If you are experiencing the negative impact of the economic crisis or you find very difficult to keep up with new technologies this post will help you in keeping up.

I am not sure if you are aware but there is a community of event professionals which is facing new economic and technology challenges brilliantly. I talk to them over twitter, I see them interacting in the Linkedin Discussions, I meet them at free networking events or at BarCamps. They save money using free software, the cut budgets promoting on social networks the maximise satisfaction by integrating new technologies.

There are few easy steps to keep yourself ahead of the game and be up to date with what is going on with Event Planning 2.0. I’ll be happy to assist you in this and you will notice most of the first steps involve me. Nonetehelss, as soon as you’ll join, you will find like minded people willing to help, possibly in your area and with great expertise.

1. Join the Linkedin Events Group and add me as a direct contact there.

Get in touch with me, send me messages and participate to discussions.

You cannot afford to be shy or to just read. Get active.

I’ll be soon hosting a free webinar on how to get a better job using Linkedin, followed by an online speed networking session. You should not miss that! All the info in the Linkedin Events group discussions.

2. Join the group networking events in your area.

Upcoming Events include:

Subscribe to Spicy Networking for more information

3. Join twitter and add me as a contact.

Most of the people I follow on twitter know how things should be made. Feel free to bulk add them. If I am not following you on twitter send a message saying ” @tojulius I am following you! ”

4. Attend a BarCamp

You will find a complete list at the official website.

If you are in London I am organizing ecoCampLondon and will be attending MediaCampLondon. It’s usually free so come and say hi.

You will learn a lot on new trends in events and how you can empower attendees.

5. Join Xing and add me to your network

Xing is very similar to Linkedin. I am planning to develop few projects there as well so as for Linkedin, start being active.

The results of a discussion on how to ensure that people who RSVP‘d yes at your free event do actually turn up.

The intrinsic value of free events

I love free events. What I love even more is free events with free drinks. It seems like I am not the only one. It is getting ridiculously awkward to actually pay to get in.

If you did your homework chances are that you can cover expenses and make a profit just relying on sponsors.

Last week I attended a Trade Show, a Meetup, a Twestival and a Barcamp.

In all of those I got free food and drinks, gadgets and I did the best networking ever.

The next time someone shows up and tells you you need to pay 1000£/$/€ to attend a conference or a networking event, bear in mind you are actually paying for the steering wheel of organizer’s SUV.

One problem

Now, from the organizer perspective, getting sponsors may be relatively easy if you have a good target audience. But making sure the audience actually attends the day of the event, that’s a whole different ballgame.

I noticed at one of the above events that 40+ attendees did not show up. That’s a pity because they excluded at least the same number of people, who eventually got together for a parallel event.

My problem

I’ll be soon organizing a free event. Don’t be curious. It will be on the barcamp concept, which we love so much, but I cannot disclose more than that.

The problem is we got space for 60 people and much bigger forecast demand. We want to make sure that those who RSVP Yes actually turn up.

On a first come basis

It doesn’t work, as simple as that. That’s what was used at the above event and the results were upsetting.

A twitter conversation

I decided to ask my supercool twitter pals about it and here’s the conversation

Conclusions

Although I originally thought that money was not an option, I am sure that everybody will be happy to donate to charity.

At this stage this is by far the most accepted alternative. Returning the money could be a bit of an issue. Collecting the money online requires payment of fees and so forth, so in my opinion a straight donation policy with no returning option may work better in terms of planning.

A must is to have a symbolic contribution ranging from 8£ to 10£ sounds good to me (convert if you are not sure). Charging more than that brings SUV thoughts to my mind.

What’s your opinion?

The issue is not closed at all. Do you have an engaging way to enusre attendance? Do we need to use money?

Photo by: Kyle May

The current crisis hitting the financial markets has impacted events. The trend of user generated events is going to shock our market even more.

I already talked about making your event web 2.0 compliant. This is just a part of what needs to be done. There are definitely other trends you need to look at if you are already missing out or if the scenario ahead does not look good. It’s not a case that a popular BarCamp took the challenge and shared their opinion on how they empower the user.

Please answer the following:

Do you work with events, in the same way a product manager approaches a brand portfolio?

Do you feel lost without your event production team?

Is your ROI ridiculously high compared to the resources you use?

Do you run events with scientific committees?

Do you charge astronomic fees to create scarcity, when possibly most of the content discussed is already out there?

If you answered yes to 1 or more, what’s ahead does not look good.

