do well. And finally, competition doesn't apply to all types of citywide events. But particularly for those of you in Sports Management. As you can see, sports is what is about the only thing that has kept going now there's been all sorts of protocols. Process is put in place. But sports is what's been keeping going during the pandemic, despite everything else seemed to shut down here and then there was a shut down of sports for a couple of months is they figured out their plans, but then the NBA resume. The NFL's played games, baseball completed this World Series. Uh, college football started college basketball. We'll get started Thanksgiving week. We did have a an indefinite postponement of the NBA All-Star Game here in Indianapolis. But it was simply that they felt that February of next year was give me too early to realistically have that and they may not have an All-Star game. Next, we may have to wait for the earliest available year to get that game back. Here in India, in the convention center, we have had multiple high school basketball tournaments. We have had we've got a, an Irish dance competition. I think like river dancing that's coming to indie. Thanksgiving week. That will, that was supposed to have been held in Chicago. And they cancel there Chicago event because they didn't think under Illinois allowed that be allowed to have their event. But under in Indianapolis, between the state of Indiana and Marion County, we actually, with an approved health plan, can have up to 15 thousand people. Right now in the convention center. They typically limited to 5 thousand people the building at any one time. So you kind of add like three waves of 5 thousand km at different times. So think of it almost like a time to take it somewhere like group a could be in the building from ten to noon in Ruby from noon to two, et cetera. And the Eric answers aren't nearly that big, but their computation, they, they, you know, we have our first quarter of 2021. The second week we have a cheerleading event that we have every January called Jam fast. If you've ever been in cheerleading amongst the viewers today, then began Fest is all about, but it's, it's cheerleading computation. We then follow that with four consecutive weekends of volleyball tournament season. These are high school age volleyball tournaments. We follow that with the with the USA gymnastics competition event. That will be kind of a tune up to requalify for the now 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. You recall the Olympics was supposed to be 20-20 in Tokyo, got postponed to next year. In February, USA gymnastics headquartered here and 80 is going to do a tune up event FOR four, we get the volleyball, then they move out, gymnastics move out, and the NFL combine comes in. We were worried about the combined with the combine should be fine. I Now the college football is playing again because if college football, if like the Big Ten and packed, well-fed, waited until the spring, which was the original plan, then that would've conflicted with the Columbine dates. And now the combine looks good. Then after the combine comes in, right now we have two more weekends, a volleyball term and scheduled and then after the two volleyball tournaments weekends, we have the NCAA men's final four week, which looks like it's going to be fine. I just had a call with the NC WE last week. There's still planning on ad. There may or may not be fans. It depends on the vaccine situation and all the cases and all that. They could be limited bands like there aren't called scams right now. So who knows? But you could summarize the first quarter of next year as cheerleading, volleyball, volleyball, volleyball, volleyball, gymnastics, volleyball, volleyball, basketball. And in-between now we have a number of NC double a basketball bubble events we're working on with the score score to try to bring to Indianapolis. So those are all good things. So computation again, you just can't duplicate unless you're talking about e-sports and, and video gaming and things like that. You can't duplicate that. It with a virtual event The way you again, face-to-face. And I'll just end briefly with why I think any Annapolis in particular is well positioned to move forward here. Some of you may have seen a couple of weeks ago that our Indianapolis city county council voted 25 to 0. And there are obviously Republicans and Democrats. It's democrat dominated, but all the Republicans also voted along with all the Democrats, 25 to 0 to fund to issue a $155 million in bonds. Which will fund Phase Six of the Indiana convention center expansion on and amp plaza. So you don't ever plan Plaza is there right across the street by Georgia, Illinois, and apical avenues downtown. And we're gonna have a new 50 thousand square foot ballroom. And that, that the expansion will be connected to an 800 room Cygni, a Hilton branded hotel. Cigna is a brand that as an open does yet, they're building one in Atlanta right now. They're building one in Orlando right now and will be the third one to get built. And that 800 room signal will essentially give us a bookend, 1012 room, JW Marriott on the northwest side, and 8800 room Sydney a bike Elton hotel on the southeast side of the convention center, kind of book ending. And then in the the northeast side you got the Hyatt and West in an omni and that kind of corner as well. And so that's really going to nicely round out our product. We're super excited about that. And that just goes to show you the faith that our leaders have even in the midst of a pandemic. And now the construction on the step one started to like 2020 do, which means it'll open in about 20-25. But the industry analyst, CBR, a STR, et cetera, are forecasting hotel demand to beat 2019 levels in 2023. So we'll jump up in 2021. By the end of the year 22 will be another, keep getting back. The lost business. 23 will be at the same levels of rooms sold, we believe than we were in 2019. And then 20-24 revenue will catch up with hotels. So rate will be slightly lagging behind demand. But then in 2025 we open the signal, we opened patent laws expansion. And that'll be exciting for n-d because you're going to have a brand new product in an upswing, we believe when everybody else will probably just start. My guess is some of the projects you'll start seeing in other cities will be 20-24, 20-25, which means they won't open to like 2027 or later. So we'll be on the early end up having new product. You'll be in a city. If you're still in the city, if your job career path is kept you here in a city that's going to be continuing to be on the rise. And am plaza expansion in the Sydney Hilton are part of something we call the destination vision. Back in 2014, we started putting together a plan. They got buy-in from the mayor's office and from other community leaders. And this destination Bayesian is working on things like the White River Master vision, the jam stamping plant, panam plaza, working with the art museum new fields on the loom exhibit. If you've heard about loom LUMO, if not Google, that, that's been exciting. Attraction that right now is being done in Paris and drawing huge crowds at Paris, draws huge crowds in Paris. I think we'll be fine here in Hindi. But long story short, this destination vision as plotted out a very exciting future for any Annapolis. And one of the first major projects that's going to come to reality as a result of that Bayesian is the Pan Am expansion and the Sydney Hilton Hotel. So there you go. There's your three P's. The three attributes that we're looking for when we hire people to the organization that we believe is part of a sustainable success culture. The four attributes of leadership, vision, judgment, persuasiveness, and fit. The four C's of why citywide events will come back, the face-to-face events, particularly the connection, the commerce and the competition aspects, and why indeed is well positioned to succeed. So there are dialed dirty bag it over to you. Thank you so much for that update. It was I don't know if I've ever been so happy to hear about volleyball. It was so good to hear you rattle off all of those events that are coming to the city next year. Beth's opportunities for students. And we've heard about the expansion and Pan Am and accounting brand and know that the jobs are on the horizon. And so, so good to hear you share some of that. I know that we've got some questions coming in from our students. Now is our time for some great Q and a. This student's unleash. I'm sure that all of you guys have some great questions that you could ask to letter today. Whether it's about getting hired or about the future of our industry in this city. I'll invite one of our students that's on that from the planning class, Jessica. Jessica, do you want to share some of the questions coming through the Q and a. Yeah, absolutely. I'm very honored to be here today. Thank you and honored to be able to be in here and listen to your wise words of wisdom for all of our students and alumni. I appreciate that. We do have a few questions. So the first one I'll kinda kick it off with in terms of alumni and current students kinda looking at what job markets coming up. Do you have any advice to give them when searching for jobs also, with really being successful in those interviews. Yeah, I think that some advice I got gosh, I get 30 plus years ago is the is to, is to pursue information interviews and which I think might be a little bit easier these days with LinkedIn. You know, some of you, I can tell there's some savvy students out there because I probably have had around ten LinkedIn requests from IU PUI students in the last week who obviously saw that I was gonna be speaking at evolve and proactively reached out to me. And, you know, 30 years ago. There wasn't a LinkedIn, there was an email, there wasn't the internet and all those sorts of things. So you really had to kind of know somebody to introduce you to somebody. And these days it seems like with a LinkedIn type of platform, you can be connected with someone and say, hey, Leonard would love to pick your brain on, on something or whatever. Now, obviously, I don't necessarily have the ability to to do all of those. But every so often, like Lai assistant will will will set up a 15-minute call between me and somebody else and we'll just talk and I'll connect them with somebody maybe over the sports Corp. we're at at the JW Marriott or at the Convention Center, or at the chamber