Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

Is this Seat Taken?—Expanding the Concept of Event Social Networking Beyond Online Platforms

In case you haven’t noticed, social networking is a movement, and where Tunisia and Egypt are concerned, it sparked an actual revolution. In the meetings industry, the experimentation with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and LinkedIn is training our attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, media and nearly everyone in the event ecosystem to expect MORE—more content, more information, more engagement—before, during, after, online, and offline. In response, developers have come up with some interesting ideas to help event planners expand their notion of “social networking” beyond online platforms.

Planely

Why wait for the conference to begin before starting to network with other participants? A new service from developers in Denmark allows users to start getting to know each other in the airport and on the airplane. Planely asks users to sign up using Facebook or email addresses plus their first and last names. It then matches up travelers on the same flight to the same destination. “Why should the networking opportunity around an event start and finish at the venue? What a wasted opportunity before and after traveling,” says Nick Martin, Planely’s CEO and Founder.

Planely has touched on a pain point according to Martin. “Flying is a real time drain on busy professional people. Anything to make that moment more productive seems to be a real need,” he adds. For events, Martin’s firm has worked out a sponsorship opportunity that includes a custom landing page, timed sponsor messages, and metrics reporting. Event organizers get “the good feeling from their participants, some really interesting metrics to analyze after the event, an extra marketing channel for their sponsors, and that all important life juice of an event—buzz,” Martin says.

SpaceShare

What began as green way for conference attendees to share rides (carpools, taxis) to/from an event has blossomed into an important social experience—an outcome that was not entirely an accident. “My personal motivation behind SpaceShare was primarily environmental, but I never saw that as more than one of a number of reasons why people would use it,” says Stephen Cataldo, SpaceShare’s Founder.

Today SpaceShare has become a practical, low-cost pre-conference networking experience as evidenced by the comments on their Website and a telling video of two women who met by sharing a cab to a conference, attended the conference together, and plan to attend the same conference “together” the following year. “Our feedback emails are full of connections, very often the most important connection someone makes at a conference is the person they share their travels with,” Cataldo says.

GUMPstir

Everybody’s gotta eat, right? As the brainchild of restaurant software developer (Philip Tulin) and event industry entrepreneur (Jeff Nussdorf), GUMPstir is the first social dining network. Trade show attendees register with the service before they arrive in Las Vegas (the first city to launch the network). They play games to win points that translate into discounts and freebies at local area restaurants. The de facto community of visitors attending the same trade show can network online, “meetup” for dinner, share photos, challenge others in game play, and find out where other community members are dining.

An element of the GUMPstir platform allows trade show exhibitors to participate in the gaming by offering promotional codes (also good for dining points) to attendees who visit their booths. The entire program works like “Facebook meets Foursquare with a twist of SCVNGR,” using dinner, discounts and a chance to make new connections as the rewards for playing.

The Takeaway: There are nooks and crannies of every event that event organizers should pay attention to. Planners can facilitate the engagement that services like Planely, SpaceShare, GUMPstir, and others offer by bringing them into the light of day or even participating through sponsorships. When done well, attendees will see the subtle facilitation as a thoughtful way to enrich the experience of participants and take social networking beyond 140 characters.

When there are no More Hybrid Events

In the future, says Dannette Veale, global manager of the Cisco Live and Networkers Virtual event, there will be no more live vs. virtual discussions. The two experiences will overlap so completely, that what we now perceive as two separate environments glued together through some “hybrid” sleight of hand will merge into a single, seamless stream of content, entertainment, and engagement that can be accessed from either end of the physical to virtual spectrum.

Although Veale will speak more about content authentication and syndication when she gives her presentation on Hybrid Meetings and Digital Events during the Virtual Edge Summit, she has some definite ideas on how games, mobile, augmented reality, and video technology will enable the physical and virtual worlds to merge.

The convergence has already begun with games. “You will see tighter and tighter integration between online and offline audiences using games and online formats that both can engage in,” Veale says.  Think about a scavenger hunt extended to a virtual audience. “The same search for clues will exist but the game won’t be strictly location based,” she explains.

The creators of the “Heroes” television show created an augmented reality game called “Conspiracy for Good.” Using mobile phones, players venture out onto the streets of London looking for clues from live characters and QR codes planted in various locations. Veale believes that similar scenarios will become reality in the event space of the future. Exhibitors, sponsors, event hosts, and organizers can use the same tactics to engage live attendees and help them interact with virtual content.

Augmented reality could also be coming to a trade show booth near you, Veale explains.  Imagine walking into a booth, pointing your cell phone at a product’s QR code, and receiving layer upon layer of information about the company, sales outlets, contact information, product applications, white papers, videos, maps, and location-based information. Mobile devices will be the gateway for virtual attendees to engage with content from the live show and for live attendees to engage with content from the virtual space.

