Guest Blog Post from Barbara Scofidio SKIFT Meeting
March 28th, 2025
IMEX Head of Programming Tahira Endean lives and breathes creativity. So it makes perfect sense that she would dream up the idea of categorizing ‘joy’ as a KPI — and then write an entire book about it.
Tahira Endean was effusive as she shared a comment from a reader of her brand-new book, Our KPI is JOY: How Live Events Catalyze, Happiness, Productivity and Trust.
The event manager reader complimented her on reframing success in events through a new lens: “I’ve spent years chasing attendance metrics and ROI, but your insights have me rethinking how we measure magic,” she said.
The book is Endean’s second about business events; her first, Intentional Event Design, which she wrote in 2017, has become a playbook for the industry.
Skift Meetings sat down with Endean, head of programming at IMEX, to learn more.
Joy is certainly a different KPI than people in the events industry are used to. How did you come up with that?
We need different ways to talk to our stakeholders. Going to an event isn’t just about the people that you add to your CRM. So you have more names in your CRM — they don’t mean anything if you don’t follow up with them and haven’t had a connection with them.
And so I thought, what if our KPI was actually joy? And it’s explored in the book in a lot of different ways. How do we create our events so they are an experience where everybody wants to be there? That’s almost impossible, right? But it’s not impossible, it’s just really difficult.
Soft skills are often downplayed by top management. But aren’t emotions connected to work performance?
At the end of the day, we’re doing business, but if we’re doing business and we’re miserable about it, you’re not going to give good customer service, and customers aren’t going to be happy. If you’re not feeling any kind of happiness at work, you’re not going to be productive. You’re not going to build trust with your teammates or with your clients. You’re not going to be able to move forward….
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Barbara Scofidio
Barbara Scofidio, Editor at Skift Meetings, is an industry-leading editor with over 30 years of experience in travel, meetings, and incentives. A founding member of SITE’s Women IN Leadership committee, she has spearheaded numerous face-to-face events and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. Barbara is passionate about advancing green meetings, CSR, and raising awareness of human trafficking within the meetings and travel industry. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Above and Beyond Foundation, which awards life-changing grants to front-line hotel employees.
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