Interactivity at your events

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

  - John Updike

Creatively engaging attendees is the number one way to make content valuable to your attendees. Most of our vendors are now incorporating great technology into their portfolios to accomodate this need. We have used really cool stuff like Snibbe, and started playing with e-literature to replace plain-old lead retreival systems.

This post from Applerock has a few more ideas, as well.

We'll explore QR codes in a future post - not seeing huge adoption at the present time, mostly because attendees don't have a clue what to do with those barcodes, but I think the concept has tons of merit and is worthy of another look in a few months.

In praise of quitting

As long as I'm having fun, I'm not quitting.

  - Sue Johanson

I have a couple of friends and colleagues in a tough situation right now, and I wanted to share these wise thoughts: Ben Pieratt's Blog in Praise of Quitting.

Time and Energy: Only one is flexible

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

 - M. Scott Peck

As I mentioned, I've been reading The Way We're Working Isn't Working. So far, I've learned about the body's natural rhythms and how we have the most energy in the morning, and the least energy mid-afternoon. The recommendation is to exercise first thing in the morning and eat a substantial breakfast. Have a natural, mid-morning snack, and a healthy lunch. Then between 1 and 3, you should try to fit in a 30 to 90 minute nap and 10 to 30 minutes of exercise. This will renew your body and allow you to be at your ultimate level of productivity between 3 and 6:00, when you end your workday and are refreshed enough to have energy for your family in the evenings. A light dinner and a calming ritual before a regular bedtime is essential.

So... now for reality. There is no way I can skip out after lunch to take a nap. And unlikely that I can skip out to exercise. BUT, perhaps I could take an afternoon conference call on my cell phone and walk around the building while on it. Or perhaps I can at least stand at stretch in my cube during those afternoon calls.

My biggest challenge is the early morning exercise. I firmly believe that is the best time to fit exercise into my day, but I just can't get myself out of bed. So there's my challenge to myself this week. Roll out of bed and take a 20 minute walk at 6:15. Let's see if I can do it three times this week.

The challenge is on!

Integration of the whole person

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
 - Herodotus

I'm on a bit of a mission for self-fulfillment. While I absolutely adore the folks I work with every day, I think I'm spending a little too much time working with them... or more accurately, replying to them. Mornings start with the 6:45 email check and then the 7:00 conference call, then back-to-back meetings all day with the occassional break for a lunch away when it's not a lunch meeting, followed by more meetings and then a break at 5:30 to pick up the kiddo from daycare. 6-8 p.m. is Mommy Time - dinner, play, bath (as evidenced by my 2-Hour Mom Blog), then kiddo's bedtime and back online to do the emails that I couldn't do throughout the day at work, and then bed by 11. Good grief, that's like 13 hours a day! And I'm not even an attorney!
 
I'm currently reading a book called The Way We're Working Isn't Working, and I just finished this little snippet from HBR called "Don't leave your personal life at home."
 
Both talk about taking time to make a connection with your world at large, and making the time for self-renewal, even if it's just throughout the day. Before I had the kiddo, I used to volunteer with the local Humane Society, designing their quarterly newsletter and participating on the Board of Directors. I really liked feeling connected to part of my community and being able to use another side of my skills to help an organization. I know very well that as the kiddo gets older, I'll become involved in his school and whatever activities he wants to have an interest in. I love how the HBR article calls out that taking the time to be involved can even end up helping your career. I'm THRILLED to have been elected as Treasurer to the Corporate Event Marketing Association last month, so I now have a community engagement for the next couple of years (even if it's not my geographic community). Getting reconnected with my industry and outside of my bubble is super exciting and energizing to me!
 
My next challenge is to find the time to have mid-day renewals and not be ground to a pulp between 7 and 5:30. I found this article in Smart Meetings about taking a mini-escape during the day. #1, 3, and 5 take too much time away from the computer, but #2 and 4 are promising. Though I must admit I'd much rather have an engaging free-flowing lunchtime conversation than have to talk about a book... of course, those free lunch conversations inevitably end up being about work so perhaps a book conversation is a really great idea! A hobby during the day intrigues me... I do sometimes take 10 minutes to Tweet or blog, but that doesn't exactly get me away from my computer. I really love the photography idea (although that is not a hobby of mine, I do have a camera!). I think what I would really like to do is bring back some of our team fun - Laptop & Lunch (where we book a conference room for 2 hours, bring our laptops, order pizza, and watch a movie in a conference room). Or Game Time Lunch Break where we play Scategories or other fun games over lunch. The more team members we can bring in, the more renewal we can share!
 
More on The Way We're Working Isn't Working and The Energy Project in my next post.

Invite (the right) people to your event

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

 - Edward R. Murrow
 
So I read this little snippet of a post about patience needed in social media event marketing. The author explains that all you need to get people to your event is patience and some more invitations. Okay... But let's talk about how difficult it actually is to get the RIGHT people to your event. Obviously it all depends on your goal for event attendance - if you're just out for profit and you don't care who shows up, then by all means, invite away!
 
