Club Ichi

Co-Founder and head of community for Club Ichi, a friggin' awesome membership community for B2B Event Marketers

Conference sessions on inflatable unicorns, 2:30 a.m. exploding pajama parties, secret business trips, lots of hugs, and a whole lot of people just looking to help each other. 

If you're looking to advance your career, expand your network, and build relationships that transcend business, Club Ichi is the place for you. 

Join in at weareichi.com

Co-Founder, Chief Community Officer

The Community Factory

Most events aren’t designed to build deep connections. We apply our Power in Company Method to help to spark the relationships the drive revenue.

Our Spontaneous Think Tanks will revolutionize your conference, advisory council, trade show, or field event. 

Need to keep the community feel going all year long? We're your Community as a Service (CaaS) solution for companies looking to drive pipeline and revenue through loyal, organic growth strategies.

Co-Founder, CMO

Haute Companies

Haute Companies is a collection of brands that embrace the unconventional to build human-to-human connections. Our collection was made up of creative agency Haute, music venue Haute Spot, speed shop Haute Motorworks, and SaaS platform Swag Hub.

As the founder of Haute Dokimazo, I created conversation-based experiences virtually and in person, as well as epic and memorable virtual adventures that drive connection. 

In launching Haute Rock Creative, I led the event team that supported Fortune 500 clients with global ABM programs, product launches, trade shows, and hospitality programs, along with event strategy and program design. 

As CMO over all of the Haute brands (Haute, Haute Spot, Haute Motorworks, and Swag Hub), my role was to manage and implement branding and marketing programs to drive awareness and create demand for our offerings. In 2021, we rebranded Haute Dokimazo, Haute Rock Creative, and Event Works to be a single creative agency called Haute.

Cedar Park-based music venue Haute Spot was sold to our production partners, Lightstream, in July 2022 and I continue to be an owner and investor in that company.

Marketing director leading the IBM experiential & digital event team, client references team, and brand strategy team. Responsible for the development and execution of the Analytics & Hybrid Cloud global event strategy & execution, as well as customer references, case studies, and video testimonials. Our team collaborates with performance and portfolio marketing team and uses a data-driven approach to strategically implement campaign goals into the right large and small 3rd party tradeshows, product launch events, C-level activities, roadshows, digital events, and customer stories.

Program Director, Event Marketing, Customer Advocacy, & Brand Strategy

Marketing & advocacy director overseeing the strategic community engagement initiatives for the IBM Analytics advocacy program, including community events, customer advocacy, and virtual communities. 

Engage the community by bringing IBM Analytics strategy to life through experiential product launch activities for clients, influencers, press and analysts. 
- Direct IBM Analytics Champions program, advisory councils, and advocacy & community programs, engaging customers and building community among IBM advocates. 
- Create and develop Analytics Platform Services C-level engagement, including the IBM CDO Summit program, a community-building event for Chief Data Officers, as well as branded and 3rd party CIO activities. 
- Bring creative and inspiring experiences to IBM clients, analysts, press, and employees through unique Signature Moment product launches. Drive experience strategy, manage agency partners and vendors, and oversee brand consistency across multiple workstreams including digital, social, AR/PR, offering management, and portfolio marketing. 

Milestone events include:
- Cloud Data Services Open for Data campaign launch, punctuated by an 80' inflatable dome in the parking lot of Mandalay Bay during IBM's 20,000-person Interconnect conference. 
- IBM Data Science Experience launch event, featuring an Apache Spark community event in partnership with Galvanize in San Francisco.
- IBM Watson Project: DataWorks launch event, attracting more than 650 data-driven professionals in NYC.

Program Director, Thought Leadership Event Marketing & Advocacy

GasPedal

Strategic leader recruited by CEO to create 3 year event roadmap, departmental strategic plan, staffing plan, and align systems to prepare for growth and scaling the event program. 

Coordinate across departments to ensure accuracy and brand alignment of marketing communications and attendee logistics communications. Manage speaker selection process, including evaluation of speaker relevancy to prospective customers and the geographic area being targeted. 

Note: Once the strategic initiatives were completed in August 2015, and it was determined that company growth plans had stalled, my role changed to a strategy consultant position and I launched Cheshire Moon Consulting, with the support of GasPedal CEO Andy Sernovitz.

