Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

Stop the Ad Hoc Agony Of Working With Event-Technology Companies

event organizations need to hire event technologists.

Event technology companies often tell me that there is no distinct event technology buyer role within event organizations. While many event planners love and respect new technology, most can’t do anything more than listen to a good pitch. Senior-level event managers and even the C-suite are hard to pin down no matter how the seller positions the technology.

The absence of a clear path for selling new technology into the organization underscores an even greater problem for event organizers. By making it difficult for new ideas to get through the front door or waiting until there’s a problem and looking through the technology haystack for a solution, organizers can’t react fast enough to the market forces impacting events.

Event organizers can handle this problem structurally. And while event technology companies aren’t completely off the hook (I’ll get into the complaints I hear from organizers about poorly trained vendor sales teams another time), this ball is in the event organizer’s court for now.

There are lots of reasons why event planners aren’t the best choice for managing the organization’s event-technology decisions.

The event lifecycle is a sales-opportunity killer. When an event is coming in hot, planners don’t have time to talk about new technology with a vendor. Getting a decision on an event app or platform purchase immediately before, during, or just after an event (or ever for a busy planner) is nearly impossible.

Understanding event technology isn’t a required skill for planners. Yes, there are tech-savvy planners in the business. They get apps. They understand the difference between an ISP and an API. But, the standard training, including the curriculum for meeting industry certifications (the Digital Event Strategist certification being the exception), doesn’t cover technology.

Most planners aren’t in a position to make decisions that impact the entire organization. So even if they like an event-management software platform, the more comprehensive the solution, and the more departments that are affected by it, the less able planners are to be the deciders.

The majority of planners operate at the event level and, consequently, can only buy technology budgeted for a specific event. That leaves planners and event-tech companies dependent on the event budget rather than how the technology fits into the strategy of the organization.

So if planners shouldn’t be responsible for event technology, who should be?

There is a solid case to be made for giving the job of purchasing and implementing event technology to IT were it not for the fact that they have lots of other responsibilities, not the least of which is keeping the organization up and running. Plus, they can’t always speak to the feature sets that get planners excited, attendees engaged, or sponsors buying.

The C-suite folks are likely candidates for taking on event technology providers, but except for the CTO (or, increasingly, the CMO), they’re not in a position to consistently monitor the tech landscape or make time for all the sales pitches from vendors. And it’s too costly for the organization to have them dealing with the day-to-day issues around procurement, implementation, and integration.

Some organizations make event technology adoption a team sport, asking multiple departments—operations, IT, marketing, and finance—to weigh in on decisions. But that approach can leave everyone and no one responsible for getting event tech adopted unless there is a decision-maker leading the discussion.

Not having someone whose job and expertise it is to evaluate and manage event technology at an organizational level is costing event organizers too. It means that the innovation setting other industries on fire can’t even generate a spark in meetings and trade shows.

It’s time for a new job function. Let’s call it the event technologist.

Event organizers have to begin taking the initiative to manage new and existing event-technology companies. To do so efficiently requires a person with the expertise and authority to manage this responsibility. Here’s what I think the job description for an event technologist should include:

  • You report to senior management.
  • You are available year round, i.e. you won’t be trotting off to every event in which the technology you select is being implemented or get sucked into the event timeline. You are a reliable resource even when chaos ensues at event time.
  • You take a strong role in purchasing decisions for new technology. You develop requests for proposal (if that’s what your organization uses) that speak specifically to the technology under consideration and you align your carefully considered recommendations with the pre-determined budget and strategy.
  • You take a rigorous approach to learning about new technologies through the various publications, resources, and events that are available to you.
  • You liaise with and take recommendations from multiple departments within the organization so you can map the technical needs of the users to the feature sets of the solutions. You also develop or manage an internal communications system to keep departments up to date on new technologies entering the market.
  • You hold regular “office hours” for event technology companies to learn about new solutions whether the organization is looking to purchase them or not.
  • You are in charge of a technology budget.
  • You maintain relationships with existing vendors, including making them accountable for sending data back to the organization in the appropriate format. You develop standards of performance and evaluate the vendors regularly against those criteria.
  • You negotiate service-level agreements and review and/or issue contracts to new technology vendors. You have the authority to cancel agreements for non-performance.
  • You oversee integration between your best-of-breed technology vendors with the goal of maintaining data integrity and functional efficiency.
  • You have a degree in information technology or computer science or the field-experience equivalent. You must be able to speak the language of digital with vendors.

