PSO employees attended a series of professional development sessions for the first time in the annual meeting’s 25-year history. Expert panelists from around campus spoke about applied research, fundraising, storytelling, social styles and experiential learning in workshops sandwiched around an awards luncheon that drew nearly 400 to the Georgia Center.
The sessions were part of Vice President Jennifer Frum’s plan to make the day more fun and engaging, including a series of door prizes from campus units and t-shirts for employees.
“We wanted to make this meeting more inclusive, to draw a large number of PSO faculty and staff together to do something meaningful and useful. I think we accomplished that goal,” Frum said. “This is the largest crowd we’ve had for our luncheon and our professional sessions drew 202 people.”
The expanded format was an opportunity for PSO’s faculty and staff to not only learn from experts but each other, said the UGA Small Business Development Center’s Michael Myers.
“It’s great to bring everybody together because we all have one stripe of the beach ball that we’re good at,” Myers said. “We put it all together and we’ve got something that’s dynamic.”
Myers was enthusiastic about the morning session he attended on storytelling. He said he’d rarely considered how some of the challenges he helps entrepreneurs overcome could make compelling stories.
The Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s Gordon Maner was more familiar with fundraising before attending that workshop but he said the session inspired him to get more involved.
“I took some notes on people I want to call and some different ideas on gift-giving,” Maner said. “It’s reinvigorated me.”