VP Events

Dell

Director of global strategic planning for cross-business unit Tier 1 and Tier 2 B2B event marketing programs. Worked cross-functionally to identify key messages, funding sourcing, participation levels, and ROI targets. Directly responsible for coordinating funding, core team creation, and messaging constructs for more than 75 top tier events.

Created Dell's premier customer conference, Dell World. After launching the event in 2011 with 2,500 attendees, the conference grew to 6,000+ attendees in 2012 and over 8,000 in 2014. Led more than 50 workstreams including event messaging strategy, customer journey design, digital marketing, partner funding strategy, marcom, audience acquisition, vendor management, budget management, virtual event, event logistics, and customer follow-up communications and ROI measurement.

Led the global strategic planning team, driving initiatives ranging from evaluating event participation, marcom alignment, funding alignment, and onsite solutions and technology support for more than 150 events. 

Led global operations for Dell's event marketing function, focusing on vendor consolidation and spend efficiency, while leading a team of professionals who support day-to-day event activities. Launched corporate-wide strategic meetings management program globally, launched event master service provider program for cost savings and spend transparency, drove cost savings initiatives through operational efficiencies saving the company millions of dollars.

Marketing Director

Managed North American event marketing team of 18 team members responsible for executing relationship events in the US and Canada. Events portfolio included tradeshows, advisory councils, C-level events, hospitality events, roadshows, customer conferences, and large internal sales events. Led all aspects of team engagement from strategy to execution to measurement, including reporting event metrics to the business unit leaders.

Led the development of dell.com/events, and created and managed social media engagements for @dellevents Twitter account. Completed certification for Social Media and Communities Professional designation at Dell.

Marketing Director, B2B Event Marketing

As part of the management team, created an event measurement process, lead technology and process improvement initiatives, created quarterly ops reviews, managed events from conception to completion, produced executive customer profiles of global C-level event participants. Managed global event and marcom budget.

Managed team that executed all internal software & Peripherals sales trainings in Round Rock, Oklahoma City, and Nashville.

Created, managed, and maintained operational tools that facilitated efficient processes and workflows for global Large Enterprise Marketing and Global Event Marketing. Negotiated and implemented global event infrastructure technology tools including event registration and inventory management. Managed budget processes for the Large Enterprise Marketing organization, building the organization's first online spend management tool. Created online customer engagement portal dell.com/events, and internal global event management calendar.

Senior Manager, Business Operations, Large Enterprise Marketing

Delivered customer-focused executive briefing experiences at Dell's Executive Briefing Center. Consulted with sales teams, presenters, executives and coordinated with the office of the chairman to customize build-to-order briefings based upon the customer requirements.  Facilitated high-level discussions as part of the briefing pre-work process, identifying the customer need and responding by delivering a world-class customer experience.

Executive Briefing Consultant (contract through Aquent)

Texas Association of Assessing Officers & Texas Society of Professional Surveyors

Directed professional development program, including scheduling more than 65 state-certified courses and instructors each year. Expanded professional education program from Austin-only classes to six regional training centers. Planned, organized, and marketed association's annual conference. Managed exhibit hall and sponsorship sales. Designed all conference marcom collateral. Managed all negotiations for annual conference hotel and convention center contracts.

Editor-in-Chief of the TAAO's monthly magazine. Managed editorial calendar, content curation and creation, managed magazine P&L through advertising sales, and negotiated all print and distribution contracts with publishing vendors. 

General nonprofit management and administration responsibilities included negotiating, evaluating, and awarding vendor contracts, as well as maintaining corporate bylaws, trademarks, copyrights, and ensuring brand continuity.

Director of Education and Community Programs

Consultis of Austin

Worked with clients to identify high potential candidates for short term, long term, and permanent placement within their organizations. Managed all marketing of open position announcements, resume screening, interviewing, and facilitated the onboarding process.

Technical Recruiter and Account Executive

National Instruments

Worked with product marketing specialists to develop media plans, pitch, and placed articles in scientific and engineering trade magazines. 

Worked cross-functionally with technical writers and graphic designers to develop technical marketing collateral for vertical market products. Designed and maintained department intranet site and International Marketing Conference website and registration database.

Established and managed high-tech company’s relationships with various organizations for sponsorships and product donations (United States Olympic Committee, KVUE-TV-Austin, Boston Museum of Art, United Way of Austin, Austin Nature Center, North Austin YMCA, Austin Ice Bats, and Austin Chamber of Commerce).

