E-venting.net

At the Intersection of Social Media and Events is... a Widget

I'm more than just a geek. I'm actually two geeks - an Events geek and a Social Media geek. So when Freewebs asked me to produce a conference for them on Widget Marketing, I happily accepted, and WidgetCon was born.

You've seen widgets - they're those little mini-applications that are all over the social media web: slide shows, games, music playlists, YouTube players, etc. All these are widgets. You probably have some on your own blog.

WidgetCon is about how advertisers can use widgets as a new type of media. Which is interesting and all, and I'm doing the programming for it. But what's more interesting (at least to this audience I trow) is the widget we created for the conference:

Introducing the world's first Conference Registration Widget:

Here's what it does:

• WidgetCon is by invitation only. If you’re invited, the WidgetCon widget will confirm your RSVP based on your email address. It's linked to a database on the backend with invitees' info, so it recognizes you.
• But that’s not all – you can also use the widget to custom design your conference badge for WidgetCon. You can even upload a picture which will display on the website (but not on the actual badge - we opted to keep it only online because of resolution quality concerns)
  
• “Attendees” on the widget displays a slide show of all the RSVP’ed attendees and their custom badges. It's a list of who you'll be able to network with, and a photo album of badges combined.
• And if you have colleagues who are not yet invited, they can request an invitation using the widget. Their info and badge design go into the database until their request is reviewed. Clicking a box on the database backend accepts their invite and adds their badge to the "Attendees" slide show.
• It also pushes out updated content. We chose to include tabs with the Agenda and Speaker list, but could easily have included one with a RSS feed to the show blog, so all updates were pushed in real-time to the widget. And yes, if we elect to stream live video from the conference, we can do that through the widget as well.
• Finally, like all widgets, you can easily post it to any blog, profile page or website.

We put the WidgetCon Widget into a WidgetCon website, but it's also distributed all over the web. And that's its magic, really - distributed content. Wherever it shows up online - on this blog, on speakers' blogs, on ad agencies' corporate intranets, whatever - the entire conference has a presence there, not just an ad banner and a link. It tells a pretty complete picture of what the event looks like, invites interactivity, and encourages participation. And because the event is on Widget Marketing, it's naturally an ideal proof-of-concept of the show topic.

But it's also something I can see show producers getting behind no matter what their focus is.

So try it - monkey around with it, turn it over in your head, even put it on your own sites if you want by simply clicking on the "Get This!" button. Would love to hear your thoughts.

In Which I now Link to Seth Godin

Seth Godin and I are a lot alike. We write about a lot of the same things, and our thought processes are remarkably similar.

Only he writes more eloquently than me, and on topics I never really consider until I read what he's written.

Actually, I guess I just write about Seth Godin a lot.

Required reading before you go to your next event (particularly if it's one I'm programming):
Going to Meetings. By Seth Godin.

Remember, you read it here first. Unless of course you read it at Seth's Blog first.

Extended by Popular Demand - Free Consultation Day

Actually, it's more of a current-client commitment. But Free Consultation Day is now tomorrow, March 31. I still have a few spots if anyone else wants to pick my brain on:

• Event Strategy
• Event Marketing
• Speaker Proposals
• Launching a New Event
• Agenda Format and Composition
• Pricing
• Programming Strategy
• ...or anything else I've written about here

E-mail me to coordinate.

March 30 is Free Consultation Day

My calendar on Thursday March 30 is wide open. I'm wrapping up a massive show on March 28th and have some ongoing projects afterwards, but my bandwidth is about to increase by a lot. So I'm designating Thursday March 30th as Free Consultation Day.

You may have a few questions about Free Consultation Day:

You: What is it?
Me: Anybody who wants to schedule half an hour with me can do so, and ask me anything you want - about an event or road show you might be planning, suggestions on which shows to sponsor or exhibit at, feedback on constructing a show P&L, speaker recommendations, programming strategy, tips on pitching a speaker, whatever.

