Tuesday, December 30, 2008

New Year's Resolution: Dive into Social Media

Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty.
- John Selden

Yeah, but that's the point this time.
  1. I resolve to keep up this blog, if only to ensure that I continue to locate cool and innovative event ideas from other industry professionals.
  2. I resolve to keep up my other new blog to share my fun gift-locating skills with friends.
  3. I resolve to create a social media strategy (and attempt to maintain it) for the Humane Society of Williamson County in order to learn more about social media and aid my favorite cause.
  4. I resolve to create an interactive online event engagement portal for my company's customers to find out what events we are participating in and where they can find us.
  5. And, finally, I resolve to decorate for the fun holidays this year (Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, 4th of July, My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). Any other holiday's I left off?

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Delayed Update

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
- Ferris Bueller

The sad truth is that when you work at a large corporation, you find yourself doing email and working during all that time that used to be "spare." So between September and now, I have spent evenings with the baby, put him to bed and then gone back online to work.

But to update the last couple of months, meeting with the European event team was FANTASTIC. They have some great experience and ideas that we can learn from, and we have some great tools and resources that will help them. I'm so excited to be working on a project to bring our colleagues from around the world together.

And yes, the husband and the baby survived just fine without me!

So now back to posting interesting event information, and less droning about myself.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Taking the Plan on the Road

If your imagination leads you to understand how quickly people grant your requests when those requests appeal to their self-interest, you can have practically anything you go after.
- Napoleon Hill

I begin my journey on Friday to visit with colleagues in Europe and cooperate on creating a single global technology infrastructure for the event team. We currently use more than 13 tools to manage our events across the globe (not to mention the thousands of Excel spreadsheets), and none of them communicate with any other system. So I've laid out a plan and will take it on the road to get input next week.

On a personal note, it will be the first time my husband will have to spend 6 days alone with our almost-9-month-old baby, so... we'll see how that goes! :-)


Thursday, August 14, 2008

Wow, been a while.

"Employ thy time well if thou meanest to get leisure."
- Benjamin Franklin

Goodness, time flies when you're crazy busy! With the husband in another country for 3 weeks and just myself to manage the job, the laundry, the baby, and the dogs, I have neglected my blog responsbilities.

I'm working on creating a single global technology infrastucture for my company's many event departments. While we may not ever truly consolidate into one team, it makes sense to have one customer registration tool to keep all of the customer data. This is relatively easy in the US, but bringing the rest of the world onboard is tricky. Finding a registration tool and investing $100k+ blindly is a scary thing! I'm currently demo-ing all sorts of tools and hunting for the one with the right mix of aesthetics and usefulness...

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Communicate More Good

“In the time honored tradition of email, just ignore the question.”
- John Dobbin


So while I love Xobni, I like this idea better.

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Remember: Events ARE Marketing

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.”
- Chinese Proverb


Seth Godin has a great post today about event/meeting planning. I think he's accurate on everything except the 30 x 80 meeting room setup - and I get his point, but I disagree with it.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

They Travel in Packs

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."
- Ryunosuke Satoro


And how many times do oceans need to register for something? Most of the time. I am seeing more and more instances where either I need to register an entire room block or my customers need to register multiple attendees to an event, and the technology piece does not allow for it. Does anyone really have the time to sit around and individually register 32 people? Probably not. If you are building out a reg site, make sure you consider the poor administrative assistant or event planner who is going to have to waste half a day entering everyone's names into you system one by one.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Appreciate Out Loud

“Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.”
- G.B. Stern


Thank you notes have always been touted as the most sincere way to personally thank someone for something they did for you. Today, this is still true, but why not go above and beyond? Follow Andy's lead. I always include about $50-100 in my event budget to use for appreciation gifts. Maybe its an Edible Arrangement to the housing bureau manager who miraculously found me 5 extra rooms the day before the deadline. Maybe its a bottle of chocolate dipped wine to the hotel event manager who found me two meeting rooms even though the conference is less than a week away and the hotel truly had no space left (I still don't know how she did that)! Even a couple of restaurant.com gift certificates to the event planners on my team who have bent over backwards to deal with ambiguity and get an amazing event planned. In the grand scheme of a $120k+ event, $100 to thank some folks is so very worth it.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Chit-Chatters Unite!