Augmented reality kiosks have surfaced in Japan and Germany. Veale describes how the kiosks work. “Bringing a car to an event can be costly. With an augmented reality kiosk, you can bring 30 to 40 cars to the show virtually. You have one kiosk where visitors pick up different flyers with QR codes indicating specific car models. They hold a flyer up to the scanner at the kiosk and get a 3D augmented reality rendering of the vehicle,” she says.

Other technologies will enable the real world and virtual world to meld together. Cisco’s TelePresence video conferencing technology “has helped remove the idea that conference speakers have to physically be there,” Veale says. And their new Videoscape platform is another example, she says, of how technology “will start to layer the video experience.”

In the future, there will be no more hybrid events—a term that implies the cobbling together of two separate realities into one hiccuppy, Frankensteiny, excuse to multi-task. The future of events as Dannette Veale envisions it is one where the learning is über compelling, the engagement is exhilarating, and anyone can participate.

Selling at a Virtual Event is Just Like/is Not at All Like Selling at a Physical Event

Whether you are an exhibitor trying to navigate the new medium of virtual trade shows or a corporation using virtual platforms to enlarge the opening to your sales funnel, Dennis Shiao’s new book, “Generate Sales Leads with Virtual Events” and his upcoming presentation at the Virtual Edge Summit can help. As with any new environment—the Antarctic, third world countries, and the Moon—you have to take the surroundings into account. Much of what Shiao advocates is straightforward advice that will work in any scenario. However, paying respect, as he does, to the disruption in normalcy that occurs in a virtual setting is the key to having success with it.

In the book, Shiao, director of product marketing at INXPO, outlines a five-step plan (hint: if you just skim the subtitles, it sounds like selling in any other environment, so read on):

1.     Define your mission statement—get your entire team on the same page by quantifying exactly what it is you want to get out of the virtual event. Because of the rich metrics available, your mission statement can be highly targeted such as, “100 leads from a specific vertical,” Shiao says.

2.     Assemble an all-star team—select a diverse mix of people from sales to product experts to staff the virtual booth or corporate meeting. This is where virtual might even trump physical events. Folks from all over the organization can chime in to address customer needs. You don’t have to rely on the people in the room. Nevertheless, you will need to assess their online fluency and train them on how to behave in a virtual world.

3.     Build and promote your presence—get out the online bullhorn and let customers, prospects, and ordinary citizens know about your virtual booth or meeting. That’s the beauty of all things digital. The audience can grow itself and they can attend with little effort. Plus, those on social channels will be the most comfortable in a virtual setting. “Use all the tools at your disposal to generate awareness and attract visitors,” Shiao advises.

4.     Engage with prospects—Have your engagement protocols ready to go.  The window of engagement is both a tremendous weakness in the virtual environment and an exhibitor’s greatest opportunity.  If you have 60 seconds to make eye contact and acknowledge someone who has entered your physical booth (or meeting room), how much time do you have in a virtual booth when you can’t see his or her eyes?  Shiao advises exhibitors and meeting hosts to develop a set of tactics from immediate responses and V cards to rich media that let visitors know you are there and keep them engaged longer.

5.     Qualify and follow up with prospects—go back to the rich virtual metrics (which you don’t often obtain from a physical trade show or meeting), drill down to determine what stage of the buying process the visitors are in, and follow up accordingly. “Virtual events have built-in RFID. You have access to the entire trail of activity and you have the benefit of a pile of data you don’t have with face-to-face events,” Shiao explains. In other words, don’t treat prospects like you don’t know what they want when their virtual behavior offers so many clues.

Much of the misunderstanding and even fear of virtual platforms comes from tossing virtual and physical events into the same features and benefits bucket. In reality, virtual events emulate physical events—a clear attempt on the part of platform providers to aid comprehension—but the value propositions are different. During this exploration and experimentation phase, Shiao is on target with his book and his advice. For the moment, exhibitors and meeting hosts can still aim for the low-hanging fruit by tweaking their existing sales processes to accommodate the virtual differences until the platform reaches its full potential and an entirely new way of selling emerges.

Using Hybrid Events to (Try to) Please All of the People All of the Time

It’s true.  If you’re a professional membership association, your best bet in the pleasure dispensing department is to try to please most of the people at least some of the time. Kevin Novak is working hard to do better than that by using hybrid events to hit the educational and member benefit sweet spot that most association executives dream about. At the Virtual Edge Summit next week in Las Vegas, Novak, vice president integrated web strategy and technology of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), will talk about how a false sense of security led to a “shellacking” in his virtual attendance numbers and how his team regrouped after the dip.

Two years ago when the economy took a turn for the worse, AIA took a very hard look at how to bolster its live national convention in anticipation of the coming storm. The event typically generated 24,000 attendees (including exhibitors) and generated $8.5 million in revenue for the association. An analysis of the attendee demographics indicated that most visitors came from within a 300-mile radius of the host city.  Further, the meeting was being held in San Francisco—one of the more expensive host cities—and the financial burden on members who were either struggling to keep their jobs or keep their projects moving was expected to be too much for a good portion of the attendee base.

