Photo by: originalgoast

Iphone is a great tool for event managers.

It can actually perform productive work on the internet unlike most of other mobiles out there. I was using a Blackberry before but made the switch and I am being rewarded every day for that.

Iphone apps contribute to make it a better tool. There are free applications which will make you more productive, social and efficient, which are qualities we all share but in constant need of improvement.

But let’s see.

1. Evernote

The service in itself is great. Whenever you stumble upon something you need to remember you just save it to this small app. Being it a text, voice, saved or live pic. You’ll then be able to see it on your phone as well as on your online account, therefore on your main laptop.

2. Checklist

If we are talking about to do’s in the next hours or so, you want to check out this application. Very easy to use and simple, and we love simplicity.

3. Zoho

This is not an app, but the iphone version of the popular suite. Youcan actually create, view and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations from your phone. If you are using a spreadsheet say for budget, you definitely want to sync it with Zoho and later consult it or edit it from your phone. Google Docs is a good solution for that as well, but without the editing capabilities.

4. Writing Pad

Great to note down vital information when you do not have the time to tap every single letter of it.

5. Linkedin

Because you want to have your contacts handy all the time and want to network with similar minded people. More on how to use it here.

If you ever attended a marketing class, course, degree you probably heard of Everett Rogers and his book “Diffusion of Innovations”. He synthesized very well the level of adoption of new products and categorized the adopters in groups. You can see the graph resulting below:

Source: Wikipedia

It is pretty straightforward and gives you great insights about who you will probably deal with at your next event.

Applying Rogers’ Bell Curve to Events

Events are by definition a new product. Although you may have a recurring events, the intangible, co-productive component of the service will make every event unique and thus new to the perception of the customer.

This model applies to events that last over time (4 days+), although you can definitely apply the same model to say registration process at a given event.

Tension

The element I want you to focus on is tension. Positive tension is key to successful events. Call it passion, motivation, teamwork, drive.

Think about the events you attended in the past. Could you feel the staff particularly helpful, aware of what to do, experienced and collaborative. This is the customer perception of tension.

What usually happens with tension

The image below shows the level of tension and its behavior during the planning and execution of an event, next to the Rogers’ graph.

If we look at the Planning section of the graph, it will be easy to note how the level of positive tension tends to increase, reaching its peak at the beginning of an event.

After the peak, the level of motivation starts a steep descent. This is due to several factors coming in. The staff is tired of repeating the same processes everyday and the overall motivation organically drops.

There are two issues with that

- The level of satisfaction is profoundly linked with the above. Therefore the less motivation, the less the customer satisfaction.

- Only Innovators and Early Adopters will experience your peak. This means you performed at your best with only 15% (and possibly 2.5%) of your customer base.

With goods and tangible products you can afford to address your efforts only to these people. They will talk positively about your product and serve as hooks for the Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards.

This scenario does not apply to events

Events as intangible services do not stay the same over time.

In cheap words, you need to keep it up all the way to the end.

You cannot afford to miss out on the 75% of your customer base. You need to show them a great level of performance.

A new model

Here is how it should look like:

As an event manager you need to make sure the positive tension of the team stays at the same level for the whole event. It doesn’t matter whether you are managing a 3 months display or a 4 days exhibition. The customer paid for that and expects to get what was promised and possibly more than that.

If you allow the tension to drop, it will be like selling perfectly working Iphones to 15% of your customers and models with cracked screens to the rest.

How to keep the tension steady

- Design shorter shifts.

- Work carefully during planning and make sure everyone (this includes you) knows what to do if things go wrong.

- Do not stress staff too much during the first part of your event. Do not apply pressure and don’t get overwhelmed by the need to succeed.

- Stimulate your staff when they do not expect it. If the staff is responding to a large number of customers do not apply pressure during these moments. Observe and evaluate, only after suggest improvements.

- Treat every customer with the same level of service.

LinkedIn is the Facebook of business professional. It is a gret tool and there are many ways it can actually benefit your career. Here are few tips on how to use it in the proper way.

I am writing this post because having more than 5000 contacts and managing a popular group, I got an idea on what needs to be done to make the most out of the tool. I thought I might share

1. Complete your profile

It is mandatory to complete each and every section of your profile. Think about it as an electronic resume. Your potential employer is looking at it so you want to be as precise as possible.

Links:

- LinkedIn Profile Makeover

2. Get Recommended

Although it is part of the above I definitely suggest you dedicate extra attention to this. We all know the power of direct references, sometimes they work more than a great entry in your CV. Therefore try to get quality recommendations from quality people in the business.

