The BusyEvent Blog

More than a year ago, a LinkedIn post written by an events industry veteran declared “It’s All the Rage! (and rightly so) Mobile Apps for Meetings“!

We have experienced HTML5, QR, Reg systems, WordPress, jQuery, NFC and other readily available platforms more seamlessly weave together once we know what the long-term vision is.  Open architecture systems and things that look like lego blocks are how we’re going to get it done going forward.  WHY… because a new handheld device (phone, tablet, ultrabook, etc) comes out almost every day and we have to build the types of systems that allow us to match the pace of this constant churn.

So, as these events industry professionals observe and comment. . . it all comes down to: “Show Me The MONEY“!

Pat Pathade commented: “All this sounds great, but does anyone see any improvement in sales close ratio? It would be interesting to know the depth and breadth of the impact of these technologies to the top line, and also what might it be like if it were *not* for these technologies.”

Terence Donnelly, looking at this ‘rage’ through the lense of a CMP asked what we think is the pivotal question: “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…this is not new or hardly “the rage” but we all have to have a strategy around mobile.  So, the key question is what new insights are show manager’s gaining (and most importantly) how are we going to monetize this?

From Australia, event production company executive Jo-Anne Kelleway bridged the gap between monetization and value in her comment: ” People will pay for content that they can’t get anywhere else….and we have to deliver it across all platforms….that is where the monetization is.

And frankly, we agree.

BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg’s comment outlines what we’ve believed for more than 20 years; the value is not in the ’shiny object’ but instead, it’s in providing easier access to the information people want with a strategy that understands how to meld the two.

This is not a market to build a square product and run around jamming it in any round hole you can find. The event market needs some experienced guidance and a method to develop unique strategies for improvement over multiple years. THEN go looking for technologies that can work together to achieve those goals in a flexible manner. We are at risk of overwhelming our clients with technology. Just getting them to try one new thing (a crawl, walk, run strategy) is a good starting point.

And finally, Jo-Anne brought it all home with this insightful request to focus on what’s really important: “Hi David, You are right! Technology is changing far more rapidly than users are able to keep up. The “crawl, walk, run strategy” should be more enforced. We are seeing too many event organizers grabbing at technology offerings without an understanding of their own requirements….and too many “fly-by-night” technology companies offering apps for free. No wonder these companies don’t survive.”

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!

Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

More importantly, do QR codes (or near field communications) bring any unique and lasting value or, are they just another ’shiny object’?

It’s a question that has been bandied about by event professionals for years and has been generating a lot of comments in the LinkedIn Events Technology group (free membership to group, required).

Deciding to use QR codes, NFC, or any type of ’shiny object’, or not, is like walking around with a drill and deciding where you want to put a hole.

A comment by Eric Olson states the underlying difference and where things are headed… events have, for some time now, been moving towards giving the attendee control.  And, it’s a trend we’ve seen consistently occurring at the events that utilize BusyEvent Classic and now the BusyEvent GoMobile.PRO system. When analyzing the event data and reporting to our clients what’s really going on at their events, we’ve been reporting the “Return On Action / ROA” that event professionals, event exhibitors and attendees are most interested in.

Rather than looking at ROI and ROO and other data like the number of names on a list of leads, CFOs, Marketing Managers and VPs of Sales want to know more about the actions their target attendees take before, during and after an event.  That is the best indicator of what content was most engaging, most useful and who are the best targeted opportunities.

So, are QR codes a passing trend or are they here to stay?

Some shows are a perfect match for shiny objects and others can be a complete flop for cultural and environmental reasons.  At BusyEvent, we’re seeing that if there’s a good reason to connect using technology and the content can only be had via participation in the “secret conversation”, then a majority of people will do it.

Events want to go mobile but don’t know exactly why or even have a strategy for it. Kind of like the early days of the Internet when a company needed a website without a business strategy for why. When we pass the barrier occurring in the mobile space, we’ll start seeing more purposeful use of the technology. Shiny objects come and go, but the reasons to use them tend not to change.  It’s the #1 rule when figuring out how to Take Advantage of Social Sharing for fun and profit, at events.

By staying focused on why people come to a live event and then building a strategy for making that fun and engaging, decide what you want to measure and THEN go find the technology(s) that will help you achieve all that.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

GoMobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, GoMobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!

