Used Event Stuff: Bring it On!

 This post is by Julius Solaris, your Editor in Chief. He is @tojulius on twitter . Meet the rest of the team!

We just discovered usedeventstuff.com and we loved it.

Better late than never, we stumbled upon Used Event Stuff (thanks @carmenhere for the tip).

Well we all know we produce an awful lot of waste with our events, specially the big fat exhibitions.

Here is their take:

We have seen the waste that is endemic to the industry: beautiful, usable goods thrown out at curbside at the end of the night. Nobody wants to waste all those goods, but designers and clients can no longer afford to keep or re-use materials because the price of storage is so high.

It is not just a waste economically, but is an environmental burden, as much of these usable goods wind up in a landfill. From beautiful event to garbage heap, taking decades or centuries to break down

Start thinking about it naughty boys and get involved!

Convention Industry Council (CIC) tackles Green Meeting & Event Standards

Anyone who has worked in the meetings and events field for any length of time will admit there is a great deal of waste and trash produced by events, in particular trade shows. There was a Price Waterhouse report issued several years back citing trade shows as the second most wasteful industry. In the summer of 2008, the Convention Industry Council (CIC) through its Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) formed a Green Meetings & Events Practices Panel to write standards to make our industry more “green” and environmentally responsible.

Photo by janusz l via Flickr

The Results

During the past year, there have been many conference calls, meetings, and emails to produce drafts of standards in nine (9) different areas of event management. The 9 drafts that have been produced are: Destinations, Meeting Venue, Transportation, Accommodations, AV, Communication, Food and Beverage, Exhibits and Onsite Office. (Disclosure: I was a member of the subcommittee that developed the Meeting Venues standards.) Copies of all these drafts can be found at http://wp.apexsolution.org for your review. There is a lot of detail in these drafts so think twice before deciding to print out all of them!

What can I do?

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3 Things that Make Your Event Fail

Are you sure you are getting the basics right? This post investigates what are the new basics for a suffering and evolving event industry.


Photo by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

How it used to be

Ten years ago the basics use to be a great mix of performers, a great mix of sponsors and a great location.

It didn’t get further than that.

The job of running events was all about putting the three above together. Most of the times it wasn’t about quality, it was about budget.

Our point

Let us save you some time and get straight to the point, basics have changed.

Why?

- Because current economic environment sucks. Sponsors are not willing to give away generous portions of their budgets as they used to.
- Because networking, which is a great motivator for attending events, is happening for free both online and offline.
- Because technology is changing the way we consume events.
- Because the world we live in is not as it used to be. Or at least, we are now more aware of it.

What are the new basics?

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Do you feel like a CD?

If you are a traditional event manager (or studying to become one) and think that recession is the major threat for your career, I think you are not on the right track.

There are several trends in event management that are making the role as we know it obsolete. I am convinced that we are trying to sell CDs during the hype of the MP3 era.

Of course this could be arguable. Events will always take plae and there will always be someone in charge of management. But the skills required are completely new.

Here are few of the trends who represent a threat for the traditional event manager:

- User generated Events

BarCamps, unconferences and Meetups have given the power to the user. Scientific committees or sponsor panels can no longer control content. In the future if you’ll ask to pay 400$ for a one day conference, you’ll be probably laughed at and find yourself in a budget drama.

- Technology

Technological changes are making several professions redundant. Webinars, online conferences, Second Life meetings and events to name a few require new management skills. Just have a look at the video below and draw your conclusions. Read More

ecoCamp: a case study

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:
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