Enter Novak, his AIA team, Blue Sky Broadcast, INXPO, and Freeman. In six weeks, a virtual conference and trade show was born to complement the live event and extend some of the highly valuable education (some of it a requirement for AIA’s certification programs). The results were impressive. AIA’s online event featured 75 exhibitors, 12 conference sessions, and 17,000 virtual attendees. After the fact, 40,000 people viewed the on demand content. “There were times when we had 50-1,000 people [physically] in a room and 2,000 online in the companion virtual session,” Novak says.

In 2010, the annual convention was held in Miami. “Because of the size of our convention, few cities are large enough,” Novak explains. On the heels of the prior year’s hybrid success and the assumption that live attendance would again be anemic, AIA tripled the online offerings. Hoping to cover the cost of the virtual platform, they trimmed down the size of the online trade show and charged a $165 fee for virtual access to the conference programming. The outcome was less than stellar compared to the year before.

Virtual attendance at the 2010 hybrid conference dropped to 1,000 paid individuals. Post-event feedback indicated that although the content was high quality, the price point was too high especially in light of the $500 to $1,000 membership dues to join the association and the ongoing turmoil on the job front. “We tried to get feedback on the fee structure and looked into some other models. We realized that we should have been in the $125 range,” Novak admits.

Going forward, Novak anticipates changes in the hybrid event they have developed over the past two years.  Realizing that the educational benefits to members who are unable to attend the live event are critical to their professional development, the archived material from 2009 and 2010 is online and accessible as a member benefit. The convention budget and the virtual event budget have been separated. “We started with idea that [the virtual event] was convention-related, but now looking back, we see that there is more to it and it is better to mature the hybrid event as a separate objective,” he says. AIA is also planning to extend its 2010 experiment of simultaneously streaming content to multiple cities where chapter members are gathered offline.

Pleasing all of the people all of the time is a noble objective for an association. Next week, Kevin Novak will tell his organization’s story to online and offline listeners in a panel discussion titled, “Virtual Event Models That Work: Delivering Revenue, Reach and Repeat Participation.” For him, the logistics of launching a hybrid conference and trade show is the easy part. It’s helping his members find their happy place—value, education, and networking—that keeps him up at night.

Got Free Milk? Virtual Events that Won’t Kill The Cash Cow

Despite their brave faces, the producers of live events are still frightened about the impact of virtual events to erode their attendee base and diminish their profit margins. After all, if you can get the milk for free, why buy the cow? There’s been talk about employees at some associations fearing they might lose their jobs and the subject has been on the agenda of more than a few executive meetings. Apparently the “There’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings” mantra hasn’t convinced everyone.

Next week’s Virtual Edge Summit will help attendees (both virtual and live) parse through the pros and cons of virtual and hybrid meetings (and trade shows). As part of a PCMA VES Joint Plenary Session on “Using Virtual and Hybrid Meetings to Develop More Value,” Chris Price, vice president, Graphic Arts Show Company, will help the audience understand the benefits, outcomes, and learning curve associated with using virtual events to drive attendance at live trade shows and conferences. When he’s finished, there won’t be a dry udder in the room.

Chris Price and his team are among the few brave souls to go down the virtual path despite producing the hugely successful Graph Expo live exhibition and conference. Over a year ago, after attending the ConnexLive Meeting where he was exposed to virtual technology, he decided to experiment a little and develop a virtual show using the INXPO platform prior to his live event. The main purpose was to provide visitors with a juicy preview of the live event and entice them to attend in person. He arranged for a three-phase virtual roll-out of content: the virtual preview to highlight the benefits of the live event, an archive of the preview which was shut down immediately prior to the live show, and a post-show wrap-up.

While there were lots of takeaways from his experience, Chris will discuss some of the main “lessons” learned from the experience, which he says earned him 182 attendees—people who attended the virtual preview and subsequently attended Graph Expo in real life:

  • Using virtual events as part of the mix of product offerings requires new metrics and new ways of looking at return on investment.
  • One of the highlights of a virtual platform is the richness of the metrics and the ability to use them as sales tools for future forays into the virtual realm.
  • The success of virtual exhibitors is dependent upon a number of factors: their own familiarity with the platform, use of video and other engagement techniques besides chat, and the speed with which visitors are engaged by exhibitors upon entering the booth.
  • The results of the virtual event—especially the availability of the metrics—have huge implications for refinements in the face-to-face event.

Price came away from his first virtual experience having invested “a painful amount of time,” but with insights about the next generation of attendees, the value of networking online vs. offline, and the agony and ecstasy of being the first to try a new technology. Next week at the Virtual Edge Summit, he will dish about those topics, plus how to use virtual platforms as sales engines, costs, partnering, and what he will never do again. Drink up!

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