What I learned at EventTech

Spent a couple of days last week at EventTech.  Mostly consumer trends, many of which will trickle into b-to-b, some less so.  The most innovative, but perhaps least applicable, are the alcohol companies, as they have to work around so many restrictions.  (Like cannot directly invite anyone to a sampling event.  Social media was made for them.)

Lots of campaigns focused on near-field RFID with badges or wristbands.  Big push to register for event via Facebook and thereby have access to the full Facebook database on the registrant, as well as ongoing links back to their page to push updates to their network.

Favorite new tool (see below):  Sifteo.  If you Google one thing from this post, check that out.

Books: 

Phil Simon: The Age of the Platform (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple as case studies for thinking beyond a product to a suite of products that constantly evolve)

Carmine Gallo:  The Power of Foursquare

Foursquare is much more broadly interesting than I gave it credit for.  Big trend now is to implant branded location-based “tips”.  Interesting potential for associations to provide almost a tour of the city they are in, particularly for shows with outreach potential, such as AIA assigning AIA-branded tips and points of interest to all the interesting architecture in the city they are in.

Cheap Useful Tools:

1. Prezi. Replaces ppt.  Free for basic version.
2. 99Designs.com.  Crowdsource design proposals.  Only pay for the design you use.  Starts at $295.
3. Yorn.  Combination of audience response system and Twitter.  Pretty useful way to use a Twitter-like platform to add another level of interaction at a session.  Starts at $450.
4. Ustream.tv.  Let’s anyone produce ustream video.  Free with ads or starts at $99.
5. Heywatch.  Converts video from one format to another, easily, cheaply.
6. Animoto.  Set a photo montage to music.  Free or $39/month for Pro version.  Professional way to create post-event “video” case studies, as text can be included throughout.
7. Zentation: Syncs video and ppt after the fact.  Free for YouTube version.

For my use, Yorn and Animoto seemed to have the most potential.

Cool emerging tech for engagement tool

Sifteo:  1” LCD video cubes that “sense” positioning (gyroscopic), proximity, and can act as push buttons.  Use for interactive games in exhibitor or association booth. Reposition cubes to solve puzzles or word games, for example.  $150/set.  Totally addictive to play with.

 

Social Media Aggregation

Twitter walls, etc are examples of “social proof”: you’re more comfortable doing things you see others doing.

1. CrowdReel:  Twitter photos.  Use to encourage attendees to post photos on Twitter and create a photo Twitter wall.  Or aggregate photos from the event on web site, etc.
2. Feedmagnet: Twitter moderator tool

Twilio: API to create apps that create SMS or voice messaging, inbound (customer service) or outbound (alerts).  Walmart uses to automatically convert their “Deal of the Day” tweets into SMS texts.

VanguardID makes near-field RFIP badges, wristbands, tabs.

Access Pass&Design…cool looking badges, etc.

Digital crowdsourcing

Incredibly powerful, but requires very large, rabid base.  Distinguish between core fans (actively communicate) and fans (passive), and assume only 20% of core fans will participate.  Then apply geographic screen for local events.  Requires Community Manager.

Key trends in consumer case studies

Starting promotions online and/or locally that culminate at the national event.  Use Facebook/Twitter/YouTube to build competition, fan base, accept submissions, crowdsource voting…  This works as well for b-to-b events as for consumer…see “Generation Green” YouTube video campaign for GreenBuild.

Register for consumer event using Facebook…all Facebook data moves with registration into your database.  Participants willing as it saves time registering, and they continue to be linked to Facebook:  use nearfield RFID chip in their badge or wrist band to interact with games, to get their photo taken and automatically upload to their feed.  Could be done just as easily with bar codes.  Does this work for b-to-b?  Just in its infancy, but you’re starting to see some events allow registration using Facebook or LinkedIn, and apps like eventSocial to use social media to reach out to friends after registering.

 

Belonging and Performance

So much of the social sciences applies to marketing and events–motivation, how people behave in groups, learning styles…

Here’s an interesting study I ran across in the Boston Globe, though the abstract below is from PsycNET. People are motivated by feeling like they are part of something larger.  Even for tasks that are not team-based, like solving math problems. They showed that the sense of belonging is easily created: by reading about a social group, by sharing a birthday, by being assigned to an arbitrary group, or by having something unrelated in common.

Even more important, the extra boost of motivation continued for several days after the initial exposure to the social cues.