User component in events

I have been advocating user generated events for a while now. I am a big fan of Barcamps, Unconferences, Open Space Technology, Meetups. My latest work in terms of event planning revolves around these new formulas. If you did not noticed users now like to be in control. They have blogs, they upload content to the web, they can make a brand collapse over the Internet,. This web phenomenon is not limited to virtual reality, my friend. This is happening right now in events as well.

Users are now empowered by technology to run their own events. They can set up a page and sell tickets in a matter of seconds. Promote them socially in few clicks. They now rely on platforms such as Meetup, which targets users by interests and approach sponsors with the most selected audience.

Start asking yourself questions

You should ask yourself why ebay hosts BarCampLondon 5, which was previously hosted by Gcap Media, Google and Microsoft.

You should ask yourself why events promoted via Facebook or Linkedin become major hits immediately.

You should ask yourself why Blogfest, an unconference about Blogs in Italy, is now covered by national media and collects sponsors such as Microsoft or TIM (the largest Italian and European telecommunication provider)

This ain’t no curling

Photo by: edit felix

During Turin 2006 Winter Olympics, everybody loved curling. It just looked great. Curling finals recorded unprecedented share percentages. People rushed to the courts wanting to start playing immediately. After the Olympics, curling was gone. At least from mainstream media or interest.

This is not the case. Unconferences, Barcamps and user generated events won’t go away. I figured out a good reason why.

User co-production in services marketing is one of the reason why events and experiential marketing are remembered. If you are involved in it you like it. Thus the more you are involved, the more you will like it. The common component of all the above is co-creation in a way which was never experienced before.

It is impossible to compete

You can’t compete with your users. You can’t tell them that what you planned is better than what they will achieve in a community effort.

Group discussion is always better than a bullet point presentation. Always. No matter how good the presenter is. A good facilitator is always better than a bullet point presenter.

Top 10 tips on how to keep up

1. You should introduce participation.

2. You should allow your users to upload content (Blogs, Social Networks, Social Messaging)

3. You should get rid of control.

4. You should stop treating attendees as monkeys.

5. You should empower each and every participant.

6. You are in charge of holding time and space, nothign more than that.

7. You should attend a BarCamp.

8. You should unplan and leave room for creativity.

9. You should grant access, instead of constantly creating virtual barriers defined by absurd ticket prices.

10. You must be aware on how these trends evolve.

[BarcampLondon4] Julius Solaris - The Quest for a complete open source event management solution from Melinda Seckington on Vimeo.

As always you are more than welcome to leave your comment.

Boring endless presentations. This is what modern conferences are all about.

This trend needs to be stopped as soon as possible. As more people put their hands on Powerpoint/Keynote/Impress and so forth, more bullet pointLESS productions arise.

If you attend regular conferences and maybe you paid to participate I think that this is the ultimate masochistic practice you can experience on yourself.

On the other hand, if you attend unconferences you have a chance to set yourself free from boredom and control.

Just raise your hand and try to be as disruptive as possible. If the host tries to keep the concentration on his bullet pointLESS presentation just tell him that it’s now time for discussion and that you already got the point.

It looks like we got to a point where barCamps and unconferences are now the most wanted stages for I-need-to-feed-my-ego type of speakers who have been rejected from regular conferences and now try to pitch their services in our beloved open settings.

Well if you attended a Camp recently or will in the future, I suggest you step up and stop the dictator of the session. You can also say that Julius from the EMBlog told you to.

You really need to get in another mindset when at unconferences or Camps. Speak up. Listen. Participate. Share. If you feel others are not doing that, just let the organizers know or tell the host because you don’t realize that you’ve been thrown ten years back in the past.

Thanks @audio for putting together MediaCampBucks, it was great.

Update: Well it looks like me and Seth Godin agreed this morning about bullet points… have a look at his latest post.

I am hearing things that should have not happened are indeed happening.

I heard of people going to BarCamps and complaining about 15 minute spamming sessions. I’ve heard of unattentive organizers preferring the pitch of a product, a software or a blog over discussion and creation.

This is what unconferences should not be. By pitching you are controlling, control belongs to traditional conferences.

A pitch could be a way to start a conversation about some interesting topics, not the focus of a session.

We recently runned ecoCamp, a user generated conference/BarCamp where lack of control was the success.

If you attend a BarCamp speak out loud when you feel someone is trying to control, because that is not the place to do so.

I will be at BarCamp London 4 on the 30th of May, come there and I’ll be happy to meet you.

Most of my afficionados know that I’ve worked in the past two months at ecoCamp, a BarCamp about the environment, ecology, sustainability and energy. The event took place yesterday 29th of March 2008 in Conversano - Italy. This post sums up what happened before, during and after the event, from an event management perspective. As a planner I learned a lot from this experience and I invite you to participate in a BarCamp close to you because it will definitely help the way you approach your career.

