My First Shot at Event PM! Behind the Scenes of the Product History Conference

 Hello(=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉI'm Hikaru Takeno @t_hikarutaaaan, from the Talent Acquisition team at KINTO Technologies!

I've been at KTC for almost three years, but as an HR professional, I'm still a newbie in my first year.
In this article, I’d like to share what I applied and learned as a first-time Event PM, as an HR newbie!
 Event OverviewEvent name: Product History Conference
Organizer: YOUTRUST Inc.
Date: 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday, November 30, 2024
Location: TODA HALL & CONFERENCE TOKYO
 The BeginningWith less than three months to go until the event, it has been decided that KTC will join as a gold co-sponsor of the event!
When I heard, "Alright, the approval's in!!" I was relieved...

But at the same time I thought, "Wait, where do we even start...?"
That was when a miraculous helping hand reached out to me °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
Kin-chan, the manager of the Developer Relations Group, shared the Slack channel from another event and advised us, saying,

"This is how you should approach it!" ( ;∀;)

For someone like me who learns best through hands-on experience, it was the most easy-to-understand information. I'm truly grateful.
 Next Steps:"Alright, let's take a look at the Slack channel." … (ㆆωㆆ)ｰ

"Hmm, not very sure but let's get everyone involved together and have a meeting first!!!"
We set up a meeting.
Then, we rummaged through the internal Confluence.
We found meeting minutes that seemed usable.
Copy!!


We copied past materials!
Somehow, by rummaging through the internal Confluence and the past event-related Slack channels, we were able to resolve most of the issues!
Looking back, I’m really impressed and grateful for our environment where knowledge sharing comes so naturally… It was a lifesaver…
 On the Day of the EventSince we had finished setting up the booth the day before, we arrived at the venue at 09:30 a.m..


The booth with simple setup completed
After settling down a bit, the time of opening the venue was approaching... and then...
Someone said, "Let's form a circle among all the members of the sponsoring companies!!" Σ(･ω･ﾉ)ﾉ!
So, I firmly put my arms around the shoulders of the people on both sides of me.
Then the event started!　As people gradually started to arrive, there was a crowd at the booth by lunchtime!


Many visitors showed interest!
We were talking nonstop the whole time!!

We conducted a questionnaire at the booth, and I was really happy to see that there were more people who knew about KTC than we expected.
The most common response:

"I've seen you at lots of events!!"
I was reminded once again of the collective effort of all the employees who have steadily participated in many of them!!


KTC's mascot, Kumobii, is also doing its best
 Kageyama-san takes the StageThis time, we held a cross-talk session featuring our Executive Vice President Hitoshi Kageyama and Mr. Naomichi Okada, CTO of Luup Inc.!

With the theme "Creating a New Standard of Mobility through the Use of Technology: The Future as Imagined by the Two Companies,” they spoke candidly about the challenges both companies are facing, including:
The thoughts behind the founding and establishment of each company
The evolution of their development organizations across various phases
The challenges and excitement of working on product development amid numerous constraints
And more.


Crosstalk
 What I’ve LearnedIt is best to set agendas and choose appropriate timings for operation meetings.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try a fixed weekly meeting style?
Kumobii's unstoppable popularity

Cuteness proved to be unbeatable as expected!
Kumobii is the official mascot of KINTO Corporation.

https://corp.kinto-jp.com/mascot/

An environment where knowledge naturally accumulates is a huge strength..

Thanks to our open Slack channel culture, it's easy to find and learn from past events.
So many incredibly experienced employees in our company
Hosting a post-event party was absolutely worth it!.

It helped keep the connections going beyond the event itself.

About 25 to 30 people joined.


People from other companies also joined the post-event party.
Thank you to the participants from X Mile Inc. @xmile_product,

Asuene Inc. @asuene_inc_,

and note inc.@note_corp!!
 What I Want to Carry into the Next EventWe should think more about what kind of experience we want people to have when they visit our booth.

I want to apply our experience to booth setting and the arrangement of novelties.
I want to prepare “express cards” that allow people we’ve directly spoken to skip the selection process.

Since this was also an event hosted by YOUTRUST Inc., a career-focused social media, many participants were interested in changing jobs. It might have been a good idea to create a process to ensure talented individuals remain in the selection process without fail.
I want to set KPIs.
 Looking BackBeing a bit nervous, started off my role as the event PM thinking, "I have no idea what’s going to happen...!" with my heart racing. But in the end, it was like, "We made it!!" and the event finished without any major problems. This was all thanks to the operations team, who not only helped me prepare in advance by guiding me with questions like, "Shouldn’t we decide on this?" and "What’s the status of this?" but also stayed flexible and supportive on the event day itself!
Really, thank you so much!!!


Everyone wearing Kumobii!