As you now, Valencia holds every year a Tennis Open of the 500 ATP World Tour. A tennis tournament that brings to the city some of the most relevant players of the circuit, and that takes place in one of the most astonishing tennis courts, The Agora Building, that is part of the City of Arts and Science Complex.

This year, we had the chance to interview David Serrahima, Executive Director of the Valencia Open 500 ATP World Tour. A great opportunity to know how to organize a big event like this one, what does the city offer and what makes it a unique place to hold events. Enjoy the video.

We spend time and money going to events but we not always obtain a clear return of the investment made. It depends on several factors related on the event but there are some tricks we would do we can use to increase the probability of success.

How to be an event master, a collection of tips and tricks to obtain something more than a bag full of papers and merchandising when going to events:

1. Do some previous homework: spend some time preparing the event reading about the speakers, taking a look at their websites and studying the schedule and the products that are going to be presented.
2. Don’t forget your business cards: you never know how many are you going to need, so put dozens into your pockets and even more in your bag.
3. Take pen and notebook: probably you will be presented with promotional pens an notebooks, but maybe you would need them before you hand them.
4. A photo camera and an audio recorder can be useful too: photos of slides or audio records can help you to catch interesting concepts and don’t miss a word. A tablet or a smartphone can help, but use it as a tool and not as a distraction.
5. Get there one hour before the first talk: yes, one hour before, so you can have a chance of having a personal meeting with the speakers or the event organizers. It should be a good opportunity to do networking.
6. Try to register the day before: registering in the event is a futile task, so try to avoid wasting your time filling forms during the event.
7. “Attack” the speakers: don’t be afraid to ask to the speakers, it would be better if you participate in the conversations generated during the event.
8. Set your own schedule: if there are options to choose in different meeting rooms, think about the convenience of assisting to one or another. Remember that you can’t clone yourself.
9. Stay until the end of the event: sometimes it’s hard to stay until the end but the last speaker can be the reason that justifies the day spent on the event.
10. Ask for more: if you are interested in more information, ask for more to speakers, event organizers or other people around you.

BONUS: 11. Join other people for lunch, dinner or a simple coffee: because an event is a good networking opportunity and the informal moments are the best for open business chances.

Link | Valencia’s Conference Centre, one of the bests of the world

Besides the Conference Center, Valencia also offers a unique and large International Trade Fair, with more than 90 years of experience and over 450,000 square meters of exhibition surface, which makes it the biggest of Spain and the 4th all around the World.

Situated very close to the city of Valencia, with an easy commute by bus, tram and car with both the city and the airport, Feria Valencia has a wide range of buildings and pavilions to offer, as well as some auditoriums and an incredible event center.

More than 58 events are held all year round, many of them world know like the international furniture fair Habitat Valencia, the ceramic fair Cevisama or Expo Jove (for kids and young people) that celebrates its 89th edition this year. In these events, more than 13,000 exhibitors place their stand and show their products and services to the world.

Feria Valencia, with its flexible buildings and pavilions, can be adapted to any kind of fair and event, from small ones to extremely big ones like Habitat Valencia. It offers large, open pavilions that can be arranged in any way needed, and that very well communicated between them.

The event centre is placed in an astonishing building, under a giant glass dome, that is the entrance to four levels of different meeting rooms and spaces that end in an enormous underground pavilion where large events can be held. Like the Millesime Weekend, a gastronomic event that transformed the pavilion in a small town, with its streets and squares, and where famous restaurants from all the country came to serve their best dishes.

Last year, more than 1,500,000 people from all around the world visited Feria Valencia and some of its 58 annual fairs, with an economic impact of more than one 1,000 million euros each year.

So, if you are planning any kind of event or fair, take in consideration Feria Valencia, because it’s not only one of the biggest trade fairs of the world, and also certificated with ISO 9002, but it’s placed in one of the most wonderful cities of Europe, Valencia, and incredible city with a wide cultural, gastronomica and leisure offer for those visiting it.

More information | Feria Valencia

The calendar is full of events of any kind. Professional and personal events take place every day but not all of them succeed. Only a few events stand out and are much better than average. But why? What makes them different?

