Laura Barbo is the Senior Educational Specialist on the Educational Activities team in the ACGME’s Department of Education and Organizational Development. She’s been at the ACGME for 11 years, and spearheaded the development and growth of the Exhibit Hall at the Annual Educational Conference. We asked her to talk about her role in the conference and share her experience.
Q: What’s your role at the ACGME and for the Conference?
A: I work on exhibits, sponsorships, and attendee engagement. I was asked to open a Call for Exhibits in 2014. This was very new for the ACGME Annual Educational Conference – we focused on inviting vendors marketing educational tools, software, patient management solutions, and other non-profit organizations. The first year we had 25 vendors. Since then we’ve grown significantly, with over 80 booths sold this year, and a growing interest from legal counsel, recruiting, and financial services. For this year’s event, we also successfully opened up sponsorships for the first time.
As the Exhibit Hall grew, we knew we needed more attendee engagement activities – each year, our team looks for innovative ways to include our internal staff while creating networking opportunities for attendees. For the last two years, we’ve centralized an ACGME Hub in the hall that allowed us to feature and include internal ACGME departments for consultations. This has been well received by attendees, and we hope to grow this space in the future. I’ve also worked on finding ways to keep traffic moving in the Hall – whether that be a game (the Discover the Doc scavenger hunt, for example), conversation boards, a professional photo booth, a book store, and book signings, or a philanthropy or family event (this year we had Clean the World and a Family Movie Night) – we’re always trying to add engaging opportunities.
Q: How long have you been with the ACGME and involved with the Annual Educational Conference?
A: I’ve been with the ACGME for over 11 years! I’ve actually been involved with the Annual Educational Conference every year I’ve been here – I started out in Meeting Services in 2009. I was originally hired to help with conference registration. After working with the Meetings team for three years, I moved to Educational Activities, where I took a position in CME and I continued to work on the conference. After four years in CME, I changed positions to focus more on building the Annual Educational Conference Exhibit Hall and activities.
Q: When do you begin preparing for the Annual Educational Conference?
A: As soon as we get home from the conference – each March we begin again!
Q: What’s the hardest part of your job?
A: Once on site, there’s a lot of moving parts– it can be challenging to keep up with hourly requests, logistical changes, and making sure vendors are satisfied with their experience – but definitely a good challenge!
Q: What’s the best and most rewarding part of your job?
A: Being on site and closing the loop on a year’s worth of work. Our team spends the entire year working on the conference – seeing it all come together is so rewarding and exciting! It’s equally as rewarding knowing the exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees are satisfied with their experience.
Q: What’s an average day like for you when you are finally at the conference?
A: I’m in the Exhibit Hall fielding questions and handling requests, as well as making sure all of the other activities I’ve worked on are running smoothly.
Q: Is there anything you already know you would like to add or change for next year?
A: Now that I have a grasp on what sponsorship opportunities exhibitors would like to see, I’m going to focus on growing this component. I’d also like to look at providing more family-friendly activities – attendees are really excited to see more of this!
Q: So what do you do after a conference is over?
A: Begin planning for the next year!