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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

- Environment

The environment is claiming back what has been abused. We need to learn fast how to make our events sustainable, source local products, reduce waste and communicate that to our attendees. Consumers are getting extremely educated about what being green means and that will soon be a given, not an extra.

All of the above could be seen as threats.

In these trends I see he future of our profession. We need to start to integrate them in our practice immediately, to grow our set of skills.

What we see in front of us is just a matter of perspective. My view is positive and enthusiastic, what about yours?

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’ve worked for more than 5 years with entertainment and being more specific with discos and clubs. I became what was and still is called a “PR”, a person that gives away “invites” to cool friends to populate the night. I earned a small percentage on every invite turned in with my name on it. In one year time I started to invest my money in club nights and quicker got more control over the event management.

Soon I was in charge of making the list (of people not paying to get in) and selecting people that got admitted into the event. That gave me a tremendous amount of power. I was soon able to ask the doormen to avoid certain people getting in.

For a pretty long period of time excluding others meant being at the top.

As Jedi Master of Marketing Seth Godin states:

“Credit card companies have made billions by selling a card that others can’t get.

Politicians stand up and talk about their (exclusive) religion, or pit one special interest group against another.

And of course, the best nightclubs have the biggest velvet ropes and the pickiest doormen.”

I had to think again

The Social Psychology of Inclusion and Exclusion, By Abrams, Hogg and Marques talks about the anger generated by exclusion. Violent reactions and discontent.

Soon few question popped up into my mind. How many people do we usually exclude from our events? How much discontent do we generate? Are there good reasons to exclude people?

At a club it’s up to the selector personal taste. Sometimes it is about the price. Few other times it is the content that excludes people.

Does inclusion mean populism?

What if the basis of events would be inclusion? BarCamp and unconferences are based on including people, but are not populist.

We tend to think that limited resources automatically mean exclusion.

The smart event planner thinks of ways to include those people e.g. who cannot make it that day, who cannot afford the price of the ticket, who are not familiar with the content.

Just think that:

- Online conferencing is a solution for those who cannot make it.

- Scholarships are a good method to make students attend an important conference and sponsors are willing to fund them.

- Opening an online forum and a blog about your event could help a lot of potential attendees to understand more about your content.

I am sure you can come up with more ideas and I invite you to do it.

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