If, however, you have a thoughtfully planned and executed event, then you want to actually ensure that the people showing up are either the ones with the decision-making power to be influenced by your content, or they are the ones who will partake in your sponsors' wares so that your sponsors will continue to be attracted to your events.
 
So how are you targeting your attendees? Third party list rentals are one way to go. Pay for the names, do some mass/direct marketing, and hope for the best. Social media is a fantastic way to let the audience self-select and target their friends.
 
But how do you find the right attendees who are also influencers in social media? Consider opening up a few spots for bloggers or other media outlets. Offer them exclusive access to a person or a product, in exchange for their voice. Allow them to do sneak peeks before the event to help you draw attendees who are influenced by them. And don't forget to thank them afterwards.

Motivation

It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
 - Peter Gibbons, Office Space

I'd like to say I just wasted 10 minutes of my life watching some silly video, but I spent the last 10 minutes watching this drawing get created while some guy talked about motivation. You MUST watch this.

He mentions a company what allows its employees 24 hours to work on whatever they want. At the end of the 24 hours, they must share their results. There is no monetary incentive, but there is a nice little party with beer and cake. So what would you do with 24 hours to work on whatever you want for your company?

Maybe I would spend it documenting the playbook of our various types of events so newcomners would know the processes and procedures for getting decisions made. Maybe I would spend it planning out the next 6-months-worth of editorial calendar for our Twitter account and event blog. Maybe I would spend it creating the template for our quarterly Ops Review so we aren't reinventing the wheel each time. Maybe I would spend it brainstorming a ton of cool new remarkable Purple Cow things we could do at our events. Hmmm....

MacGyver vs the event manager... it's like Jack Bauer vs. Chuck Norris!

Ah, yes, that's the handyman side of MacGyver; he likes to make clever little things out of odd bits.
 - Quayle ("MacGyver", TV series)

I was just over at the CVent blog and caught their post on Event Essentials: Fast Fixes for Little Event Emergencies. I truly did a "laugh out loud" at the last one, and then started thinking about my event emergency toolkit.

In addition to the duct tape, Scotch brand packing tape, and velcro, I also include:
 - Sharpie marker
 - A couple of sheets of cardstock (you never know when you have to make a sign)
 - Whiteboard markers (at least 2 - black and red)
 - Whiteboard eraser
 - Sticky tack, for when I'm not allowed to use tape
 - Post-it notes
 - Pens
 - if checking the bag, then scissors/swiss army knife for sure! if carrying on, a plastic knife comes in handy with taped boxes, too.

Of course, when a real event emergency happens, your true "fight" mechanism takes over and you have to get really ingenius.

Once, we had to fashion a taller lectern out of a sturdy box and a tablecloth because our keynote speaker (a politician) was 6'4" and wanted to see his speech without having to wear his glasses.

Another time, we had to locate an a doctor in the crowd because an attendee was cut by an armadillo during our armadillo-racing event.

And another time we unpacked our new gaming pods and started hooking up all the computers and monitors only to discover that the pods were not designed large enough to run an extension cord through. Our tech guy had to literally whittle off the "bump" on the extension cord to get it to fit through the pod.

A friend of mine told me about getting kicked out of an expo hall because they had a live animal in their booth which was not permitted (it was a themed booth, and I believe they brought a live goat).

I bet the rest of you have way cooler stories! Tell!

How do you scale yourself and your team?

A bee is never as busy as it seems; it's just that it can't buzz any slower.
  - Kin Hubbard

I have 9 event managers on my team (more team members, but 9 that manage events). Last quarter (that's THREE months), we did 46 events. And that doesn't even include the little 10x10s that one team member managed. Those are full-on EVENTS. So at first blush, I like to brag that we scale like crazy.

But as I dig deeper, we're spinning our wheels. We're working nights. We're working weekends. We're doing things that our vendors should be doing for us. Next quarter, we may not have that many events (only 35!) but they are HUGE, mega events. High visibility, high manpower, big events.

So how we do we effectively scale to ensure that we can maintain our SLAs?

Love this article from Fast Company about scaling.

If I knew then what I know now...

The only source of knowledge is experience.

  - Albert Einstein

I was just reading Dave Egan's blog post by the same title about what I wish I knew about events when I began my career. It's a thought-provoking question!

I wish I'd had a better understanding of budgeting... more importantly tracking and reporting to my stakeholders.

I wish I'd had the ability to ask for help. I did way too many things on my own, causing other people last-minute churn to fix my mistakes.

I wish I'd had coaching on how to not take things personally when a team member suggested I do something a different way.

Ah youth... it's wasted on the young!

Flip'n Events

Video killed the radio star.
 - The Buggles

When you work so hard on an event, you desperately want to share with the people who couldn't be there with you! With the proliferation of Flip cameras and the like, more and more event managers are sharing their events with everyone.

I just bought two Flips last week for my team. We haven't had the chance to play with them onsite yet, but I'm looking forward to some great internal vlogs and maybe even some snippets that we can share externally (a little tricky when you might not have permission of people in the video).

