Is “Technology” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of meetings sends some people flying toward technology. This was evidenced by the thousands of attendees that flocked to the many technology sessions to learn about the latest whizbangs and strategies. This was evidenced by the paperless program, the Mobile apps and the Pathable community.

So, it’s technology right? Smartphones and that kind of stuff. Um, not exactly.

Is “Environment” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of meetings sends others into the “better room layout” and “environment” corner. Joan Eisenstodt, for example, wants pictures on the walls, natural light and flexible space. When she says that many in the crowd nod with approval. Some cheer. Venue Executives mumble profanities. While others would just be happy if the room setup would match the session. “Rounds in the general session room? What’s that all about,” asks one attendee.

So, it’s environment right? Redesign the conference centers OR match the room setup to the needs. That must be the future of meetings. Um, not exactly.

Is “Content” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of meetings sends others into the “content” corner. These people are talking about content delivery, interactive formats, learning styles, objectives, discovery, etc. They say less time listening to boring speakers and more time interacting in an informal learning environment. When someone says more collaboration and interaction – groups of people start whooping and hollering Texas style. Speakers scratch their heads and ask if better hand gestures would help.

So, it’s content right? Use more collaborative formats. Get people out of chairs and writing on white boards. Um, not exactly.

Is “Attendee Experience” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of meetings gets others talking about attendee experience. It’s about putting the attendee at the center of the event. Ruud Janssen says that we need to think about it like “100 events for 100 people.” Another person talks about interviewing “professional attendees” – the conference road warriors – and using their needs as the model for how these experiences could work.

So, it’s attendee experience right? Design events with the attendee in mind. Um, not exactly.

Is “Storytelling” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of meetings gets others talking about storytelling. It’s about narrative and personas they say. They talk about the strong characters in movies and books that we identify with. They talk about the dilemmas created in good vs. evil situations. They continue on with more stuff that is over our heads – but sounds good. Many nod in approval.

So, it’s storytelling right? We just hire a scriptwriter create good characters, put Bruce MacMillan in a flying harness and get Stephen Spielberg to show us how to produce the stuff. Um, not exactly.

Is “Inspiration” the Future of Meetings?

The keynote speakers from the Opening General Session will tell you that the future of meetings is about passion and inspiring people to become part of something greater than themselves. They will site examples of people coming from remarkable circumstances that you couldn’t ever imagine to do something extraordinary. Since, we are all amazed – we nod with approval and donate $20.

So, it’s inspiration right? We find someone or something that inspires us – like Bruce Willis or the A-team. Then we book them for our next event. That’s the ticket! Um, not exactly.

Is “Outside the Industry” the Future of Meetings?

The topic of the future of events gets others to talk about looking outside our industry for the answer. Looking for inspiration in art, in movies, in design, in Farmville, in nature and in space. Or was it in Oldspice? Regardless, asking ourselves what the Future of Meetings looks like – doesn’t help – because we all have the similar answers. As we hear this point of view, we nod again.

So, it’s looking outside ourselves right? We watch a few OldSpice commercials, play Farmville and “friend” that Zuckerberg dude who created Facebook – then we will know the future of events. Right? Um, not exactly.

So what is the Future of Meetings?

Well, if the future of meetings is not technology or space or content or attendee experience or inspiration or outside factors – then what is it?

I have no idea. I just can tell you that it is not ONE of those factors – it is all of them. As far as I can tell that is the conclusion drawn from the MPI World Education Conference.

What do you think our future meetings and events will look like? or what do they need to look like?

Note: I did receive partial registration reduction for agreeing to participate in the Social Media Guru program at MPI’s World Education Conference.

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All that I need you to do is answer this one tiny question: Interactivity is important for hybrid events, because _____________.

Then, I will take care of the rest. I will try to post the presentation here by the end of next week.

The post Interactivity is important, because… appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

In my first 365 days, I wrote 2,743 tweets – which is about 110 pages worth of tweeting. I have to admit that I was shocked that I had written so many pages of tweets. (For the math people this assumes that each tweet takes up 1 line in a page and there are 25 lines per page.) It made stop for a few minutes and reflect on what I had learned over the past year from using this new tool.

Below are some things that I have learned. Have a look and then let me know if you think all of this tweeting was really worth it? or was it a massive waste of time? Of course, if you have things to add from your own experiences – please do so. The more the merrier!

