The BusyEvent Blog

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

We’ve always found the Corporate Event Marketing Association group on Linked In to be an engaging collection of senior level event professionals asking real questions for every day challenges.

That’s why a question regarding the effective use of technology at conferences, specifically Smart Phones, is creating great interest.

Focused on the effective use and deployment of technology, the CEMA group isn’t trapped by the “shiny object syndrome” and they’re expert at leading the adept combination and use of traditional and forward thinking tools for their events.

And . . . after winning the CEMA Technology Shootout last year, BusyEvent proudly accepted an invitation to become a CEMA member company and we’re excited that the 20th Annual CEMA Summit will be utilizing BeLinker next month in Las Vegas.

So, how would you answer the following question?

Should there be rules for the use of smart phones in your conference sessions?

Question:

With everyone using Twitter, Facebook and other social tools at events and social media communication being promoted at events, I am curious about how members of this group feel about conference or session attendees using smart phones or lap tops to Twitter or send messages during a session?

Thoughts from BusyEvent CEO, David Schenberg:

We are a culture that wants to use phones and laptops almost everywhere . . . even in flight.

However, the broader picture is more than the varying levels of tactfulness of each event attendee.  Our concerns center around the usefulness of social tools during an event and whether they can get in the way of what a face-to-face session should be about; a conversation for learning, engaging, sharing and enriching your event experience?  Frankly, we agree with Jeff Hurt’s thoughts and best practices regarding the Design of Next Generation Conference Educational Sessions

As a simple solution, we’d be in favor of creating a zone in the back of a session room, akin to the smoking room at the airport, for the use of interactive devices that might negatively impact the broader session goals.

Ironically, we’ve quietly deployed a mobile version of our wearable event technology (the BeLinker) because even though it flies in the face of where our company is headed, we recognize that limitations like:

• cell coverage
• platform differences
• data management
• the ability to monetize that data
• battery life and
• the partial attention span deficit being created when phone use is encouraged during a session

doesn’t sound very appealing to us either.

Consider the early days of the Internet as companies jumped in without knowing why . . . I think that is where we are with mobile.  And, much like those early internet days, the real usability of the platform tends to come later after some experience has been gained.

At BusyEvent we are always looking for ways to use the event experience to keep the plugged-in generation “plugged into” the event’s content before, during and after the live session.  That’s why, in addition to the above, our concerns extend to the content:

1. Who is going to capture the conversation?
2. How is it going to be used in a meaningful way, both in real-time and after?
3. Can events act on the conversation going on during their event?
4. Can events figure out a way to monetize that conversation?

Since we all know that attendee participation is a good thing, how do you look for ways to generate longer term connectedness that equals a return on your investment in the event?

#eventprofs #twitter

Recently, the Tarsus Group’s Stephen Nold asked that question in the  International Association of Exhibitions and Events™ (IAEE) LinkedIn group. There were many good responses ranging from tips-and-tricks to actual case studies of expectations and experiences.

Since BeLinker, our event networking platform, focuses on closing the “last foot gap” between people, products and information our thoughts were focused on execution.  And frankly, that’s what we see most events struggle with; executing their social media strategy.

For most, I’m going to guess, their social media strategy centers on getting people interested in their event enough to attend.  And while that’s a laudable goal we could be doing more.

We could be focusing on creating more value in both the virtual and face-to-face interaction.  Events, really, should be the start (or continuation) of a conversation that attendees have with each other, with exhibitors and with speakers.

Unfortunately, most producers are so busy working the nuts-and-bolts of their event that they aren’t spending enough time integrating the wide variety of social media tools into a consolidated platform.

In our opinion, the successful use of social media (which for this discussion is the ‘content’ element of social networking) focuses on the entire event; from marketing to registration to pre-event through the event through post-event and then around again to the next year.

BeLinker focuses on maximizing the face-to-face interaction that event attendees could have if they could figure out how to get together and then providing them the tools needed to carry that interaction into their real world.

