World Education Congress - WEC 2013 in Las Vegas!

On July 20 - 23, four lucky MPI BCIT students had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Las Vegas to attend MPI's annual World Education Congress. This four-day event consisted of networking, educational seminars, workshops, fun activities, and many more.

Upon returning home, Shivani, the President of MPI BCIT, and Jennifer, the VP of Events were buzzing with excitement and stories about WEC 2013. Here is what they have to say about this memorable experience:

"These past few days, I was lucky enough to meet and learn from members of MPI from across the world at the WEC 2013 conference in Vegas! Along with Jennifer Wong, Vivek Punwani and Wilfred Chan of MPI BCIT, we heard some great speakers, grew our international professional network and talked to people with the most interesting jobs. 

MPI member jobs spanned across tourism industries, but a lot of the people I talked to were involved in hotel sales, corporate travel, and event planning. 

Absolute highlights include talks from these powerful professionals, and I encourage everyone to check them out! 

1) Candy Chang, artist and urban planner - gave a heartfelt talk on designing spaces to make them more social and human. Check her out here. 

2) Jessica Jackley, founder of KIVA micro-financing corporation. She taught us great lessons on how to use business to solve poverty, and reminded us that we can pull business lessons from any source. Check her out here.

Conferences are great sources for inspiration, so I hope you get to dive into one soon!" -- Shivani

"The World Education Congress (WEC) 2013 in Las Vegas is definitely an event to remember. This was my first WEC I have ever attended and I was sure amazed! The keynote speakers and educational seminars were very insightful and interesting. 

My most memorable experience at WEC was the Helping Hands session. Together with Diane and Luke, two professionals I had just met, we were able to assemble a prosthetic hand. All the prosthetic hands assembled would go to victims of land mine accidents and amputees. After we assembled the prosthetic hand, we decorated the carrying bag and wrote a personal letter to the person that would receive the hand. It was very touching to know that we are able to change the life and build an emotional connection to a stranger across the world. In this one 2-hour session, we were able to assemble over 300 hands and in turn change over 300 peoples’ lives. Wow, now that is something to be proud of!" -- Jennifer

To read more about WEC 2013, you can visit MPI's events page here. Their MPI OnSite publication, WEC blogs and social media links at the bottom of the page give great details and highlights of the event. MPI HQ has already announced that next year's World Education Congress will be held in Minneapolis. If you were unable to attend this year, or would like to experience WEC again, WEC 2014 in Minneapolis is another opportunity!

Sock Wars!

So it's crunch time at BCIT -- although when isn't it?! We've seen students are wearing their pajamas to school, carrying pillows around with them... it's a rough scene. What these students really need is a little pick-me-up. Something that evokes energy and inspiration! What better to get people pumped up than a game of......                         SOCK WARS!

Don't worry, I didn't know what it was either before I read this. Sock Wars is designed to bring students closer by pinning them against each other. Makes sense, right? 

Well to better explain what Sock Wars really is, check out this awesome video compiled by BCIT students in collaboration of the BCITMA: Spy vs Spy Teaser Video (link leads to YouTube).

All details on are on Facebook event page. Click here to let us know you want to play!

How to Play:
1 - Sign up in the Great Hall Feb.19-22nd, $2 min. donation
     Tuesdsay 11:30-12:30
     Wednesday 12:30-1:30
     Thursday 11:30-12:30, 1:30-3pm
     Friday TBA
2 - Obtain a CLEAN sock
3 - Feb. 25th, you will be emailed a picture of your target and a phone number of "M" whom you report all of your successful hits to.
4 - HIT YOUR TARGET!!
5 - Once you hit your target, you must pursue their target as your new target and report your success to "M"
6 - on March 1st last person standing WINS!!

Rules:
1. "Hitting" is only valid if it is with at a sock, and a CLEAN one
3. Labs, Lectures and mandatory team meetings off limits. All other times a free-for-all!
4. BCIT campus in bounds, elsewhere out of bounds
5. IMMUNITY is awarded to anyone during the time they are wearing socks on both hands
6. all's fair in love and WAR, Have fun :)

The $2 min. donation goes towards the MPI Endowment Fund which will help future students obtain an education that would be out of their grasps in normal circumstances.

