The report “Best Practices in Online Community Management” produced by Pathable reads like a secret decoder ring for first time event community managers.

While the report is loaded with with helpful advice, I thought these four things stood out:

Recruit the Stars

The report recommends that you go find “stars” to come hangout in your community and contribute to it. Just like in night clubs, these stars draw others into the conversations and to the community, etc. The report offers seven different tips for recruiting stars and engaging them.

Find A Champion

This is the internal leader that is committed to make sure that the online community succeeds. Based on my experience in corporate america, the stronger the champion the better the project result.

Control the Trolls

This report offers strategies to contain and mitigate negative actions by troublemakers (trolls or Wild Things) that want to pollute your event’s social network. Think about the tips in this section like “Rodent Killer.”

Cross-Pollinate

Most event communities allow attendees to connect their friends/contacts, status updates, etc with other social networks (think Linkedin or Twitter). This allows attendees to leverage their connections and engagement in other places with the event social network.

Bottom Line

If you find a champion that can bring the stars into your online event community and squash the trolls – then you will increase your odds of ending up with a rich thriving event community.

You can download the original report from Pathable directly here: Best Practices in Online Community Management (sorry, you must register with Pathable.)

What other resources would you recommend to first time community managers?

image via: fashionartiste

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Sometimes I feel like I am in one of the Indiana Jones films. There are treasure hunts, puzzles, etc. Let me explain what happens.

Step 1: Equipment Check

There are three remotes that control the TV, DVD player and cable at my home. Each of these devices has about 20 buttons each. For some reason, I need all three of them to turn on household favorites “Baby Einstein” or “Dora the Explorer.”

Without fail, whenever it is time to start watching a movie – one or two remotes have been captured by miniature pirates (disguised as princesses) and hidden with other loot.

Step 2: Remote Control Treasure Hunt

Once, I have identified which remote controls are missing – I begin my treasure hunt (without a map).  Since my little one has loot hiding skills that would make Davy Jones proud, it takes me several minutes to find these remotes.

Step 3: Which Button is It Anyway?

You would think that turning on the TV, DVD player and changing the channels would be simple. Sometimes I feel like I am solving some type of riddle or complex Suduko puzzle. There are numbers and letters going everywhere. I have to correctly identify the order of the remotes then select the correct buttons to push. Since, there are 60 buttons, I regularly get it wrong and have to start over. Luckily, I don’t get dropped into a viper pit after making mistakes.

What Does This Mean For Events?

Smart phone apps, handheld devices, virtual event technology and social media tools are all technologies that require attendees participation. While I am willing to work with the three remotes and play treasure hunt, attendees will not do it. They are going to use technology that supports and enhances their event experience – AND helps them achieve their objectives.

So, the next time an event technology vendor says – “Wow – let me show you the latest blah, blah, blah….It’s Awesome!!”  Consider the question posed at the start of this post: How many remote controls does it take to watch a movie?  Then ask yourself how many treasure hunts and complex riddles will you need to help attendees solve to effectively use this technology?  If the answer is – a lot – you may want to choose another solution.

image credit: tim_norris

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Shirky came to mind when I heard that 3,000 attendees at an HR Block conference exchanged 153,000 digital business cards and 15,000 paperless brochures using the Busy Event BeLinker. (Case)

The BeLinker must be dead simple for attendees to understand and use. When I talked with Brian Slawin of Busy Event recently, I asked him – how did you get so many people to use it?

Brian emphasized three things:

1. The organizer sent attendees emails telling them about the new technology.
2. Attendees had a demonstration & short activity at the beginning to introduce people to the tech and let them try it.
3. They had a support area for attendees with questions.

The Message: Simple is Good – but so is making sure that attendees feel comfortable with the technology.

Wait! Wait! There’s More!

While Busy Event has a great case – several similar technologies have entered the market in the past 15 months. Here are some examples:

> Poken – Originally designed for college kids, these are sponsorable take home versions of Busy Event. By touching your Poken to another attendee’s Poken, you can exchange social business cards that connect each other’s facebook, twitter and linkedin accounts together. By the looks of things – it is taking off at events. Read the BMW Case Study and IBM Case Study to see how this tool is being used.

> Mingle Stick – This little gadget works similarly to BusyEvent and Poken – except that it is not as robust as BusyEvent or as cool as Poken.

> Living TradeShow – The LivingTradeshow Crickit gives attendees a one button system for exchanging lead information. These little devices are tied to a powerful backend database and onsite network (like BusyEvent) to let exhibitors look at lead information in a live format. The cool thing about these CrickIt devices is that they can be custom molded for each tradeshow and serve as a take-home item.