Event management requires more than hard work. You need to know the secrets to give the public what they expect or even more. The following are ten key points that you must follow if you want to be a successful event manager:

1. Choose an appropriate data and time: try to avoid coincidences with other mass events, like important football matches or even Tv shows, like the premiere of the last chapter of Lost.
2. Choose the best place: don’t save costs in this chapter of the budget. People will be pleased to be in a representative building or in a very special place and this will help to transform the event experience into a positive message from the event responsible.
3. Prepare a program focused on public: think in your public and not in other people related with the event. Public is the first, so examine each little detail from start to end.
4. Work with the mystery factor: you can play with the mystery factor like Apple and other companies do to make your event more interesting.
5. Publish only the important information related to the event and avoid other less important. Don’t forget to mention clearly how to arrive directions and a detailed schedule.
6. Simplify the registration and accreditation processes as much as possible.
7. Demand your team a friendly attitude with the public.
8. If there is time for lunch, take in consideration being innovative and offer something new, but be careful with cultural differences related with gastronomy.
9. Invite someone with charisma who can contribute with a special point of view related with the event.
10. Avoid unnecessary commercial messages and always keep your promises with the public.

Bonus: You can’t always control all the factors and you must assume that not everything will go as planned. So there are a few extra rules to apply if something does not work as expected:

1. Be water my friend: Keep calm if things go wrong. You will have time for accountability after the event.
2. Be prepared to be very flexible, much more than you would think if is your first event managed.
3. Don’t try to cover unexpected expenses or mistakes that don’t reconcile the budget. Be always honest with your partners.

Link | The best speakers of all time

Happy New Year from everybody at www.meetyouinvalencia.com!

Yeah! A brand new year has started and all of us feel invigorated indeed with the prospects of the days to come, in which we’ll try our very best to achive all our personal and professional aims with the most positive attitude in the world!

At this site we encouraged you many times to be positive above all: we talked about the power of positive reinforcement in business, suggested ways of working, living and eating better, and even reinforced entrepeneurs with courage and some lessons.

We’re positive people indeed but one may wonder about the nature and limits of positive attitude in our personal and professional affairs, if one takes into account that New Year’s positive plans last for just two weeks!

There must be some reason indeed for such a mismatch between positive attitude and reluctant reality!

One interesting contemporary suggestion is that natural positive attitude has becomed lately in something like an imposed inflated ideology, anything but neutral, and prone to be delusional.

I’m quite sympathetic with the critical spirit at video above, as unveils the crucial difference between being positive as a natural attitude and being positive as an imposed ideology.

The one is an integral part of human nature and nurture that has been at the core of human life since its origins, helping us to cope with inclemencies in our very own lives.

The other is a dated ideological product promoted by the technologies of human life, stressing us to cope with inclemencies that by no means are a proper part of our very own lives.

The one preserves self-integration, the other preserves self-alienation.

Nobody has contributed so much lately to enlight and criticize the modern imposition of positive ideology than Barbara Ehrenreich in her best-seller last book ‘Smile or die’ (Granta, 2010), now translated into Spanish (Turner, 2011) –U.S.A title: ‘Bright-sided’ (Picador, 2010).

Even if she’s a first-line journalist and writer nonetheless one remarkable and interesting fact about Barbara’s Ehrenreich’s views about positive thinking is that they spring from her experience as a cancer patient –of course she adds all professional wisdom to extract and expand her experience to a wide range of aspects of modern life, especially working life.

If Barbara Ehrenreich is right at all, positive ideology is utterly trivial and eventually delusional: you may be the most positive person in the world but ‘your thoughts can’t change the world’ by clicking your fingers.

The only way in which ‘your thoughts can change the world’ is if you track the world so accurately as possible, knowing that at every decision in your life, it’s up to you to know when optimism lets you see the right side of things and when optimism doesn’t let you see things right.

Barbara Ehrenreich’s proposal is then perennial realism, a much more slippery artistry that can’t be packed and sold in bulk. I stick to it as far as I can and, when I hear about positive ideology, I whistle this post’s opening melody with some disturbing images in mind!

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Most people use to pay with credit card when shopping. It is a common payment method and there are several tech business trying to find new formulas to improve the actual systems and payment processes.

While we wait for the arrival of these systems, commerces need the POS to charge for their products and services. But some business are claiming for the high commissions that banks apply to these financial services. Despite this high fees, some professionals consider the POS an essential tool, but others are considering to give up and only accept cash. Is it worth for all kind of business to accept payments by credit card?

POS: Benefits of use for business

POS allows customers to pay with their credit cards, giving some benefits to them and also to the commerces:

• Better service to customers, who can choose between paying with cash or credit card.
• If customers can pay with credit card, they can access to financial options or discounts offered by banks to card holders.
• There is a lower number of treasury movements, being the workflow more secure and less money in cash at the end of the day.
• Also commerces need less visits to banks in order to get cash for cash back or to deposit the money in the bank account.
• All operations paid by credit card are clearly registered and there is less risk of robbery, or at least, there is less to be robbed from the cash register.