Learn how at http://www.GoMobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the GoMobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

Is anyone else getting tired of the cool kids?  Tired of being treated like we’re stupid for not using their sparkly and amazing new technology?

Ever stopped to wonder why all those shiny objects sound so cool but just never hit the mark?

Well, maybe it’s because “they” aren’t “us” and “we” like to do things differently than everyone else.

Here’s who WE are:

• WE research event trends, talk to fellow event planners, seek advice from likely (and unlikely) sources and study the competition.
• WE actually care about the one thing that nobody else cares about.
• WE try to do the one thing that nobody else is doing because . . . it will make a difference.
• WE were the kid in junior high with the color-coded Trapper Keeper folders who came to school the day before classes started to make a map from his schedule on graph paper.

Right now, conventional wisdom would tell us to hole up in our lab, get all event-techy and develop nifty apps for iPhone and Android.  However, what our actual research has shown is that too many people either own a Blackberry or have a corporate phone that won’t allow them to load an app.

Because we’re like you . . . WE are listening.

And here’s what we’re hearing:

• Several companies offer mobile polling, social networking, expo lead management and show guides.
• Other companies help event producers create and publish mobile web applications that promise to make you money and make your event a success.
• And oodles of the ‘me too’ generation get all starry-eyed when they talk about their latest shiny object.

But, no one offers them ALL, right on your mobile device . . . non one except for BusyEvent.   Groovy, Huh?

And we do it for less—a LOT less (like FREE).  Better yet – if you don’t make money using our tools, neither will we.  That’s a promise.

So, if you’re really tired of all the cool kids in the events industry telling you to buy from them even if that means buying from three or more vendors and that doesn’t feel right – maybe it isn’t.  We think it is several kinds of crazy.

And while you may not have been that super-organized kid in junior high, in some ways, having them around running the technology at your event just feels right . . . doesn’t it?

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Learn more about BusyEvent Mobile Pro and create your own search enabled mobile guide for your live event, for FREE, in just minutes!

It’s so easy you won’t even need instructions and with nothing to download and nothing to install, neither will your attendees!

I used to invest thoughtful time each week on LinkedIn answering event technology questions. For a long time it was a great source for blog content for our website and always worth the effort. But somewhere along the way questions veiled as sales messages and more recently not so veiled began to outweigh the real Q&A event planners are seeking… so I left.

Earlier this week, my business partner Brian Slawin and I were sitting with a fellow event professional and he summed up how I felt.  He said “All any of us are trying to do is help our client try one new thing that’s simple and easy to try.  Kind of like walking into Home Depot to tackle a small home project.  When you complete one project, it’s an empowering feeling that you can solve yet another“.   Since I’m both an event planner and an event technology sales guy I appreciate that everyone has a bag to carry so I try to help people find the crawl part of crawl – walk – run.

So I recently started paying attention to a few forums on LinkedIn again and the first posting I ran into was from a guy who had the basketballs to ask, “if anyone out there has enjoyed this great product and would like to recommend it“, blah, blah, blah!   A single click revealed this player to be the actual director of sales for the company.  Fortunately the first posting was from a savvy planner making fun of him and his “old news” product. I’ve decided I’m going to start doing that and I think you should too. People don’t like to hit the abuse button because most of this stuff isn’t abusive… Just annoying.  So you have to dislike something by speaking your mind.

LinkedIn forums survive on the quality of the content so Kudos to you who give freely of your knowledge.  Good karma (and business) will rain down on you.  But for all the trolls out there, please be more honest in your approach. If someone has a need, then give your elevator pitch, but consider that if your product is NOT the right fit for the request, then either leave that planner alone or be a gentlemen and introduce them to a partner or competitor and hopefully they will remember next time when you are the right fit.

But if you manage to steer them in the wrong direction, then they WILL NOT feel empowered to do more and they WILL NOT get approval to spend money on technology next time. Then the rest of us wind up having to clean up your mess and pay for your transgressions. We all have a responsibility to use these forums to help one another and business comes naturally from people who “like” what you are doing/saying and then reach out to you as a trusted advisor.