or downtown AND, or at the Arts Council, or at their best method. Or I'd markings, right? So, so my, my, my, my sphere of influence, I guess a range of connections is pretty wide. But even if I don't have that time, what I'll try to do is I'll try to connect them with somebody on my team. And so maybe they'll get a director level person or vice president level person at visit entity who has a little bit more bandwidth and then next week and they have a pretty big sphere of influence do. And the next thing you know, you know, Mary or Bob at IUP UI has six new connections. And, you know, the first round of those six connections doesn't lead to anything, but then those people connect you to six more people eat 36 connections. And it turns out two of those next of that total 36. Well, I might have an internship opening up here or I guess loss, uh, my my frontline entry-level this or that. And it sounds like you have a decent fit to that. Maybe we should bring you in and chat with us. So I would say really taking advantage of networks and asking for informational interviews and making it clear that you have no, you know, that you're not expecting that there is an opening anywhere. You just loves them advice. Boy, do people love giving advice, including myself as I've done for the last 45 minutes. So you can, you can use the appeal to people in the industries desire to, want to be able to helpful to you. Because most of us, including myself, somewhere along the line, somebody gave us a good piece of advice. And, you know, through a combination of your own personal desire and a little bit a lock and being in the right place at the right time. And a lot of times people tell you, make your own luck. You wind up getting good opportunities. Awesome. Thank you so much. Would you be comfortable with students reaching out to you probably throughout this week to kind of set some stuff up like that. You're awesome. Absolutely. And so our next question in here says, could you give your freshman self some advice and what would that be? And there's a lot of things I could give my freshman self some advice that it's not allowed to be discussed on x2. The we were all freshmen wants if you're on this call, I would say in terms of as it relates to career and things like that, I could have never really perceived that I would be fortunate enough to be in a situation like I am now where I'm running, visit India. I've been here for ten years before this. I was the executive VP for F, traveled to gotten so cell San Francisco, one of the world's most recognized and desirable cities out there. I never would have seen any of that to be honest with yet. And I think in some way so many of you through the IU PUI PSM program are way ahead of where I was. You guys in many cases are much more forward thinking. You have a broader network of connections. You are more proactive and pursuing things like internships. I was relatively clueless. As a freshman and I would say that, you know, I was just trying to figure out how to shave and live in a dorm room and manage my freshman year wait. And whatever else that I was not even like I will I guess trying to figure out how to get from point a to point B on the campus and work out a schedule where it sleep late in the morning. Those raw My my my freshmen goals. And so I would I would say 95 out of every 100 folks that I've met from the current generation of students is way ahead of where I was with my own career thought planning. We all wish we could change something about our decisions earlier. I think our next question it comes and says, how would you recommend getting involved during Kobe for alumni and students? Yeah, again, I think it just it is a matter of that going back to that are reaching out to your existing networking, having them connect you with others. Whether that's finding a connection on LinkedIn or asking somebody, you know, who knows other people. And in the process of baby doing that information interviewing, saying, you know, if there's any anything I can volunteer to do to help, I'd love to do that. I mean, people love that opportunity sometimes. Now, and don't be frustrated if 95 times out of a 100, somebody says, you know, thanks. Don't call us, we'll call you and not in a negative way, but just simply they don't add anything. Sometimes you just gotta sift through a bunch of folks who don't have anything who say that was really nice chatting with you. I wish I had something to give to you. But every so often something pops up where they say, you know, as a matter of fact, we do need some help with this or that. The other piece of advice I'd give you is look for organizations or try to find out about organizations that you think might be understaffed. And so again, I'm expecting that a lot of cases the difference between whether Jessica I gets a job at XYZ company or or or Bob does. Is Jessica. Jeff showed me a resume that he volunteered at two different places and parents that he didn't get paid for doing this. But clearly, he's proactive and has shown really her ability to contribute positively to a team. Is progressive, innovative because of what he did for the Kurt Vonnegut museum and library who's got five or six full-time staff and punches way above their weight. Or Conner Prairie who probably doesn't have as many people as they want or any of these numbers of attractions, UN organizations. I would, I would seek out who you think might be understaffed, particularly if it's something that lines your personal interests. So if you're a history buff, boy, by all means, you know, approach a Conner Prairie trying to find a connection there and do something for them. If you're a Vonnegut reader. I tended whether virtual events during banned books week, a couple weeks ago. And I can tell you that the Vonnegut museum and library could've used probably 20 more people working on their project. But that would be grid for anybody's resume to say, LEI, I volunteered for that, but you don't find out about it unless you proactively seek out contacts or use your own head to figure out where those opportunities lie be. Absolutely. Do you think that would be another great use for LinkedIn too as well, to kind of reach out to people in other organizations? Or do you have any recommendations on how to reach out to those? Yeah. It really comes down to kind of do things off the top my head, LinkedIn is one. I, if you have no connection to an organization, you don't think there's a path to a connection there. That's I do wanna do look up that accompany that. An organization idle GD at Indiana State Museum. I even if it's not necessarily what you want to go to work, but you have a personal interest baby and what their mission is. Because it gets you that experience and that experience might be the difference, could well be the difference between, you know, Jessica is qualified, so is Amy. They're both really they both got good GPAs and and they've done this map, I guess it just seems like he has a little bit more proactive effort on our part and I'm going to I'm going to roll that. That's how I would guess. And then, you know, if you've got your own network that somebody can connected to, somebody connected you could somebody that's the the other path. Awesome. All right. Well, you heard it here. First grade ten is a definitely a good tool for all those looking for volunteer opportunities on. So the next question that comes in here says, How important has networking bent specifically to you and to your personal career path? And I'm looking at the time, this is, I guess my last question I'm sure, but the idea of critical and it's also why why citywide face-to-face types of events, not just citywide, but even smaller face-to-face events have no worry about being replaced by, by zoom or LinkedIn for that matter. Even when you make that connection on LinkedIn until you actually get a face-to-face with somebody and you make that connection. The, the relationship typically doesn't blossom. And I can tell you that I have not proactively applied for a job since 1994 because every one of my jobs since 1994 has been somebody recruited me as a result of connections that I had. And so I graduated from undergrad in 1987. I got an MBA 1992, while I was still working full-time at my corporate world. And then in 1994 I applied for a job that that job with visit ND. I'm anti with US. Team San Jose, which was then the sound's a connection to visited girl. Guy worked with at the sounds a connection, a visitor. You're ultimately became the CEO at Sacramento is convention of visitors bureau now visit Sacramento and he recruited me to work for him as his number two in Sacramento. And then while I was working there over the years, I developed relationships with people who work for San Francisco travel. And one of them was not the CEO. So the CEO who hired me in San Francisco, he had the VP of sales and the VP of international tourism both said, you know, we met this guy Leonard from Sacramento. I think you'd love him. He'd be great on our team in San Francisco. Next thing you know, I get a call out of the blue from the CEO at San Francisco saying everybody up my staff gives raving about you comment. I'd like to interview you for the exact API. And that's how I got that job. And then for the NDI job, I didn't know a single soul in Indianapolis, but an executive recruiter for this industry guy named Mike gamble was always trying to move me out of California to some other city. And he went and he talked me up to the leadership in Indianapolis, the board chair and others. And so they said, OK, we will get, we gotta meet this guy. And of course with the last name like, whoops, I would probably bound to be hired in Indiana. So so yeah, you can't underestimate the value of networking for either your individual career path or for the absolute fact that this industry will not only bounce back, but bounce-back strong moving forward for Facebook. Awesome, thank you so much for that and we really appreciate you coming out here and doing that for us and given us a little hope for the next few years to you as well. Little bit that gives pleasure. I thank you for having me and good luck with evolve wheat. Thank you so much, Eric, I turn it back over to you. Writes, Well, thank you. Again. Learn that from the time that I've started teaching with the program. I have seen that no matter how busy you are, no matter how many things are going on, you always find the time to support our program