Some benefits of POS in commerces impact directly over their customers, who can access to products and services and also to financial services offered by banks to card holders. Commerces without POS can’t satisfy this kind of customers that want to finance operations. Low cost and turnover products and services demand less POS than other with higher costs and turnover.

How Much Does a POS System Cost?

POS costs depend on the bank and the customer’s profile. The most common fees charged for POS service by banks are:

• Monthly fee and maintenance: it depends on the POS system (it doesn’t cost the same a POS over DSL than other over 3G networks) and customer’s profile.
• Operation fee (and minimum amount): It depends on customer’s profile.
• Hardware deposit: It depends on the bank, sometimes they ask for a deposit that is returned when the service is canceled and the hardware is in perfect condition. If you work with your own POS, you don’t need to pay this deposit.
• Extra annual turnover: It sound unusual but some banks charge if annual turnover exceeds a sum. It’s more frecuent when you pay a flat rate.
• Phone calls: when POS work over land-line or mobile.

Taking a look to the costs we can conclude that POS are not for all commerces. The ones selling low cost and turnover products will obtain less benefits than others with higher rotation and turnover products. For example, a butcher or a bakery doesn’t need a POS, whereas it’s a must have for a computer shop.

Achieving a return from a POS

It’s hard to achieve a return from POS to business with a low annual turnover. In order to improve the POS return and avoid to lose customers and money, we can develop some strategies:

• Show the POS to customers.
• Tell to the customers that they can pay with credit card.
• Re- negotiate the POS conditions with your bank.
• Work with other banks if they offer better conditions.
• Check if your POS hardware is the right for your business: 3G over mobile networks is good for cabs but not necessary for a computer store, and maybe more expensive than other solutions based in DSL.

If you can’t find a revenue with your POS, maybe the problem is that your business does not require a POS to charge transactions. Or perhaps the problem is that you don’t have a good annual turnover and you must act in other fields before taking in consideration the POS systems.

Link | Payment gateways are not running fast

When we talked about Christmas celebrations I told you about people, like myself, who let sweet traditions aside as they prefer some peculiar sweet thing that is his or her lifetime sweet love affair.

Sometimes is mommy’s or auntie’s or granny’s sweet thing, and sometimes some particular local sweet speciality that has been present at every special moment from childhood on.

Valencian people have many of these places at heart, as the four ones I’m introducing to you next. As in the case of traditional bars, they add up to three hundred years old surviving at the heart of town seducing costumers with supreme prime ingredients and tradition at its very best.

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Even if La Rosa de Jericó dates from 1890, opened at Valencia city in 1923: always at the core of town and always under the meticulous handcrafted guidance of the Jericó dinasty, now in its fourth generation with Carlos ahead.

Jericó is not just the oldest but perhaps the most prestigious and beloved in town. Prestige comes from any of their versatile specialities –as meringues, English cakes or chocolat coated oranges– any of their special recreations or their astonishingly decorated shop windows, as top image here. Love comes from its unique place in Valencian life even literature –think Tranvía a la Malvarrosa. By the way, Jericó embodies a small coffee shop in which you may enjoy any of their specialities.

Chocolates Hilario Martínez opened in 1931 right at the core of town offering all kinds of chocolats until coining what soon became one of the sweet emblemas of town: their unique chocolat truffles: incredibly light and tasty and lovely coated with top chocolat shavings, they are an integral part in the life of many Valencian couples indeed!

Besides their well-known truffles and their famous cubanitos Martínez holds a rather unknow cave of true chocolat treasures: astonishingly handcrafted and handpainted pieces of art that will be an instant must for any chocolat lover –just see our featured picture with Silk Market handpainted with and in the best chocolat!

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Pastelería Villanueva opened in 1947, following the top quality of early-century La Universal. Now in its second generation with Valentín Villanueva ahead, is a visual and gastronomical reference point for Valencian people who can’t fail to walk by its strategycally placed and carefully preserved lovely façade, below, more than once a week.

Villanueva offers the full range of a top pastry shop and even if specializes in Capuccino, Cardenal and English cakes, is especially involved in recovering forgotten Valencian specialities.

Last but not least comes Notre Dame, opened in 1969 at L’Eixample Quarter, a.k.a. as La Francesa as it was the very first confectionary shop in town in offering French specialities, mostly pastries as their top croissants and chocolats as their exquisite pralinés.