Y: Why are you doing this?
M: I could use a new client or two over the summer and beyond. I figure having a candid conversation with anyone interested in interactive media, marketing and advertising events is a better way of demonstrating value to prospective clients than sending out pitch emails.

Y: How does it work?
M: Send me an email. We schedule a time to talk. We talk. I act like someone on your team, not a consultant trying to scare up business by half-answering questions, or working hard to identify challenges (that naturally I'm equipped to solve) rather than address whatever ones you bring to me. Maybe you'll think I know my stuff and hire me. Maybe if I give you everything I've got in 30 minutes, and not keep curtain #1 closed until you sign a retainer agreement, you'll start to think of me as a prospective partner, not just a hired gun. Is that possibility worth missing the last half of Oprah to me? You bet.

Y: Who the heck are you to do this?
M: I'm no oracle or guru or vigorous self-promoter. I just happen to have some knowledge, experience and perspective that some of you may find profitable. And I'd much rather work with someone who reads this blog and is already in my head a little bit, than pitch some company I've never heard of, who has never heard of me, and end up competing on price instead of value.

Y: Anything else?
M: Yes. Now would be a very good time to forward this to a friend or colleague who might not read this blog or know who I am, but might make an excellent client.

Y: How do I get started again?
M: Drop me a line. Operators are standing by.

UPDATE: Re-scheduled for Friday March 31.

The Standard Deviation of High-Res Headshots

How do you define the 'high-res' part of 'high-res headshot' when it's contained in the sentence, "Please send me a high-res headshot for use in the printed show book"?

I'm not being a jackass here - I really want to know. Leave me an email, a comment, whatever. Because I've obviously been using a definition that most people don't subscribe to. For my current show, I've been sent dozens of speaker headshots which I've requested to be 'high-res for use in the printed show book.' They've ranged in size from 4k to 17mb. I'm not kidding - about either.

Honestly, I expected most to come in between about 800K and 2MB, with a few in the 3MB - 4MB range. A few years ago, before the advent of digital cameras and when we were using professional photogs and scanning in photos, I'd expect photos to be 5MB and up, probably saved as .TIF files. But I'm figuring everyone has a digital camera and everyone transfers files and everyone (at least in this industry) has seen the difference between a picture that's reasonably clear on the screen and how grainy it looks if you print it. The photos I've received however have been all over the map. If I plotted them out and ran an analysis, I'd find a standard deviation of over 3MB. But if I put them on a curve ALMOST NONE would be in the range I expected. Instead of a bell curve, it would look like an 'M', or a Bactrian Camel.

So in the absence of a tool to automate and simplify this process, I should probably figure out how to be clearer the first time out, and not have to exchange a bunch of emails, and risk missing print deadlines due to fuzzy pictures.

So a little help please - what does 'high-res' mean to you? What should I be asking for?

My Next Project

It's actually two projects:

Project 1: Speaker Wiki
For the MediaPost show I'm working on currently, I'm in speaker-headshot-and-bio hell. I'm collecting about 100 high-res headshots and 100 bios (via website link, on PDFs, in Word docs and in the body of emails), organizing them, and then sending them via www.yousendit.com in 1MB chunks to my client for publishing in the conference book.

Every other conference producer is does the same thing, and everyone in the interactive industry is doing the same thing with - in many cases - the same speaker bios and headshots. The process is rife with redundance and inefficiency. Worse, it puts the burden on the show producer - and not the speaker - to get all the information right. So the likelihood of error is massive.

So I'm going to create an Interactive Industry Speaker Wiki. As soon as I confirm any speaker for an event, I'll ask him or her to update the wiki him/herself. Even better, I'll work with PR agencies and PR departments to update the wiki even before a speaker is confirmed. Anyone who wants to speak at an interactive industry event should have his or her info up there. Not only will this make it easier for conference producers to assemble show content, as they'll just be able to select by show and pull down everything at once - as a programmer, having a real-time database of who is available to speak on what topics is a huge asset. It's essentially a mass-collaborative speakers' bureau, for any conference programmer to use. (And press and litigators, for that matter - it's a catalog of talking heads and experts.)