Why ecoCamp?

I organized ecoCamp with Carmen Boscolo, a fellow blogger and environmental consultant, and I will use “we” referring to me and her. We both fell in love with the BarCamp formula. Open access, no pre-scheduled sessions, interaction and the Internet sounded like a great mix. In conceptualising the event we came up few things we wanted to experiment:

- Usually BarCamps host presentations. We didn’t like that . We thought that presentations are a subtle way to control a session and kill interaction. We decided to tell our audience that we wouldn’t host any presenter but just “promoters”. We borrowed this role from Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology. At the beginning of ecoCamp, the promoter suggested her/his topic and got immediate feedback in terms of participation to the session. The promoter had the duty to guide and facilitate the session, collect the names of participants and manage time as well as take responsibility of the room and logistics.

- Usually BarCamps share the content, in that the organizers publish slides and materials of the presentations. We did not like that as well. We thought that the chance of having a large number of people working together could not be wasted. We were sure that the energy of the event would have been great. In order to collect and funnel that vibe we thought about creating a document, again inspired by Harrison Owen. We called the document “ecoCamp@world“. The promoter of every session was given a template to fill out during the discussion. We asked few questions:

- What have you discussed?
- Why have you discussed it?
- What were your conclusions?

The participants of the session got their name on the document, which would have been published on the official wiki, open, free and accessible.

Promotion

I have to say that in our case what worked the most were Social Media. I’ll go in depth.

- We used a wiki as the main platform where we put everything about the event. If you want to know more about starting and planning a BarCamp and its wiki, I collected few resources, you can find them here.

- We then created a blog to deliver news and updates.

- We created a badge and put the HTML code on the wiki for other bloggers to grab and paste on their platform.

- We coordinated a database of blogs on environmental subjects and sent the invite to use the badge

- We set up a “posting day”. We published a round-up article on the main blog and 10 other blogs posted about the event, trackbacking to that article.

- That same day we posted on Italian Social Media Networks clones of Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.

- We created a Twitter account for the event and inserted a Twitter badge in the ecoCamp wiki with live updates about the event.

Promotion Results:

- We generated buzz. We got free press coverage on every single local newspaper. In some instances, we didn’t even send the press release. Journalists went on the wiki and grab information. I was interviewed by radios and TVs before and during the event.

- A web TV made a documentary which is going to be online soon

Things to consider about promoting with Social Media

- time to build relationship with other bloggers

- striking content

- knowledge of Social Media Networks and key influencers there.

Location and Sponsors

Most of Barcamps do not take place because of the lack of a location. We managed to find one in two weeks. A business incubator which gave us two big rooms and free internet, plus buffet area and AV equipment.

We set the date of the event the 15th of March. Therefore we had two weeks to work on it. Our approach was: if we get no location or sponsors it means that the event has not to take place.

Three days before the event we contacted sponsors. We did not have any urgency to get buffet or gadgets but at a certain point in time we decided to give gifts to the brave participants. We managed to get on board one of the biggest Italian producer of energy saving light bulbs and photovoltaic panels. They gave us an energy saving light bulb for every estimated participant plus tons of promotional materials, block notes and pens. We got on board local producers of organic cheese, organic groceries, patisseries and cafes. We ended up with a huge buffet.

The great thing was that at no point in time we needed to give numbers or show media releases or participants profiles. The interest of sponsors was proactive and genuine from the very beginning. We told them we managed no money and that we were just intermediaries of the community.

Attendance and Statistics

The most successful BarCamps have 300-400 participants (Los Angeles, Toronto - millions of people and efficient public transportation). We are in a 20,000 inhabitants city in Southern Italy, far from transportation. The biggest city nearby is Bari (300,000 inhabitants), we got 80 people attending. We had more than 100 requests to follow online. Huge response.

The day before we set up a streaming on Ustream with 2 webcams in 2 different rooms. The promoter of every section was in charge of the streaming as well. In this way people living far away did not have to use transportation, therefore we got rid of unnecessary carbon emissions.

Experience and Feel

No one of the participants ever heard before what a BarCamp was. They left the location willing to attend another Camp immediately. We collected feedback such as “Wonderful”, “One of the greatest experiences of my life”, “I only wished we had more time to keep discussing”, “Thanks very much for putting this together”.

We registered people from 10am to 10.45am. You could tell everyone was a bit unsure of what to do and how to proceed. We then gathered in the main room and I illustrated, after thanking sponsors, what was the process.