If you are lucky enough to see this all the way through, you’ll wind up with client partners that help you design better programs.  The forum is a great place to discuss real ideas and issues. I’m coming back in to participate once again and perhaps we’ll do a little elephant hunting together!

- BusyEvent CEO – David Schenberg

An Interview with BusyEvent Account Manager – Randi Schenberg

You seem drawn to the meeting and events industry.  What is the draw for you?
You are right.  Every time I have attempted to leave the industry, it hasn’t happened.  It started with my first job in the hotel business.  Despite the crazy hours and frequent insanity, I grew to love the industry.  After 11 years, I switched to the meeting and event planner side of the business.
Every job I have had since then has been related to tourism, meetings and events.

How does that work to your benefit in your
position with BusyEvent?
When we arrive on-site for an event, I know how hotels operate. I know where to watch out for extra costs. Do you have to work with the in-house
AV company or can you choose an outside AV company?  Is your sales person or your convention services manager the right person to ask for something?  If you don’t know the set-up of the hotel hierarchy, it can be overwhelming, especially in the larger properties.

Is it harder work to be on the hotel side or the meeting planner side?
I’ll always have to side with the hotel.  I’m not saying we don’t work incredibly hard as meeting and event planners.  I’m saying that the 24/7 nature
of the hotel business is never ending.  When our events are over, we pack up and get to regroup before for our next event (we hope).

What has been your biggest challenge working at BusyEvent?
My biggest challenge has been understanding technology.  I work with people who eat and sleep technology – the more the better.  I have learned things that I never knew existed, things that make people’s jobs so much easier.  It gives us the ability to help make their events so much better.  I certainly can’t keep up with the latest and greatest, but at least now,  I have heard of it!

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The Old Way is Broken. We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, find out if you are paying too much for your event and Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package!

Calculate your event’s ROI and get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway

http://j.mp/beROI

Apps Based Lead Retrieval – Why They Don’t Work

On a recent LinkedIn thread, the question was asked: “What kind of lead retrieval systems are being used at trade shows now?  I am hearing about apps that are like a lead retrieval system available on iPhones, Droids, etc…Thoughts?”

The good news is that with the plethora of personal technology, the entire lead management process can now – and some say FINALLY – be flipped on its head to provide exhibitors with truly qualified leads and event producers with tremendous amounts of actionable and information that can be monetized.  The bad news is that, with one notable exception, the lead management landscape remains much like it has for the past several decades – albeit with new shiny objects.

Here’s our thoughts . . .

Hi there <<Name Withheld>>

There’s a reason that upwards of 80% of the leads available from a trade show are NEVER FOLLOWED UP WITH!!!

Some things to consider:

• The technology of lead retrieval has gone from a hand shake, to notes scribbled on the back of business cards, to fish bowls, to touch screens to bar code swipers, to card scanners and now phones.  The problem?   Unfortunately, all they give the exhibitor is a list of people that stopped by their booth.  Are a list of people that got scanned at a booth truly a list of qualified leads? (READ: “Tradeshows . . . Where Good Leads Go To Die“)

• Here’s a typical lead management scenario: The attendee goes up to the booth and the exhibitor has to ‘activate’ them with a tool.  How many lead opportunities are missed because the attendee doesn’t have the time, doesn’t want to bother, never made it to the booth, or, they met the exhibitor in the restaurant, in the hallway or in the bar where the lead retrieval technology isn’t working?  Today’s technologies are all passive. (READ: “Are Your Event Attendees Lying To You?“)

• EVERY one of the phone based technologies simply collects who got ’scanned’.  NONE of them (with one notable exception) provide you information on how interested the attendee is, by telling the exhibitor if the attendee viewed or interacted with their products or services – before, during or after the event.  How valuable would it be if the exhbitor could actually ‘track, measure and report’ on who interacted with their information?

• Why is it incumbent on the exhibitor to activate the attendee after the attendee finally approaches them?  What would it mean if the attendee had the power to express interest in exhibitors without the exhibitor having to do anything? (READ: “Are Unqualified Leads Balancing Your Event’s Bottom Line?“)

There are numerous other parts to this discussion and the failures of the current crop of technologies masquerading as qualified lead management tools:

• The ‘green’ element,
• The cost of giving a list of contacts to the ’spam/cold call’ sales force
• The ’scan and wait’ versus the ‘real-time activation’ of an attendee to receive information NOW
• . . . and many others  are all significantly important to this discussion.