Project 2: Interactive Industry Event Calendar Wiki
During the same week at the end of this month, three separate and overlapping shows are running: OMMA Hollywood, iMedia Breakthrough and Digital Hollywood. And it's not the first time - last September, shows by MediaPost, IAB and iMedia all ran simultaneously as well. Think that's bad? Try scheduling a road show this summer. Just try it.

So we need another wiki - an Interactive Industry Event Calendar Wiki - one where everyone can post confirmed or tentative dates for their events in order to avoid conflicts. True, some will use it to create conflicts, but at least there will be some transparency in what different show organizers are doing, and why.

It will also include call for speaker terms and deadlines, various contact and promotional information about the show, a list (with appropriate links to aforementioned wiki) of confirmed speakers, etc.

So those are my next projects. Anyone want to chip in with suggestions, advice, $upport or feedback?

To start, can anyone make me a recommendation of which wiki software I should use?

The Death of the VIP Conference Pass

Controllers at advertising agencies across the country are grieving. Or they should be, anyway. Why? Because beginning this year they're going to be inundated with requests for an increase to travel, education and conference budgets. Interactive media is no longer on the fringe, and interactive media conferences no longer have to subsidize their attendance by giving away VIP passes to anyone who works at an agency or brand marketer and can claim access to some part of a media or marketing budget.

Controllers notwithstanding, it's good news for everyone. Interactive media conferences will become less dependent upon sponsor revenue, which frees them up to program more directly at their attendee constituents. These new market forces will only (further) increase the quality of the show content, and in no time they'll easily be worth the $1K or so they'll charge for a 2-day event.

And $1K is a bargain. Most conference pricing is cost-based pricing. This means that show organizers build a P&L from the bottom up, figuring out what their expenses will be, and then determining what to charge to cover them. No, it doesn't cost $1K to invite a bunch of unpaid speakers to present from the stage. But it does cost about that much for the venue, the food and beverage, the marketing, the on-site collateral, security, shipping, decorator, A/V, registration processing, insurance, overhead and staffing.

Most events try to cover their expenses through registration, and make a profit through sponsorship. Except in this industry, where we've traditionally had to cover our expenses AND make a profit through sponsorship. Instead of a better-attended more successful show being more profitable, it actually becomes a greater liability. More sponsors are required to cover the added expense of more people, and more sponsors are potentially disappointed if the turnout isn't as expected (which is usually the case, as free passes result in a lot of attrition. How much? Try 50% - half the 'VIP' audience commonly doesn't show up). And more sponsors to satisfy means more sponsors with speaking roles, which leads to greater attrition and, yes, more disappointed sponsors. Isn't that ironic? Sure, but if you're a show producer, it also just sucks.

Before agencies start griping about $1k for an event, they should be thankful that shows are only using cost-based pricing and not value-based pricing. No executive in his or her right mind would go to a show if they thought they'd only raise their own human capital by $1K, or save $1K for their client, or figure out how to drive an additional $1K of sales in their next campaign. You could pay six-figures at some shows and still come out ahead. No, $1K is a bargain. Pay it, happily.

So the shows improve in quality, which is great for attendees. But sponsors become less central to the show's P&L, which is ungreat for sponsors. Should they just learn to be satisfied with less? That, or they'll have to learn to re-invent themselves to market in a new environment, just like their advertiser clients are doing. That too is ironic, but it's equitable and the result of progess in the industry. And that doesn't suck at all.

Does Conference WiFi = Lunch?

I'm probably not alone in expecting to find a WiFi connection wherever I open my laptop. I don't mean to suggest I'm entitled to a connection; my expectation springs merely from repeated observation.

But it's a fine line between expectation and entitlement, and those of us in the conference business - which is a service industry - have to pay attention to our customers' expectations, and often treat them as if they were entitlements.

So how then do we answer the question of the wired conference? I've seen a different approach at nearly every event.

