MTI’s Business Events Draw a Broad Audience
MTI’s business events are born out of conversations with customers, business partners, legislators and academics.
When Minnesota Technology, Inc. (MTI) hosted a business event titled, “Planning for the Aging Work force,” the number of attendees didn’t surprise Lynn Shelton, MTI’s director of marketing and communications. After all, the timely topic of aging workers was something she knew MTI’s clients and colleagues were interested in. “We’ve heard for quite some time from business clients and others that the aging work force is creating great challenges for how we are going to replace workers one-for-one in the future,” says Shelton. “We developed this event to bring some real-world business solutions to this important topic.” What Shelton didn’t realize was how thirsty attendees at the event — which was held once in the Twin Cities and once in Mankato — were for good business information.
“The audience at both events was really quite broad,” Shelton says. “We had people there from manufacturing and related industries, from economic development organizations, from academia. This is really an important topic to a lot of different people.”
By creating and hosting business events on topics — like the aging work force — that are relevant to broad audiences, MTI hopes to help create solutions that work for Minnesota manufactures and those in related industries.
As a result, MTI’s business events are often born out of conversations with customers, business partners, legislators and academics. The key, Shelton says, is to listen to what they’re talking about. “We ask our customers what’s impacting business in their areas, what they think folks need to know more about, what kind of events they think we should hold.”
Among the topics scheduled for events this year are: “Finding Profit Through Lean,” “Understanding Supply Chain,” “Enhancing the Value of Your Business” and “Product Development.” Like the work force program, upcoming events are generally held in two locations — once in the metro area, and once in greater Minnesota. Already, two organizations have expressed interest in hosting similar aging work force events later this year.
That’s just fine with Shelton. “I’m pleased that MTI has been able to contribute solutions to topics that many of our customers find so relevant,” she says. “We view it as our role to be the coalescer of relevant content to help with business issues.”
For more information about MTI’s business events, visit our Training & Events page.
— Sara Gilbert