Media Relations, Internal Communications, & Community Relations/ CSR Specialist

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District

Placed as a cooperative education student through the journalism program at Texas A&M University. Managed editorial calendar, content creation, writing, photography, layout and design of monthly district news publication distributed to more than 3,000 Corps of Engineers employees. 

Other duties included preparing slide shows and presentations for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ District Engineer, designing promotional displays for public exhibitions, working at exhibition booths, designing web pages for Houston-Galveston Ship Channel, and answering general inquiries by phone and in person.

Public Affairs Officer

Making your event more engaging for attendees.

What if... you had a place where you could connect with other B2B event marketers to advance your career and share your knowledge?

What if... you could ask a community of peers for ideas, guidance, help, templates, best practices, and they would actually respond?

Hi, I'm Liz Lathan. I run Club Ichi, the #1 place for B2B event marketers to connect.

I am driven by curiosity and learn best from conversation and behind-the-scenes experiences. So I create events where those things happen. 

Club Ichi: Our community and content for B2B Event Marketers (get in here at www.weareichi.com)

The Community Factory: Our team that helps companies like yours make events better for your attendees (and keep them connected all year long). www.thecommunityfactory.com

I'm often called "The What If Girl," thanks to my daily LinkedIn posts encouraging event professionals to think about new ways to engage their audiences at events, and my weekly newsletter, The Engaged Attendee. 

A 20+ year veteran of corporate event marketing life, I ran the global event team for Dell and created Dell World in 2011. I ran the global event team & customer advocacy program for IBM's Analytics & Hybrid Cloud division. I'm one of the founders of experiential agency Haute, and an investor in Haute Spot, a music venue in Cedar Park, Texas. I'm a writer, investor, speaker, and frequent traveler.

P.S. No I don't want to start a franchise or get my PMP Certification. Thanks, though. ;-)

I was invited to speak about marketing for event professionals last week and it kind of went off the rails.

I've done this presentation a million times and know my slides inside and out. 

But when I opened my laptop on the plane ride to Vegas, it dawned on me... My presentation is on my old computer. 🤦

But luckily, a few years ago, I wrote a book with all the same info (never published, but written in a Google doc), so I loaded the book into Pop AI and asked it to make me a slide deck!

Aside from it not having my branding and renaming "Account Based Marketing" to "Account Mashed Marketing," it wasn't awful.

However, the slides were COMPLETELY different from the flow I usually follow, so I ended up winging it a little 

Instead of teaching a marketing class, I ended up talking about how connecting your work as an event professional to the financial impact your work has on the business can massively increase your salary.

Basically, how to go from BEO to MQL.

The topic was a hit - I felt like I finally had a breakthrough in how I tell this story to get people's attention and help them understand why I care so much about marketing terms.

And while it felt good to share my stories, it was my first time presenting to a group of people wearing Silent Seminar headphones.

I hated it. 

I'm not a speaker, I'm a facilitator.

I feed off feedback from people, and conversation with them, and answers to my questions. 

Looking at an audience that is glaring at you like they are listening to a podcast and don't even need you to be in front of them was disconcerting.

Kudos to all the amateur speakers this week who crushed it on stage with audiences in headphones. 

Kudos to the professional speakers who do this every day and are incredible performers, even with limited audience engagement.

It was not easy. 

In fact, I'd even say it was HARD.

I'm never doing that again!! 😫

Put me back in a room where we can talk to each other!! 


#cheerstonewadventures
#learnedIdontlikethatone

But at least now I'm fired up to re-engage on this topic and share more with my B2B event friends on how they can increase their salaries by better understanding modern marketing principles, too!

Coming soon to Club Ichi ... get in here!

#weareichi
#levelup

Liz Lathan, CMP

I help marketers connect!

I believe that great conversations can change the world and I love creating environments where people can meaningfully connect. I do this inside my communities, Team CMO, Club Ichi, and The Grown-Up Girls Club, and help companies do this by consulting through my company, The Community Factory. 

I spent 20 years creating corporate events with the usual keynote/breakout/expo/concert format. But now I focus on designing *how*​ people actually connect inside events. When you do this right, it leads to building a great community that extends beyond the conference.

I'm one of the creators of the Spontaneous Think Tank™ and have led event marketing strategy and teams at Fortune 50 companies and love to consult on how to optimize events within a broader marketing program. I'm an Event Marketer B2B Dream Team nominee and a Smart Meetings Entrepreneur of the Year.