Four experiments examined the effect on achievement motivation of mere belonging, a minimal social connection to another person or group in a performance domain. Mere belonging was expected to increase motivation by creating socially shared goals around a performance task. Participants were led to believe that an endeavor provided opportunities for positive social interactions (Experiment 1), that they shared a birthday with a student majoring in an academic field (Experiment 2), that they belonged to a minimal group arbitrarily identified with a performance domain (Experiment 3), or that they had task-irrelevant preferences similar to a peer who pursued a series of goals (Experiment 4). Relative to control conditions that held constant other sources of motivation, each social-link manipulation raised motivation, including persistence on domain-relevant tasks (Experiments 1–3) and the accessibility of relevant goals (Experiment 4). The results suggest that even minimal cues of social connectedness affect important aspects of self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

You could argue that an unconscious but compelling reason people come to events is to get this stimulating social “high”.  And, as event organizers, we can work these basic social interactions into the learning environment.

 

Mere belonging: The power of social connections.

Walton, Gregory M.; Cohen, Geoffrey L.; Cwir, David; Spencer, Steven J.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Oct 24, 2011, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0025731

 

Marketing to Hard-to-Reach Attendees

One of the things that makes attendee marketing hard is the need to tightly define the problem in order to apply the best set of solutions.  While it never was as easy as “mail more”, that solution is pretty much impossible at this point.  The good news is that many solutions don’t require a larger budget, just targeted planning.

A major area of attendee marketing challenge is the “Hard-to-Reach Attendee”, a topic that IAEE asked me to talk about at ExpoExpo next month.  As I worked with my co-presenter, Dan Darby of Surf Expo, on this challenge, we came up with four primary versions of Hard-to-Reach attendees, each with their own solution set:

1.  Hard-to-Find Prospects:  the needle in the haystack problem.  The prospect attendee for this show is not one specific industry or one specific job function.  They are prospects because they are interested in this topic.  American Telemedicine Association:  any medical professional who is interested in remote access to patients.  Digital Signage Expo: anyone in any field that is looking into usage a digital sign…for their gas station or bar or school or ?

Once you’ve rented the lists and advertised on the websites that are available to you, the core to this issue is outreach: make it easy for them to find you (SEO, webinars, social media, white papers, etc).

2.  They aren’t listening: the other definition of “reach”; you aren’t getting through to them.  Particularly a problem when you know exactly who should be coming to your event, because you have the definitive list of left-handed purple widget-buyers, but they aren’t coming.

Its not going to help to send more messages, more often, on more media.  They know your event is there and they are ignoring you.  Why?  They don’t see the value.  For events, value is defined by time more than money, so lowering the price probably won’t help either.

Hopefully you have a kick-ass event, and the solution is improving your messaging so that the value and benefits are more apparent.  Otherwise, your attendee marketing issue may be a content issue:  How do you transform your event into a must-attend?

3. VIP Buyers: every event has them…CFOs, Purchasing VP, Hospital Administrators.  They send their team but no longer come themselves.  Oftentimes these senior buyers have grown out of your conference content, and they mostly like to get information from each other.

For these buyers, what you need is a different event.  One that is exclusive; allows them to hang out with each other, gives them high-level strategic conference sessions, exclusive opportunities to meet with key individuals in their field, efficient ways to hold exactly the meetings they want to hold.  Once you’ve designed that meeting-within-your-meeting tailored specifically to the needs of your unique senior buyers, all you have to do is send them an engraved invitation.

4. Young People: some events care more than others, but I find most associations want to see more young professionals at their event.  Don’t worry: their absence isn’t a new trend to blame on social media.  The truth is, young people have always been hard to get to events.  It has more to do with their professional life-cycle.

I find there are two solutions.  The first one is similar to #3 above:  give them an event within the event tailored to their needs…their own reception to network, badges for booth staff that cater to young professionals or students, indicate the most appropriate sessions within your conference, or give them their own track, provide mentoring opportunities, either one-to-one or at a breakfast setting.

The other solution is to recognize that most people do not send themselves to events…their company sends them.  And companies tend to send middle-management.  Many associations have found that a targeted campaign to teach the bosses why they should send their staff really work, especially when combined with a strong young professional program.

The key take-away is that half of the solutions above are not traditionally the domain of the Marketing Department; they involve changes to the event itself.  The most successful shows have great communication and a feedback loop in which not only is Marketing promoting the show that exists, but it recommends changes to make the show the one their segmented attendees need.

 

Five Steps to a More Exciting General Session

The General Session at Photoshop World last week was masterful in generating and maintaining a sense of excitement.  Here’s how they did it:

1. Stir up the crowd waiting to get in.  As soon as a group started forming in front of the general session doors, Photoshop World put a gregarious member of their team on a small platform at the front to start working the crowd.  Chatting, joking, pulling people up on stage to do the macarena, quizzes, trivia, leading songs…generally whatever it takes to get people talking, laughing, and engaging with each other.

