Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

Should They Stay or Should They Grow? Pushing a Show Community’s Collective Buttons

The 2012 Summer Outdoor Retailer Show concluded on Sunday, but the decisions about where to go next remain. Show managers are using an online platform called The Collective Voice to take the pulse of the outdoor community about where to move the show (it has outgrown Salt Lake City) and how to grow the show, or not.

The Collective Voice is an online forum that exists as part of the Outdoor Retailer website although it’s accessible by invitation only. To avoid influence from regional interests or the media, show organizers invited 20,000 attendees, exhibitors, non-profit advocacy groups, outdoor athletes and other stakeholders to talk freely about the show they love.

The issues that Outdoor Retailer is looking for input on, besides where to move the show include whether they should grow the show and, most importantly, “what does ‘outdoor’ really mean? “If we include fishing, stand-up paddle boarding, yoga and travel [for example], that changes the conversation about how we should grow. If we don’t want them, maybe we can fit in Salt Lake City,” says Kenji Haroutunian, VP of Nielsen Exposition’s Outdoor Group.

Outdoor Retailer has surveyed the community on these issues before, but Haroutunian says that surveys aren’t enough. “What [The Collective Voice] will do is fill in the gaps—the reasoning behind why people will check a box on the survey. The success in Salt Lake City is because of the culture and intangibles that you can’t get from a survey.”

So far, The Collective Voice has logged several thousand registrants and about 300 or so comment threads. “We already have people happy, ecstatic and upset,” Haroutunian says. The majority of comments suggest that stakeholders would like to stay in Salt Lake City and make it work. Haroutunian notes that companies with great locations on the show floor and those with 40+ shows under their belts are in the “stay” crowd. They are asking whether the show really needs to go. It’s the exhibitors crammed into tents and in meeting rooms that are feeling the need to move on.

From the beginning, The Collective Voice wasn’t designed as a forum. It is a variation of the GoExpo tradeshow management and matchmaking platform that already exists for the show. The majority of users access the Collective Voice forum using the same login information they use as attendees and exhibitors. “We wanted it to be efficient and to encourage people to use the same tool they are already familiar with,” Haroutunian explains.

Show organizers spent a lot of time providing the community with information to make informed decisions on the platform. They have listed the other destinations that could handle Outdoor Retailer complete with the housing and city service requirements. The site contains a comparison chart with metrics on how each destination stacks up to one another. The issues around the future vision of Outdoor Retailer are addressed at length in the FAQ section.

The Collective Voice platform is a departure from the traditional way that trade show organizers make decisions and Haroutunian wanted it that way. Most organizations fall back on a leadership group or volunteer strategic planning committee. “Coming into this industry, I was a bit surprised at the secretive decision making. I thought it was something that needed to be changed. One of my roles here is to change that model so that the trade show is not seen as necessary evil,” he says.

The open commenting period may be coming to an end soon now that Outdoor Retailer 2012 has concluded. The summer show—Outdoor Retailer has both summer and winter installments in Salt Lake City—is causing the most pain. “By fall,” Haroutunian says, “we should have a really good idea from the initial survey, the post-show survey and The Collective Voice platform about where to go from here.” Depending on the decisions, the final reveal could be dramatic.

The Collective Voice is only the beginning for Nielsen. “You will see more of this coming out of Outdoor Retailer especially for tapping into the collective intelligence and diversity of thought to create products and events. Our evolution is at stake. We want to use these tools to crack open the secretive approach to running the show. The broader the reach, the better the show,” Haroutunian explains.

Tapping into the voice of the community isn’t particularly new. Surveys have been around forever. Many organizations use calls for presentations to tap into the collective knowledge of their members come annual meeting time. But, the genuine desire to meet the needs of customers (especially for a for-profit company like Nielsen) by digging deep into the culture and psyche of a community is a sign of things to come—a sign that the community matters most of all. The Collective Voice platform just made it easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 Tips in (Less Than) 20 Minutes: The Meeting Professional’s List for Promoting Yourself or Your Company on Social Media Channels