and the students and the future of our industry here in Indianapolis. And we just couldn't be more grateful. So couple more things before we go, ed and our last, our starting session here today. And we hope you learned some things. Definitely connect on LinkedIn with letter through our resource page. If you'd like to keep talking about this topic in particular, we'd like to invite you to be a ball lounge to continue this discussion network with other students and professionals. There's also a help desk there that can answer any questions that you have about the event this week. Also, Jessica, right now is going to drop in our session evaluation link into the chat. Please grab that. We want you to share your feedback about this session, about all the marks sessions this week. And each one of these session emails that you do is another entry into a prize drawing for this week. When I will be happy to know we've got 8500 tickets for next year. We're, we're ready to come back face-to-face with our prizes, so awesome. The session recording, again will be posted at the end of the day today, if you'd like to re-watch any portion, I bet. You're welcome to. Lastly, our event weak, we are so lucky. We have two incredible keynotes this week book ending our week. We've got litter kicking us off and then closing us out on Friday at 3pm because Gary bracket, speaker, coach and Superbowl champion with the Indianapolis Colts. So very grateful to have two incredible speakers on the front end and back into the event. So make sure to mark your calendar for that. And between now and then, enjoy the sessions, find a job, connect with professionals, and have a really great evolve TES and week. Thanks for joining us.Description of the video:
All right, for everyone just joining us. We're gonna give it a few seconds here, maybe a minute, just to let the rest of the attendees start rolling in and then we'll go ahead and get started. All right, hello and welcome to our panel, The New Normal, how sport, event and tourism organizations have and will pivot to survive. We're excited to have you join us. My name is Taylor Trish. I'm a senior in the T S M event production class. And I'm going to be your host for this session. Before we jump in, I'd like to just go over a few housekeeping items. Do you know how to best participate in today's session? For questions directed towards the panelists, please use the Q and a feature located at the bottom of the screen. In for general questions about GSM evolve or just to chat with other attendees. Please use the chat feature located at the bottom of the screen. As a reminder, please engage in I professional manner and adhere to the code of conduct that you signed at registration to ensure that everyone has a positive experience. This live session is being recorded. The link to watch the recording will be posted in the session details on the platform at the end of the day. Any resources connected to this session are also available on our resource page. At the end of this session, I will post the evaluation link in the chart in the chat, excuse me. For every session evaluation link you complete this week, your name will be entered into a sweepstakes drawing for prizes. You are familiar with us. The tourism event and Sports Management Department is the host of this event. The students that plan the event or any event production class in ETS and department ts. M is a part of the School of Health and Human Sciences here at IPI and has two degree options as well as many certificates and minors focused around careers and Tourism, Events, hospitality and support. This week long, a virtual that this week along virtual event was created by a group of 58 students and designed to help student by, with this changing year to find the path, to find the path forward. This week you can, you can connect to employers, industry resources, along as participate in over 20 education sessions with 50 speakers. At this time, I would like to thank all of our panelists for joining us and take the time to introduce you to our moderator for this session, my Carnot up. He's the VP of Business Development at the Indiana Sports Corporation. My credit adjoined the Indiana Sports Corporation in 2008 as Vice President of Business Development. In his current role as senior vice president business development. Carnegie to overseas ache, all corporate development, fundraising and revenue generation for the Indiana's or its core. And its business operations. He also proudly serves as the co-chair of IEP. Why TEFL Industry Advisory Council and has served as an adjunct instructor at ITI for years. On our pass it over to Mike. Well, thank you very much Taylor really shaped the kind introduction. Introduction is the as it relates to my support of IU PUI, you can't see it here, but I'm holding up my sticker. I am indeed a proud supporter of IU PUI here and really proud to serve on the industry advisory council. And I'm so excited to help host today's conversation. Come up with the title for this conversation by like it. That new normal, how sport, event and tourism organizations have and will pivot to survive. I guess I like it so much because it implies we're in a fight right now. We are in a fight, we're in a fight against this. Dastardly prove it. But I'm very optimistic as relates to the, the fight we're in and how we're going to come out of it, and how we're going to come out of it and dry as it relates to tourism, as relates to our state, as relates to our city, and as a relates each of you students on this call, I do wanna give a special shout out to the students that are on this call. This evolve week is just an incredible week-long professional development experience. I was so delighted to hear before we jumped on the call that so many of you are taking part of this, this event. In many ways, you know, you're investing in yourself and it's great to see you invest in yourself. I think that really is something that will be a life-long endeavor for you. But keep it up, keep taking advantage of the programming that is, remains this week, I think rent B3 right now. But again, kudos to you for being here today. And really wanna recognize the students and faculty that had been planning this above weak. This came together very, very quickly and I mean the event business myself. And so I know what it takes to build an event from scratch to innovate and to evolve. We'll talk about that certainly today. So great job to all the students that put together today's, today's conversation, but all the programming that's happening this week. I mean, to have three educational tracks, 23 virtual sessions. In a virtual career fair with close to 50 employers or more, is pretty darn incredible and very impressive to us as industry professionals. So great job to everybody. And I can't wait to see this event grow as relates to future years. So again, very excited to host today's conversation with an absolutely outstanding panel. We have today a thought leader and an advocate for the entire Indiana tourism industry. And so that has incredible. We have a destination marketer of the largest single day sporting event in the world. And he represents an incredible tourism destination as made Indianapolis in Indiana, world-famous around the globe. And last but not least, we have a man and a member of the IU PUI family. That was at the absolute epicenter of the coded shut down. When one of the biggest sports leagues in the, in the world, the NBA, made a bold in very innovative decision to proceed with their regular season. It do so at a time when there were so many unknowns related COBIT. And that's certainly relates to development of the bubble down in Orlando and the MBA. So three incredible chaos, I cannot thank them enough. Jeff, carry and Tom. And so with that, I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves, starting with Carrie. And so excited to be here today. Thank you for asking our association to be part of this panel. I am with the Indian a Tourism Association. We are the trade association for tourism entities across the state of Indiana, primarily those or county level bureaus. So think visit indie visit South Bend, Michelle LacA, visit Fort Wayne. But then we also have some anchor attractions across the state such as the indie x2, Fair Oaks farms. How would a world to just name a few that are members of our association? And we primarily focus in two aspects. One is professional development for tourism entities. So we host an annual conference. We have meetings every other month where we bring in people to talk about marketing, social media, public relations, human resources of these different destination organizations. And then we also do advocacy. So we have a lobbyist that is done at the state house that is keeping track of every bill that touches tourism and how it could positively or negatively affect our industry and what we need to be telling legislators about our importance. For me personally, I've been in the tourism industry for almost 20 years now. Kind of backwards is I tell people into it. I my first job was at Conner Prairie, which is a living history museum here on the north side of Indianapolis, did not realize there was a full on tourism industry in Indiana that I could be a part of. And I left there to work for the State Tourism Office, which does all the marketing travel guide website for visit Indiana. And then have been with the association now going on six years. So just happy to be here today. Share what I'm hearing that's happening across the state. Share how our members are responding to this crazy wacky year. And then also share a little bit about the research that we're keeping up on on how things are shifting and changing. Thank you so much, Kari. Welcome, Jeff. Thanks Mike. And thank you for that glowing, glowing introduction earlier for all of us. I think I think we all were saying, wow, that was that felt good. Yes. So obviously some of you in the in the attendees, I I know some of you who have iPads you in class where i have you now or I work with you, lecture at IPI who I spent 62 days as part of the NBA bubble, as a contracted NBA employee might roles outside of my teaching at IEP. Why in Sport Management are I worked for the Indiana Pacers, the Indianapolis Colts, the Indiana Fever. And the Indianapolis Indians when everyone's in season, obviously we were out of season. So I was asked to do this bubble thing. I went ahead and said yes to it. And I'm looking