Bringing top-notch technology and education to the professional beauty industry for yet another year, The Millennium Experience three-day conference, hosted by Millennium Systems International and held at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in June, featured inspiring speakers, main stage presentations and classes. The conference theme, Game On, kicked off with playTME.com, a conference-specific Web app for attendees. “We introduced playTME.com this year as a way to further engage our audience,” said Marketing and Advertising Manager Jennifer Martinelli. “The goal of the event was to learn and share ideas, and playTME.com brought that into play like never before.” The app encouraged audience members to tweet and re-tweet via Twitter; the more they did, the more points they earned, which were redeemed for prizes including a Surface Pro tablet and a free year of Meevo software. “In the few years that I’ve been with Millennium and helped host The Millennium Experience, I’ve never felt an audience so excited and ready to share and network,” said Martinelli.
John Harms, international founder and CEO of the company, took the stage on day one, unveiling the future of gaming and motivating employees. “The game is on to continue evolving our companies and motivating employees,” Harms said. “Game On is a battle cry to accept change, embrace where our clients want to take us, and at the same time, continue to focus on growing our businesses and making our employees successful.” A social-meets-gaming concept is what’s behind Meevo’s new Success Center, which offers challenges and badges to salons and stylists for achieving goals.
Robert Cromeans, Martino Cartier, Kelly Ehlers and Winn Claybaugh were just a few of the notable presenters at this year’s conference. Breakout classes covered business information, while Main Stage educators, including Claybaugh, dean and co-founder of Paul Mitchell Schools, and motivational speaker Scott Burrows, inspired and moved attendees. On stage, Paul Mitchell The School Miami students, led by Cromeans, hosted a hair show embracing the Game On theme, with models wearing spray-painted football helmets and gear.
“Leaving this conference isn’t game over, it’s actually game on; game on to implement the things that you’ve learned from being here,” Harms said.
For more information, visit harms-software.com/experience.
✂ —Kristen Heinzinger