A long-time sponsor of CSAE, we joined in on the celebration of CSAE Ottawa-Gatineau Network’s 30th anniversary Tête-à-Tête — recommending the brilliant Kellylee Evans as their opening keynote. She’s not only a Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter, but also a lightning strike survivor who combines original songs with her incredible gift for storytelling to share the importance of self-care and finding our “superpowers”.
A hugely successful industry trade show and conference, we have long supported this annual event by contributing leading keynote speakers, including iconic Canadians such as “man in motion”, Rick Hansen, and “the wealthy barber”, Dave Chilton; Olympians Clara Hughes and Jon Montgomery; and singer-songwriters David Usher and Jann Arden, just to name a few.
Kellylee won over the audience right away with her outstanding, shiver-inspiring voice, and then kept us completely engaged as she shared her personal story of healing and strategies to help us achieve her hard-won “superpowers”.
- Super-living: Life is too short to not align yourself with what you love and go for it.
- Super-listening: Listening to not only those around us but also to our inner voice. Often, Kellylee said, it’s that small voice inside our head that can guide us towards the things we need and away from other things — like getting struck by lightning!
- Super-loving: Engaging strategies to prioritize self-love and self-care.
- Super-linking: Linking ourselves with the ones we love and the ones who lift us up.
There was so much wisdom and inspiration in her words, the audience left uplifted as well as armed with practical strategies to help us get past any hurdles life may throw at us. The line-up to meet Kellylee afterwards stretched across the trade show floor!
Here’s a clip from Kellylee’s presentation — just imagine kicking off your conference with this powerful performance:
The next day, PCMA Canada East Chapter held a workshop on generational change and its impact on event and hospitality professionals. It featured another one of our speakers, David Coletto, marketing research leader and generational expert.
David shared insight into the Millennial and Gen Z generations, which make up 30% of the population and will be the biggest consumer market over the next 50 years. David is one of the founding partners and CEO of Abacus Data, where he leads teams of research consultants and strategists to deliver strategic advice and research design expertise to some of Canada’s leading corporations, advocacy groups, and political leaders.
David’s presentation provided a deep dive into the hearts and minds of this most ethnically diverse, technologically savvy, and well-educated generational cohort to provide valuable insights on attracting and engaging them as both event attendees and employees.
In terms of events, David told event planners to ask themselves these questions to enhance their events’ appeal to this coveted generation:
- Is your content deeply engaging, interactive, and varied?
- Is your meeting digital first?
- Is sustainability at the core of your meeting?
- Can you entice them with exciting food experiences?
View David’s deck from this fascinating session here.
Interested in learning more about Kellylee Evans and David Coletto? Email us at [email protected].