Word-of-mouth is not created, it is co-created. People will only spread your virus if there’s something in it for them.
-Hugh MacLeod

The hottest (and most cost-effective?) trend in marketing is Word of Mouth marketing. Always on the hunt for inexpensive demand generation tactics, Word of Mouth programs are ideal for events. According to Andy Sernovitz's blog, the National Restaurant Association knows how to use WoM quite well to promote their show, and we should all take notes!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

I Love E-mail!

"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers."
- Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Who knew I would ever get excited about opening Outlook? Thanks to Xobni, I do. This third-party Outlook add-in is the coolest thing since sliced bread. It adds a toolbar to the right side of your Outlook that shows a profile of the person you are emailing. At a glance, you can see their phone number, schedule time with them (without looking through both of your calendars), see your conversations, see attachments you've shared, and more. It has made my e-mail life so much more efficient. And the fun part is the analytics. I can actually see, on average, how quickly I respond to emails, when I receive the most email, what time of day I send the most emails, and even how many unique people I have exchanged thoughts with. I'm enamored. Check it out - its free.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Time to Move On?

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.
- Brian Tracy

Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Effect? The article referenced is talking about the IT industry, but I believe the same can be said for the event industry. It's a little cruel to think that a tenured, experienced event person might just have no other place to go, but without turnover, new ideas tend to get squashed. Moving on can be a good thing.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Best seat in the house

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

Why do most auditorium-style meeting sets have the aisle in the middle, right where prime viewing of the screen would be? Why do we cram so many chairs together that the middle of the rows are empty because people can't get to them without climbing over each other? Why do we make a vague attempt at helping people see the screen by herringboning the side rows, but we still make them crane their necks for an hour?

A few years ago, I attended the SGMP National Conference in Nashville and had the pleasure of participating in Dr. Paul Radde's session on audience-centered seating. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why this has not become the standard for meeting room sets. No more aching necks. No more empty seats in the middle because people do not want to crawl over each other. MORE room for chairs. It really is a no-brainer. Also check out his ideas on optimizing narrow rooms.

If you see Dr. Radde on any conference agendas discussing audience-centered seating, don't miss that session -- you'll never be more amazed by someone talking about chairs!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Let's give 'em something to talk about

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
- Oscar Wilde

I'm trying really hard to care about Twitter. Stories of non-events like flash-mob parties thanks to twittering are enthralling, as are stories of how people network at events via Twitter. Is Twitter the next level of Facebook/MySpace when it comes to keeping up with friends and colleagues, or will it just further crush our youths' ability to communicate in actual full paragraphs and words by encouraging one-sentence microblogging?

It's easy to label this one "passing fad" simply because it seems that only the technically savvy will truly latch on to it, where something like a blog is a little more open to the masses. But I will admit that I follow a few people on Twitter (Andy Sernovitz, Wil Wheaton, and my husband who posted once - 11 months ago). You should at least log on and check it out - you know, see what the kids are up to! Sidenote: all of the people I currently twitter are over 30! Perhaps "the kids" are not the young'uns you're imagining. For a quick reality check of how ubiquitous this is becoming, check out twittervision.

The point is, you should keep an eye out for this technology's usefulness at your next event. Can you tweet your attendees to alert them to news, session changes, or evening events?

Thursday, April 24, 2008

But we've always done it that way!

"Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid. "
- despair.com

Quick nod to one of my favorite sites for co-worker gifts. Despair.com is a blast to explore!

Now on to the topic at hand - why do you do the things you do? Is it because you've always done it? A legacy ritual inherited from those who came before you (a la the monkeys and the bananas)?

Or do you do it because you "should"? i.e. post-event surveys? Don't get me wrong, surveys are absolutely vital to measuring the success of your event and attendee ROO, but that's contingent upon someone in your company actually taking the time measure the success of your event and attendee ROO. If everyone looks at the survey results PowerPoint you send out and then sends a note back to you saying "Thanks for pulling this together," and you never hear from them again... well, it's time to reevaluate the need for and the usage of those surveys.

In my organization, we are going through some sacred cow slaughtering at the moment and it's pretty exciting to witness the morale increases first-hand.