Links:

- LinkedIn Recommendations Toughts

3. Join a Group

LinkedIn poses boundaries in the way you can reach people. If you are not connected in any way to say an hiring manager the only way to get in touch is to send an InMail. To get InMails you need to upgrade your account. The good thing about Groups is that for most of them you can contact members directly. The Event Planning & Management Group now counts on 2400 members, just picture the opportunities within the network!

Links:

- EM&P Group

4. The more contacts the better

I don’t agree with the say “link only with the people you know”. For me Linkedin is a great way to meet new people. I am more than happy to expand the reach of my network to new industries or businesses. In this sense it is very important that you select the information you publish as well as the contacts you use in order to save your privacy. Having a dedicated email usually works.

Links:

- Get LinkedIn or be left out

5. Go through other’s networks

Look out there for interesting contacts with similar interests and ask for Introductions. Introductions are a nice way to skip the InMail part and get to a contact. Remember to state why you want to be introduced and what you have to offer.

Links:

- How to create and respond to Introductions

6. Ask and answer questions

You will see on the top left corner a Q&A section. Ask a lot of questions in your field and try to answer as many as possible. Should your answer be rated as the “Best Answer” you will see in your profile that you soon became an “Expert” in that category. Expertise is what you are selling and perspective employers like it.

Links:

- LinkedIn Answers to create expert status

7. Download the Linkedin Toolbar

If you are looking for a job on popular websites this great tool will tell you if you have connections to the hiring manager and that is very handy.

Links:

- Browser Toolbars for Internet Explorer and Firefox

8. Bring your network live

Try to meet the people in your network because online is fine, but live is different. I am running events in London and scheduling Meetups all over the World. I’ll keep you posted.

Links:

- Linked in London

9. Upgrade to business

Basic account is fine, but upgrading gives you more information about who saw your profile as well as more InMail to send, which cannot always be avoided.

Links:

- Upgrade your account

10. Be proactive

It is ok to have an account sitting there forever just because everyone has one. Nonetheless, I strongly suggest you become proactive and don’t get scared about going out there and reaching out for new opportunities, after all Linkedin is a tool to do exactly that!

I talked in the past about trying to find an open source, free and complete alternative to expensive EM software.  Well Amiando it’s the closest solution to that. They have released a new version of the already great platform. I must admit it kicks asses, to use an allegoric phrase.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think an open source solution would be great but these guys did exceptionally well.

Who should use Amiando?

Mostly those working with events up to 400 people, both professional and not. If you don’t want to bother yourself with messy accounting and looking for a straightforward solution, it does not get any better than this, should you organize a party, a meeting or a conference.

Flexibility

They created a module system in which you add the modules you need. That answers to one of the most painful issues with events. Every event needs different organizational tools. The platform is flexible enough to accommodate very different needs.

Ticketing

They started with the ticketing service and then expanded on that. They addressed the major issue with Paypal. A lot of organizers had troubles with using Paypal for ticketing. They keep Paypal as an option, but they developed their internal payment system in which they take care about everything, invoicing and International VAT charges included. Wow.

Web 2.0 and Social integration

Finally I don’t have the feeling of being in 1997 while looking at an online platform. These guys nailed the concept of integration with Social Media and Networks. You can actually add Youtube videos or Flickr photos. If you use Facebook you are pretty much used to that but in our field we are talking big news! You are actually able to share information on major social networking websites, get buttons to promote your event as well as

Support

There is a free of charge number to avoid mess ups.

Directions

Very easy just add the address of the location and a Google map.

Amiando Website

I could write a very long post about Twitter but Ally summed it up very well and talked about ways you can use Twitter in your event.

I know for a fact you read blogs about events. Maybe you want to follow what people working in events share or think about events management. Twellow is a directory of Twitter users which categorizes them according to their interests.

We finally have an Event Management category and it’s a great way to see what other event peers are up to.

This is my Twitter account and I’ll be very happy if you start following me!

Logo Designed by: Fabio Cannillo

When I started to run my own events at the tender age of 16, I was victim of that passion that still drives me today.

The characteristics that made me successful back then, are pretty much common to all those working with events:

- a continuous hunger of meeting new people

- the ability to make things happen

- the capacity to immediately establish a relationship with who is in front of you

- the lack of prejudices

Well, I can still feel that same passion burning.

Therefore I decided to involve my Linkedin network and obviously you in a networking event.

