The Difference Between Flavors and the Real Deal

This post investigates the reasons why you should be careful in playing with event concepts.

Photo by Funadium via Flickr

Picture a cheap, insipid detergent brand. Imagine the marketing team struggling to find a new flavor for their boring product.

Our studies say that Marseille Soap is perceived as natural and refreshing. We should flavor our detergent with that.

Some customers will be definitely attracted by it, they will give it a go and buy it.

Later on, with the same easiness of mind they will switch to some more appealing flavor.

Now picture using the real deal. Savon de Marseille. As inexpensive, organic and effective as it is. Picture the fact it has been there for 600 years, not because it was ‘a flavor of something’.

If you attach new forms of events such as Pecha Kucha or Unconference to your boring event, you may win some interest in the short term but it is gonna be a hell of a nightmare to retain that interest.

Build a Marseille Soap factory, sell the real deal!

Watch out, storm ahead!

Photo by vgm8383

If you are within the hundreds of subscribers of this blog, you are aware that Web 2.0 is changing events and probably you are already adapting. Truth is that there are tons of conventional planners who think this is a FAD. Let me talk to you for a second.

Social Media such as blogs, social networks such as Linkedin or Facebook, social networking tools such as twitter, user generated events such as Meetups or BarCamps are rapidly changing the way events are planned and executed.

The big misunderstanding

Now what you need to realize is that this is not an option. This is not something you can choose. When you are having your next planning meeting you cannot say: “Oh, what do you think of having a blog for the event? Should we put this up to votes?”.

This is not something you may evaluate. All of the above are requirements.

But you are not talking corporate events, right?

You know I started a group on Linkedin for event professionals. We recently passed the 4,000 members mark, making us the largest, free, inclusive and spam free online events community. I almost had a stroke when I read messages of people saying: “… but this is not for corporate clients. My clients would freak out if I talked twitter or Facebook”

My answer to above is that you may obviously encounter that resistance now. As the marketing expenditure moves from traditional media to new media, in few months clients will be asking you about the above as requirements. They will laugh at you if you don’t have it in your bouquet of services and go to the next one. The Web is viral, traditional media are not. It takes 1/1000 of the time for a new idea/technology to become viral.

The result of viral is you either are in or out. No hybrids, no in between. You either are on Linkedin or you are out. You either are on twitter or you are out.

Using Web 2.0 tools is not enough

If you started recently, well done.

But don’t celebrate too much.

You need to know how these tools work. Blogs, twitter and social networks have their own lingo, tone and manner, rules, best practices.

Your next objective should be to demonstrate with case studies how you used Web 2.0 tools effectively.

You need to fill in the gaps quickly or you’ll be left out in no time.

Your Action Plan

It’s already there, I wrote it and put it in images for you!

Don’t come whining afterwords, you were warned.

The credit crunch of events

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.
Read More

Keep your tension steady

This post suggests how to manage positive tension in longer events. It is based on Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation.

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 Read More

10 ways to get yourself a new job (in events) with LinkedIn

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 Read More