The first thing events could do better is help you meet the right people; exhibitors meeting qualified buyers, attendees meeting the right speakers/other attendees and making sure all of that is done quickly and in real-time. While our focus tends to be on a technology solution to enhance the opportunity for this to occur we’ve helped other successful events do ‘round tables’ where people meet in rooms focused on their topic of the moment – in effect, crowd sourcing.

Second, we encourage our event clients to focus more on exhibitors and their needs and using social media to do so.  The recent LinkedIn thread started by Dana Freker Doody is emblematic of the issue.  In the more than 100 responses to the question Do you think the current tradeshow model is sustainable? most people focused on the cost side with little attention paid to the value side. Why?  Because for too long the industry hasn’t been delivering a tremendous amount of value as compared to the cost.

Sure, it’s a pond full of fish, butwhich fish?  And, how do I get at them?  Which attendees would raise their hand if they knew they’d be counted? If I’m attending an event I WANT to be approached by the right person with the right message at the right time.  Social media tools and channels can help those people self-identify more easily so they can receive the right customized message which equals the highest value proposition.

Third, event producers have a great opportunity to tap into the secret conversation at their own events and monetize that. It’s not about Twitter or Facebook status updates, it’s about understanding what is going on in real time and proactively engaging the attendees.  For example, a speaker has been hired to deliver 3 sessions and their first session receives terrible feedback.  Effective use of social media tools (like the BeLinker audience response system) would help the producer know what went wrong so they could provide that information to the speaker who could then ‘fix’ the issue before session 2.

It’s not about monitoring the social media conversation, it’s about being part of that conversation to proactively and as a partner provide the greatest amount of value possible to their event stakeholders.  Or, as Arron Coole said: “Stay social, be helpful, ask questions, listen and nurture and ensure your event reflects the issues raised by your audience.”

When done correctly, there’s a lot of revenue that can be generated for the event such that most social media tools and the effort required to nurture them, can become a profit center.

Finally, with all this talk of value and technology, let’s not forget that it’s humans we’re talking about and the bottom line for most people is that they like to have fun.  Maybe not Domino’s Pizza kind of fun; for instance, I like a great and mind-bending conversation every now and then. Successful social media needs to identify and foster that through learning games, competitive games, just plain fun games or an opportunity to just sit and talk.

In our opinion, a successful social media strategy builds a community that is ongoing and lasts beyond the end (and precedes the beginning) of an event and provides the community with tools, the content and the reason for staying involved.

Having fun, is a critical element of that.

Until going green becomes economical, are greenbacks more important than a carbon footprint? The view of many is that buying ‘green’ is consumerism with little ethical sprinkles on top.

Our entire economy is structured around built-in obsolescence from dispensable razors to food containers with no reasonable way to recycle them, technology that lasts 18 months and miles of carpet, Cat5 cable, lanyards and badges and all of the brochures at an event that serve their purpose and then are added to the junk heap of our lives after barely a few days of use.

Wire’s Marcus Timson, “Until a complete revolution in the minds and behavior of the consumer takes place, the environment will continue to be a fashionable marketing asset rather than a genuine care.”

This is especially true of the 78 Billion dollar printing industry where going green has been stifled under the pressures of an economic meltdown. There is a far more basic need than the environment; employment. However, if we continue to destroy our blue marble, how can we ultimately deliver anything worthwhile to our industry?

Again, according to Timson: “As an industry, it is not our fault that we pollute. It is not our responsibility to save the planet. We exist because there is a need. For the majority of society, motivated more by survival and desire for the protection of a nice lifestyle – going green is not a priority.” The view of many is that buying ‘green’ is consumerism with little ethical sprinkles on top.

So, what are we going to do? Even if we accept that there may be some manipulation of the earth warming data, shouldn’t we have some concern about the melting ice caps, the floating islands of garbage in the oceans, the un-breathable air and the never ending growth of waste land?