Find out how to solve the above and overcome the costs associated with buying the ’show provided’ solution by turning your smart phone – ANY smart phone – into a BeLinker, NOW (oh, btw, there’s nothing to download or install):  http://www.busyevent.com/belinker

Information about the core BeLinker System and BeLinker On Keypad is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerOnKeypad

Information about the expanded BeLinker On Mobile Platform on:
- ANY smart phones (no applications to install or downloads required) and
- ANY internet connected device via cellular, wifi and hardwire is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerMobile

Haven’t had enough? There’s even more . . . learn how to monetize your meetings and access the BeLinker System: Visit www.BusyEvent.com

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The Old Way is Broken.

We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and
get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

No Longer A Secret – BusyEvent Announces Release of BeLinker On Mobile

St. Louis, MO – August 13, 2010

BusyEvent, the leader in live event solutions, has successfully launched the 3rd generation of its event communications system, BeLinker On Mobile.

“Right now technology developers are bringing out all kinds of ideas, hoping the market will accept them.  Those tools are typically good at doing one thing well, or require a download, or only work on a single phone system (like the iPhone) and that’s where BeLinker On Mobile is different” said BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg.

By providing tools that impact the business purposes for an event, BeLinker seamlessly integrates Audience Response, Lead Tracking, Document and Session Management and Social Networking from a single integrated system.

Developed for face-to-face and virtual events, BeLinker On Mobile enables a new level of connectivity, and engagement while generating increased profitability from new and existing revenue streams and provides every event participant using ANY internet connected device, real-time access to their personalized event information portal.

With nothing to download or install, event participants can collect and store their connections with people, products and information and access their Virtual Totebag using:

• ANY smart phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.),
• ANY internet connected device (iPad, laptops, desktops and Netbooks) as well as
• The original BeLinker Wireless Keypad introduced in 2008.

Decades of event experience have gone into the creation of BeLinker On Mobile.  By first looking at what event producers, corporate event professionals and attendees have been asking for, BusyEvent is providing a complete package of tools that no other single system offers today, which includes:

1. communication with their attendees in real-time
2. event adjustments on the fly
3. tapping into the secret conversations (social networking) at an event
4. voting, polling and audience response included
5. providing a lead management system that generates leads instead of just a list
6. ‘greening’ of the event with access to event materials, speaker presentations and exhibitor brochures in a “Virtual Totebag” system and
7. extending the event beyond the 3 days and 4 walls into the virtual and hybrid event space.

Most recently used by more than 5,000 attendees of the Domino’s Pizza 50th Anniversary Rally, BeLinker enhanced audience response, face-to-face social networking, lead management, document and session management. The Domino’s event team effectively managed thousands of event details in real time through the secure BusyEvent dashboard system.   Client Chris Brandon was quoted saying, “I was floored by how everything went all week – and considering record event attendance and a new property we’ve never worked at before, it really is a testament to the job you guys did.”



Information about the core BeLinker System and BeLinker On Keypad is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerOnKeypad

Information about the expanded BeLinker On Mobile Platform on:
- ANY smart phones (no applications to install or downloads required) and
- ANY internet connected device via cellular, wifi and hardwire is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerMobile

Haven’t had enough?  There’s even more . . . learn how to monetize your meetings and access the BeLinker System: Visit www.BusyEvent.com

——————————————————————–

The Old Way is Broken.

We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and
get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway

Meeting Planners Under Increased Pressure To Show ROI

HotelMarketing.com is an excellent resource of information for event planners as they look at how to best work with venues and facilities.

In April, they published the following with a keen eye towards the continuing pressures of meeting planners to ‘prove’ ROI.  While we have a particular focus on ROA (Return on Action) as the only truly provable metric (Are Your Event Attendees Lying To You?), it’s intriguing to learn what, from a suppliers perspective, the critical measurable itemsare.

According to a new survey, the measurements most often requested of meeting planners include:

• event evaluations/satisfaction surveys
• net revenue
• attendance size
• room night count
• sponsorships
• ability to stay within budget
• rate of repeat attendance
• level of responsiveness to client needs and
• increased service per attendee per dollars spent.