We had two computers in two different locations. At one station, promoters could suggest their topic, give a brief description and tell their name. In the meanwhile participants looked at the projector where the sessions schedule was quickly building up. At the other station we collected participants for each session and their preferred session time for the day (morning/afternoon). We immediately had numbers and it was quite easy to generate the schedule, merge sessions or eliminate those with not enough participants. We printed out and distributed the schedule and then started off.

We did not have a coffee/lunch break, instead we left buffet accessible at all times for everyone to enjoy, respecting the session in progress .

Response was astonishing. Great, quality topics together with pragmatic and inspiring discussions took place. We had,from time to time, to “hold time and space” as Harrison Owen would suggest, indicating that there were 5 minutes to go and that the promoter needed to draw conclusions.

Conclusions

At the end of the day I saw participants cleaning up tables, collecting and recycling waste. They have been given the possibility to return, instead of wasting, unwanted sponsors’ material. It’s been of utmost importance for us to be consistent with the content of the event. We made sure every bit of ecoCamp was coherent with the theme of the event. From recycling to organic buffet, from promoting carpooling to giving energy-efficient bulbs as gadgets. The ethics of the organization contributed to set up an ethic environment, were people found themselves at ease to interact and produce something.

I saw engineers talking with farmers, lawyers engaging in discussions with media and marketing people, students sitting next to business men and accountants.

We needed to tell people that there was going to be ecoCamp2 somewhere and sometime in the future, because they simply needed to know there was going to be another meeting like that.

As a planner and a conference planner I have seen delegates leaving meetings bored and maybe drunk by the buffet. I have seen people sleeping during endless bullet point presentations and showing up just to follow a super guest star and leave the rest of the event to others.

This experience is a wake up call for those working with traditional conferences because things are changing, and quicker than we think.

ecoCamp

The Cluetrain Manifesto is almost ten years old. I was actually surprised to see it was written in 1999 for two reasons:

- It is amazing to see how it is still relevant to both Internet and businesses. The words of the manifesto sound like a Web 3.0 startup’s mission. They got it right. The people who signed it saw 10 years in advance what was about to happen. Few things are yet to come but I’d bet we’ll shortly experience them.

- Crazy, crazy, crazy. Companies had in front of their eyes the chance to get the most out of the Internet and treat the customer in new, engaging ways. It was there, clearly written and explained. It is SAD to see how only few organizations have embraced these life changing concepts.

The Cluetrain Manifesto is free to read. How the most popular Italian and world’s top 10 blogger, Beppe Grillo, would say, download it, print it and start sharing it around. Give it to your boss, to your colleagues, if possible pass it to the person sitting next to you on the underground.

The Manifesto has a lot of things to say to those involved in events. I went through the 95 Theses and got few that I thought might be of interest.

- Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
I said before than men are not monkeys. Treating your guests as demographics is a giant step toward looking at them as these animals. The human kind is indeed of the animal genre but of the social one. Social media are a great examples of that. Great conversations, great ideas, great feelings and strong emotions that we wouldn’t otherwise experienced. BarCamp and Unconferences should be the role models of every event manager. Empower and connect, do not try to divide and lead because you won’t be happy with results.

- The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

What are you doing to allow conversations among the people attending your event. Are you integrating technologies? Are you aware that recruitment now happens on Linkedin? Do you know that there are widgets you can embed in your website to encourage carpooling to your event? Most of the people attending events such as conferences are only interested in networking. Carpooling as well as online forums or wikis enable networking even before the event.

- The inflated self-important jargon you sling around

Be clear, be precise and be real. Rhetoric and Pavlovian stimulus-response tactics belong to the past. It’s good to have demanding attendees because it means they actually care. Talk to them and tell the truth and do not try to persuade. Allow interaction and hold time and space do not try to be the star of the show.

- We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

How are you talking to your audience. How do you communicate your event. I don’t believe in brochures anymore. Apart from being an environmental disaster (and your customers do care about the environment), I think there are tons of other creative and more engaging ways to get to your audience. Do you have a blog? Have you ever heard of Twitter? Engage, do not try to tell how beautiful your event will be.

- We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

There is not much time left. The economy as a whole is changing. As Seth Godin said this week, during recession times the biggest changes happen such as Google did. Change now because it’s not sure you’ll be able to do business tomorrow.

For those out there who don’t know what I am talking about, Confex is one of the biggest trade shows for event planners, mangers and everyone involved into the industry.

This is the trade show of the trade shows. When you host people who actually work with events, expectations are extremely high and I think Confex did great.