2. Keep the doors closed as long as possible.  Yes, opening the doors early makes for an orderly flow, and keeps people from getting impatient in the lobby.  But impatience is a form of energy you can work to your benefit.  If you wait until 10-15 minutes before the start you have a good crowd formed:

• they will walk quickly to the front to get good seats (more energy)
• you can more easily herd them into the middle of each row to fill all the seats (more energy in the front of the room)
• you eliminate that long wait after people sit down, while energy dissipates

3. Use lighting to create energy.  Photoshop World immediately pulled me in with a darkened room with a powerfully designed, dramatically lit set, with several disco balls creating a sense of party atmosphere.

4. Fill the time before the keynote begins.  Tease your event theme as people walk in with the stage set, messaging, and lighting.  Don’t just run a boring loop of Powerpoint slides of event activities: instead run a fast-paced video of the association’s work over the past year.  Or present trivia questions or a game related to the theme of the general session.  Photoshop World also started throwing T-shirts into the crowd as soon as an area of seating filled up.  Not from the stage, but from various places along the side.  Everyone wants a T-shirt, and as soon as the Staff member is spotted with shirts the audience starts standing up and waving for shirts.  Just like a ball game?  Yup, great cross-over idea.  Another T-shirt distribution break woke people up between two presentations from the stage, and again at the end.

5. Have a great theme.  Photoshop World is known for its well-produced openings, and the general session is a don’t-miss activity.  And yet they don’t pay for a name-brand speaker.  This year they opened with a riff on the reality TV show, Project Runway, with Project Photoshop.  A set of fashion designs based on Photoshop buttons and tools were solicited from the local design school, with the “designers” all culled from association luminaries.  The video tying these “designers” into the fashion show was hilarious, and led directly into the opening speech from the association president (the winning “designer”). The theme was fully integrated into the event, with the designs displayed in the exhibit hall, and a contest for the best photo taken of the runway show, with those awards presented at the closing general session.

 

 

By the time the real keynote speaker was on stage, top product management of Adobe presenting new features, the crowd was totally jazzed and receptive, and the crowd that flowed from that room into the exhibit hall was fully engaged in the event.

 

 

 

 

Conference Sessions Don’t Have to be Boring

Conferences tend to fall into a rut.  You issue a Call for Presentations.  You accept the best sessions.  Perhaps you even solicit a few key topics or best speakers. You “know” what session formats work for your event. New speakers submit sessions in the same format as the ones they’ve attended at your event before.

Next thing you know every session is a “panel” of three speakers, each giving a 15-minute powerpoint presentation.  Mind-numbing.

Great content is more than good, relevant material presented by a good speaker.  To actually enjoy 8 sessions over three days the human mind requires variety and engagement.

Here’s my laundry list of the top 8 session formats you can employ at your next event to mix it up:

