75+ tools for your next event

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Photo by tanakawho via Flickr

Here is my gift for the holidays, the largest collection of tools you will find on this blog to organize your next event.

I filtered almost two years of blogging, working and experimenting with events. I hope you will like it.

To show your appreciation I invite you to share it , bookmark it on delicious or stumble it on StumbleUpon.

Registration-Ticketing

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Thank you LeWeb

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Busy typing at LeWeb08 Photo by dsearls via Flickr

LeWeb08 was a crucial appointment for Internet startups, held in Paris few days ago. The conference was packed with obstacles, but I learned a great lesson: watching events online is a great thing.

I think online and offline are seriously connected. More than most of the Internet professionals suggest. I am of the opinion that every event should have a strong technological infrastructure, to allow people who cannot be there to consume the event. If you prefer, monetizing that as well.

LeWeb was packed misadventures. They spent more than €100K for wireless Internet connection,which was completely unreliable for the whole two days. They also had a serious problem with room heating leaving attendees in freezing cold.

Eureka

A lot of people commented on the above but forgot to celebrate the great success of LeWeb, mostly thanks to rezpondr a startup funded and helped by www.sleepydog.net which equals @philcampbell and @sleepydog

These guys, who represent the only real spark of creativity in this dull, credit crunch depressed, same old London, gave me the opportunity to connect to one page where I could find:

- a Ustream streaming of the event

- all the pictures from flickr tagged leweb

- all the seesmic videos tagged leweb

- all the qik videos tagged leweb

- all the twitter discussions tagged leweb

I had a chat with @philcampbell and he told me that:

…the idea is that a user/group/event can bring together livestreams and social content into one location to make the viewing experience more rounded for the user watching.   The content is displayed in a time based manner with content running from left to right. Newest content first.  Each piece of media has a lightbox on which the user can perform actions with that media.   If the domain is owned by the user that logs in you can also do various transcoding and distribution methods to convert media in a variety of formats.

If the above link no longer works, you can see a screenshot below (click to expand) or check eventca.st :

Few results that may interest you

- I listened to the talks in my nice and warm living room & with reliable internet connection.

- I had the chance to see pictures and videos in real time from all the other rooms as well.

- I read reactions of people listening and discussed with them during the panels over twitter.

- I networked with twitter users who were doing the same thing I was and established great relationships which are still going on.

- We peaked 3000 people watching and interacting through the live chat.

My suggestions

- Don’t bother yourself trying to understand whether leWeb was a success or not.

- Think about how the way we consume events is dramatically changing.

- Think about how perception of people attending your events is changing and expectations accordingly.

- Think about new audiences in New York when you are running an event in Japan and new ways of monetizing it.

- Think about twitter as the most revolutionary Internet tool within the events arena.

- Think about all of the above soon!

Be more Pecha Kucha!

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Pecha Kucha Montreal 2007 Photo by JamesEverett via Flickr

Pecha Kucha nights were started in 2003 by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein in Tokyo. The nights are aimed at young designers, the format teaches a lot to all of us engaged with boring presentations.

Pecha Kucha means chit-chat. Back in 2003 two architects started what is now a very popular movement, with nights all over the globe.

Why?

The format answers to a compelling question, how to give space to young designers without throwing the audience in 2 hours long, endless presentations.

How?

Mark and Astrid created the 20 presenters/20 slides/20 seconds format.

20 designer are given the chance to present a total of 20 slides, 20 seconds each, for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

As simple as that.

Results

An immediate result is that attention levels are kept very high and everyone involved gets value out of the experience.
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Watch out, storm ahead!

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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.

15 ways to promote your event offline

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The Slideshare love continues. Here is another one on how to promote your event offline.

One of the most crucial aspect of event promotion is what you do offline. This is a handy template you can use as checklist.