If Chris Brogan and Stephen Nold had opened the event by saying “Wayne’s World. Wayne’s World. Party Time. Excellent.” – it would have set a perfect tone for the day. Maybe next time. Here are some of my notes from the event.

Three Parts to Your Social Media Strategy

Social media guru Chris Brogan pointed out that he advises clients to have at least three elements in their social media program: Listening, Connecting and Publishing. Chris advises clients to spend 30-60 minutes on all three elements each day.

I asked some attendees if they were following Chris’ advice – most responded that they are only publishers. How do you stack up?

Community Building the Old Fashioned Way

Mark Ragan of Ragan Communications told the audience how he creates and builds communities around compelling content THEN he creates events. He told us that he did it the old fashioned way – via email. Mark uses Social Media as a brand building tool. Also, he pointed out that you don’t have to create all of the content yourself. You can find great articles, write an interesting summary and share it with your community.

Are you using content to build a strong community all year long?

Mobile Apps Need to Be Open & Integrated

Event organizers that launched iphone apps in 2009 quickly realized that their mobile apps need to be able to work on all phone types. While the iphone is sexy, most corporate attendees are still using the Blackberry. Nokia and Android have sizable installed base, too.

Also, mobile apps need to be integrated with other data and systems that you are using for the event. Most event organizers were exasperated with tech vendors that were not “partnering” with other vendors to create integrated solutions. (Vendors take note!)

Geo-positioning & Wayfinding

While many show organizers cringed at the thought of looking at a venue map on a tiny mobile phone screen, most agreed that “you are here” and “wayfinding” should become part of mobile solutions for events in the future. Wayfinding is the name for giving people directions from point A to point B.

There was a lot of talk about social tools Foursquare and Gowalla and how these type of “checkin” services could be useful for traffic flow, navigating an event experience or encouraging people to visit event sites.

Where Were the Virtual & Hybrid Events?

Virtual & Hybrid events were like Claudia Schiffer on a date with Wayne and Garth – nowhere to be found. Yet, it was clear to most at the event that this technology is something to consider. Mark Ragan even pointed out that he is getting 15% of his event revenue from virtual events. When you are making money with virtual or hybrid events, I think that makes virtual events magically babelicious.

Bottom Line

Just like Wayne’s World, the MTO Summit was entertaining, engaging and full of amazing people and ideas. If I were smart, I would have summarized this entire post in one line: “MTO Summit. MTO Summit. Party Time. Excellent.”

What do you say?

The post MTO Summit Chicago: The Wayne’s World For Event Technology appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

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Imagine how great YOU and your event would look if your exhibitor brochures or your event guides worked like this. Ok -they will probably never be this cool – but what if they were 1/2 as cool?  When I wrote the post iPad: It just works…but will it work for events – I had these kind of applications in mind. I just wasn’t smart enough to implement it.

Thank you Wired for showing us the way!

The post Is this the Future of Event Guides and Exhibitor Brochures? appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

This past weekend, I discovered a website called the Fun Theory that has figured out how to make walking up the stairs more fun than taking the escalator. In doing so, they created a brand interaction, created smiles and gave people something to talk about. Watch the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&feature=player_embedded]

Bottle Return Game

In this second example – they turned the insanely annoying task of recycling glass into a really fun game. Watch the video to see how they did it. Be sure to checkout the results.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSiHjMU-MUo&feature=player_embedded]

What Does This Mean For Your Events?

Just like the examples above, you can use technology and “fun” to change experiences and change behaviors.

Consider the dull activities at your meeting or conference. What would happen if they were fun to do? Would attendees learn more? Would attendees change their behaviors?

Fun is a serious ingredient! Let’s not forget about it. Who else wants to have fun?

The post Who Else Wants To Have Fun At Events? appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

How are you managing communication and engagement with the four generations that are attending your events? How do you invite the spirit of co-creation? How do you get  adults with a 20 minute attention span to listen to a 60 minute presentation?

Those are a few of the questions that were tackled in the Tips to Maximize Audience Engagement Webinar organized by Best Events Magazine and IML Interactive. This interactive webinar brought together three different perspectives on audience engagement: Business Leader/Agency perspective, the technology perspective and the speaker perspective. Here were the speakers:

• Fay Beauchine, President, Events & Engagement, Carlson Marketing Group
• Ray Hansen, Director, IML Worldwide
• Dan Rose, President, Omakase Group

I thought this webinar was packed with valuable content. Below you will find a summary of the Four Drivers of Audience Engagement and some other invaluable tips that I thought you could start implementing immediately.

Driver of Engagement #1: Encourage a Great Experience

When it comes to creating experiences, events are experiential.  Fay recommends that you touch all 5 senses. Her company focuses a lot of its thinking on the emotions. She suggests that you do the same.

