A Love of Learning: The Value That Powers MeetGreen

We Love to Learn

At MeetGreen, one of our core values is a love of learning. During hiring, we seek team members who identify as lifelong learners—people who not only share our passion for growth but also thrive on challenges. These qualities go hand in hand, driving our success.

As an agile business, our survival for three decades is owed to our thriving on challenges and our love of learning—two core values that work together. We have faced economic downturns, pandemics, constant change, and unpredictable external forces. Our focus on learning not only helps us adapt but also fuels the creative innovation needed to address these challenges and tell our story.

Learning and Creativity

Learning and creativity are deeply interconnected; learning provides the foundation of knowledge needed for creativity, while creativity enhances the learning process by improving problem-solving, motivation, and retention. Learning environments can encourage creative approaches such as:

• Experimentation
• Curiosity
• Flexible thinking

Helping stakeholders not only grasp new concepts but also apply them in original and innovative ways.

Real World Example

MeetGreen’s Senior Event Lead, Denise Barker, shared an excellent case study as an example.

“Recently, the MeetGreen team produced ROSCon in Singapore. Because ROSCon moves each year, we regularly face new challenges at international events—such as time zones, communication, currency, and vendor expectations.

The Impact of Time Difference

One of the first challenges for this event was the time difference. Singapore is 15 hours ahead of the U.S. West Coast, which meant we had to plan deadlines carefully. A Friday due date for our partners often meant Thursday for us. We also shifted our schedules, staying online later in the evenings so we could take calls at the start of their workday and respond to emails quickly.

Variations in Communication Preferences

We also continued to see variations in communication preferences among international vendors. Our team prefers email for its ability to preserve clear records, but in Singapore, many vendors rely heavily on WhatsApp. This created challenges with tracking information, so we adapted by taking screenshots of key conversations to maintain an accurate record. In addition, language differences sometimes made written communication tricky. We’ve found that sending photos of items or examples often bridges those gaps more effectively than text alone.

Understanding the Differences in Vendor Roles and Service Offerings

Another consistent challenge is understanding the differences in vendor roles and service offerings across countries. ROSCon includes an exhibit hall, which means working with general service contractors, decorators, exhibition planners, and more. It’s essential to ask detailed questions to understand where one vendor’s responsibilities end and another’s begin. We learned this lesson the hard way during an event in China, where, upon arrival, we nearly had to operate pallet jacks ourselves to move freight because of unclear vendor expectations.

Onsite Challenges

Onsite, the challenges continued to present their own complexities. The convention center required floor plans and event orders to be approved each time a change was made. Going into the event, we understood that the duty manager would closely monitor these documents and that onsite adjustments would need to be minimal. To prepare, we built in some flexibility ahead of time, such as ordering extra tables, so we could make small layout adjustments ourselves once we saw how everything fit together.

In the end, ROSCon went smoothly, and we look forward to the next set of challenges.”

Denise exemplifies MeetGreen’s love of learning value, continuously exploring and using creativity to overcome challenges through strong leadership.