Oh, and I wrote some books! I'm the lead author of "The Age of Conversation Cookbook: How we created a virtual event in 42 days during a pandemic," as well as "Eyebrows Up!: A guide to engaging with clients, guests, and colleagues," available on Amazon Kindle.

All of this allows me to help people connect more authentically and form better business and personal relationships. Did we just become best friends?

P.S. Helpful note for the sales enthusiasts out there: I am not in the market to start a franchise or get my PMP certification. Thanks, though! :-)

It’s okay to have fun.

Headed to VEGAS today!! Woooohooo!

Yes, I'm actually an event professional who is excited to go to Vegas. 😂 

IMEX bound for a week of Club Ichi fun, so OF COURSE I'm pumped!

It's like a potluck for our industry. 

Everybody brings something and magic happens!

3 speaking sessions
3 community table convos
3 experience crawls
3 days of the Club Ichi Lounge
3 epic parties (>150 ppl registered!)
16 houseguests @ the Ichi Clubhouse
27 Hosted Buyers
2 Event Minds Matter Empowered by Club Ichi sessions
1 Soft Cocktail Crawl
1 Mystery Trip 
1 Serenity Suite by Safe Expo, LLC 

Let's do this!!!! 💪

#imexcited
#weareichi

Shout out to our incredible team:
Nicole Osibodu, XOXO 
Sophie Ahmed 
Tess M. Vismale, CMP Fellow, DES, CGTP 
Janice Cardinale VEMM 
Betsy Stewart 
David T. Stevens®, PMED 
Dave Childs 
Leah Mariscal

Thank you to these amazing friends for making it happen!!

Kyle Morris @ NMR Events 
Dave Green @ Mystery Trip 
Gary Bordman, CSEP, CPGE @ Amusement, Exhibit & Event Services (AE&ES) 
Erin Griss @ Mobly 
Victoria Rasmussen @ BW Events Tech 
Mikayla Totushek and Marcus Barats @ Legion Audio Visual Services 
Jill Rasco, DES, CITP @ Attendee Management 
Lauren M. Spinelli @ EMC Outdoor 
CrowdComms 
InEvent
Groups360
Matthew G. Laws Safe Expo, LLC

You know you've got a pretty dang great community when you open up the Slack channel before bed and see:

- A tech founder asking if anyone will listen to his pitch and give feedback (with four immediate Yes's)
- A member asking for a cat sitter recommendation in her area of her home town (and getting one)
- A request for a guest speaker in a virtual mentoring gathering for young event professionals (and getting volunteers)
- A request for freelance support on an event (and getting it)

Nicely done, Ichikin. ❤️

There's some pretty incredible people in here!!

#weareichi
#wearehelpful
#risingtidesliftallships

What if...

Instead of a business card, your sales team just temporary tattooed it up at the next show?


#attendeeengagement
#randomthoughtsbyLiz

📸 : Club Ichi

---------
🎉 Get more ideas like this in our weekly newsletter, The Engaged Attendee. Subscribe at: https://lnkd.in/e3F8WEWH

I'm so Scottish now!!!

So many thoughts and ruminations about my trip with Janice Cardinale VEMM and Event Minds Matter Empowered by Club Ichi. 

I'm on the plane ride home now and putting my thoughts together, so much more to come, but Hello Scotland's Bill Thomson and Jenn Whittle crafted a beautiful experience for us. 

Amanda from Cameron House, Loch Lomond, Scotland and the team t 4x4 Adventures Scotland made our first few days magical. 

Then Rebecca Carr, CIS, Elaine Elder, and the gals at Wild Scottish Sauna made our last few days so memorable. 

I need to compose my thoughts, but for now, here's a great big thank you to the team and to Wendy Porter, Anca Platon Trifan, CMP, WMEP, Kellie Blank, Janice Cardinale VEMM, and Kimberly Kapustein, CMP, CTSM for coming along for the ride!

More of this to come (both "my thoughts" and "more trips like this!").

#weareichi

WINNER!!!!

I can't even describe last night at the Ichi Clubhouse party at IMEX ... 

I can just say that I absolutely cannot wait to hang out with Andrew Pla on the Club Ichi Secret Family Reunion next May, the WINNER of our unbelievable competition last night to win a spot!!!