20 Things I Learned in My First Year of Tweeting

1. Twitter is a super-simple way to publish messages. How hard is it to write one sentence and hit send? Not hard.
2. When you have 1,000 followers it is impossible to listen to what everyone is saying with equal attention.
3. Tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite help me organize my Twitter “ears” and listen to the people and conversations that are most important to me.
4. I choose the conversations to follow and dip my toe into other conversations of interest throughout the day.
5. In some twitter groups – members find and share articles that would be impossible for 1 person to find on his own and in a timely manner.
6. Twitter is a great way to spread content to like-minded individuals.
7. Twitter isn’t for all people.
8. Twitter is public – so it won’t work for any private or confidential corporate events.
9. Many-to-Many conversations on Twitter are fast-moving, action packed and fully archived. Watch what you say!
10. Conversations on Twitter can be archived at wthashtag.com. This is a great resource to go back and review what was said.
11. I once summarized a full conversation of tweets with 1 tweet. Is that good or bad?
12. I started this blog because of Twitter. I know 10 others that did the same.
13. Twitter is a super-simple way to connect remote and virtual attendees.
14. While the movers were packing boxes at my home, I participated in a conference via Twitter 4000 miles and nine time zones away.
15. Luckily, not everyone is on Twitter.
16. I never had any interest in following Shaq, Britney Oprah or Aston Kucher.
17. The #eventprofs community on Twitter is awesome.
18. I attended a conference in February because of the people that I met on Twitter. I had an awesome time! Some people think I was crazy.
19. I attended a conference in March because someone tweeted that they were attending. Does that make me a stalker?
20. Twitter introduced me to thousands of interesting people in the past year. If it weren’t for them – I would have left this technology long ago.

Bottom Line

While Twitter is a simple technology – it is a powerful communication tool. After 110 pages of tweets, I am very thankful for the people that I met on Twitter this past year. Without them – I probably would have abandoned the technology very quickly. Thank you Twitter friends!

image credit: @cdharrison

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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.

Here is the slide deck. Some notes from the presentation are below:

[slideshare id=3344908&doc=emec2010virtual101-100305101811-phpapp02]

What is a virtual event? How are people using them?

This presentation contained some insights and ideas from my participation in the “Virtual 3rd World” at the Virtual Edge Summit (Read more here). Where I tapped into some of the latest research data from Virtual Edge and George P. Johnson regarding virtual event usage and statistics. Also, I discussed the big question: What is a virtual event? and showed some of the graphs from Kelly A Graham’s presentation on Virtual Events.

Three Types of Attendees in the LikeMinded Community

One of the radical ideas that I proposed – was this idea that there are three types of likeminds in your event community:

1. Those that are attending.

2. Those that cannot or do not attend

3. Those that don’t know who you are but believe how your attendees do.

In my opinion, the virtual event is very powerful for giving the people that are your fans (and cannot attend) a platform for participation and sharing. In this sharing, your virtual participants can help draw in other likeminded individuals that don’t know about your organization, brand or event.

New Opportunities that Digital Technology Creates for Events

I shared my framework of the four opportunities that digital technology creates for events: Extend the Event Experience, Include More People, Increase Interaction and Leverage New Formats. Then, I discussed four different types of virtual technologies that could be used for their events and explained the advantages and differences.

One of the points that I tried to make in this presentation is that events are an explosion of content. While that is great, virtual events help us extend that content explosion and spread it much further. Also, they help us re-use the content that goes into these events over a much longer time.

Also, I shared some planning timelines from Cisco, where I made the point that a “Virtual Event” is a real event. You need to still go through your planning process in the same way that you would for another event.

Metrics and Best Practices

The final section covered some metrics and best practices that I wanted to share with the audience. In fairness, I could have developed this a little further – but I considered these bonus slides. I didn’t think that we would even get to these slides.

Questions and Comments

If you have any questions or comments on the presentation or the content, please let me know. I would be more than happy to answer any questions and expand on any of the ideas that were discussed.

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While it wasn’t ideal – I gotta say that it wasn’t that bad either. Especially, considering my alternative was to watch movers load the truck.

Movers Loading the Container

Here are 20 Tweets that I collected from the event that I think are worth your attention. If you are interested in more – you can either watch the videos or checkout the backchannel (Search #ve10 on Twitter).