The folks at WOMMA, for example, believe that their audience should pay attention to speakers instead of their email, and deliberately keep WiFi out of the general session. The result at the Orlando show is that the vast majority of their audience remained attentive in ballrooms, but pods of attendees clustered around hotspots in the hallway, wedged 4-across onto benches, and even sitting on the floor.

At OMMA WEST and OMMA EAST last year, ESPN sponsored a gorgeous and expansive WiFi lounge in the exhibit hall. Attendees always had a place to go and connect, but because exhibit hall attendance was free, the lounge was usually jammed with, well, loungers who had no place else to go at the event - probably not the audience ESPN was targeting.

At the IAB events at the Millennium Hotel that I produced, we kept some space open in the exhibit hall for a WiFi lounge, but choosing to make the space truly functional would have come at the expense of booths. As a result, the lounge was too small to be of much use for anyone. Except of course the event marketers, who could claim in communications that we had a 'free WiFi lounge so that attendees can stay connected to the office and clients, without ever leaving the show'.

Different shows have different strategies, but the audience expectation is growing increasingly constant. WiFi has officially become the cost of doing business in the conference industry.

Here then are my thoughts on Best Practices for Conference WiFi:

• WiFi is like lunch. You're not obligated to provide it for free, but if you don't you had better make sure it's readily available somewhere close.
• But WiFi can also be like your exhibit hall. It doesn't have to be always open. Show producers should experiment with 'WiFi Live' times, if there's a good reason not to keep it available always.
• Be transparent and proactive in communications. Tell your audience where, when and how WiFi will be available - both before the event and in lots of signage at the event. You know they're going to ask. Why wait for it?
• Face the attention competition head on. If you know your attendees want WiFi but you're afraid they'll be distracted from your event - program a more engaging event. (WOMMA, by the way, didn't need to turn off the WiFi - their audience wouldn't have looked away from the stage much.)
• Look for the upside to ubiquitous connectivity: invite a dozen bloggers, vloggers, podcasters and others to attend and cover the event in real-time. During breaks, show the most recent entries live from a computer connected to your main stage projector, for the audience to consume while they're taking their seats again.

The good news, for now, is that while attendees expect WiFi, they don't necessarily expect it to be available for free - yet. So don't break your budget buying 2000 people a $10 day pass they're not asking for. You engender goodwill through a strong signal alone.

Creating a Mood: Event-Specific Music Mixes

I beleive that it's the conference producer's responsibility to use every point of audience contact to create the right environment for the show - from badge design and layout, to lighting, signage and decoration; from the flow of registration and the tempo of the agenda, right down to the music.

I know it's pretty common for event producers to leave the music to the A/V folks, expecting them to pipe in whatever the venue has available in its house system, or by plugging in an iPod. And in truth, if you say absolutely nothing about music to your A/V company, a good one will ask you about it directly, and even an unattentive A/V company will at least put something on that they think is cool.

But cool is not always appropriate for your show. I was a DJ in college, and while trying to program a decent two hour show where I had to include selections from the program director's A, B and C lists, respond to requests from listeners, and insert my own editorial selections, I learned a little bit about the art of the mix. I'm no Mix-Master-Mike by any means. But I am an enthusiast. There are about 30 mixes on my iTunes currently - some are 45-minute jams for spinning classes; others are 2-hour journeys for long workouts; some are compilations of favorites for my fiancee, or songs about trains for my two train-crazy kids. And a bunch are mixes I created expressly for some of the shows I've produced.

Lou Rossi and I butt heads about the composition of the Event Mix a lot - he's the Stage Manager on most of the shows I produce. He prefers ambient music which is more neutral and programmed to chill (I'd expect nothing else from a Texture Guy). For most shows, I prefer something more energizing. I don't always assume that at 8am attendees are bringing with them the mood I think will make them most receptive to the show content I've spent months working on. So I leave nothing to chance and tend to fill my mixes with Big Beats - both from songs that attendees have heard before, and innovative newer cuts. My mixes are a sort of metaphor for the show content, in fact.