Nearly half (49 percent) of the meeting planners attending the 10th Annual Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’s (HSMAI) Affordable Meetings Mid-America Conference & Exposition at Chicago’s Navy Pier, April 14-15, 2010, stated that they feel increased pressure to show metrics/statistics that attest to the success of events.

Industry professionals are paying more attention to ROI and outcome measurement, especially now that budgets are tighter and meetings are coming under continued scrutiny.

“Interestingly given the economy, price isn’t the critical deciding factor for meeting planners.  Meeting planners are instead looking for value and a solid return on their investment. This year, they’re scrutinizing every detail of the cost in order to ensure they receive maximum value,” said Dr. James Houran, President of 20|20 Assessment™.

The top five factors surveyed planners said they use to select specific venues for events were (in descending order of average rating):

1. size of the meeting space
2. guest room cleanliness
3. customer service
4. location of the venue and
5. price.

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The Old Way is Broken. We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway
http://j.mp/beROI

Taking Advantage of Social Sharing – 10 Ideas For Fun and Profit

For most of us, sharing came naturally.  Sharing food or fun or experiences was part of who we were as we learned how to become social.  But then, as the world changed and siblings encroached, sharing became part of a zero-sum game; If you have, then I don’t.

That of course, is when adult society got involved; “Go on, share that with your friends”, or the dreaded “So, Mr. Slawin, do you have enough to share with the rest of the class?”  From its natural beginnings, sharing became a societal norm; albeit controlled.

With the advantage of hindsight, we can see that sharing isn’t driven by technology.  Instead, sharing is driven by people’s need to be connected and accelerated by their ability to use technology to do it themselves, if they have to.

So, how can event professionals take advantage of social sharing for their events?  And most importantly, what’s going to happen if they don’t?

The major assumption in the desire to enable ’social sharing’ at an event is providing your attendees with a voice.  Since the core reason that events, tradeshows and conferences were developed has stopped being a problem: (If The Old Events Model Is Broken – What Will Work In Its Place?), not enabling people to share beyond the 3 days and 4 walls of your event will result in lost opportunities, reduced event revenues and dissatisfied participants (Will A Hybrid Event Cannibalize My Face-to-Face Attendance?)

If you don’t provide and manage a variety of face-to-face, virtual and hybrid channels for communication and information distribution, your event participants are going to develop them on their own and you lose your ability to monetize, influence, learn from and profit from that conversation.

How to take advantage of Social Sharing for Fun and Profit!

1. Never mistake Shiny Objects with something that will truly impact the quality of the event and improve the outcomes for your attendees.  As an example, if a new mobile application requires your event attendees to do much more than sign up and show up or a vendor’s tools require them to access the venue supplied wifi to get an app to work, people won’t use it (An Example of How to Integrate Twitter, Into an Event).
2. People do what they’re used to doing.  Asking your attendee to change their behaviors to work within your system, typically won’t result in anything successful. Instead, focus your offerings by leveraging what people are already doing and grow their capabilities.
3. Create experiences and content that is meant to be shared.  Encourage the use of social sharing applications and foster their use by promoting them broadly because social sharing becomes the ultimate form of distribution and word of mouth (Why Social Sharing Is Bigger than Facebook and Twitter).
4. Listen to what your event attendees are thinking and give them easy and immediate access to share their thoughts with you (What Your Attendees Are Thinking and What Your Attendees Are Thinking, Aren’t Telling You and Why You Should Care).
5. Make sure that every attendee, sponsor and exhibitor has the opportunity to participate in whatever systems you create.  That means, an app that only works on 25% of your participants mobile devices, or creating a high tech solution for a low tech audience will result in your eliminating a potential source of information, revenue and emotional connections to your event and each attendee.
6. Know what matters most to your attendees and exhibitors.  Is it content?  Is it contacts?  It is leads?  (Changing the Equation for Organizers and Attendees)
7. Focus on actions, not things that look like actions (Are Your Event Attendees Lying To You?)
8. Don’t forget about email.  With all the focus on Facebook and Twitter and event specific social networks, email is still a major source of shared links and click-through’s. Email is the original social network.  Leverage it with enticing content and useful information.
9. Use tools that do more than a single thing.  5 vendors and 5 different tools means your data is spread into 5 different buckets and there’s no real way to create seamless information in that way.  Plus, monetizing that disparate data is nearly impossible.
10. Know the power and value of data and leverage it.  Social sharing is the simplest form of public approval and feedback, think of it as a feedback loop that allows you to evaluate who your event influencers are, what their influence is and how to best engage them – in real time.