To Alexandra Loscher and Carter Sample who came in second and third... big hugs!!! Sooooooo close!! ❤️❤️❤️

#weareichi
#secretfamilyreunion

"Why is the marketing team pay banded higher than the event team?"

That was the driving question my team had for me when I led a global event team for a Fortune 50 company. 

Corporate marketing managers earn about 25%–30% more on average than corporate event managers. 

Why? 

Because marketing teams are evaluated on pipeline growth and revenue influence, but event teams are judged on logistics, budget adherence, and attendee satisfaction.

Basically, we're the "L" in the P&L. 

To move up the pay scale, we have a vocabulary imperative:
→ Stop talking about BEOs. 
→ Start talking about MQLs. 

There's a shift coming that marketing teams are struggling with and we have an opportunity as event professionals to swoop in and take our place on the board. 

Digital attribution is becoming murkier due to AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) replacing SEO, zero-click marketing leading to lower click tracking, and the rise of dark social channels where ROI cannot be easily tracked.

Meanwhile, event professionals are in a prime position to reclaim influence by offering measurable, high-touch engagement opportunities that connect directly to business outcomes.

With events loaded into the CRM as campaigns, third party trade shows can now easily show: Leads → MQLs → SQL→ Pipeline → Revenue.
Tools like Mobly can help with this. 

With deal acceleration conversations being captured at proprietary and third party events through meetings and demos, we can track: Meeting volume → Pipeline attribution → Follow-up engagement →  Conversion. 
Tools like Captello can help. 

With real-time analytics and personal exit interviews, we can tie together: Recall →  ROE →  ROX →  Purchase Intent →  Pipeline →  Revenue.
Companies like EVOLIO Marketing can help. 

If you're looking to have that salary conversation with your head of marketing, begin by digging deeper into how your company's events impact the bottom line. 

Get with your marketing ops team and get with your suppliers and create a PIPELINE measurement plan. 

Without a doubt, you ARE either creating or influencing pipeline. 

Start showing it. Start talking about it. 

----------------------------------------------------
P.S. In a timely turn of events, my friend Stephanie Christensen sent me Zuddl's 2025 Event Marketing & Salary Trend Report. Access it here and I'll break down my thoughts in posts over the next few days. https://lnkd.in/euVq8QrN

P.P.S. All the people who can help you are hanging out inside Club Ichi.

Get in here. 
www.weareichi.com

#weareichi
Erin Griss
Aaron Karpaty
Joe Federbush

I have soooooo many photos from this week that I can't possibly pick just one to post. 

So I'll just post this one of Nicole Osibodu, XOXO spontaneously deciding that she needed to pose for the Mobly Christmas card. 🤷‍♀️

I'm sure Erin Griss and Matt Riley, CAE will totally approve it....

Fitting after a week of being in a place that fills my cup every year (IMEX America) that today is World Mental Health Day!

As a Gen Xer, I was one of those kids raised on hose water and neglect. 

Almost died falling off a merry-go-round once and was told to "shake it off." 😂  

Unfortunately, though, I was a crier. 

Sad? Cried. 
Hurt? Cried. 
Angry? Cried. 

But you aren't allowed to cry in business. 

Shake it off. Stop crying. Hold your head up. Let's go. 

Mental health refers to a state of well-being in which individuals can cope with the stresses of daily life, maintain positive relationships, and realize their full potential. 

It encompasses a range of aspects, including: 
→ Emotional well-being: Feeling safe, loved, and supported, and being able to manage emotions effectively. 

→ Psychological well-being: Having a sense of purpose, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to make sound decisions. 

→ Social well-being: Building and maintaining healthy relationships, feeling connected to others, and contributing to society. 

Most of us never learned what mental health really meant. 

And I think us "gifted" kids got the short end of the stick. 

We learned to “power through,” to “keep smiling,” to “be strong” because "you're smart enough to do this."

That mindset got us far in school…but it also broke a lot of us.

Most of us are probably now anxious adults who have thousands of abandoned hobbies and spiral into self hate whenever we make basic mistakes. 😐 

That’s why what Janice Cardinale VEMM Cardinale and Event Minds Matter Empowered by Club Ichi are doing is so important. 

She's bringing the conversation out of the shadows, helping event professionals recognize burnout, set boundaries, and build workplaces that value humans.

It’s not weakness to say you’re not okay.

It’s wisdom.