Event organizers don’t have much choice at this point.

Digital transformation is no longer a nice-to-have objective for the event industry. Event technology is the critical ingredient needed to evolve. Someone in the organization (not the event planner) has to manage the day-to-day tasks associated with maintaining the event-technology stack, and a few organizations (like the Association of Equipment Manufacturers) have already created this job function. Event organizers have to stop the ad hoc agony of working with event-technology providers if they want in on the innovation and benefits of the Information Age.

If you’d like more information on the innovation impacting events, check out our sister publication eventtechbrief.com.

 

 

 

The Road Less Traveled: Event Industry Suppliers Move from Aggregation to Curation

This blog post is sponsored by AV Event Solutions offering audiovisual rental, audience response for polling, computer rentals for registration, LCD displays, and more to event planners throughout California.

Event industry suppliers—general service contractors, sales and marketing firms, and exhibit designers—are stepping out of their comfort zones to take advantage of the innovation that is sweeping over the industry. What might look like a desperate move by some companies to hitch their wagons to a star or an attempt to make up for the shortcomings of a flat industry is actually a smart business decision. A clear precedent for the trend comes from social media and the growing practice of content curation.

A hint that something was amiss came in the last half of 2009 when Maritz, a sales and marketing service company that relies on face-to-face events, introduced a suite of virtual offerings including their “Maritz LIVE initiative for delivering virtual events and experiences.” When Freeman, the 84-year-old general service contractor et. al. and kingpin of the trade show and live event industry, announced late in 2010 that it too would be offering virtual events as part of a new business unit, the door of opportunity flung wide open.

Virtual platforms aren’t the only star technologies being curated. MG Design recently rolled out plans to offer its exhibitor clients RFID (radio frequency identification), QR (quick response)/Mobile, Augmented Reality, and social media integration with their exhibit design and fabrication services. The company offered attendees a hands-on look at the four technologies during Exhibitor 2011 in Las Vegas:

  • Surveys and RFID tags matched visitors’ hot button issues with specific audio and video content
  • QR codes were peppered throughout the exhibit leading visitors to information about MG’s products and services.
  • An augmented reality demonstration helped attendees understand how to put interactive content in the hands of prospects without physically bringing more products and collateral to the booth.
  • Social media tools illustrated the potential for exhibit marketing programs to go viral.

MG Design’s Director of Marketing, Ben Olson, frames it this way, “We have clients that date back 10 to 20 years. They look to us to bring these solutions to them. We do a 360-degree deep dive. When we’re developing the exhibit concept, we work these technologies into the recommendations where it’s appropriate.”

The curation of services is different from the aggregation of services. In the old days, suppliers offered related services (domestic trucking, pop-up displays, freight forwarding) to their captive audience of customers, but the transactions were consummated between the sub-contractors and the exhibitors directly. In the curation model, related and even seemingly “competitive” services are hand selected by industry suppliers who stay involved in the work stream—hence the suppliers’ value-added position with customers.

A May 2010 article on Mashable.com by Steve Rosenbaum highlights the importance of curation in content strategies. The same points Rosenbaum offers about content validate the service curation strategies in the event industry. Rosenbaum quotes author and NYU Professor Clay Shirky; “Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.” Even industry suppliers are saying as much when they explain their partial shift away from their core competencies with statements about their desires to utilize a “holistic approach to provide multiple value to customers” or “lead [clients] to a more successful event experience.”