Wise Words from Liz King

Liz King

Liz King, a sought after event planner from New York took the time to hang out in a Starbucks and Skype with some students from BCIT. Tina Nguyen and Albert Yee led MPI BCIT's February General Meeting and invited Liz to share her experience. Exceeding our expectations, Liz offered golden advice on both how to connect with people in business and the steps to creating a personal brand!



As students we always want to know… where do we start? How do we break into the industry? How do we meet people in the industry? The answer? Twitter. Liz King had some great (and simple) advice that anyone can follow – literally!

King talked about how following interesting people and following the people they are following is a great way to learn about what going on in the industry. Use hashtags specific to an industry to discover trends or hot topics. After sitting back and watching, Liz started to share content she was interested in and then started engaging and commenting on other peoples content. Eventually, Liz began to create her own content. She said, “it’s a great way to meet people!”

Wait, who are you?

Another specialty of Liz’s – as if she didn’t already do enough! – is discussing personal branding. Now, as a student at BCIT we’ve all heard the spiel from Tracey, but a personal brand really is important!! Liz’s tips are:

•  Figure out what is unique about YOU. Something simple but distinguishing.
• Communicate who you are quickly. Someone should know something about you after only 10-15 seconds on your page. Capture them.
• Be prepared to brag a bit! Now is not a time to be modest.

Use these tips in your LinkedIn profile, Twitter bio and other social media tools (Facebook is generally for personal use – check your privacy settings!) and you will be on the road to making a professional online first impression.

Technology, you move to fast!

Now the question came up from an audience member: how do you learn about all this new technology flying out into cyberspace? Her answer: techy blogs! Sites such as mashable.com and techcrunch.com offer information on the latest trends in technology. The latest thing according to Liz? RFID.

My new favourite tool? Word clouds.

From Student to Industry

A common theme of things to make sure you have when entering the workforce is experience. Thankfully, Liz considers education experience! Students are always wondering how to nail down that dream job even though they have no industry experience. Liz’s advice is always be learning. Although having an education and learning as much as you can is important, it’s not always what you know, but who you know.

Making connections is vital in business and easier to make than you may think! Networking and volunteering are two great ways to meet great people. Meeting them is half the battle, it’s very important that once you’ve met them you:

• Follow up!
• Add them on LinkedIn with a PERSONALIZED message.
• Ask them to meet for coffee. 

Now is the perfect time to play the student card and learn as much as you can from industry members willing to share.

The MPI BCIT team would like to thank Liz King for chatting with us and we hope to hear from her again!

Want to learn more about Liz? Check out her company page: http://lizkingevents.com

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Link BC Student Case Competition

Colleen Smith, Chanelle Gale, Shivani Mukerji, and Leslie Lessard

On Sunday, November 4, 2012, four members of MPI BCIT competed in the 6^th Annual Link BC Case Competition. The BCIT team, consisting of Chanelle Gale, Leslie Lessard, Shivani Mukerji, and Colleen Smith, placed first in their category, competing against five other teams. The event took place during the HOST BC conference, and brought together students studying in tourism and hospitality programs across BC.

Competition Awards during the Premier and Cabinet Luncheon

All of the teams were asked to come up with packages and marketing plan that could be implemented at one of the 18 Coast hotels across BC. The teams only had five hours to complete the marketing plan once given the location of the hotel and the official question.  The locations were randomly drawn. The BCIT team created four packages for Coast Hotel & Convention Centre Langley City included a mancation, a family cultural experience, and a romantic couples getaway grouped together with the phrase “Relive, remember, and renew at BC’s best coast.”

You can check out all of the presentations at slideshare.net/LinkBC (BCIT's presentation is the first one).

Congratulations Team BCIT!

BCIT First Year Marketing Panel