The BusyEvent Blog

Max Levchin, Paypal co-founder is a good person to listen to and learn from.  Recently, he’s been discussing the lessons of Web 1 and how Web 2 is repeating them.

To his mind, the current crop of Silicon Valley (read: Me Too Social Network) companies are “ . . . too constrained by Web 2.0 conventions: status updating, comments, friend lists, fans, gradient icons, and feeds.“  As you would expect, we completely agree.

Why?  Becauase it’s our opinion that as stand-alones, Social Networks don’t matter or more accurately, few of them matter because there’s so much ‘copy catting’ going on.

The level of innovation isn’t there. Instead, it seems most are focused on writing BigCashOut2 instead of something novel or unique. And who can blame them? Take your average 20, 30, 40, 50 entrpreneurially spirited individual, throw all sorts of VC at their latest Facebook/Mobile/Photosharing mashup and for certain, nearly anyone would jump at it.

The missing piece, at least in our opinion, is that virtual doesn’t matter much. It’s simply the vehicle for a better type of interaction. That belief in innovation is at the core of the BusyEvent platform and the Event Bookmarking system.

Example, yesterday we met with someone we would have NEVER met or connected with (geographic challenges) without the social mesh.  With it, we were able to connect and meet when her travels brought her to St. Louis.

The point is, that Max is right.  It’s the in person connections that matter and further, it’s the ability to meet in real life and leverage that back to your social mesh that matters most.  Companies that can foster your online life, help you leverage that on site and then allow you to bring that back to a deeper and enhanced online relationship will succeed.  People like meeting people and business is done face-to-face.

Innovation isn’t dead, and our daily focus needs  to make sure that it doesn’t get smothered under a bunch of ‘me too’ pillows.

Lest we forget the lessons of Web 1 (it’s NOT about the technology), we’re doomed to repeat them.  Good on you Max and thanks for the reminder to not repeat our past mistakes.

Chuck Zettle asked a really good question today, on LinkedIn.  What got me to stop and read it was the title: Ahh, Linked in . . Oh, and Facebook . . . Plaxo? No wait Twitter! Um, Myspace? YouTube! Naymz, Xing – AHHHHH!!!! Seems a bit overwhelming – what works for you?

And below, our response:
Chuck . . . what a GREAT title, about fell off my chair!

As a general philosophy, we look at all of these as communications channels which have their own strengths. And, much like I’ve heard all of my life, “pick something and pour your energies into it”, we’ve done that with the tools we use.

So, since this discussion is occurring on LinkedIn, I’ll share with you what our company does related to our social media focus and why we’re following the path I’ll describe, below.

Regarding general communications and out reach, we have two blogs:
1 – www.busyevent.com/blog focuses almost exclusively on items specific to our company. New product rollouts, “we’re hiring” announcements, general ideas, etc…
2 – http://busyevent.blogspot.com focuses on the events industry in general, and our general observations about it, the people in it and other industry specific topics. There may be some overlap from our company blog, but we try to keep them separated.

In both instances, our blogs are the ‘official and professional’ voice of the company. It’s written in a particular tone and focuses on specific items.

Our general outreach tool is Twitter. It’s the short blasting communications system that also is used to RSS the blogs plus, we have a Picture Of The Day (POTD) typically photos from events we’re running or clients we’re working with or sometimes a picture of the sunset. It’s definitely a more ‘personal and personality’ driven communications channel and offers immediate feedback unlike the blogs do.

Taken together, these two tools form the core platform of our social media outreach. But, as you’ll note, this is ‘outreach’ based and that then leads us to the ‘bidirectional’ tools we use.

LIVE Video streams are occurring at almost every event we manage as well as in our offices and even while we’re traveling from place-to-place. Sometimes these are password secured but usually, we’re live streaming in the open. Because the streaming video service we use has a chat feature, it’s fun to be able to share an event and get immediate conversations going. For some events, we’ve had as many as 200 people ‘viewing’ at once and the conversations were amazing. We also use video streaming when we conduct training as well as just turning on the cams and letting people ‘peer’ into our world on an any day basis.