Some of our colleagues recently shared some fun event interactivity with their Flip and a quick blog post. In this clip, they are sharing Snibbe, a fun interactive projector and screen that gets event attendees engaged with the content.

So buy yours today ($100 on Amazon), and get to movie-making!

Make an app

I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.
 - The Lorax, Dr. Suess

I was just looking at a budget the other day for a 4,500 person event and noticed the line item of $120,000 for printing conference programs.

Two thoughts occurred to me: 1) wow, we are using the wrong vendor! and 2) why do we have paper at all? All of our attendees will have some sort of smart device. Whether its an iPhone or an Android-based phone or a Blackberry, all of our attendees will have one. So why aren't we just building an app for them to access to find what they need?

I just saw an article in Texas Meeting & Events (meetingsmags.com) about MacroView Labs who have built a new app allowing event managers to share news, videos, and schedules via cell phones, and they can include a password to keep the info private.

I have no idea what this costs, but I'm thinking I'm about to save $100k.

Diets to worry about

I am not a complete vegetarian. I eat only animals that have died in their sleep.
 - George Carllin

Vegetarians have been on the event planning radar for a very long time. BBQ events are the worst - really, what do they get to eat? Potato salad and some beans? *Maybe* a salad, if you remembered to order one.

Kosher has also been a common request and we have to rely on our venue to prepare for those requests.

The latest and greatest, though, is gluten free. This isn't just an old Atkin's Diet fad coming back. This is a real health hazard - Celiac's Disease as well as a simple gluten intolerance means that your immune system cannot process wheat products. You would actually be surprised to learn what contains wheat products. Soy sauce, for one! Work closely with your chef to ensure that you have options for gluten free lifestyles.

One of my team members recently did an event where a registrant listed as a dietary restriction, "Averse to large quantities of lard." That was a new one.

Be cheap, but look totally 5-star

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly.
 - Thomas Paine

While speaking with a chef at a hotel a couple of months ago, I asked his secrets on creating a champagne meal on a beer budget. He gave me some fabulous suggestions, and all of them ended with "let the chef have a little fun."

Hotel menus are great. They give you pricing guidance and ingredient lists. What's even better is to set up a meeting with the chef and tell him your budget. He will then create a masterpiece by working with local vendors to procure the freshest products. If you tell him you need appetizers and desserts, too, he may suggest taking the portion size down on every item, but increasing the beauty on the plate.

Imagine going to a 5-star restaurant. The serving sizes are usually a third of what you'd get at TGI Fridays, but still four-times the cost. Pure margins. Your hotel chef can go crazy on the fancy serving, while cutting the chicken cutlets in half, serving more (but smaller) appetizers, and REALLY rich (but tiny) desserts.

You can also save money at your receptions by using butler service. It seems like it would be much more expensive, but you are more able to control the number of appetizers your guests are eating by having the servers roam around the reception. Just remember to never serve shrimp with tails on or anything with a skewer or toothpick (guests never know what to do with the tails or toothpicks!).

How to get free meeting space

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.
 - Pablo Picasso

Yep, free meeting space. It's easier than you think. I'm sure you already know a bunch of the tricks... the first one being:

Ask for it. No, really! If you ask your venue what their F&B minimum is to get the meeting space comped, they will tell you. Combine that with your room block, and you should only being paying for your meeting space on extremely rare occassions.

Ask to exchange marketing for space fees. If you're event gets huge marketing buzz, you might be able to negotiate additional marketing money being spent on the venue, in exchange for paying meeting space fees.

Get someone else to pay for it. Sponsors make the world go round. Just make sure to do your sponsorships right. 

Go somewhere that doesn't charge fees. Yeah, that sounds really dumb, but if you can find a venue that makes their money off of the food (which you'd have to serve anyway) or is a public venue, you can easily avoid any meeting space fees. Not so easy when you need A/V, but there are ways to make it work. You can also use unique spaces, like customer's offices or meeting facilities.

Barter your services. If your company offers products or services that could benefit your venue, offer to trade/swap/share in order to avoid meeting space fees.

The point here is to not assume that all of your meetings will have a meeting space fee. You should actually go into every venue search surprised that you have to pay a venue fee, and then work your way back from there!

Special sponsorships

There are a handful of people whom money won't spoil, and we count ourselves among them.
 - Mignon McLaughlin

I have to admit, I HATE seeing sponsorship packages. It's a menu of boringness. You give me $150,000 and I'll give you a big-ass logo on a big-ass banner. How crappy is that? You know, one of coolest sponsorship stories I've ever heard was of the pharmaceutical company that made bladder control pills. They sponsored all the bathrooms at a medical conference. BRILLIANT. 

I also love sponsorship where the sponsor pays to play, but gets to do whatever they want - like the CEMA example.

I think that the absolute only way to build sponsorships is on a one-on-one basis. You can still have your sponsorship levels (Silver, Gold, Platinum or Tomato, Banana, Apple, whatever you do) to set the basic pricing structure to meet your goals, but let the sponsor decide how to use your conference's power to their advantage. Work with them. If they are a real company, they are using your event to reach an audience that is their target. Help them use their money wisely.