A Word of Caution – About Mobile Devices

For those of you drinking the mobile-phone KoolAid, I think mobile has some work to do to become as-simple-for-attendees-to-use as these new gadgets.  With mobile, you run into all kinds of problems with different hardware models, software compatibility, compliance, etc.  At a recent event, I discovered that the attendees had many different types of phones and software applications. Trying to exchange mobile contact information was sometimes more effort than it was worth.

Bottom Line

These new simple gadgets are creating new ways for event attendees to connect and share leads, exchange contact information and connect their social world to the real world. By giving all attendees the same technology (Belinkers, Pokens, MingleSticks or CrickITs) you are making sure that they are all working with the same business productivity tools.

What do you think?

image: courtesy of Busy Event

Reminder: I don’t receive any form of compensation for product reviews.

The post Is Your Mingle Stick Poken Attendees in the BeLinker appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

The slide deck is below and the webinar recording is available here: Webinar recording.

[slideshare id=3469467&doc=march18inxposmwebinarfinal-100318131139-phpapp01]

Bottom Line

Social Media is creating new opportunities for you to connect, engage and educate your attendees. As your attendees get used to having more of these two way experiences in their real lives – they will start expecting similar experiences from your events. While there are many technologies that can help you – you need to make sure that you (1) set your objectives, (2) assess your audience and (3) map your needs to the resources that are available to you.

The post Free Webinar: Beyond Social Media – Uncover New Ways To Connect, Engage and Educate Your Audience Physically And Virtually appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

[wpvideo 7YeVtUoW]

Background

This video was created using Apple Keynote (Apple’s version of PowerPoint). It is really a combination of ideas and statistics from these blog posts:

> 10 Ways Social Media Will Transform Events in 2010

>  Are Your Events Haunted By The Blackberry Prayer?

>  Do You Allocate Enough Time For Interaction?

The Transformation Begins

Right now the digital world and face-to-face worlds are colliding. I think this collision will create new opportunities for events. As attendees become more comfortable with these two way experiences in their own lives – they are going to start demanding similar experiences from you. Maybe they already are?

If you have experienced any interesting applications of Social Media or Event Technology during an event – please share your stories. I would love to hear what you think is working or not working in your events.

The post Social Media in Events Video from Event Camp appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

Friday Dinner At Event Camp

Here are some lessons from Event Camp on engaging attendees that I hope will help you.

Pre-Event Community

Event Camp created an event community around the event with the Omnipress Conference 2.0 solution. This turned out to be helpful for many attendees. I noticed that many would received the daily digest and then add their ideas or comments. Three things came out of the community: (1) High Awareness in the Hybrid Events Session and Fishbowl Sessions, because these sessions were discussed on the conference community. (2) Informal Dinners and Social Gatherings were arranged by the attendees. (3) Several attendees were invited to share and shared their reasons for attending with the larger audience.

[Read Jenise Fryatt’s post on How Social Media Creates a Need For Attendees To Meet Face2Face for another excellent perspective.]

Big Blue Buffalo Hats

The Social Collective has an interesting solution called CrowdCampaign that was used by the attendees to choose some swag that the event staff had to wear. Fortunately, the organizers were very gracious in purchasing and wearing the Big Blue Buffalo Hats. However, there is a second use of CrowdCampaign happening right now. The attendees are trying to decide on their number one takeaway. The list is starting to get really interesting. [crowd campaign list of takeaways]

Reinforcing Messages with Multiple Channels

The backchannel was projected on screens throughout the venue – but most people had one eye on the laptop or iphone and another eye on the speaker. Personally, I found it really helpful to be able to scroll through the backchannel messages on my new iphone. Being able to see these same messages delivered in a second medium helped reinforce some key points for me. (Not to mention that there is a transcript of tweets that I have used to go back and review the event.) While, I recognized that this helped reinforce the messages to me – it was Ray Hansen of IML that actually pointed this out. Thanks Ray.

Including More People

Thanks to Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media and the team at Core Staging this event had a hybrid component. The main plenary hall of the conference was being broadcast on Livestream and secondary sessions were recorded. As an attendee, I found it really engaging to get input, ideas and questions from these virtual attendees. Equally important, we made sure to wave once or twice to our friends at home too. I think this was a nice touch.