forward to talking about how they pivoted and that sort of stuff. So Mike, I'll give it back to Jeff. Appreciate that. And then checkered scarf gives him a way. Welcome, Tom. Thank you, my thank you, Mike. And really got to be part of the panel. And again, glowing introduction was gay. Like I got way too much credit to the world's biggest sporting event that has made the world's biggest bullying event for many decades or joy. But I think it would be the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, almost four years now and oversee the Marketing here at the track. And that means we'll have promotions for all our events, primarily the NDP month May, but we also have a nascar race and other types of races and concepts and events that we have every year at the track. To my my my main job at 3A is usually to sell tickets to those events and to get us to those crazy numbers of 300 thousand plus on they stay and only up a large crowds we have this year it's been quite different and not quite as much fun working in bullets for sure. But when you have pivoted threat nobody on the dig into that. Today. I'm prior to being with IMS, I was with ME 11. That's actually where that picture is from, which is funny exhibits, a checkered scuff. But I was part of the startup of India 11, somewhat 78 years ago now is, I suppose it was when we, when we started the team and played at IEP, why Carol stadium for several years. I spent an awful lot of time on campus and work with the great team at IU and IEP UI on doing that at the stadium. And really enjoyed working in soccer. New Indianapolis, you've made data tell, I'm not a native Hoosier. Probably adopted one now. But I am from, from England, originally, had been in the Midwest for about 20 years, actually, which is terrifying and makes me really old, but moved to Chicago for grad school and upstate in the Midwest, ever since got to, got to work in sports about 1011 years ago. And love being part of the sports and events business. And that really was saying this before we started the panel. But there are very few places better in the world to other sports events, entertainment industry than in Indianapolis. So really, really got to be. Thank you, Tom. Great to have you here. I like your closing statement there related to Indianapolis in Indiana being a great place to study tourism and be a host city for things like sports tourism and other related things. Carry I want to I want to begin with you with the first question, and this was not a contest, this call, but you clearly when I think with the backdrop, I absolutely love your backdrop related to the beautiful fall leaves in the beautiful state of Indiana. This is one of the greatest talk is to explore our state tourism perspective. And, and it is a time where many people do come to our state as relates to visitation, but I want to go back in time. Pre-coded yet before the months of February and March, where was our state as it relates to tourism, the role of tourism, what trends were you seeing? And then what are some of those kind of big impact statements related to tourism? And how important it is to say. Yeah, I was talking a little bit about this earlier as well. I think sometimes when people hear tourism in the state of Indiana, they have a heart at almost a disconnect because when a year tourism they think of things like beaches and cruises and Disney and all of those types of things. But the reality is tourism is here and it is a vital piece of our economy. We, we work very closely like I mentioned earlier, with the state. They do analytics every year on the economic impact tourism in the state of Indiana. And it's, it's no small numbers really. And what do you think about the things that we've been talking about in the event that Tom typically is selling all these tickets for people that are come to downtown Indianapolis, but not even that, but all across the state for the dunes up north and the beautiful and Brown County foliage in the fall. We have a lot of tourism that's happening here, even if people don't recognize it, we have 81 million people that travel in and throughout the state of Indiana every year. Just to be clear, the national definition of a tourist is if you travel 50 miles or more from home. So that doesn't necessarily mean people coming in from Ohio, although includes them. It can also be from the North, going to the south and vice versa. And those visitors spend $13.2 billion in our state. So it's a lot of dollars that are helping our economy. The most fascinating statistic that I like to talk about is what that actually saves our households in taxes every year, which is on average about $560, that each household gets saved in taxes because it's other dollars coming into our state in retail and food and beverage, in ticket sales and all of those types of things that can offset the other taxes that we have to pay as resonance in the States. So we, in Indiana really do have a vital tourism economy. It looks different than that week in Florida, of course, it's two or three days. But we have been well poised for years because we are drivable. We aren't all these things that I'm saying now, I think is even more important. Postcode it to be drivable, to have outdoor low density experiences that people can have. And in people really were a year ago starting to look for more of these unique experiences. We didn't even see this with international visitors that they check off the New York City, they check off the Chicago, but they start to really want an authentic American experience. And we have that all over the state, right? We have small towns, we have trails up in northern Indiana through downtown Indianapolis that people can really experience something a little bit different than maybe this, this major tourism experiences they might think of when they come to America. And so Indiana has been pushing that, that message out for years. Things were looking really positive. Ten months ago about where we were headed and how we were going to be able to welcome people in. And in a lot of ways, the silver lining in this is the things that we, we're positioning ourselves for, our really important right now given the parameters, if you're following what the Coven concerns are. I was talking about that's a kind of pivoting out of the pack into where we are now as relates to opportunity and what COBIT has presented. You mentioned people traveling in cars, you know, willing to take a day trip to a community maybe that's smaller or less dense from a population standpoint. What opportunity abuse has Kobe presented the state of Indiana from a tourism perspective that maybe are just starting to reveal reveal themselves. Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, this backdrop that I have on my, on my screen right now is Brown County, which is southern Indiana. And the beautiful time of year it is down there. And they already have driving towards setup, right? They have they have these these kind of experiences that they've been packaging for years. But it gives them a new megaphone because there's a new audience of people that are not necessarily wanting to walk into a crowd of people right now, right? They want this low-density experience. We have places in northern India and I was on a call actually yesterday talking about this in Northern Indiana. They have a quilt Garden tour and they've had it for years. It's been ten plus years where their heritage up there is Amish and midnight heritage, known for quilts are really important piece of that heritage. And so they've created quilt gardens that are actually laid out in quilt patterns. And they've had a driving tour for years. And this is one of those years that wow, I mean what a great thing to packages. They stay in your car, you don't need to get out. Here's the two or drive around, see it. And so we've been able to have our our state all across has been able to take some of these experiences that they've been marketing and promoting and putting together and partnering. But been able to tell it in a little bit of a, a bigger way because it's a, it's a more needed experience right now than the downtown concerts. The downtown convention that really isn't happening is, is Travelers sentiment matching up with what is happening in the real world. In other words, I'm sure you've done some surveys around Coben safety and what travelers want from a destination or even from a an experience. Yeah, those perspectives trick played an actual behaviors. I think that's such a great question. It's kind of one of my favorite ones to talk about right now because I'm getting inundated with research every week that it's really hard to figure out what I want to even look at anymore. I mean, some days I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a break and see what the two-week study looks like instead of every week. But we're seeing that there is, the sentiment is really important and not just the travelers sentiment but your resident sentiment. So let's say I am in a community like Brown County. I might really want to go travel there as a traveler, but someone that lives there might say, I don't really want a ton of people coming in. So we're we're tracking both of those. What are travelers saying, what a resident saying, How do those match up? But one of the most interesting studies I've seen in the last month is that people are saying, I don't want to travel. I don't feel comfortable traveling. I'm nervous. But then when you actually dig into it a little bit more, there, they're traveling. It's just not maybe what what they were thinking they were going to be traveling. I'm gonna raise my hand exam totally in this in this category, I would tell you I'm not comfortable as comfortable traveling. However, did I take an RV to Blue Ridge Parkway for a week over fall break? Yeah. So I actually took a trip. I would have said I'm not comfortable traveling, but I actually did take a trip and experience something for a week long destination. So what we're seeing is that people are saying they're, they're less comfortable traveling. That's their attitude, but they're actually behavior is saying they are still doing things. It's just different. And I think when you when you think back to your summer vacation or Fosbury trip, it might have been that bigger, longer destination and now you've pivoted, you're still doing something. But it might be shorter, closer to home, less money. But that is where Indiana actually can