Rosenbaum brought up another point that is analogous to the emerging practice of event industry suppliers. “A lot of it is economic — doing more with less — and it has crossed every media industry,” explains Allen Weiner of Gartner Group. “If you think about the tools you want to give an editor to make him or her more complete, you want to give them curation tools.” It could be “something they add to their own content. As more old media companies attempt to do more with less, publishing tools that allow this efficiency without demeaning the product quality … [are] going to be very important.”

In the previous aggregation model, suppliers were not operating under any imperative to explain the outsourced service offerings to their customers. No one needed a sit down to understand the importance of shipping your exhibit to the show using a domestic carrier with no waiting time in the marshalling yard, an empty trailer at the ready during move-out, and a presence in the exhibitor service area. But with technology, there is a huge need to explain to clients the relevance, impact, and execution of the offerings. As Rosenbaum explains, “from a user perspective, well done curation is a huge value-add in a world where unfiltered signal overwhelms noise by an ever increasing factor.”

The Takeaway: For now, service curation may be a road less traveled. In the past it was uncomfortable, financially risky, and a point of criticism for established companies to make a sea change in offerings. Social media has helped us understand how it can be done, where it fits into business models, and how to minimize the risk. What we may be seeing is the beginning of an assimilation of event technology into the backbone of the industry—great news for suppliers, exhibitors, attendees, and the platform developers that see it as a new sales channel.

Thought Leaders Explore How to Change the Status Quo at MTO Summit – Part II

March’s MTO Summit in Chicago still has me thinking about some of the interesting perspectives that were shared during the conference. Here are some of the ideas that made me sit up a little straighter in my chair.

Mobile Apps

  • Event organizers aren’t necessarily interested in the new sponsorship opportunities (too many already) available with mobile apps.
  • Organizers prefer to work with trusted advisors (their registration contractor or general contractor) even if those advisors know little about the application they are selling.
  • Organizers want technology providers to partner with each other to come up with a combined solution (instead of the one-off apps and devices that do separate things).

Attendee acquisition

Taking a cue from affiliate marketers, organizers can leverage existing exhibitors and attendees using badges or contextual links (with promo codes) embedded in emails specially-designed for them to send to their clients and colleagues. When the codes are used, the exhibitor or attendee (affiliate) gets credit/cash/incentives.

In a wrap-up session on attendee acquisition, R.D. Whitney of Tarsus Online Media summarized our breakout group’s findings (from an unusual camera angle because I was trapped by other group members). Check out the video where he discusses the use of complex search streams, Webinars, affiliate programs, guest passes, requiring speakers to participate in community discussions, public relations SEM, contests with flip video, Twitter, and virtual events as attendee acquisition tools.

Data mining

Mark Ragan sparked a lively (somewhat controversial discussion) about mining the Internet for prospects. Using software from Broadlook, event organizers can “scrape” (not my metaphor) the Internet for contacts and email addresses and then feed prospects with daily e-newsletters (which they can opt out of). Such a practice creates brand awareness and a level of familiarity with the prospect that opens the door for future “offers.”

The data mining controversy stemmed from the idea of “pushing” information (one man’s info is another man’s spam) out rather than the social media principal of attracting interest with cool content and then creating a two-way conversation based on mutual interests.

Distributed Events

With discussion about large events shrinking to bring a more personalized experience to the trade show and conference floor, the idea of a distributed event was intriguing. Social Media Week debuted in New York in February 2009. It is a global platform for connectivity, collaboration and learning about emerging trends and interesting social media topics, says Toby Daniels, the conference founder. Venues were spread all over the city (and later, all over the globe), with each host creating a different “experience” for attendees. Daniels explains how it worked in this clip.

The next MTO Summit is scheduled for November 9-10, 2010 in Washington, DC. Now that MTO Summit has merged with TSNN, I am hoping the content and the brainpower will be as good or better than ever.

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