1. C your F2f event as a microverse in a larger context of community says @PaulSalinger #vevu #ve10 think of all channels 4 your content /via @jeffhurt

2. Key component of Hybrid events is the interaction and engagement created between virtual and face2face attendees /via @michaelmccurry

3. Remote attendees arrive early, stay late online and want a robust virtual experience when attending a virtual event says @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

4. Why Virtual Events: extend content reach, extend, reduce spend, extend duration, support #green, demonstrate tech @kellyAGraham A) #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

5. Why Virtual Events B) Gain better metrics for business intelligence – data, data, data says @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

6. Consider prospects who may attend your virtual event, taste it, & decide to later attend the F2F event says @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

7. A Virtual Event is a gathering of ppl who meet in online environment at set time 2 acquire info, share, network, engage @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

8. Virtual Event Strategies: Get, Keep & Grow Customers says @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

9. Virtual Event Strategy (VES) 1) Understand your Audience 2) Document Your Objectives 3) Develop Measurement Plan says @kellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

10. What I like about the live stream of #ve10 – I can flip between sessions until I find content of interest http://bit.ly/ci5h7Y /via @scottlum

11. @scottlum You can flip between sessions and no one has to move their chair to let you scoot by! #ve10 /via @ginaschreck

12. VES: Don’t understimate resources for virtual strategy. Lrn to understand virtual attendee’s expectations says @KellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

13. You need a good Digital Strategiest that understand virtual and online experiences for Virtual Events Success says @KellyAGraham #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

14. Strategic Methodology for Virtual Events Use Master Process: M) Mark your aud A) Assess Objs & goals S) Strategy says @kellyagraham #ve10 /@jeffhurt

15. VE Strategic Methodology cont T) Tech Review E) Execution R ) Review & Reblance says @kellyagraham #ve10 /@jeffhurt

16. Audience Technographics for Virtual Events #ve10 from @KellyAGraham http://twitpic.com/14x7h8 [Book mark this. Another winner from Kelly] /via @jeffhurt

17. Wow, Cisco did a virtual event for 10 million says @kellyAGraham [Not the norm she reminds audience] #ve10 /via @jeffhurt

18. Cisco cost per person dropped from $4500 to $385 by going virtual. But they want hybrid event for 2010 : drive motivation #ve10 #vevu /@ikesingh

19. Virtual events? Don’t look at technology first – what do you want to accomplish? Look at tech. after event plan in place. #ve10 /via @scottlum

20. Virtual is an umbrella term for any type of event that is not face-to-face says @KellyAGraham /via @JeffHurt

Two BONUS Tweets

21. Gr8 4all events: Virtual Event Obj: Complete form for each aud segment u target says @KellyAGraham http://twitpic.com/14x8q9 /via @JeffHurt

The diagram is great for all events that are using any type of digital technology. I use many similar questions when I meet with companies that are considering event technology.

22. Virtual Events Metrics & ROI [Good list to consider] from @deTomasi & @KellyAGraham #ve10 #eventprofs http://twitpic.com/14xjax

I like how this list of metrics is categorized: Reach, Engagement, Conversion and Content Lifecycle. I think the attention to the content life-cycle is important. If you are going to make the investment in creating content, then you should look very closely at how you far and wide you can spread that content.

Bottom Line

Even in the virtual third world, I was able to connect with this conference and harvest some valuable insights. I hope that you found these 20 tweets and the links valuable as well.

So, what jumped out at you? What would you add?

The post 20 Tweets from the Virtual Edge Summit Worth Reading appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

Moving the Smith's to the US

What is really strange is that I still feel connected to five different conferences that are happening around me in other parts of the world:

> MeetDifferent, Cancun: This event just finished and had a virtual access pass. On Sunday, I played Midori Connolly’s The Hybrid Meeting Dissected in the background while I was making some final arrangements before the movers arrived on Monday morning. Midori and Glenn Thayer did an excellent job of engaging the virtual audience in the presentations and discussion. If you are an MPI member you should watch the presentation and pay close attention to Glenn and how he bridges the virtual and face-to-face audience. Also, I liked the Meet Different iphone application. This free application did a nice job of giving me information on the schedule, speakers, twitter stream, etc. for the conferences.

> Confex, London: Confex is the most important show for the UK meetings and events industry.  Some big news from this event was the launch of the IML Connector. This new blackberry-like-device transforms into a voting keypad, “private” backchannel, simultaneous translation device, audio player and a microphone during events. I think the software behind the device is the most interesting. It seems simple enough that a junior A/V tech,  IT staff member or even a speaker could operate the system. If that is true, this solution could open doors for using interactive technology at many smaller corporate events.