[Read Emilie Barta’s post – Live and Virtual Events Compliment Each Other, Not COMPETE with Each Other for more]

Bridging the Virtual And Face-to-Face Audience

This community was active on the twitter backchannel, making comments asking questions, etc. Mike McCurry was an excellent conduit between the face-to-face audience and the virtual attendees. He made sure that any questions the virtual audience had were integrated into the face-to-face discussion. This is a key role to making sure that their voices were heard, too. [Read Christina Stalling’s post on some of her backchannel learnings]

Engaging Virtual Attendees During Breaks

Breaks can be quite boring for virtual attendees that are watching the room be reset or attendees getting coffee.  So, it was very cool to see Emilie Barta (a professional tradeshow presenter) interviewing speakers and attendees during the break. I think this is a low effort – high return way to enhance the virtual attendee’s experience.

Let’s Jump into the Fishbowl

My session was a collaborative session that used the fishbowl format. In this session, I turned the attendees into the experts and took the “guide on the side” role. This allowed us to do more learning from each other – rather than have me go through 6400 slides in 40 minutes. Since, I am the host of the Interactive Meeting Technology Blog – I would have let all of you readers down if my session didn’t have an interactive component.

[Read Lara McCulloch-Carter’s post – Fishbowl session through the eyes of the virtual attendee for some discussion and feedback on my session]

User-Generated Content

Event Camp was loaded with User-Generated content. There was a “bloggers row” type space that was designed to make life easy for people using computers during the sessions. So far – there are atleast 10 blog posts on learnings and ideas created from the event. There will probably be several more. Also, there were dozens of photos taken from the attendees. Thanks to Social Media guru – David Berkowitz – the iphone application Cat Paint became the big hit of Event Camp. Cat Paint allows you to drop cats onto iphone photos before sending them out over twitter. Some attendees made sure that we all got a good laugh out this. Here is a picture of me with a cat on my shoulder. (Personally, I think the applications of this tool in terms of a sponsorable item would be amazing. take out the cat and insert – your event logo or product name.)

Bottom Line

Event Camp evolved out of an online community of individuals that has a passion for Social Media in Events. From the speakers to the attendees to the sessions this event was one of the most comprehensive and complete learning laboratories on Social Media in Events.

Ok – Event Campers – what else would you add?

(PS: Eventprofs recently celebrated its first anniversary on 9 February 2010 )

The post Lessons in Engaging Attendees from Event Camp NYC 2010 appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

What would you ask?

Would you ask attendees your most pressing questions? Would you ask them for ideas? Would you ask them to help you prioritize objectives? Would you ask them to help you solve problems? Would you show them your vision for the future and ask them to poke holes in it? Would you ask them to help you make decisions? Would you ask them what they learned? Would you ask them to calculate ROI?

How would it work?

I see it working like this: You give attendees a problem, then in a mili-second they give you thousands of relevant, categorized and useful responses. Sometimes this will be based on life experiences. Other times it could be from company knowledge.

We can get a similar result when we use group collaboration technology and large group methods at meetings. You present a question, situation or problem to the audience. They reflect on it for a few moments and discuss in small groups. Then attendees enter their ideas, comments or opinions into a computer or mobile device. In some cases, a small group may categorize the responses. In other cases, the audience will do this step, too. Then,  the audience will rank and prioritize the categorized results. At the end, there is a massive list of useful ideas (or whatever you are seeking) that is categorized and prioritized.

A Word of Caution

Being able to google your attendees will not mean that you get perfect results. I imagine that you would still have some of the same challenges that you face with the Google search engine today:

1. You may still need to be wary of advertisements that are disguised as meaningful results.
2. You may still have to ask the same question several different ways to get the best results.
3. You will still need to learn which keywords trigger the best results and which don’t.

Bottom Line

If you could google the minds of your attendees would you do it?  What would you ask?  How would attendees be able to help you that are unimaginable today?

Image Credit: Samuel J. Smith & profile pictures of his Twitter followers

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This scenario is common for many first-time, shy and timid attendees. It can be a networking hell.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You, the event organizer, can throw attendees a life preserver and save them. Here are some things that you can do to help.

Understand Attendees Networking Objectives

The post 20 Reasons Delegates Attend Conferences uncovered several “specific” attendee networking objectives. In many cases, I think these objectives are unstated by most people – but they are there. By recognizing these objectives and creating activities to support them – you can help your attendees do a better job of networking.

Here are some examples of different networking objectives:

• Meet Like Minded People
• Discuss Topics of Interest
• Connect with Old Friends
• Meet New People
• Discuss Best Practices
• Find New Business Partners

Notice the verbs – meet, discuss, connect and find.  Are you helping attendees do these things at your events – or is it largely their responsibility?

