The Art Of Listening And Science Of Responding

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In this guest post Jeff Hurt, our favorite event planning and change thinker on twitter, discusses Using Social Media To Listen To Your Event Customers

We’ve all experienced it. The hallways of the conference are buzzing with chatter about the event. Attendees are discussing what’s working, what isn’t, why the organizers planned it this way, what they are happy about and what’s discouraging them.

As meeting and event planners, we often wish we could be a fly on the wall listening to everyone’s discussions all at once. With today’s social media tools, we can engage in discussions with our registrants before, during and after the big event. Now, we can capture those hallway conversations and respond in real time. So, where do you start?

1. Create and encourage a culture of listening.

Listening is something that every staff member can and should do, and the organization’s principals should lead by example. Staff should listen in the hallways, invite feedback on evaluations and encourage attendees to provide comments and concerns to any staff member both face to face and through the social media tools available. The event is all about attendee, not you the meeting planner.

2. Develop a system for capturing feedback and ways to respond.

a. Setup an event presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media tools.
In today’s web world, people go to several different sites to find information about an event. They no longer turn only to your organization or event website. They turn to their friends, colleagues and compadres. They also turn to the social media tools they use and you can help them by setting up “listening and chatting posts” within each social property. Twitter Tip: When using Twitter, identify one person to manage each event account and encourage them to list their name in the profile. For example Jeff4CVG09 meaning Jeff for CONVERGE 2009.
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10 Applications your Event Needs

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As anticipated the webinar for Nielsen & co. was great yesterday.

Here are the slides for my presentation. If you attended and had questions, now the time to comment.




View more presentations from Julius Solaris. (tags: twitter events

Update: Here’s a transcript of the presentation. Click here for the pdf.

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!

Top five ways to keep your career going

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Photo by James Gordon

If you are experiencing the negative impact of the economic crisis or you find very difficult to keep up with new technologies this post will help you in keeping up.

I am not sure if you are aware but there is a community of event professionals which is facing new economic and technology challenges brilliantly. I talk to them over twitter, I see them interacting in the Linkedin Discussions, I meet them at free networking events or at BarCamps. They save money using free software, the cut budgets promoting on social networks the maximise satisfaction by integrating new technologies.

There are few easy steps to keep yourself ahead of the game and be up to date with what is going on with Event Planning 2.0. I’ll be happy to assist you in this and you will notice most of the first steps involve me. Nonetehelss, as soon as you’ll join, you will find like minded people willing to help, possibly in your area and with great expertise.

1. Join the Linkedin Events Group and add me as a direct contact there.

Get in touch with me, send me messages and participate to discussions.

You cannot afford to be shy or to just read. Get active.

I’ll be soon hosting a free webinar on how to get a better job using Linkedin, followed by an online speed networking session. You should not miss that! All the info in the Linkedin Events group discussions.

2. Join the group networking events in your area.
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Why I like CitySocialising.com

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CitySocialising is a great local service to help beating the personal barriers that prevent you from getting a better job, improving your social life, being active. Apart from that, it is an awesome threat to traditional event professionals.

Jo is organising Sunday lunch Hampstead and walk and has invited you to attend.

Graham is organising 18-20s west end drinks! and has invited you to attend.

Kelly is organising Cocktail tasting class and has invited you to attend.

I don’t know who Jo, Graham or Kelly are but hey, these events are cool! Usually these kind of mail makes it very quickly to my Spam folder but in this instance I just can’t do it. The events are very relevant, targeted on my area and to my needs. What if I’ll get a special invitation tomorrow to an unmissable event?

What is it?
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