1. Panel Discussion:  Three speakers taking turns presenting a powerpoint deck is not a panel.  A true panel involves a moderator, three interesting people, a controversial topic, and real discussion, no slides allowed.  You see them on the 24 hr news stations:  A liberal, a moderate, and a conservative actually arguing.  Great entertainment and gives your audience something to discuss through the rest of the event.          Alternative version:  Let each of the three speakers (yes, three is a magic number) have 5 minutes to give an opening monologue: their case study, their opinions, the results of their research, then open it up to a moderated discussion across those positions.
2. Debate:  Every industry has topics worth debating and people willing to do so.  Good debate topics include policy, standards, best practices, current events.  Debates are excellent key notes, if you have a high-level topic of broad interest and a couple of influential industry members willing to discuss it onstage.  But they also make great sessions.  ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) scatters therapeutic debates  throughout the program, with great attendance:  ”Is Anticoagulation Intensity Monitoring Needed for Therapeutic Heparin?”            Add some drama:  go ahead and set clear debate rules, a have a specified, and time-limited, Point, Counterpoint, Rebuttal, Rebuttal.  Get the audience involved:  add a timed segment for audience-generated questions/rebuttals.  Let the audience vote on the winner!
3. Interview: A great way to feature your association president as an industry expert, interviewing key players about a current trend in a keynote.  Also a great way to feature an iconic figure in your industry who isn’t a great speaker…by interviewing them you present a shy but influential industry leader in their best light.  Also works well for more focussed or niche topics in regular sessions.  Every industry has journalists you can also tap to be the interviewer.            Think intimate:  Every session shouldn’t go for the big numbers.  Perhaps a topic would best be presented as a fire-side chat, creating a truly memorable experience for those involved in that topic discussion.
4. Lightning talks:  a series of short presentations run back-to-back.  Lightning talks vary from a 5-minute to a 10-minute limit (strictly enforced).  Pecha Kucha is a variant that enforces a 20-second per slide, 20 slide limit (automatic advance).  Some try to emulate the TED Conference, in which the speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can.  For me this is the point:  short presentations, grouped by topic, and the heightened drama from being short.           Go for drama:  True Pecha Kucha rules, a panel of judges, and a competitive set of presentations around a theme–a great way to handle product presentations (they have to core down to the features and benefits, and the audience gets to compare), but also works for comparing therapeutic practice or monetary policy.        Or keep it simple:  ASHP calls these “Pearl Sessions”, grouping by topic several speakers who each present “one idea, concept, or fact that has been useful in day-to-day practice, and may not be widely known, understood, published, or taught.”      Consider three 20-minute keynotes instead of one 1-hour presentation (perhaps in different formats).  You wouldn’t do this for expensive speakers, but industry speakers usually don’t need an hour.  When I told our LinuxWorld (IT event) keynoters (industry executives) that I was shortening their sessions to 20 minutes, every one of them thanked me.  One said:  ”I only had 20 minutes of material anyway.”
5. Whiteboard sessions:  Remember back in school when the teacher wrote on the black board (now white board)?  Wasn’t that more conversational, intimate and engaging than powerpoint?   Would some of your expert presenters be willing to forego ppt and try simply teaching for a change?  Perhaps this is also a smaller room, set chevron, and tight to the stage.
6. Phil Donohue style:  You remember, he was before Oprah, and was famous for working the audience with his hand-held mike to solicit questions for the guest.  Put an industry leader on the stage, and let them talk a bit, but then put the moderator in the audience to stimulate a true room-wide Q/A and discussion.  Much more engaging than simply having microphones the audience has to walk up to, and key to this approach is the moderator, guiding the conversation, asking their own questions, and engaging the audience.
7. Workshop: There are a lot of ways to do workshops, but for me what they all have in common is the focus on the attendees as participants.  Engage the room in a full-room discussion around:  a hot industry topic, a hot industry challenge to solve together, a list of key concerns that the group starts by creating, public policy, etc.            Solve a problem:  Pose a key industry challenge with a short briefing from industry experts on the nature of the issue.  Divide the room up by table, and let each table work up a solution.  They each present back to the room, and a winning solution is presented to the association board to act on.                   Engage in learning:  AIHA (Industrial Hygiene) has great sold-out lunch & learns that present the facts of a real industrial hygiene issue case study, and let the room ask questions until they solve it. Fifty people in that room, and every one of them participated.
8. Demonstration: From demonstrating the technique/product/technology in the front of the room to hands-on learning, there is no more engaging way to educate your attendees.  By definition, these sessions are more expensive, as they require equipment to be brought in, so be creative!  The materials do not have to be one-per-attendee…divide your participants into groups. Some demonstrations can be done through computer simulations, so perhaps they bring their own laptops?  Best: get a sponsor to cover the equipment costs.          Virtual demonstrations: Technology to live-stream a remote demonstration into your event has come down dramatically in price, especially since it is now down via the internet, not satellite, and video is so much clearer and faster than it was even three years ago.  Whether a medical event streaming from a hospital or an engineering event streaming discussion of large equipment from a work site, this technology can create an extremely compelling must-attend session.           Field trips:  Don’t shy away from taking your attendees to the action.  AIA (Architects) always sponsor a series of extremely valuable, certification-credited tours of the important local architecture of the city around the event. IT events have been known to take attendees to visit a state-of-the-art datacenter located nearby.

Hey, many sessions really should be a talking head with visuals…maybe half of your sessions.  Enliven these sessions by encouraging speakers to use alternatives to powerpoint, give them a wireless lavalier microphone and no podium and make them move around, and perhaps give them a hand-held mike to walk into the audience to get their questions.  Work with your room set and AV team to ensure that the speaker will be under a light, and the screen isn’t.  !    They don’t do this on their own.  Really.  And the result is rooms where you have to turn off the lights to see the screen, but then you can’t see the speaker.  Deadly.

Cheap trick:  Make every room set different.  Five tracks?  One is theater, one is classroom, one is chevron, one is horseshoe.  And yes, set one room is set on the diagonal.   Refreshes the mind and gives a different perspective.