Five Questions Attendees Need Help Answering

When I worked at Spotme, we helped thousands and thousands of attendees network better than ever before. The secret to this success was in Spotme’s ability to help attendees answer the following questions:

1. Who else is here?

2. What do they look like?

3. What do I have in common with other participants?

4. How do I find or connect with them?

5. How can we stay connected after this event?

Imagine how much easier it would be for you to network at events if you had tools that answered those questions? Imagine how much your attendees would love you if you provided similar tools?

The good news is that there are several ways to do this. You could print a photo guide, provide an electronic delegate list, use an event specific social networking site (like Crowdvine, Pathable, Social Collective, Eventvue or Zerista), create a networking wall, use an onsite mobile networking tool, etc.

Bottom Line

There are several ways that you can help first-time, shy or timid attendees have an awesome networking experience. First – consider their objectives. Second – put together activities that correspond to those objectives. Finally, provide tools that help attendees answer important questions about the others at the event.

You have the ability to throw your attendees a life preserver and save them from networking hell. Will you do it?

photo credit: scoobay

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This past weekend, I was mesmorized by Oprah’s 21,000 person Flash Mob Video (read). It was an amazing display of collaboration and affection from Oprah’s biggest fans for her 24th Season Kick-off. After watching this video, I realized that I didn’t have a clue what a flash mob was or how to start one.

I thought flash mobs were groups of people mobilized to stand still in train stations, dance in a subway station or eat ice cream in protest. But, as you can see from the Oprah video – they can be experiential and interactive.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.876441&w=500&h=385&fv=]

Is this an Idea for Meetings and Events?

Yes – I think you can create interaction and collaboration among the attendees using Flash Mob concepts. You probably need to adapt the Flash Mob process a little bit — but I think it would work and be a lot of fun.  Here are some of the benefits that are worth considering:

1. Insta-Networking Activity: Many networking discussions start when the participants establish common ground. Flash mobs create a common bonding experience that gives all participants something to talk about with each other.

2. People Need to Create and Connect:  The article, “Guerilla Event Marketing – A Mob in A Flash” sums up the motivations for people to join a flash mob nicely. The article states: “the psychology behind why flash mobs and viral campaigns work speaks to an individual’s inherent need to create—and connect.” Create and Connect – isn’t this one reason the attendees came to your event?

3. Promotes Your Cause or Organization: Flash Mobs are public displays and allow you to share your organization’s message with others in the public space. (See Create Heroes Project Flash Mob video).

4. It’s Easy to Assemble the Mob: Meetings and Events already have a built-in-mob. So, you don’t have the challenge of finding people. You just need to figure out what they should do and organize them accordingly. What if they poured a Coke? or Danced to Beat it?

5. Word of Mouth Marketing for Next Year: The common bonding experience gives participants something to talk about with their “like minded friends” outside the event. This word of mouth publicity for your organization and event can be further amplified by a short video of the experience that is easily sharable with friends.

Bottom Line

I think flash mobs would make a good interactive experience for *some* events. It would not make sense for all event formats or organizations.  What do you think?

The post Could Flash Mobs Make Events Interactive and Fun? appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

This morning, I was powering through my backlog of “toread” articles when I ran across two articles from Jack Morton that are worth discussing: “The Power of Smart: Integrated Event Technology” and “Orchestrating the (IT) Experience.”

Think Beyond Tools. Focus on Attendees.

I like the way they frame the discussion in the Power of Smart: Integrated Event Technology. They help you move beyond technology tools to focus on attendees, operational efficiency and expanding the event. The author describes the Power of Smart as using integrated event solutions to “make life easier, more efficient and more effective.” Then, she defines integrated event technology as including the following three categories:

1. Applications that enhance the attendee’s experience
2. Applications that make the event marketer’s job easier.
3. Applications that help the event reach new audiences and generate new revenue streams.

To me, this framework makes it easier to create attendee focused questions like – what can I do to improve the attendee’s experience? What tools can I provide attendees to help them achieve their event objectives? I like those questions much better than starting with – should we do something on facebook?

Orchestrating Success. Focus on Touchpoints.

The article Orchestrating the (IT) Experience focuses on execution of the IT experience. What I liked most about Jack Morton’s approach here is the ruthless focus on attendees and their technology touchpoints. The author encourages you to match the right technology in the right amount (scale and scope) to the experience that you want to create. I think they are right on target here. Plus, I would add: make sure that your digital touchpoints are planned, scrutinized and tested in the same way that you handle your face2face touchpoints.

Bottom Line

The attendee’s experience at your event is the sum total of your face-to-face and digital experiences. You need to keep a sharp focus on your attendees, touchpoints and execution.

Does the digital strategy for your event start with attendees and touchpoints? Or do you find yourself starting in the techno-soup?

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