Notre Dame is the only one of all four that has been fully renewed as a modern confectionary and coffee shop including a wide open air terrace; even if renewal has erased some of its charming traces it has widened its functionality and possibilities so that you may have in there one of the most exquisite and comfortable breakfasts or afternoon teas in town.

Awarded in 2010 by the AIPC as the best convention centre of the world, Valencia’s conference centre is one of the greatest business attractions of the city. It’s a unique conference venue, with a wide offer of auditoriums and meeting rooms that suit perfectly events of any kind and size.

Designed by Norman Foster Architects and inaugurated in 1998 –with a new expansion project just announced– Valencia’s conference centre has caught the attention of event managers around the world, and is considered one of the bests of the world, if not the most.

Its fame is based not only on the flexibility of the different spaces to hold any kind of event, but also in the great design and comfort of each of this rooms and auditoriums, which I am going to talk you about now.

Three Auditoriums

The conference centre has three auditoriums, each of them of different size. The biggest one can hold up to almost 1,500 people, and in combination with its great acoustic, layout, design and equipment, is ideal for big acts and ceremonies, as many international companies have already done. Video and audio can be transferred to the other two auditoriums, which with the first one, sum up to 2,250 people attending the same event.

The second auditorium can seat almost 500 people in a semicircular arrangement with desks, ideal for conferences, seminars and other active audience events. The third one is a very flexible multi-purpose hall, with a capacity of more than 250 people; its mobile layout can be adapted to any need, be it a great meeting table, a small presentation, a workshop… even stands can be placed and catering served.

Break out rooms

As I said, one of the conference centre’s most valuable feature is its flexibility. In this direction, it offers nine break out rooms that can be arranged in any way needed, and that were thought to hold comfortably all those activities around big events and conferences.

For example, if you are holding a great conference in the main auditorium, this rooms can be used as small offices for the speakers, as parallel seminar or workshop rooms… or even dining rooms. They are perfect ancillary rooms that add smaller spaces suitable for those activities that need a closer approach between the participants.

Multipurpose rooms

To complete the wide range of rooms and auditoriums, there ara two large multipurpose rooms, one on each floor, both overlooking the hall and with a magnificent natural illumination.

As the rest of the building, they are thought and equipped to hold any kind of event. They can be divided with movable panels in order to provide small offices or rooms, and stands can also be installed.

This way, it can provide the perfect space for any kind of meeting or ceremony; conventions, product launches, cocktail events or seated dinners, and even exhibitions or concerts.

Other facilities

One of the most remarkable spaces of Valencia’s Conference Centre is the magnificent foyer. An open space of more than 1,000m2, bathed with the city’s unique light, that invites the visitor to stroll around, enjoying at the same time the landscape and the protection that the brise-soleil offer.

It’s a great space to hold exhibitions, cocktails, trade shows or anything you can imagine, as the possibilities are almost unlimited. Other facilities within the conference centre are: press rooms, dressing rooms, parking area, reception, cloakroom and VIP Lounges.

As you see, there are good reasons to claim Valencia’s Conference Centre as one of the bests of the world, as it offers a unique wide range of rooms and auditoriums of all kind and sizes, capable of being adapted to hold whatever event you have in mind.

More information | Valencia’s Conference Centre

Outsourcing is the process of contracting a third party to develop a task or a job. This strategy has grown up in the last years, specially in the Tech Industry, by small, medium and large companies.

The kind of tasks that business can subcontract are those that don’t deliver value to customers and are not into their core business.

When business outsource activities, they can reach some benefits. The following are some examples:

• Focusing on Core Business.
• Cost savings and restructuring, decreasing the operating leverage.
• Working with a new service level agreement, in order to improve quality.
• Access to best practices, talent and knowledge.
• Better management capacity and less risks assumed because some of them are borne by suppliers.
• Better scalability to respond to market fluctuations.

But also business can find some disadvantages too when outsourcing activities:

• Knowledge outsourced: Banks sometimes don’t learn the technology on the lowest level, what leaves the real understanding of what is actually done under the hood.
• Support level: When design, development and implementation stages are finished, you have to assume maintenance.
• Extra organization effort: registering projects, tasks, managing formal communications, preparing and signing agreements and checking specifications.
• Costs: Subcontracting can be cheaper, but it can be more expensive too.
• Lack of control and influence: The level of control and ability to influence work of an internal team is higher than when external companies do something for you. It’s not easy to control subcontractors as you wished.

Is outsourcing a fashion or it will be with us for a long time?

Due to the benefits that outsourcing gives business that choose this strategy, and considering the actual situation of crisis, it’s easy to think that outsource activities are not a fashion. Outsource Magazine asked the top leaders in tech areas about the future of outsourcing strategies, publishing the results in this article (recommended lecture).