Even if you read 1/10 of my blog, you’d know it’s not gonna be like the usual boring stuff for few reasons:

- It’s for free. ROI on events is as much embarrassing as selling a CD for 30£$€. There are other ways to make money other than charging the end user fro absurd ticket prices.

- It’s user generated. I don’t control my events but rather empower the participants

- It’s relevant. You will meet people who use Linkedin as a networking tool and you can meet valuable peers of your network

- It’s informal. I plan to obtain free drinks from sponsors

I set up a Meetup for that because, after all, I don’t like to talk about things I haven’t experienced. You are more than welcome to join, participate, discuss and suggest. You can also enjoy the chance to discuss in a forum what you want to get out of the meetings and the direction of future events.

As I plan to host monthly meetings, soon enough we will have industry specific nights. If you can’t make it for the first night just join the group and I’ll keep you posted for future Meetups.

It is also a good idea to invite those people that belong to your Linkedin network and that for some reasons you havent met yet or those who answered very well to a question you asked in the Q&A section.

Linked in London Meetup

If you have done your marketing correctly your delegates should be hungry. I am not talking about the buffet I am talking about your event.

Are the people attending your events hungry and motivated?

Are they impatient to know more about the event, to participate, to get involved to buy the sponsors product to talk about the event when they will be back in their office.

When you feel your audience is hungry it means you have pulled the right triggers.

How do you make them hungry?

Start by giving them control.

How do you make them hungry? Share your tricks!

Guy Kawasaki, popular blogger and entrepreneur, recently started Alltop a directory with the best blogs per subject. They just added the event planning section, featuring the blog you are reading.

From the Q&A on their website:

Q. How do the Alltop sites work?

A. We import the stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and display the headlines of the five most recent stories (except Moms.alltop which has fewer headlines because there are so many feeds). When you place the cursor over a headline, we display part of the story so that you can decide if you’d like to read it. To read the story, click on its title. To go to the home page of the site, click on its domain name.

It’s a great collection of Event Planning blogs and I invite you to have a look.

If you feel you want to see the Event Manager Blog on top of the others just email them and let them know.

This post is for all those who ask me how to get involved with events.

MeetUp is the answer. If you have a passion for events and a passion for something else, whatever that is you might want to start a MeetUp.

First of all, let me clarify that I am a fan of MeetUp. I’ve talked in the past about traditional event management as a thing of the past. I am a true supporter of user generated events, I think they help in skimming the market from unskilled, possibly-to-posh-to-be-true, unmotivated, unaware-of-the-content event managers.

I am also a fan of this kind of events because, by making the role of conference/event producers redundant, they cut costs dramatically for end users, being most of the times for free.

Are you gonna tell me we really need to pay 1500£,€,$ to attend a conference?

A lot of people answer that in the end companies do pay for ticket.

Well you know what? I have no company behind me, I am a student, I am a full time mum, I am a young professional in a small agency, I live in a recession period, my company cannot afford to pay!

Sometimes ROI in conferences is embarassingly high and this logic of huge profits at our cost is simply unacceptable. Therefore Viva MeetUps! and death to the conference oligarchy!

There are immediate benefits for those with an entrepreneurial spirit and lack of employer.

- You can exercise. Once you reach the number of 40 members per MeetUp that appears to me as a good entry for your CV. You will be in charge of sourcing a location, sponsors, promote, sell tickets and pretty much everything involved with event management

- You can experience B2B marketing and selling sponsorships. As a matter of fact MeetUps take away the trouble of not getting targeted audience. It is all about targeting. You will never have such specific audience. That translates to me in easy sponsorhip opportunities. If you go out there and perform a search of who is sponsoring what, it will be easy to realize that there are tons of e.g. organic shops willing to fund your Organic Food Lovers MeetUp.

- You will grow your network. You will become a reference in your interest group and that translates in a lot of power eventwise.

These are only few of the benefits, I invite MeetUp organizers to share their story!

P.S. If you are looking for a job there are job offers in our Linkedin Event Planning & Management Group

Photo by: el copilot

Negative Feedback.

Very tough to find, very hard to accept.

Without negative feedback I think I would have been a complete uncompetent.

If I have to think back at my education as well, I still remember those lecturers who had the ability to let you understand what exactly you did wrong.

My idea is that too many times we run away from feedback specially if it’s negative, possibly because we already know we have done something wrong.

The cathartic effect of having a customer telling you: “I did not like that” is our caviar today. Very scarce, hard to find and very expensive.

Please consider that it is a fact that when you are angry or not happy and you let someone know, it is because you care.

My suggestion is to open up our ears and enjoy our caviar next time someone shows up complaining.