——————–

The Old Way is Broken. We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway
http://j.mp/beROI

An interview with BusyEvent President and Co-Founder – Brian Slawin

What is your background that caused you to want to be in the event software business?
In the 90s, I was running the flight instruction department at Parks College of Saint Louis University, looking for ways to provide easier access to the materials our flight students had to master in order to earn their pilot certificates.   With some friends that were in IT, I developed what would now be known as a Learning Management System, but back then were simply an accumulation of downloadable documents and HTML pages.

With more and more students accessing these materials via the university network, my flight instructor colleagues approached me asking if I could put their materials on the network as well.  My job gradually transformed from being a line flight instructor to becoming more focused on the development of the curriculum and the distribution of materials, testing, standards, etc…  Through this time I also was working with the Toyota Air Sports team where I got to learn more about experiential marketing, the importance of data in making marketing and business decisions and frankly, how much fun the events world is.   Blending these two areas of my life, I began developing web sites and other online materials for airshow performers and eventually the air shows themselves.  As I got more involved with the air shows and began to better understand the logistics and how events were utilized as business, communications and marketing vehicles, I became more and more interested in how technologies could solve the various problems that events struggled to overcome; information management, communications, business development and sales, people management, logistics, etc….

That’s when I left Toyota and the University and began working at several event agencies and where I met my business partner, David Schenberg.

How many years have you been in the event industry?
I started in the mid-90s so, it’s going on 16 years.

What is the strangest/funniest thing that has ever happened at an event to you or your client?
I’m not sure how funny or strange this is, because at the time it was sure nerve wracking, but in the end it turned out fine and once again showed that staying calm under pressure, is the best approach.

We were at an event in Barcelona and about 15 minutes before the keynote featuring Sir Richard Branson was about to begin – all of the power to the backstage equipment went down.  It’s where we were stationed and getting ready to run the BeLinker audience response for about 2,000 attendees.  As the clock ticked down, people were running around frantically, throwing circuit breakers, looking for battery backups, trying to figure out what had happened . . . the walkie-talkie traffic was intense.  With the doors about to open and still nothing resolved, the BusyEvent team gathered and began to methodically run through our Plan B.  That’s when I looked over and saw that one of the non-English speaking grips had disconnected our entire system, thinking that it was a non-essential piece of equipment.  In doing so, he also had accidentally turned off the main power switch for all of the backstage power.  I called to the floor director and said “hey, I think I know what happened” and related to her what I was seeing.  About 20 people ran backstage and the poor grip was so startled I’m pretty sure he still hasn’t stopped shaking.

Once the power was restored, all went on according to play, with a few less hairs in everyone’s head.  But, once again it shows that in times of extreme pressure the best thing to do is keep your head and continue thinking and communicating.  As my business partner David says “It’s not what happens, but how you respond to it” and that’s so very true.

What are you most proud of having accomplished with BusyEvent?
One of the things that I am most proud of, is the way our company has continued to keep ‘solutions’ at the core of our focus, rather than developing a thing and looking for a problem to attach it to.

We continue to focus on our capabilities and the vision we had when we started our parent company, Panamedia Group in 2006.  While it hasn’t always been easy, or the quickest path to revenue, we knew that the events industry was ripe for a variety of solutions that would improve communications and make managing and running an event more efficient and ultimately more profitable for each of the stakeholder groups.

By building our expertise in a variety of areas that are parallel to the core of our business (such as developing the software for our Interactive Donor Walls) and gaining experience working with permanent placement hardware solutions, our capabilities to serve our clients’ wide variety of needs and source the appropriate solution continues to grow.

So, what I’m really proud of having accomplished is that most of our clients make us their first phone call . . . even if isn’t directly what we do, they know that we’ll always take the time to steer them on a good path.  The trust that we have earned and the relationships we’ve built are very satisfying and rewarding.

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