capitalize because we are sitting on a goldmine of experiences that are affordable and close to home that fit the bill for what people are still comfortable and actually going to be doing. So that's one of my favorite studies to talk about that came out was people are saying this, but if you didn't and they actually are still traveling, well, I'm sure anecdotally all of us have kind of bend a local parks and things like that and just see the volume of people that are kind of up in about, you know, certainly abiding by safety rules and guidelines in many ways separating and, and, and that clustering. But you are right, there are people who are out there. It's just kinda question of where they are. I did have a friend who recently during fall break, went down at the GEF Luneburg area in Tennessee and said it was incredibly crowded. Deputy, I've heard that with Michigan as well, you know, other states, so I think you're absolutely right. Indiana has many of those similar attributes that those states have and and really can potentially leverage and continue to leverage it. Not just now, but in the years ahead. The rural to urban as it relates to presume and, and kinda urban tourism. You know, certainly in the state of Indiana we have some great cities that are tourism hops based on some of the humanities that are there. Whether it's museums, whether at sporting events, whether it's, you know, great hotels and restaurants. What do you see right now related to urban visitation? And as you think about what's needed to even help with that, you know, obviously the backdrop of code that's going to dictate a lot of it. But what are some of the trends you're seeing from from or urban tourism CRISPR. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably the hardest story to tell right now for me personally, are urban areas? They are. I mean, it's just it's no surprise to any of you guys there really hurting. I think because the entire and this isn't, I think what is maybe comforting, maybe not, but every urban area across the country is experiencing this right now. Because their entire model is built on large events, large conferences bringing the masses in. And that's just not happening right now forever for so many reasons, right? So I think our urban areas are struggling a little bit more to pivot and figure out how can we offer something and get people back down here in a safe way? And we do have some really wonderful, wonderful experiences in downtown Indianapolis. They have the craft pass for the breweries. They have the cultural trail, right? Which is a great, wonderful outdoor experience that you can have. They have things like the zoo that even though it does bring in people, you can still socially distance. But it's a little bit harder to tell that story. And so they're getting more creative on how they're pushing that out. Because really that wouldn't have been the primary marketing piece that they would've been using, right? It was more of the mass events that were happening. So they're kind of pivoting their message. These other experiences that you can have. Our rural areas, we aren't seeing being as hit as hard because they didn't have it. Nothing was built on these major pieces, right? So they're able to take what they've already been promoting and just continue to share that and getting more people to come in. And to your point, if they have a state park in their community, they're doing really well. I mean, our state DNR will tell you it's like the best year they've ever had, right? I've been to a couple of state parks and some times I was like, wow, this is so busy if it was just really, you know, but that's wonderful. We're bringing people in and showcasing all these beautiful things that we have. So I don't think gets shifted our rural communities as much, but I think it's made our urban communities have pivot their message and what they're actually promoting. Great, thank you. Or you spend so much of your career in the tourism industry and have such a global view of not only destinations and venues and, and certain jobs in the industry. We have a lot of students on the call today and many of them are really trying to figure out what they want to do in life, What kind of job they may want to do? What, what, what, what statements which you make related to choosing a career in tourism? What are some of the things that when you, even when you are considering a career in tourism, kinda where the students are on this call has found the industry describe the opportunities, describe the fulfillment that comes from working in tours. I feel like I'm going to be a Pollyanna moment because I am so positive about tourism. And so I'll just hit some of the highlights. But what I love about our industry is that it truly is a family. Everyone that works within my association and in our industry has constantly wanted to help everybody succeed. Because a win for downtown Indy is a win for COCOMO is a win for Fort Wayne. And so while we do compete on, on a certain level, it's also about if you have more visitors than I get more visitors. And so I really think the, the atmosphere within our industry is positive. It's friendly. It's, it's really wanting to help each other. It's not cutthroat. And, you know, everybody has to find their own thing in life to do. But I have three siblings, all in very different, very, very different industries. And I have one that's in pharmaceutical sales. And it's interesting to me when I talk about what she's doing, which is what I consider high sales, cut throat to a point. And then I can just sit back and say, oh, I'm about creating memories. I mean, at the end of the day, I want people to get out, experience, have joy, have fun. Let me tell you something you that you can do here in our state. And to do a job that brings me positivity and happiness, bringing people together, families, friends. That to me is worth its weight m. And that's why I've been in this industry for someone. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that carry. Just again, as a reminder, we have the chat feature, the Q and a chat feature open. So if you have any additional additional questions for carrier related to Viviana tourism or her career or anything related to it. Please don't hesitate to add that to it. Gotta go to my good friend Tom. I hope you appreciated how I call the smile oval. One of the most important tourism destinations in our entire state. I, I can't imagine Tom, How many people's very first visit to the state of Indiana was not sue a park or it was not SEWA, a cave or a museum. But it was to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500. That has been around for a 100 years. I've only been overseas one time. And it was the country of Africa. Kind of exotic location, no doubt. But in Tanzania, I announced to the people we were connecting with where I was from. And they immediately said the the Indianapolis 500. And I'm sure that is something you all here very, very often. Sprite for us. Kind of what, what role that track that history, that heritage as play related to tourism and kind of the brand of Indianapolis and the brand to be Yeah. I know exactly what you mean personally to my, you know, my family's back in England. And the one thing anyone anyone knows when my mom tells them my work in Indianapolis 500 men, she tells him I put tracks. So it is it has become yeah, and there are very few cities have been known. But one event around the wealth away, Indianapolis is for the 500, were also unusual. The city to have such a big event and track close to downtown and the city as well. It's very, very accessible that that's unusual. A lot of race tracks, even if they're big, they're host pig events are located far outside of town. But because this track was built so long ago, the city grew up around that and it was farmland when, when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built back in the first decade of the 20th century. So the city has grown up around that, and the City's identity has grown up around that, around that time, and primarily through, but also soon asker through Formula one uniform A1 is the world's biggest motorsport and we hosted Formula one per decade. Motor GP, which is another massive global series as well for motor biking. Massive constants and we posted, so it's not just a 500 by the end of the day. You know that that is that is the Marquis de marquee event. And, and what gives the city its identity. And I think it's interesting, we're part of a marketing co-op with visit India and its arse alongside all of the museums and the zoo whenever attractions in the city. And we're really part of it for a couple of reasons. Certainly it's helpful to us that to be part of their regional terrorism advertising and international communications campaigns. And they do and get coverage for the attractions here. But we also want to be part of what helps tell the story of Indianapolis. And we're certainly not the whole story by any means. But I think having that, that core event that everybody recognizes and the adrenaline and the excitement you can see in the footage that you can use from the Speedway. And the scale of it is something that sets us apart when we're when we're alongside our national cities, even much larger cities and then Indianapolis. So why being part of that? Now we can lend our brand. Strength of the 500 and the identity Albert to support the other attractions as well. So hopefully that's, that's helpful as a brand sets are a way to tell a story and a way to get attention. But the city, along with all the great work that other groups do like you're on my to bring big events to Indianapolis. And it feeds into that story that this is truly one of the great sports cities of America, both the amateur and professional levels now, previously seventies, eighties, maybe more amateur, but now, you know, coats and so many other things happening here. Professional soccer team I should mention. There's so much sports here and it's become an epicenter in the track. It plays an important role, but it only works if we're all working together on things like that, tourism co-op and supporting each other and talking to each other. And that's why every year we have a massive community push ahead of the Indy 500. That's not just about the racing on track. It's up, though. That's always going to be the most important thing at the end of the day. Who wins the race? You know, it's really about the event and the