Hosting a Successful Event: An Effective Way to Tell Your Organization's Infrastructure Story

A Jan. 15, 2007, New York Times article said: “Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today.” The number of advertising messages we are exposed to every day is likely higher now. This mental and visual clutter is one reason well-conceived, well-planned events can help an organization cut through the clutter and tell its story effectively. Events provide context. Events provide living, breathing people to see and talk with. Events provide sights, sounds, texture, and even smells that involve multiple senses and multiply the impact. These combined sensory impressions, taken together, make events memorable. They are an effective way to de-clutter a cluttered world and tell a complex story such as the need for continuing capital improvements or a sound asset management plan. This paper will outline how that was done in Colorado.In late 2010, the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District's (Metro District) Board decided an event was in order in 2011to celebrate the District's 50th anniversary. At the same time, they wanted to raise the visibility of the District's first satellite treatment facility among those the new facility will serve by holding the groundbreaking for the new $475 million Northern Treatment Plant (NTP) facility in conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebration.The Metro District hosted the two combined events on August 17. Combining the events provided the increased visibility for the new plant that the Board wanted and reminded both employees and invited guests that the Metro District had, for half a century, transformed wastewater into clean, reusable water for an increasingly thirsty region while improving the environment. The groundbreaking symbolically said the next page in the District's history is now being written. Construction of the new, highly advanced 24 MGD treatment plant will provide improved service to a new area and a new group of customers.