Equally important, Fay suggests that you make the experiences immersive AND don’t go halfway. As an example, Fay described an event where a technology company that wanted to encourage Eco-Responsibility and Global Citizenship. To make the experience complete, they distributed 2000 mobile phones that contained the agendas, conference guide, and messaging capabilities. This solution reduced the printed material by 75%. Attendees sent over 20,000 messages to each other.

Driver of Engagement #2: Encourage Participation

Carlson Marketing Group maximizes the application of technology to encourage participation. Using social technologies, they are expanding event experiences to 3-4 months in length and a maximum of 9 months. Also, by getting the attendees comfortable with engagement before the event – attendees are more comfortable with interacting onsite. Some of the tools that they are using include – webinars, surveys, videos, voting and mobile messaging.

When it comes to using technology Fay offered the following crucial advice:

• You need to empower people to opt-in and opt-out of the technology
• Focus the technology tools on content – make it central to the business so people use the tools.

Driver of Engagement #3: Target Communication

You need to explore communication and engagement strategies that are aligned against your audience demographics. Right now, there are four generations attending events. Each group wants to engage and communicate on their own terms. When you are designing your content – you need to ask yourself how will you communicate with this group? and how will you connect them? Here Fay had an excellent slide that laid out the differences in attitudes between each group. You need to consider how these different attitudes influence your event design.

Driver of Engagement #4: Provide Value

Providing value means making the event relevant to the audience and to the community at large. As programs trend smaller – make them passionate, honest and make it seem like a smart choice.  Amplify – yet simplify. As an example, Fay pointed out that team building exercises are still happening – but they are BBQs & chili cook-offs.

We have 20 Minute Minds in a 60 Minute World

In building a case for moving beyond bullet points, Ray Hansen used audience response technology to ask the audience two questions: how long is the average adult attention span? AND how long is your average conference session? The answer to the first question was 20 minutes and the answer to the 2nd question was 60 minutes. Then he asked a rhetorical question — if adults have an attention span of 20 minutes – why are we asking them to sit through 60 minute conference sessions?  Great Question – I thought this was an excellent application of ARS to help the audience arrive at the speaker’s point on their own.

Creating 60 Minute Minds

In order to expand the audience attention and retention during the session – Ray offered the following ARS tips:

• Engage the audience with an ARS question at least once every 10 15-20 minutes.
• Use discovery questions to learn about the audience and discover misconceptions at the beginning of the presentation.
• Ask verification questions to manage attention and retention during the presentation.
• Ask questions to make sure that participants get the key messages at the end of the presentation.

Building the Spirit of Co-Creation

Dan Rose took the speaker’s point of view. He suggested that the speaker can create a spirit of co-creation in the way that he/her engages the audience. Dan highlighted the following benefits of co-creation:

1. Puts part of the investment in the final results and takeaways on the audience.
2. Allows the speaker to create the presentation based on things common to the people in the room.
3. Allows the audience to prioritize the order of the discussion.

Equally important, Dan suggested that leading the audience through an exercise and having them create some artifacts on their own helps them engage in the presentation. Also, he suggests ask the attendees to compare notes from their exercises before the speaker makes the main point.

Bottom Line

There are several ways to engage the audience, put your community into motion and move them from passive listeners to active participants.  Hopefully you found one or two new ideas in this post that you can implement in your next event.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or sharing it with others.

Photo Credit: Kaptain Kobald

The post 4 Drivers of Audience Engagement and Other Invaluable Tips appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

We all know that TV is a passive form of entertainment. People sit on the couch and watch others do things on a screen. In fact, people that watch TV all the time are called couch potatoes.

I think a similar phenomenon occurs at most meetings and conferences. Participants sit passively and listen to the speaker talk.  Except, the whole experience takes place on the 21st century’s version of a medieval torture device — the standard-issue-conference-chair.

How is Television Evolving?

TV is taking steps to become more social and interactive. I don’t mean interactive in the sense of “American Idol” or “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” I mean interactive in a way that they engage YOU in the event of watching a particular show at a particular time with various social and collaborative activities.

In the video below, Kevin Slavin talks about creating interactive games that “pushed you back out into the world and changed the ways you experience it.” Then, he shows several examples of how this is being done today.  The video takes about 27 minutes to watch. It is worth watching.

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What Does this Mean For Events?

These TV programs are bringing together millions of people to create community, be social and interact in a fun way – digitally.  As these interactive digital experiences become part of regular life, participants will demand similar experiences from meetings, conferences and events. I am sure some clients will say – If it can be done for millions, how hard can it be to do the same for 1000 at an event?

So, you keep your eye on the digital tools that are available to you. While you may not be using everything available to you today, in a few years that story will be quite different.

What do you think?

The post Going to TV for a Fresh Perspective appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

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.

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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.