community around it. And the seller and people coming to Java, coming to Indianapolis to celebrate that. Bringing their family and friends back, coming back to visit if there from here or just coming here for a bucket list visit. And all those things are about. But in that culture and community that, that happens around the race. And it's, you know, I think there's probably a lot of people who come to Indianapolis for race. We can spend dollars say might've spent going to Florida or something like that. And instead save up and come come into a reunion with their college friends or come back and visit their family. So it just pulls, pulls in people in a really unique way that just doesn't happen on the scale that we have. You're talking in the month of May, about over 0.5 million people attending an event attending the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And across the whole year, including visits to the museum, you're at about a million people coming to the track. So a substantial, substantial Melbourne, hopefully a cornerstone of the industry of this conversation today has the word pivot in it. To survive. Take us back to the months of January and February where again, I think some about COBIT was really not net on and you were in a very difficult position of having a big event, a huge event in the month of May, which was at the front end of where you are in charge and creating that event. Tom, What were those days like I described for us kinda just how things were so fluid and cheap in what were you guys wrestling with? Literally daily, if not weekly, leading up to whether or not to have fans there in May? Yeah. Hey, it was quite something at a time very quickly. We all know now in retrospect, that should have been more concern across the nation in January and February than anyone realized. But it was that, it was oats those, those days in March that led to the MBA shutting down sort of mid game or write for tip off and away cascaded from now. And I think that we'd been deep in conversation already leading up to that about what to do. That was really when I went when it became very clear that may not be what we hoped it to be in. We had been expecting very significant May for us under new ownership where Roger pen ski, having purchased attract and the series in the fall. But for that, so we had great momentum. Roger was investing millions of dollars in the facility. So I was, you know, in many ways, it was a very tough spot to be in because we're navigating not just a pandemic, but a new ownership group that had just come in and just getting to know our leadership. So we're still really getting to know each other. And how we communicate things, how we make decisions, how we prepared to tell the public. Those are all things that became hour by hour conversations and discussions and decisions and believing the offices we did in March. Where then figuring out how we do that from home, setting up our virtual tools and connecting whichever different team members have different levels of comfort with Skype or teams or whatever platforms. So there was a lot of navigation there as well, and getting people to be able to share conversations and documents in a different way with critical decisions where we know that hundreds of thousands of fans waiting to hear what's going to happen. And you feel suddenly we felt the pressure at that time. You have to put it in the scale of what's actually happening in the world. I mean, I always think Ultimate. In my case, I work in sports and sports. It's important, but it is not life-and-death and a pandemic literally air. So you have to try to have a bit of perspective as important as those decisions. We need to put public health dust and listen to the experts, take the best advice. And we're fortunate to have great relationships with all of the top leadership of the healthcare systems here. Listen to the best advice. Change daily. Again, we've, we've learned so much about COBIT since then. So it was, it was just a very rapidly moving situation. You know, honestly in retrospect, you can make an argument that we shouldn't have postpone the Indy 500, that we should have just run it without hands and may. Cuz we were about pans in August and our television rating was down significantly in August as were all of the major events in the fall because everything got back loaded into the fall. Yet all four age elites playing the same time, an ache, and he had all the big events pushed back then. So in retrospect, we might have we might have said let's just do it in May. Get, get it done yet. Uh, probably a really good TV writing because everyone was at home. And then look ahead to next year. But we will hopeful things may move quicker with the pandemic. And we might be able to get to a situation where it's contained and we can have 50% of the crowd them. We're hopeful, well, you get 25%. And then, you know, day-to-day, the numbers continue to, to get worse in the summer again. And he got to the point where we had to make a sensible, prudent decision. And everyone understands that internally it costs you. We just want it to be as transparent as Hans, what times as we as we put me, and as quickly as we could be. But waiting till we knew for sure what we're going to do. And that was a tough balancing act. You know, hey, man, everybody's live in that. Every industry, every business. It is something that is just a part of the state of affairs right now. Last question before I go to Jeff, Tom, thinking about the students that are on this call and kind of they're in the process of developing their own skills. You mentioned working remotely. You mentioned having to innovate and think creatively. Think about what advice you would give the students on the call related to skills they need to have that were highlighted even more so because of COBIT and to shut down. What are those basic skill sets that you have come to realize as an executive are incredibly important for your professional success and the organization success. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. One is a general call it an attitude or approach to be flexible and adaptable and being open to doing things differently very quickly and pivoting. I love that words in S because being able to do that is so important right now. And I think it always, especially in sports and events. I think it's a core skill to work in this industry because there is always something unexpected in sports and events. Live live entertainment businesses is not one that set to a routine. Things change all the time quickly. So it's a core skill, have been even more highlighted by crisis situations and being able to have that attitude. And that I'm going to roll up my sleeves. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna talk to my boss, get get the best advice I can and, and we get to work and be proactive. Now that that's a core fundamental skill or mindset can really help people succeed. And then I do think, you know, and the younger generation, certainly more native to this, but, but understanding how to use digital tools and content and in the right way, it's increasingly important. And release has just accelerated things. We're already doing things most places already doing. But it's made understanding that how does succeed, using those tools even more important than ever for things we'll pivot back a little bit. And people will be excited to be back out at Community activations and gatherings in the more traditional ways of doing things. Maybe not, maybe not in 2021, but in 22-23. So we shouldn't correct tufa, Some of the coal field marketing skills or old-school promotional tactics will, will, will have that day as well too. But I think there have been some long-term ships, but we'll see a little bit of a I returned to some of it in time as well, that I didn't get that that attitude of adaptability, that it's a waiting one right now. That's some great advice. And you're right, we are social creatures. It will lead people and yeah, yeah, re talking through screen is not as great as sitting across from somebody for sure. So thanks Tom. Great insight there. Jeff, My goodness. It all went down. You were one of the first ones to immerse yourself right in the middle of it all, even leaving union Atlas. Tell us what your bubble responsibility, how did you get that role and what was it like? Well, I I basically parlayed my role or the Pacers. I'm I'm a statistician with the Pacers. I'm what's called a secondary input or on their computer stats for the NBA, we kind of are the, I guess one of the most important positions that no one knows exists because the betters rely on us to actually do the right stuff, I guess give assists to the right people and things like that. Sort of the players because, you know, contract stipulations and things like that. But I was able to go down there because the NBA reached out. They reached out to every table crew through all across 30 teams and ask, would anybody be interested? And it was basically just a survey. And I talk with my wife and said, What do you think? And she said, Well, it's up to you. You know, I said it could be 90 days, it could be 60 days. I don't know. And she said What's the paying and I said I don't know. And she said, Well, it's up to you. So I just checked yes. On every box and set them available for 12 to 14 weeks, called my department chair, he gave me the thumbs up and I said, if they select me, I'm going to go. So that was basically the process, but the secondary input or, you know, I'm sitting at the computer all game and I'm behind the scores table. And to be honest with you, I was part of probably what I would term the ultimate pivot. Yeah, absolutely. An early right. The easy thing to do would be for them to maybe cancel their season, kick it to a later time of year. But the MBA really try to innovate, make it happen. Did you meet any special knowledge or insight of what it was like in many ways that that innovation and pivoting was happening in real time. Down in Orlando. Did you see things changing almost daily or or could you tell it was a work in progress or once they build it, it was working and it didn't change much. The only time you could tell was with the virtual fan experience. They were, you could see that they were trying to tweak that as the scrimmage is and seeding games went along. But Mike, to step back to March, I was at the table, Indiana versus nebraska. The night everything crashed. And when I say