The words of this 43 prominent figures in Tech Industry are very interesting and we can highlight some of them:

• Stan Lepeak (Director, Global Research, Management Consulting at KPMG) More of the same: economics and debt continue to drag on the market. Buyers continue to build out and tweak global business services capabilities with an emphasis on more shared services, especially nearshore, and more investment into emerging markets (China, Brazil, India), following the growth path of their own revenue models, though (relative) slowdown in those markets will contribute to sluggish market growth.
• Peter Smith (Owner, Procurement Excellence) My two topics of greatest personal interest are procurement outsourcing and the UK public sector. I predict good news and bad news. Procurement outsourcing I think will see increased activity, but it won’t be the “big bang”, “ship everything offshore” model. Rather, it will be senior procurement and finance people looking to get third-party support for critical elements of their procurement activity. That might be on a category-by-category basis, or support in areas such as supplier information management or similar.
• Mike Nefkens (Senior Vice President & General Manager EMEA, HP Enterprise Services) In the coming year, I think we will witness a fundamental sea-change in the way IT services are outsourced. Cloud has come along and given IT departments the ability to procure flexible services which they can dial up and dial down to meet demand. I believe that IT outsourcing will evolve to meet this emphasis on flexibility. Indeed, over the last 12 months we have already started to see a move away from the vast, all-encompassing IT outsourcing deals and towards more bespoke contracts delivering a hybrid model, in which organisations can cherry-pick the services they outsource.
• John Lutz (General Manager Global Process Services, IBM) The search for “non-core” business processes misses the mark. If it relates to the success of your company – and everything your company does contributes to its success – then it matters. The question really ought to be: does it make sense for my company to perform certain processes, or would we be better served entrusting them to an expert whose sole business it is to perform and continuously optimise those processes?

Link | The power of Positive Reinforcement in business
Image | Martin Cathrae

Maps applications have become must have apps in every smartphone. Every mobile platform has tons of services based in maps to get their users to the place they are looking for.

Directions, business around, where to eat, free WiFi hotspots or check-ins are some examples of applications based in maps. Nowadays, people who manage a business must pay attention to this channel and develop a specific strategy for it.

Why maps are important for my business? Because if you’re on a map, you can be located by potential customers and transform a search into a satisfied client.

Five strategies related to marketing in map applications

1. Attract attention of people when they are browsing an online map, by using something “different”. A good example is those business placed something special in their rooftops, like a big logo or a funny text. Some examples here.
2. Pay attention to source databases or data provided by users in maps applications. Double check if all the data of your business is right and correct quickly any mistake (directions, category, phone numbers, opening and closing hours…). Do this periodically because sources are updated from time to time and you do want people to find you.
3. Pay attention to top lead maps applications, and double check all data related with your business. Are they all OK? If so, it’s time to go to the next point.
4. Review comments left about your business, if social functionality is allowed. Even if they are negative or even impolite, you must not try to fight back. It’s better to try to make that bad comment on something positive by applying some some social media strategy, even asking for a professional service if you don’t have experience in social channels.
5. Maybe check-in apps like Foursquare are only a temporally fashion for geeks. Or maybe not, and they are here to stay for a long time and evolve. Fashion or not, they have now millions of users (Foursquare recently celebrated 10.000.000 million users!) sharing their locations and comments, and also searching for places and offers around their positions. What can we do with our business? Check your business data showed by Foursquare, study how your competitors are working on this social service and then think about the convenience of publishing special offers to check-in apps users.

Some examples of websites working with data based on maps or directions where you can develop a marketing strategy:

• 11870.com: the most popular in Spain, with thousands of opinions, photos and videos uploaded by more than 67.000 users. Of course, Valencia has its own section (Link).
• Foursquare: Check-in in places that you visit and find offers around you. Of course, don’t forget to check-in if you come to Valencia (Link).
• Facebook Places: Share where you are with your friends, see where friends are and discover new places. This is what offers the number one social network to their users (Link).
• Around me: How many times have you found yourself in need of finding the closest gas station, a cash machine or a Italian restaurant? AroundMe allows you to quickly find out information about your surroundings (Link).
• Google Maps: The number one maps application for tons of users. In addition to the classic web version, Google Maps is present in every iPhone and Android smartphone. Homework: Try to imagine how much this app is used every day (Link).
• Bing Maps: it’s the alternative from Microsoft to other maps services. It’s not as powerful as Google Maps but it works fine and gives you a second opinion if needed (Link).

Image | Julie Gibbons