> Virtual Edge 2010, California: This virtual conference had about 200 people onsite and many in the virtual audience. The conference allowed attendees to try 5 different virtual events platforms. I thought this was a great way to give attendees get an apples-to-apples comparison of the different platforms. Sadly, I was only connected to the conference through the twitter backchannel (hashtag: #ve10) on my iphone. I guess you would call it being in the virtual third world. But – I learned alot even from this format. I will be sharing insights from the virtual third world in an upcoming post.

> LikeMinds, Exter UK: This social media conference (starting on Friday) is supposed to be one of the first events where Social Media experts actually bring the many-to-many feature of Social Media into Face-to-Face events. I am eager to see how they do it. If you want to follow the event, you can watch the livestream on the Twitterface. Twitterface is a web based solution that allows you to include twitter streams and webcasting into the same user interface. It looks like a cool way to engage virtual attendees.

> MPI European Meetings & Events Conference, Spain: This conference starts on Sunday and I will be there speaking about event technology at two sessions. One session is on Virtual Events 101 and the other is called building a Digital Gameplan for Events. You can follow the backchannel for this event at #EMEC10. I will try to recruit some MPI Europe members to join me on the backchannel. Here is a video about my two sessions:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zflHYPJ264g]

Bottom Line

Even though, I have been packing boxes and going through the moving process – I have found it remarkably easy to stay connected with several different events this week. Consider “opening a window” into your next event, so remote or virtual attendees can participate in one way or another. Who knows – maybe they will attend in person the following year.

So, what do you do while packing boxes?

The post Staying Connected to 5 Conferences While Packing Boxes 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.

Worlds Are Colliding

The digital world and the face to face worlds are colliding and I see several new opportunities emerging for events. Yesterday, we tackled these four new opportunities that have emerged for events to use event technology to transform the event:

• Extending the Meeting
• Including More People
• Improved Interaction
• New Formats

Extending the Meeting

We have the opportunity to stretch event experiences from 1-2 days to several days, weeks and months. Rather than looking at the meeting as an isolated event – we can look at it as one point in a conversation stream. By using your digital touch points wisely, you can start relationships earlier and change the nature of the face-to-face interactions onsite. Webinars, webcasts, social networks and social media tools are some of the technologies making this possible.

Including More People

The people that come to your event are a subset of your event community. For one reason or another, there are some people that cannot come to your event. It has nothing to do with you, your program, the venue, the destination or the price – they just can’t come. Rather than ignore these “potential” attendees – the technology tools like the backchannel and live streaming help you include them in your event experience.

Increasing Interaction

Attendees are smarter than they have ever been. The gap between the experts on stage and the attendees in the audience has never been smaller. The collaboration tools that we have at our disposal have made it easier than ever to create this interaction. Equally important – there are a large number of audience response keypads, gadgets, handheld devices and mobile applications that put the power in the attendee’s hand and make it easier for you to engage them: Ask questions, collect ideas, vote, etc.

Alternative Formats

We still live in a world where good projects (meetings, marketing plans, etc.) are being cut in favor of better projects. Telepresence and Virtual Events are two event formats that have emerged as viable lost cost alternatives (or compliments) to full face-to-face events. While some face-to-face diehards may initially raise their noses at these two formats – I suggest that you take a closer look. I would prefer that you keep some options in your back pocket and fight for your projects – rather than accept defeat when the finance department and management want to cut your event.

Bottom Line

The collision between the digital world and the face-to-face world creates several new opportunities for events. By framing the discussion in terms of these new opportunities – you can strategically approach technology rather than look at it tactically.

That’s my take – what do you think?

The post Worlds Are Colliding to Create New Opportunities for Events appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

Consider Chalkbot. This tool allowed the virtual audience (those at home) to share messages of hope and join Lance Armstrong and Livestrong in the Tour De France. Chalkbot collected text messages and chalked them on the street along the Tour de France route. Watch the video here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jb-KT4r6NY]

Bottom Line:

From time-to-time, your passionate members and raving fans will not be able to attend your events. While that is a pity – you don’t have to ignore them. Channel your Inner-Chalkbot and find ways to include these people!  You don’t always need sophisticated interactions – a simple text message will do.

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