Until we get rid of the “greenwashing” of our language, will we ever, truly, green the events industry? Let’s accept the fact that most of us look for quality first, then costs and then . . . after a long line of variables . . . the green impact. Sure, if it’s easy we’ll do it but if it’s a choice between green and economics, which do you choose? Which do you promote to your client that has already told you their budgets are tight? Which, ultimately, wins out and when will that change, if ever?

And more to the point, who should step up to make that change? Clients? Event Managers? Technology providers? Society? Uncle Sam?

We’re going to be online at the EXPOTECH Virtual Conference on Dec 15th, answering questions about our BusyEvent software and our new BeLinkers. Register now to “attend” the conference online.

“Click Here’s” for the Yom Kippur Weekend #eventprofs #stl

Oiy!  Here we go . . .

• Matt Lauer, Today Show Co-Host, Buys A Home in the Hampton’s:
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574429132239900184.html

• 21 Ways To Get Something, for Nothing:
  http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/chi-090926get-free-stuff-pictures,0,6092970.photogallery

• Social Media & Events – It’s About Connecting People:
  http://www.slideshare.net/crystalaolig/social-media-events

• Tradeshow Metrics by MediaHound:  A Search Engine for the Tradeshows Industry:
  http://tradeshowmetrics.com/

• How to Sound a Shofar:
  http://www.youtube.com/v/mGKMhQBTabc

“Click Here’s” for the Weekend of September 18, 2009 – #eventprofs #stl

In honor of the Jewish New Year – La Shana Tova:

• Old Jews Telling Jokes | The Breakfast Table:
  http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgaCFdQI

• St. Louis Social Media Report | Jack Dorsey from Twitter:
  http://stlsocialmediareport.com/jack-dorsey-webster-university/

• The Swamp | Little Girls, Big Fathers and Giant Love:
  http://tinyurl.com/mvtmat

• Penn State Football | WhiteHouse 2009:
  http://tinyurl.com/mct6nj

• Event View | Optimism and Advice on Events in a Repression:
  http://eventview.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/exhibition-trend-research/

Better, Cheaper, Faster and Greener . . . You Want ‘Em All? #eventprofs

Part 1 of 2: Recession Proofing Your Green Event

Two of the most popular topics right now are recession proofing your meeting and running a green event. Companies continue to tighten their budgets and cost-cutting measures control which meetings they can attend.  Simply charging less may not be enough.  Running a green or sustainable event means eliminating waste, making tough choices in venues, and selecting food and beverage options that are better for the environment and the surrounding community.

Traditionally the two goals sit in opposition to one another.  This two-part article will discuss the new creativity and technology being used to establish green events that are profitable.

We’ve only recently come to understand these ideas overlap to provide a dual benefit.  For example, we like a process that allows an attendee to “bookmark” a booth, speaker or person they meet.  Before, during and after the event, all of this information is available on line.   The speaker, vendor or event manager can see which attendees reviewed the brochures, website and speaker materials.

When the physical event is over, the online version helps people connect, review and share information.  By using the Internet, more people are exposed to the event which helps it evolve and grow.  Eliminating brochures, handouts, presentation materials and surveys is the best way to green your event and in doing so you actually improve the event.  Imagine the number of steps a brochure travels from tree to paper to printer to event to hotel room trash can to landfill…never once letting someone know a qualified person is reading it. Identifying those more interested and qualified attendees is the true value of their efforts.

In the current state of technology, we’re halfway between traditional and electronic.  While it’s still easier to grab a colorful pamphlet off of a table, a growing percentage of us carry a phone with an Internet connection and color camera.  Technology can show us what we want when we want it.  The shift from sorting through a stack of papers in a filing cabinet versus Google-ing any document at any time on a number of devices will continue to become more of a reality.

While these ideas sound very green, the primary goal is to provide more qualified leads and data analysis to establish a proper value for the investment in booth space and sponsorship programs.  Knowing what was popular or not, and feeding this information back into the event creates a more profitable and better experience for attendees and stakeholders.