Another 2-way system that we utilize are our Wiffiti tools but they’re more focused on at-event interactions. As such, while it’s a bidirectional’ tool, it’s only exposed to the people that are at an event and therefore has a limited audience. Take it for a spin at: http://www.tinyurl.com/busyevent-wiffiti

Finally, because of our industry, we participate in a variety of events industry specific networks, the best being Julius Solaris’ Events group on LinkedIn. Generally, this is a ‘push’ communications system for us, although, we’ve had good luck getting involved with conversations that have legs and we’ve learned alot from them.

So, because there are so many social networking tools out there, it’s easy to get lost in the menagerie but since we’re focused on a few and then really ‘work’ them, we’ve seen good general results.

Our next steps, and we’re actually in the process of hiring for that position right now, is to engage a PR/Writer/Social Media Pro ( http://www.busyevent.com/blog/?p=81 ) to increase our frequency and validity and perhaps spread our wings a bit into traditional media while keeping the core focus on the tools listed above.

Panamedia Group, the parent company of the BusyEvent Event Management Platform, is hiring a freelance PR and Social Media Pro.

We’re looking for someone that has serious experience with social media.  That means, in addition to a “can do” attitude, you’ve got lots of “have done” experience for paying clients about real topics with the goal of driving their business forward.

Further, you’re comfortable with and knowledgeable about how to leverage viral campaigns, blogs, twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and all that other 2.0 stuff that was hot 2 years ago and is mainstream now.  You don’t have to be the genius behind the 25 Things meme, or the creator of lonelygirl15, but you need to know what those things are, why they were successful and what you can borrow from them to make your work with us a successful.

Your initial projects are going to be things like writing some copy for our web site, press releases, and some help with articles on our blog and serious placement in targeted press.  If you know what HARO is, are using it for your other clients and think you can use it for us . . . then, let’s talk!

We’ve got a bunch of people in our target demographic that read our blog and follow us on twitter, your job will be to help us expand that and turn some of them into people interested in our products. You’ll also help us brainstorm new ways to reach more people, and do even cooler things with the web, mobile, interactive, on demand, video streaming, etc…

This is a freelance, project-based job, you can work on your own but we will need you to come into our office when we start each project, and periodically after that. We do have a spare office, so you’re welcome to work here if you prefer. The usual carrots of “if this goes well, we’ll do more together” apply.

You can find out more about us at www.busyevent.com. We’re a startup, with offices in Maryland Heights, MO right below the best place for Gyros in St. Louis. We have solid funding, real income, and despite the economy a growing client base and a lot of interest in our products. We just need the right person to help up boost our marketing efforts while we’re busy making awesome software instead of twittering and posting to blogs.

Interested?  Send us a DM @BusyEvent or email hireme@pmgstl.com.

Thanks to Brian Shaler and Crappygraphs.com

CEO David Schenberg was recently interviewed by Small Business Monthly regarding his use of the Professional Network – LinkedIn.

“To me, networking is sharing your Rolodex, helping someone find a job, using your expertise to answer a question and participating in industry groups.  All of this happens faster through LinkedIn. “

Intriguingly, we started utilizing LinkedIn years ago and flash forward, we now have a business relationship with them.  With clients in the Fortune 1000 and other associations and organizations, our use of LinkedIn has grown to allow event attendees to bring their professional network with them, and grow them, at an event using the BE-Link/Event Bookmarking tools.

Learn more about how David has grown his professional network and why at how doing so has made it easier to get to the right decision maker, at the right time:

http://www.sbmon.com/BoardofDirectors/tabid/159/itemid/426/Default.aspx

The Startup Success Podcast, this week, interviews BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg.

The conversation focuses on how we’re:

• disrupting the event management industry with unlimited use, flat-fee online event management tools,
• how “event management” has come to mean a lot more than big public events
• how to build a successful startup off the beaten Silicon Valley path and
• how BE-LINK is creating an inexpensive way to improve lead management and audience response while closing the ‘last foot gap’ between an attendees’ personal and professional network and the event itself.

You’ll recall a few weeks ago that we were selected to be part of the Microsoft BizSpark program.  As part of the ‘vetting process’,  this interview was conducted by Microsoft’s Global Manager for BizSpark Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley, Microsoft’s ISV Architect/Evangelist.

Listen to the Podcast and learn about how BusyEvent is changing the future of Events.