It was a great organizational success. If you go through the numbers, you’ll notice that more than 15,000 people attended. Furthermore you would have noticed how the organizational machine worked perfectly. My congratulations to those who managed to create such a perfect event.

Nonetheless, during the whole visit I had this persisting idea: do we need trade shows at all?

I noticed by walking around the stands and meeting exhibitors that there was a positive vibe and unprecedented eagerness to network and find new business opportunities.

I also sneaked through seminars and presentations and most of them recorded substantial figures of attendance.

After that, I was amazed to notice how a large number of attendees sat at the bars and restaurants tables actually discussing and debating. Talking about projects, ideas, business insights.

My thought at that point was, what if all of the money spent for the event by both organizers and exhibitors was designated to run an Open event.

So I started to dream of how I would have given huge space to allow people to interact, produce and network.

I also fantasized about seating in comfortable meeting rooms instead of walking through aisles and trying to work out a map.

After that I imagined the satisfaction of attendees who actually could have evaluated content instead of flashy lights, good looking supermodels, free champagne and oysters. Not that I don’t like all of the above, but what does it have to do with the way I do business and trade.

On the other hand, I also figured how sponsors would have been more interested in saving money and being allowed to pitch instead of grabbing people as they walked by.

A question then popped up… How do you do that with 15,000 people over 3 days…. I don’t know but put 20 event people together and make them find a way around. You’ll probably have a new concept in 2 hours.

And then another question…. What could 15,000 people together create… Picture if they had gathered to actually produce a document, a project, a roadmap, a publication about the industry. Think about the results!!

I must say that after 45 minutes walking around the aisles and a bag full of promotional materials I went back to my hotel and had a chamomile tea.

My final thought of the day was that Confex was a great trade show, but the only relaxing feeling I had was the dream of 15,000 people together, collaborating for a purpose.

- I am a member of the Italian Linux Society
- I’ve erased from my PC every form of proprietary software, choosing Kubuntu
- I’ve participated to a “Linux Day” in Italy and I think they are great events
- I love Australia since I studied there for two years and got life changing experiences
- Linus Torvalds participated to the event and this is a small event itself.

Therefore, for all of the above I decided to contact the guys DownUnder for a chat on the conf. I asked them if they could share with us a bit about the event and inspire us for the future.

I am happy to say that once again I wasn’t disappointed by the community. In the person of Donna I was able to find the usual great spirit of sharing great content and empowering the listener. No matter how busy they were with managing the event.

My thanks to the great kindness of my mates in Australia and for you a great interview with heaps of great info.

- Tell us how a Linux Conference differs from a regular conference

linux.conf.au is a mix of tradition and innovation. Each year, a different team of volunteers works tirelessly to put on the conference, and each team does it differently. One of the features of LCA is the social events, they are almost as important as the talks themselves. Developers who usually work together online over the year seem to enjoy socialising and letting off steam. For some of them, this is a once-a-year opportunity to meet face to face.

The AV and Networking aspects of the conference are huge projects within project. linux.conf.au provides wireless network coverage to speakers and attendees, and the AV team attempts to record all the sessions so hat others who can’t attend the conference can still share in the knowledge exchange that makes linux.conf.au so special.

- What should be the primary scope of every conference about Linux?

I can’t speak for every conference about Linux. Linux itself is so many things to so many people, and the conferences that choose to focus on linux should reflect that diversity.
- How do you integrate the open approach to such an open event?

There are lots of ways to get involved in creating linux.conf.au. For instance, any group of people in Australia or New Zealand (perhaps further afield!) could band together and prepare a bid to host the conference in their town or city. The conf is large enough now that it has pretty demanding requirements, but it also generates a fair amount of economic activity, so local councils and convention boards can be called on to assist.

The papers review committee is usually made up of a core group of people who have done it before, along with some new faces invited by the organising team. Whilst the process is not public, it’s very collaborative.

Video of almost all the conference sessions is available here

- How do you promote a Linux conf?

Mostly online, mostly word of mouth. A few press releases. We ask the speakers to blog about their talks, we have a couple of media partnerships, but we do very little advertising. The conference practically promotes itself based on its reputation amongst Free software developers. This year the conference sold out 5 weeks before it opened.
- What’s the role of sponsors and how do you ensure that the community will control the event?

The community does control the event. Most of the sponsors know this, appreciate this, and wouldn’t want it any other way. Our Emperor sponsors in particular view supporting linux.conf.au as a way to support the community rather than a marketing exercise. This is very much a community driven event for developers. That said, linux.conf.au would not exist in its current form without the support we receive from sponsors. They help make so much more possible - and that greatly adds to the fun.