Recession proofing isn’t just about how to lower costs or trim the features out of an event to make it affordable.  If we measure why people participate in an event and use this information to produce a better event, then we have an opportunity for future success.  In any economy people decide to attend an event based on a combination of the following:

• Opportunities to leverage a personal network and grow a professional network – looking for new business, a new job and new ideas.
• Which subject matter experts are speaking and on what topics?
• Continuing education that cannot be found in their local city.
• Researching new products and services on the show floor.
• A general feeling of being inspired and invigorated for another year of success.

An event that offers this combination can create something not found anywhere else.  Content is still king and measuring the popularity of what people found to be the best goes well beyond a paper survey.

From audience response devices to kiosks to text messaging, there are many ways to survey that are faster, greener, and more successful.  Instead of a post-mortem after the event, gather information in real-time and tweak the event while it’s in progress.  Give attendees a voice during the event for an engaged and attentive audience.  Electronically poll a group at the beginning of a breakout session on topics they would prefer and then use the same method to survey what they thought at the conclusion of each session.

Not to ignore the discussion of trimming costs as part of the recession proofing process, Part 2 looks at the hard costs that go into running an event.  In the meantime, review your event expenses and ask, “How many truly add value?”  So much of the traditional process can be reduced and even eliminated. In part two we will discuss how to modernize the event process while trimming costs.

A Prayer for Our Loss
#eventprofs #911

I was driving to an early morning meeting in downtown St. Louis.  From West County, it’s about a 30 minute commute.  On that day, when I got the phone call, my commute suddenly ended – along with the rest of the world’s.

I was laughing about something JC was saying when Sheri told me that a plane had flown into some buildings – in New York.

For a few minutes, I couldn’t understand what she meant.  As a former flight instructor, I couldn’t comprehend what was happening, or how some student would have gotten so lost that they would have flown into a building.

Even before anyone knew what had happened, I started thinking about my friends ‘up east’.  First Tracy and Kerry whose family lived in nearby New Jersey and whom I’d flown the corridor with on one of those classically beautiful New York days. Then, Michael and Claudia who I knew were living in the city, but where?  My friend Pinhead who had just started a job on Wall Street and was so excited for it.  And of course Kathy; where she was I didn’t know, but I knew that New York was her kind of town.

You have to understand that, while I was thinking about my friends, I wasn’t worried, yet.  Until I started hearing the horror, initially from CBS and then as I reflexively punched button after button on the radio.

From the moment I got Sheri’s call, until the second plane hit the Tower, I had traveled about 1/4 mile. It seemed that if everyone commuting that day had suddenly stopped caring if they got to where they were going.  I could see everyone listening and calling and listening some more, just trying to figure it out.

And of course, I called Sheri back and we talked about what to do.  It was her calm voice, visualizing for me what she was seeing on TV, that helped me make sense of it all. And, after less than 3 years of being married, it was comforting to hear her, knowing that I could count on her to be strong for me so that I could be strong for our family.  We talked about the girls; should I get them from school (no).  We talked about our friends; should I try to call them (yes).  We talked about our family; had we talked with all of them (not yet).  We talked about the people in the planes and in the buildings and on the ground . .. and we talked about our country and what all this meant.

This was my “President Kennedy” moment. And I was fortunate to be sharing the horror of it with my friend, my touchstone, my wife.

But for so many of the people that we knew – and didn’t – they weren’t spending it with someone they loved.  Instead, they were spending those moments of terror, horror and confusion with the memory, or the voice, of someone they loved and were about to lose.

My heart still aches when I think of the loss of that day.  I get mad when I think of the wasted opportunities and distractions that the following years would bring.  I pray that our leaders are smarter than the rest of us and are doing what’s right to cure the hurt, secure our lives and prevent this from ever happening again.  And I hope that the voices of derision finally realize what’s important and what the right thing to do is.

But mostly, on this day, I pray for the loss; the loss of the families who have still not recovered, the loss of the people who were assassinated and the loss of our innocence that has been tested again and again.

I join you in praying for those that we have lost and in the hopes we all have for our country.