Joseph Jaffe understands this well, and not only programmed a very specific mix for his Battle for the HeArt Road Show last year, but crossed the boundary between walking-in music and show-programming when he played the title cut from Steve Earle's 'The Revolution Starts Now' at the beginning of each show, and even put an animated slide up onto the screen with the song's lyrics.

I tend to write in long paragraphs, but know most people only read short lists. So here's my list of Top 5 things to remember when creating an Event Mix:

1. You actually should have to create an event mix. It's your responsibility to set the show tone. If you're not much of a musicologist, outsource the task to someone who is. But give it the same attention as you do the design of signage or the composition of the show book. Attention to detail makes or breaks a show, and music is an important detail.
2. Your first song and your last song on the mix are the most important. Program your last song as the one you'll jump to when you're ringing the chimes and dimming the lights. I always bring the volume up on this one as I bring the lights down, using the visible and audio cues to move networking attendees into their seats.
3. Your first song is the one you'll go to as you move into breaks, so make sure it's got the right tempo. Remember also that if you only make one mix, or provide A/V with one set of instructions, your audience will hear the first 30 seconds of this song several times over the course of the event. If that's unacceptable, either find a better song or make a point of going into the break with a different song. Deciding you've heard a song too often and then not flipping on the music as you go to break isn't a solution.
4. It's not a bad idea to make 2 CDs - one with the complete mix, and one with just the final song. That way you're reducing the likelihood of error. (I think the music just before the show starts is that important.)
5. Aim to surprise and delight your attendees - surprise them with some theme-appropriate songs they'll remember and recognize, and delight them with a fresh musical perspective.

Here's a link to the mix I built for MediaPost's OMMA EAST in New York last year, if you want an example (or, given your preferences and show objectives, just as easily a warning):

Link to OMMA EAST iMix via iTunes (must have iTunes to open this)

Picks of Six - Top Road Show City #4: San Francisco, CA

I'm surprised at SF's ranking on this list, and I bet you are too - but not for the same reasons. Every single road show I've ever been associated with in interactive advertising and media has always started with the 'big 3' of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. So, why, you may wonder, is SF showing up here as #4?

Well, here's what surprises me: For almost all of those road shows I've taken across the country, the stop in San Francisco was routinely below expectations. Attrition is higher than other cities, client turnout is a smaller percentage of total audience, and the energy and enthusiasm of the industry has dramatically flagged over the past few years. I'm surprised SF showed up on this list as high as it did.

To be sure, there's a cadre of well-known agencies in SF - including AKQA, Butler Shine & Stern, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Mediasmith, SF Interactive, Venables Bell & Partners, Y&R and others, as well as a small army of boutique and niche shops (I include SEMs as 'niche' - debate me on that if you wish). But to better gauge the life of the industry in SF, you need to put your thumb on the client pulse. Here it's Tech heavy, with some retail and finance.

Mix these particular verticals with the distended boom and amplified bust that SF went through a few years back, and you get an unwavering cry for accountability in advertising. On the one hand, this has given launch to some innovative new agencies and concepts (check out Gregory Wilson's Red Ball Tiger, for example). But more commonly accountability drives risk aversion and dampens creativity. You get the sense at some SF shows of a quiet, nostalgic despair.

So why go to SF at all? It is a major media market and you will fill a room, though with a little more effort than most of your other stops. But I also continue to go because SF remains poised for idea-greatness. I'll take a city glum on Creativity Lost over one where it was never the lifeblood of an industry, as it once was in SF. A road show on Creativity I produced there last summer showed me some of SF's old fire, and I believe also the influence of MacWorld Expo (with all its innovation in design) every year at the Moscone Center helps kindle the city's passion for innovation in marketing, product design and - now - media strategy.

The SF Bay Area Internet Group (SFBig) is the local regional association to work with out there. They hold a monthly event for their membership and are usually very keen on getting their (impressive) board of directors involved in visiting shows.

Strengths: Venue Availability, Media Market Size
Weaknesses: Appetite for Events, Creative Vibrancy, Operational Affordability
Overall Score (0-100): 68

Related Entries:
Picks of Six - Road Show