Here's one that we can't seem to kill, though (in fact, I have been laughed at for even suggesting it) - why must event personnel stand behind a registration desk? Isn't there a more inviting way to welcome attendees to your event rather than placing a large table between you and them? Perhaps you have some ideas?

What's in a name?

"Responsibility is the thing people dread most of all. Yet it is the one thing in the world that develops us."
- Frank Crane

I would probably not name my business "Blow Me," however in this case, it seems to fit - they're breathalizers! From the latest issue of Springwise:

In the US, alcohol-related car crashes kill someone every 31 minutes, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the problem extends around the world. Blow Me is a UK-based company that hopes to reduce such statistics by bringing its mobile alcohol breath-testing service to private and corporate events.

Event organizers can hire Blow Me to attend any party or other happening where alcohol will be served. With the same equipment used by police forces throughout the UK, Blow Me's trained team conducts unlimited alcohol breath tests for event guests in a non-threatening and professional manner. Both branded and unbranded packages are available, and Blow Me's staff will follow any dress code to suit the occasion—tux and ties if needed. They can offer custom promotional materials, if requested, as well as information for guests about local transport options. The result, Blow Me hopes, is that more people will think twice before getting behind the wheel.

Launched in 2006, London-based Blow Me serves clients all over Europe; by January of this year it had stopped more than 1,000 people from unknowingly driving drunk, founder Sam Rose says. Undoubtedly it has also enhanced many a company's corporate image.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Are you a CMP and on LinkedIn?

"We will surely get to our destination if we join hands."
- Aung San Suu Kyi


Just discovered this a few days ago:


If you have a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation, please considering joining the Certified Meeting Professionals group here on LinkedIn.

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/82316/5DA7E210A54C
* Reach out to fellow CMPs
* Get to know more than just a name in a directory
Clarification added 16 days ago:

This group is designed ONLY for those that have the CMP designation issued to them by the Convention Industry Council.

I also discovered that MPI has a student group on Facebook that I encourage you to join. It seems to be relatively new, so the traffic is a little light at the moment. Perhaps we can fix that by getting the conversations going!

Monday, April 21, 2008

2010: the year of comfy air travel?

"Being a philosopher, I have a problem for every solution."
- Robert Zend


An actual innovation in air travel for coach class! The first class cabins have been the recipient of many nice upgrades (fully reclining seats, anyone?). And now we poor cows in coach will actually have a pleasant experience, too, thanks to Delta's new design.

Though it seems like it would make conversation among passengers a little more difficult...oh, and:
No more laying down across 3 seats when they're empty.
How do you see out the window if you're in an aisle seat?
How do you get your hot coffee from the stewardess if you're in the window seat?
Potentially disgusting germs on the "cozy" shield area...

Hmm...

Are events the savior of social media?

“We live in the best of all possible worlds.”
– Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

As the online community becomes ever-more isolating, events may become to the key to truly allowing people to connect. So says Spike from Brains on Fire in this post.

And I quote, "...joining forces with offline opportunities to get flesh and blood together to celebrate one another (no, not celebrate your brand) will amplify – and trump – anything you could ever do online."

Know any college students?

"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."
- Max DePree

If they have *any* interest in social media as a career, they need to apply for this job.

Where are you going?

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.


You know you are an event geek when this quote makes you think of event measurement. If you don't know your success metrics or objectives, any event can be a success (or failure for that matter)!

Define success early in your planning so you know what you need to accomplish andhow to shape your survey questions. But if the goal of the event is to increase sales, you'll need a viable way of correlating sales to the event. If you know that's not possible to correlate, then find another success metric.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Are you mad?

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."


I have ravenously devoured a few event-related blogs (Gathering and Face2Face being two of my faves), and casually clicked around others, and what I've discovered is a wealth of knowledge but a lack of community. Why are there rarely comments on these blogs? Are we all too busy in the offline world to network and share in the online world? Or are we all old school and just not into this web thing? Or perhaps we are shy (ha!). We encourage our attendees to join our online event communities, so why are we not drinking our own kool-aid?

So why am I starting a whole new blog instead of commenting on others? Good point. Didn't think of that. I should go comment on some blogs!

But seriously, what do you think? Why do you not comment on blogs?