Stories from people like Sara Beth Raab on the toll of an overburdened event schedule. 

Conversations with people like Mary Hughes, Stefanie Vasconcellos, CTA, and Marc Ghafoori on the emotional strain of being a solopreneur. 

Hugs for my friends who have been on the grueling job search roller coaster for far too long.

Surrounding yourself with people who care about you helps so much.

So on this World Mental Health Day (and especially the day 15,000 of us get home from a VERY packed week), let’s normalize rest. 

Let’s check in on our colleagues. 

Let’s remember that resilience doesn’t necessarily mean that Navy Seal mindset of pushing harder and pushing through. 

It also means knowing when to pause, refill, and reach out.

Thank you, Janice, for reminding us that events may bring people together, but community is what keeps us whole. 💚

#weareichi

Stepping over the velvet rope and going behind the scenes is a core building block of our Club Ichi experiences. We call it "Behind the Brands."

To me, a "behind the scenes" experience doesn't mean a panel discussion of how something was made. 

It means SEEING it. 

Getting to walk around and have conversations about it.

Thank you to Show Gear Productions for inviting Club Ichi into their FIRST-EVER behind-the-scenes tour of the IMEX command center.

Did you know that Show Gear is the official technology supplier to IMEX and has been for 11+ years? (I didn't!)

Did you know that there is a limited number of radio frequencies allowed by the FCC, so if your show uses Silent Seminars headphones, it's someone's full-time job to manage those frequencies? And if some rogue booth shows up with their own headphones, it can destroy everyone around them? (I didn't!)

Did you know that Show Gear doesn't just provide A/V, but actually designs the booth experiences in partnership with the IMEX expo team? (I didn't!)

Have you ever seen the precise lineup of how inventory is checked in and out and organized for a show with more that 200 booths? (I hadn't!)

But now we have!

Thanks to Anthony Allen for connecting me with Brandon Wight and inviting us into this experience, and to David Wight for sharing his passion (and family!) with us! 

Absolutely incredible work and a beautiful partnership between Show Gear and IMEX. 

It was a mind-boggling and enlightening experience to see how a show with 17,000 participants in a 2 million square foot space comes together!

More Behind the Brands experiences coming in 2026!

P.S. David Wight's coming with us on Secret Family Reunion. You coming? Only ONE TICKET LEFT. 

#weareichi
#behindthebrands

📸 : Show Gear Productionss +IMEX

WHAT EVER.

When I was a kid, we'd hold our fingers in the shape of a W and say:
WHAT EVER.

This is Leah Mariscal in her Guru shirt. 
(She's leading our Club Ichi team for GURU Media Hub's Guru Con) 

What Ever. 

Nicole Kidman is keynoting.

What Ever.

Jay Schwedelson is all excited about having her as the headliner for GURU CON... Cool beans. (that's something else we'd say.)

But you know who I'M REALLY excited about?

→ I read every single one of Sahil Bloom's emails.
→ I'm OBSESSED with Mike Cessario's brand Liquid Death.
→ I listen to ALLLL of Amy Porterfield's podcasts. 
→ I LOVE the Exit Five newsletter that is hosted on Knak (co-founded by Brendan Farnand) and love their tool. 
→ I'm friggin' IN LOVE with beehiiv and adore founder Tyler Denk 🐝's creation.
→ I didn't even KNOW Daniel Murray was the man behind The Marketing Millennials (LOVE!)

This is all that and a bag of chips. 

Seriously... 
→ If you've ever sent an email. 
→ If you've got an email newsletter. 
→ If you've ever *wanted* an email newsletter. 
→ If you email people to come to events. 
→ If you email people do do *anything*. 

You need to be at Guru Con. 

It's gonna be da bomb.

https://bit.ly/gurucon

And you know my home skillet in the event world DJ Graffiti (aka Martin Smith) will help you get jiggy with it. 

Our amazing Club Ichi crew running the networking rooms, includes:
Leah Mariscal
Dan Locke
Dave Green
Eric Burns
Gabriella Robuccio
Janel Leatherman
Jennifer Hernandez
Jennifer Phillips
Jordan G.
Megan Martin, CMP, DES, MPA
Melissa McElroy-Turpin, HMCC, MMP
Melissa Welch, CTSM
Nelia Nunes
Rebecca Carmody, CMP, CMM
Sean R. Schuette, CMP
Stan Hansen

THAT'S what excites me about Guru Con!

