Northwest Events + Events Magazine featured Geoteaming CEO, John Chen, in their Fall 2018 magazine.

Click for PDF – 181125 Northwest Meetings Events Magazine – The Business Playground John Chen

Being a morning person isn’t a prerequisite
for success in the meetings
and events industry, but it certainly
doesn’t hurt. Fortunately for Geoteaming
CEO John Chen, “the early bird gets
the worm” is a lesson he learned in
childhood, delivering morning papers
on his route in Stockton, California. He
channeled that work ethic into a career
as a sponsored amateur skateboarder,
before graduating from the University
of California at Santa Barbara with a
computer science degree and moving to
Seattle to work at Microsoft.

Twenty-one years ago, Chen parlayed
his love of technology to found
Geoteaming, an award-winning company
that helps people learn to work
together through organized play. Since
its founding, Geoteaming has planned
more than 1,800 team-building events,
many of which involve several thousand
people. Chen is also the author of “50
Digital Team-Building Games” (available
at wiley.com).

“One of my favorite stories is organizing
a 3,000-person team-building event
for two collaborating pharmaceutical
companies,” he says. “During that event,
more than 60 people worked together
to help teams bat in the visiting team’s
batting cage, shoot T-shirts at targets in
the stands and build the new company
logo out of 4,000 cans of food.”

Chen, a self-described “big kid,” says
that what he loves about the industry
are the people. “I’ve gotten to meet
some of the coolest people I know. …
I can walk around almost any industry
event and know someone. I love that I’ve
gotten to know so many different kinds
of businesses by working with them.”

His advice for anyone looking to work
in the industry is first to find out if it is
something they love to do by joining
Meeting Professionals International, volunteering
for a local chapter or interning
and meeting as many people as possible.
“Learn to go to as many industry-learning
events [as you can], and then apply what
you can at your next event,” Chen says.
Get Connected

GEOTEAMING | geoteaming.com
206.856.8491 | john@geoteaming.com

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