everything crashed, you get on your phone, Twitter. It was really GO bear. It was NCA, no fans. It was five minutes to tip off for the big ten tournament and you're sitting there gone. What's happening? You know, I love the story of the Big Ten staff disappeared five minutes before the gates were supposed to open and we're sitting there going What are we going to open the gates? Well, they opened the gates, but then Tim Sinclair who was also at the bubble with me. He got on the PA and said, yeah, this is last game with fans. And the crowd blew up and we're sitting there going OK, which she's going to drop next, you know, it was like a snowball. And shifting ahead to June was when I got the email and then got added apart on July 12th and speaking back to carry, didn't fly. Everybody else was all over the country. They flew even the guys from Indiana flu. I didn't I was lucky enough at my mom and my sister were crazy enough to go on a vacation in Florida at 10 thousand cases per day, right? During that time it was the hot spot of the Earth. And they're driving down there to go spend a week in Florida. So I said, Hey, I'm gonna hit your eye hipster. I got dropped off at the Waldorf Astoria and went oh, as they drove away. If I test positive, I'm stuck. I have no way home. And I literally drove back after 62 days. So I really never I drove everywhere I went. It was 14 hours but carry it was within driving distance. I still maintain that. But the whole thing that was going on during the time down there that first week was the hardest for everybody. We went down July 12th and we were immediately isolated. So each person got their room and could not leave. And when I say could not leave, we got chastised for opening our doors to get fresh air. Meals were delivered to us at 08:00 AM, noon and 06:00 PM at our door, no contact had open it, bring the food in, close the door. That seven days was awful. But on day seven, when the credential was handed to me and I snapped that hospital band off my wrist and walked out that door and breathe fresh Florida air. I went, oh, this is so good. And we went on a three hour walk. Right. So once we got into the games, it start you started to see the development. They spent well over a $150 million down there. And my understanding is 85 of it went straight to Disneyworld. So for food, lodging, all of that and where we stayed, gone on springs was they'd like 1600 rooms and we only took up half of it. So then once the seeding games started and you started to see that Washington was terrible and they weren't going anywhere. And then phoenix ran the table and you're sitting there going, ooh, this is fun. And then it got to the playoffs. That was when people started going home. So it kind of was was like a 100110 people total that were there doing our jobs. And by the end of the by the end of the seating games, it was down to may be 60. And then at the end of round two of the playoffs, it was down to 16. So there were 16 total people left. Wow, wow. We asked some on this call, Some students are our future event planners, future sports management executives studying sports management. Did any of your perspectives related to either jobs in the industry or the role of people in those those job titles. Did you gain a better appreciation or at any perspectives change after going down there and seeing many of those people who choose that as a career, you watched very closely inaction. Did you get any perspectives there? Yes. Production people, event production people, the people that built what's behind me. You know, what we were in was an Athletic Gym. If you've ever been to the Pacers Athletic Center up at Grant Park, that's what it looked like. It was a gym. And if you look, what's a bind me. It looks like an arena. But there were 0 fans. There was nothing. I mean, it was amazing what they did with the three venues that we were in. They looked like NBA arenas. And I hearken back to last October when I went to Mumbai, India with the Pacers and their venue had nothing in it. And they turned it into an NBA arena and you're sitting there going, whoa, how did they do this? So the behind the scenes people that I, that I guess you can say gain the most respect for where those production people that built that thing. I mean, literally was I can't even fathom how much time had to have gone into it to build that thing out the way it needed to be. We were all space six feet apart behind and you could see there's plexi glass in front of the tables there, but we were two rows, not normally two rows. And we were spaced out six feet were shoulder to shoulder. And the front row is the ops crew. In the back row is the statistics crew. And it was it was perfect, honest. Honestly, it was perfect. It they couldn't have done a better job. And so those people I'm sitting there going, Man, you guys did awesome, you know, and that's I mean, that was all I could say was one of the guys, Jason, my Cui from a production company down Miami is a, is a partner with the NBA. That guy is a legend in my eyes because the way he put the tech stuff together, the video boards, everything was out of this world. Reminds me of so much of what's happening in everybody's industry where things are being happy, having to be created from scratch, brand new. That was true in the bubble. That's true. Some things carrier was saying related to tourism and creating experiences that are COBIT family in many ways, Tom has been pivoting for minds as it relates to how to host some of the, the racing events and then even water fan protocol. So maybe for the first time and so many of our careers as industry professionals, we've been challenged to really create things that didn't exist prior. You'll a lot of times you inherit policies and procedures and practices and assets. This was a time where everyone was put on pause netted creates something brand new. And that is both invigorating and exciting, but also can be very challenging. And so kudos to everyone here, carry and Tom and Jeff who've really been even challenging themselves as executives and as professionals to grow and learn and adapt. Certainly a message to all the students, we on this call relieve yourselves as lifelong learners. And that was never more so true then this year, we had to learn a lot, a lot of new things. And so, you know, that, that desire to expand your knowledge or insight will be something if you commit to it as a life-long endeavor, it will serve you well, because in many ways we had to commit to that concept this year as industry professionals. So. See, Taylor has joined us, tailor. Any questions at all for the group? It looks like we do have one bit. So this attendee would like to start off with saying, thank you for your time today. This question is directed to our esteemed panelists and that the amazing moderator, what went through your mind personally and professionally the moment you found out, we had covered 19 positive cases in Indianapolis on March sixth. Well, very similar to some of the momentum that carrier was describing, matures and perspective. And certainly Tom can relate this because he was about to host the world's largest single day sporting event. In the case of Indianapolis as a host city for major sporting events. We also had an incredibly vibrant event sketch all lined up in year 2020 and into 2021. So the answer to the question tailor my mind immediately went to the events that we are hosting at the time and Jeff referenced it. It was right in the middle of the Big Ten men's basketball tournament of bankers like Field House. That was could be followed by March Madness committee Indianapolis set the Lucas Oil Stadium. We're going to host a March Madness regional. We were going to host an Olympic diving trials at the Indiana University net tutorial right there on the campus of IUP UI. We're also going to host an NCAA swimming and diving event. And then we are still going to host this year the Big ten football championship. Will there be fans? What would that look like? I'm not sure. So that combined with some additional events coming in 2021, like the NBA ALL star in February, that the Final Four is cued up for April of 2001 and then we got other men coming. So my mind, Amelie went to what will those events look like? Can we host them as a city? We are going to host them. What is the intersection with fans? And then candidly, I really thought about the city and how important these events are from a job creation for putting heads embeds, supporting so many people with restaurants and others. So that's where my head when Taylor, you know, what what is the downstream effect of some of these events changing or being canceled? Continues to play out to this day. But, you know, it's been a slope Arch. And I was very excited to hear the vaccination news as relates the Pfizer still a ways away from distribution of that vaccine. But that was a positive signal that I hope all the students relies on because call that this thing will come due and then things will return. And they should stay committed to growing as students, growing their knowledge as TESL graduates. And really committed to hopefully industry that they're very excited about to enter. My answer, Taylor was, oh, crap. And and the reason why is because I've always part of those events and all the sudden I saw dollar signs flying out of my wallet and I went, Oh, no. Regional final gone, division to regional gone. Everything was gone and I'm sitting there going, oh, how bad this is going to get. And then April hit and I went, oh, Indians money gone, right? So that's a selfish side of me. But the rest of it was, wow, we're in trouble, right? And I was like, that was the second reaction was we're in trouble. And I'm thinking of, of Mike and Meg in and all the people at Indiana Sports Corporation gone. What now for them, right? What's happening now? And they're creative and innovative enough to be able to come up with some events. And it just that March 11th day is embedded seared, burned into my head because of everything that went down from four o'clock to seven o'clock. And then once that happened, I was sitting there going, Wow, where this is not going to be good. Here we are. Right, here we are. Hopefully we're on the backside of it. The one piece of advice that I want to give to people about a bubble experience. When we were down there, we were asked, Hey, how interested would you be if we did this again in December? My first call obviously was