WHAT EVER you're doing on November 6-7th, decline it. 

Do this, instead.

Get in here: https://bit.ly/gurucon

They call it a "wellness" activity, which I fully disagree with, but it was a fabulous cultural activity with great mental ("I'm not sure I can do this -- oh wow I did that!") and social (lots of freezing cold and then sweating and then laughing together over how ridiculous this activity was!) elements to it. 

But by that definition, drinking whisky at a thousand-year-old distillery should also count as a wellness activity. 

It was educational, it was medicinal, it was conversational, it was relaxing. Yep. Wellness!

And if that's the case, I did both of these things today, so today was a full-on Wellness Day! 

😂❤️🎉

#weareichi
Hello Scotland 
Nicole Osibodu, XOXO 
Club Ichi

When your friend who you haven't seen in person in SIX YEARS (at the last Secret Family Reunion) because he moved to Singapore comes to town, you go give him a hug!!! 

Neil Patwardhan thanks for popping into Austin!

We are gearing up for our annual Club Ichi Telethon on December 5th and I need your input!

The idea is to run it from 5am Pacific to 5pm Eastern (It's tradition to go five-to-five with the idea of getting 525 new members in 12 hours). 

Granted, in 2023, it earned us a whopping 18 members. 
And in 2024, it earned us 36 new members (hey, double's not bad!). 
But hey, maybe 2025 is our year! 😂 

Anyway... we bring together a mix of education, edutainment, entertainment, videos, games, conversations, and an all-around good time!

We've had guests share about event strategy, business coaching, registration sites, interview skills for job seekers, and everything in between. 

We've had live ice skating, cake decorating, game shows, tik tok-style segments, and so much more. 

Believe it or not, our average viewer stays on for 4+ hours each year when we do this!!!

This year, we'll be broadcasting live from the LeaderPass studio in Atlanta, Georgia. 

We can remote out to anywhere in the world, so content/talent does not have to be in studio with us. 

So now my question for you is:

What's top of mind that you'd want to see for:
→ Education
→ Entertainment
→ Exploration
→ Inspiration
→ Hope
→ Motivation
→ Adventure
→ Activity

What or who should be included in this year's lineup? 
(And it's okay if you say YOU should be included!!)

We call it our "Humanifesto."

Nicole Osibodu, XOXO and I wrote it back in 2017 when we launched an event called Haute Dokimazo. 

Since then, that single event morphed into our signature Spontaneous Think Tank and now into a full-fledged social club + membership community called Club Ichi. 

And this is our Humanifesto:

We are event professionals who have a passion for bringing people together for a purpose.

We don’t need basic training on events 
(but we do want to talk about it sometimes). 

We don’t need vendor fairs and freebies 
(but we do want to try out new things). 

We don’t need inspirational speakers 
(but we do want to know how the right content & speakers can help drive our message). 

We don’t want to spend all our time trying to make a sale or escape a sale 
(but we do want to meet new people that we might want to work with in the future). 

We need to talk with our peers and colleagues in a non-intrusive environment. 

We need to try out new technologies for ourselves in a real event environment. 

We remember that our customers are at the heart of why we do what we do, and we focus on their experience at our events. 

We want to hear from people like us who have done amazing things in amazing ways against amazing odds and pulled off amazingly successful events. 

At Club Ichi, we are a family of ambitious event, experiential, and field marketing professionals who are pushing boundaries, putting their customers at the heart of their events, and developing connections to last a lifetime. 

We welcome our supplier friends as equals and agree on relationships first, transactions later. 

We believe that it's more impactful to come for the entertainment and accidentally learn something, than to come to learn something and accidentally be entertained. 

We believe that events are inherently social and when you're having fun, you remember more and build more meaningful relationships.

We invite you to experience what’s next in how humans gather.

Join us at Club Ichi. 

www.weareichi.com

We're going places... Get on the bus! 🚍 

#weareichi

I’m still struggling to properly capture the experience from Scotland this past week in words... 

Bill Thomson from Hello Scotland connected with Janice Cardinale VEMM of Event Minds Matter Empowered by Club Ichi last year around her mental health work in the event industry. 

Bill, deeply committed to the cause, awarded six event professionals an “emotional luxury” tour of Scotland.

To the local team, it was just another week with clients. 

But to us (only one of whom had ever been there), it was unforgettable.

They didn’t craft a wellness retreat, but instead leveraged a concept that Nicole Osibodu, XOXO and I have coined inside Club Ichi as “embedded neurovitality.” 

It wasn't a wellness retreat. 

It was a series of thoughtful experiences that naturally released Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins. 

As Radha Agrawal wrote in Belong, it’s a D.O.S.E. of happiness. 

And as Nicole and I found in our Return on Emotion research, it’s also a blueprint for connection: Hope, Motivation, Acceptance, Activity, and Adventure.

These are good for your body, your brain, and your soul. 

Here are a few ways to weave that kind of neurovitality into your next event:

→ Make them feel like they belong. 
Immerse participants fast with stories, not lectures. Example: Our hosts gave us tartans to wear for a dinner at the Museum of Scotland, complete with a traditional bagpiper and a bagpipe pop-cover band! We felt like part of the story.

→ Connect your people with food. 
Local flavors, shared plates, chef stories, and playful takes on tradition (like haggis bonbons). Food bonds us faster than icebreakers.

→ Get them into nature. 
Hiking, off-roading, campfires, cold plunges (all of which we did!) taking people out of daily noise reconnects them to the earth, each other, and themselves.

If I had planned this experience, I would have added in a couple more things to round out the D.O.S.E.: Maybe a little time for guided reflection or journaling to anchor the moments, or a structured conversation circle to help us translate what we felt into how we leave. 

We don’t need to label something as “wellness” to make it good for us. 

We just need to design experiences where belonging, connection, and wonder are the deliverables.

So, as you think about your next event, I encourage you to not ask how you can add a wellness break, but instead ask how you can embed neurovitality into the DNA of your program so attendees don’t even realize they’re being healed while they’re being inspired. 

That’s when you stop running events and start creating emotional luxury.

#weareichi
#helloscotland
#EventMindsMatter

cc:
4x4 Adventures Scotland
Cameron House, Loch Lomond, Scotland
Virgin Hotels Edinburgh
National Museums Scotland
Rebecca Carr, CIS
Betsy Stewart
Elaine Elder
Amanda Hogg
Jenn Whittle
Kimberly Kapustein, CMP, CTSM
Kellie Blank
Anca Platon Trifan, CMP, WMEP
Wendy Porter

I have a confession to make: I stole our code of conduct from someone else. 

I don't think they mind, though. 

It was 2017 and Nicole Osibodu, XOXO were hosting our first Spontaneous Think Tank (it was called Haute Dokimazo back then) in San Diego and we were site visiting the venue... the children's museum. 

I came across this play zone and immediately took a picture. 

This is everything. 

This is how to be a good human. 

This is how we should act with each other. 

This became the core of how we gather:

 Be present
 Be purposeful
 Be generous
 Be whole-hearted
 Be patient
 Be just
 Be grateful
 Be a great listener
 Be creative
 Be playful
 Be mindful
 Be hopeful
 Be excited
 Be truthful
 Be hospitable
 Be adaptable
 Be kind
 Be forgiving
 Be joyful
 Be vulnerable
 Be courageous
 Be empathetic
 Be genuine
 Be friendly
 Be open-minded
 Be free

But we added one of our own:
Our only NO:
 No hard sales.

We believe that business relationships form naturally when you craft intentional spaces and conversations that allow for it. 

This is the Club Ichi way. 

#weareichi

SITE VISIT SELFIES!

Nicole Osibodu, XOXO and have been traveling the world on the hunt for our next Club Ichi Secret Family Reunion location.

We've found it.

Where did we choose?

There are no more ticket drops remaining, so follow our journey and live the FOMO at https://lnkd.in/eVCSdrNP



#weareichi
#sitevisitselfies

What if...

You offered customizable swag that really spoke to your prospects? (and helped you determine which message resonates the most with them!)


#attendeeengagement
#randomthoughtsbyLiz

📸 : Blackthorn + IMEX

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🎉 Get more ideas like this in our weekly newsletter, The Engaged Attendee. Subscribe at: https://lnkd.in/e3F8WEWH

What if...

You put a REAL theater in your booth for comfy, sound-blocking presentations?


#attendeeengagement
#randomthoughtsbyLiz

📸 : Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board + IMEX

---------
🎉 Get more ideas like this in our weekly newsletter, The Engaged Attendee. Subscribe at: https://lnkd.in/e3F8WEWH

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