to my wife, but my thought on it was absolutely right because the reason why was because I was part of history now and not often. Can it be part of history, but not just that. I was loving what I was doing and I was safe. I felt safe, right? Yes. It was terrible to have to put a mask on a contact tracer and magic band to just leave my room. But at the same time, free food, Hey, I was in, right? Not just the free food, but also I get to do basketball games. This is, this is cool. Plus I'm teaching from the bubbles, so I got my students able to experience it. So I was able to twisted into a positive by saying yes to something that was scary. Took me three weeks to decide. And once I did and I got down there, man, I don't regret a minute of it. And now I'm just hoping we get our events back, like Mike said, and things are starting to get on my schedule, which is good. But I'm the one that says don't pass up opportunity. I if I just said no to how you'd think I'd be feeling right now. What piece of advice would you give to people that want to work in the industry? If you had to give one singular thing that really could set them up for success or get them where they want to go when it comes to tourism jobs, but would you stay? What can seem like a large question? My guess. You know, I think I have a couple of things on that. One, I go to what Tom saying about this will come back. I mean, I think it's been really easy myself included to have days where I'm like just shut the lines, get under the covers. Like this is the new norm and that's not we. We will get back to where we were. We don't know when that's going to be, but there people are still going to want to travel, people are. So I'm going to want to get out. We are not created to be an isolation. It's just not healthy. And I think that we've recognized the need to be with other people to go out to explore. And so I think when I've talked to people. My biggest synchronous is use it as a learning experience to it. It has literally been a moving target from March sixth above nth, whatever the day was that it stopped for you? For me, it was that night to Jeff when I was watching the news where my daughter got off the bus since that they sentence with books home. It was like, Well, that's weird, you know, and then it was oh, wait, this is cancelled and know, first it was no fans have been canceled and then it was just like dominoes, right? For three days of just like every this is all done. And it was shifting and pivoting. And every single week something new and we're still in some way is doing. But to use it as a learning experience of man. The partnerships, the cooperation, the communication, the new ways that we've learned to work together, I think, are things that are going to well outlast all of this and set us up for success in the future. I mean, I, I have said to several people I would like to see the white paper that comes out five years from now for what we've learned and how we've shifted and changed the way we've worked and attended events. But we have to live the next five years to get there. And it's not going to always be pretty, but use it as a learning experience because maybe what you thought a year ago that you were going to graduate and be that event planner for the 1000 person event, It's probably not going to happen next year. But can you gain some interest in knowledge and of ma'am, it's now going to look differently. Let's let's soak this up in real time as it's how much we're going to learn by sitting at the table and hearing these conversations take place is going to be amazing and for students to be able to do that. I mean, we had an IEP UI student that sat in on calls all through the summer. And I hope for her I felt like it was it was a really beneficial experience to listen to the real time questions and problem-solving that was happening. And so I would say use it as an opportunity to learn because this industry is not going away, this industry will adapt and make changes. We'll be back and better than ever and use this to understand how we got there. Where he's saying, grow your brain, grow your knowledge, grow your insight. During this period. Really view it as an opportunity to, to do a deep dive and study and develop your brand. You know, bring that to a jet. Jeff is such a great proponent of that. It's really a chance to build relationships. Admittedly, many virtual, virtually, but grow your personal brand to time. So many people want to work in sports. You've worked in sports and events your whole life. What singular piece of advice would you share with some of the folks that want to work in the sports industry or sports business or any of that business. Yeah. I think you've you've gotta be in it because you genuinely love. Love what, what people who experience, whatever it is you're delivering the events, the destinations. And you really want that, that pay off to see, in our case, the fan on race day or carry someone going to buy an attraction. They might never thought out because they read a cool blog about it. And then they write in and say, you know, how much fun they had, whatever it might be. You gotta be any chloride reasons. You definitely shouldn't get in. If you're in it either. The glamour or the money or the short hours definitely are not sure what has most, if not the world's highest paste paid industry IVR. Or there's some grandma for sure in sports. But that's not the right reason to be an IVR. Cuz at the end of the day, it's hard work and you've gotta be willing to roll up your sleeves. And all of us. You know, I still even now been at this awhile, but I'm happy that you entertain in turns doing I'm happy to help put up ten or out in the mud and whatever it might be on a rainy day at the track we have. So we're going to be willing to do that and be willing to pull those long hours and have your payoff B, the emotional connections that you're, you're, you're creating for people, that you are bringing the community together, giving people experiences they'll remember the rest of our lives. And now what you want to deliver that to people. And if you go into that attitude, although all the rough edges that come with it a lot easier to take, there are definitely times when it can not be as foreign or as glamorous as that works. But if you're focused on getting to that end, end goal, that's making that the fan API and you're working out of your colleagues, you can get a ton out of it. And this has been a tough year for that because I said Mike, we crave that in-person experience and its bullets and events. That means most. So we've tried to substitute things and we've all done our best. But, but it is going to come back to delivering those in-person moments and those special moments. And wanting to be part of that. It's awesome. I love your comments to related what provides fulfillment as relates to sports. Taylor, do you want to drink anymore questions at this point or has our time expiring whatever works for you? We've got one more question left, but it looks like it has directed just words carry, how is the India tourism association estimating and forecasting economic impact in 2020 versus 2019? Well, it's it's hard to figure out. I mean, I think his question was 2020 in 2019, but I would even actually looked to how are we forecasting what's going to happen in 2021, which is really important, right? So we are fortunate enough that we have a lot of research that we can, we can look towards for forecasting. One of the biggest tools are folks use is Smith Travel Research, witches hotel data. So they take daily, weekly occupancy, average daily rate, and they not only show us where it is in real time, but they forecast out for years to come. And I was actually just talking to remember last week who said Our STR, which is Smith Travel Research, is forecasting in 2021 that by fourth quarter we might be where we were at the beginning of 2019. He said It's hard for me to get there, but I'm using that as a gauge as we planned budgets, as we looked at things. So we have some good research that we're looking towards. We also are really reading things like travel, sediment, residence sentiment to figure out where people's comfortability lies. And I mean, this is just the wait-and-see game. And we're being conservative and what were guesstimating what will be coming in. But we also know, especially in some of these smaller communities, we know that that demand is still there. It's looking different. It's not going to be as much in the downtown Indianapolis area, but we can see that some of that's bouncing back in our rural areas. So we're using what we've see that what's happening to this last year to say, I think we're gonna be getting there next year. But again, it's going to be a long time before we see pre 20-20 levels. And a lot of our areas of research is the answer, but nobody has that crystal ball. So be conservative in the meantime and optimistic. Alright, thank you so much. Just got a few closing notes for everybody. I'd like to once again say thank you to all of our panelists, our wonderful moderator. I think a few things before we go. Taylor and I want to say thank you to you guys in your 404 class for doing all of this phenomenal work, as well as Erica for putting on something that I don't think anybody envisioned happening. And you guys knock this thing out the park. Thank you. Thank you. It really is a lot of obviously, of course it was stressful, but it was, it's so rewarding to finally see it all come together. And all of these great conversations that have been happening throughout the week, it has been incredible. And we obviously cannot have done that without all of our incredible panelists and moderators and attendees. Alright, before we go, definitely connect on LinkedIn with all of our speakers, you can find their links on our resource page. Also, if you want to keep this conversation going, you can meet us in the evolve Lounge and that is also where our help desk staff can help answer any question about the event or weak. We just put the session link evaluation in the chat. Please share your feedback. Each evaluation that you complete, that you complete this week is also another entry into our prize drawing. Again, this session is a recording and will be posted in the session details on the platform by the end of the day. If you would like to rewatch any portion of it. Again, thank you for joining us. For the drug wears regularly. You know, like you guys.