Last week, our local MPI Chapter produced its own version of the Learning Lounge developed for PCMA by our friends at Velvet Chainsaw. We called the program “Thinking Outside the Room: New Technologies for a Changing Industry.” It was orchestrated by the magical people at CornerstoneAV and I was invited to speak in one of the theaters about social media in the meetings industry. The audience consisted of both meeting planners and suppliers–mostly hoteliers. I don’t profess to be a social media expert myself. Like most everyone else, my knowledge on the subject is the culmination of many many hours of reading, listening and experimenting with social platforms. I do know about the mechanics of the meetings and trade show industry and how to apply social media principles to the marketing and promotion of event industry brands. Here are the “20 Tips in (Less Than) 20 Minutes” that I offered to session attendees last week.

  1. Develop a social media strategy. Even if all you do is scratch out a few bullet points onto a cocktail napkin, you need to decide ahead of time what your message is, what your goals are, who your audience is, and where your audience is.
  2. Follow your clients and prospects on social media channels. Create a list of the top 25 or 50 accounts (people) you want to have or keep as customers and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or their blogs. The content they create will give you an idea about their needs and preferences so that you can be the person or company to come to the rescue when the time is right.
  3. Follow your competitors online. If they are doing nothing—you already have an immediate advantage. If they are doing something mediocre—you can do better. If they are doing a great job—you can do something equally brilliant or at least not anything like what they are doing.
  4. Look for someone needing help online and help them. It creates an impression among your followers that you are resourceful and builds “social capital.”
  5. Make sure your online profile is complete. Make it easy for your clients and prospects to reach you (include your telephone number and real email) and avoid being too clever or cryptic. I’d rather know that you can help me solve a problem than the fact that you love Maltese puppies and Good and Plenty candy.
  6. Select the best channels for your audience. Your customers may only be on Facebook or LinkedIn. Wherever they go, you should go.
  7. Spend two hours a day on social media tasks. Read your Alerts. Connect with 5 (valuable) people on LinkedIn. Read/send tweets. Jot down some bullet points for your blog. Post on your Facebook wall. Answer a question on Quora.
  8. Develop content continuously. Social media platforms don’t run themselves, your content powers them. Always be thinking about and/or working on your checklists, articles, blog posts, case studies, customer reviews/testimonials, and whatever else you can produce on a regular basis.
  9. Add social contact information for your clients and prospects to your sales and marketing database. Twitter handles, LinkedIn profile links, and Facebook company page URLs should be in the database alongside your customers’ names, addresses, and emails.
  10. Make yourself available to customers on social media channels. Let them know that they can tweet you, send you a message on Facebook, or mail you through LinkedIn.
  11. Put your social media contact information on your business cards. If you or your company are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or a blog site, let your clients know.
  12. Make sure your content is shareable. Put share buttons on your Website, emails, blog posts, and any content your produce to increase readership.
  13. Share. Don’t sell. This is the mantra of social media content. If you want friends, respect, followers, and clients don’t be the person always hawking your product. Instead, solve a problem, share a resource, or provide assistance.
  14. Place different content on each channel. Use Twitter for short quips and to share links. Use Facebook for contests. Use LinkedIn to demonstrate your thought leadership. Use your blog for informative how-to information.
  15. Create your own personal brand on social media channels (with a disclaimer..”these ideas are my own and not my employer’s…) if your company chooses not to pursue social media marketing.  Your brand is portable. Your following can land you another job some day.
  16. Find the new water coolers online and hang out there. The meetings industry has plenty: Engage365, Eventpeeps, #Eventprofs and #Meetingprofs on Twitter and tons of other groups on LinkedIn.
  17. Develop a personality online. I’m not saying find a gimmick. I’m just saying try to be memorable.
  18. Be deliberate about building your community. In addition to following your clients and prospects, try to be selective about the people you would like to have following you.
  19. Listen more than you “speak” online. This is solid Chris Brogan advice and it works.  Spend a lot of time reading and thinking about the implications of what you read and hear.
  20. Blend your social media efforts with traditional media if that works for you. The two channels–social and traditional–are not mutually exclusive.

The Takeaway: The platforms are changing constantly but the strategy is the same. Find your voice. Go where your clients and prospects are. Ask them to follow you. Dazzle them with your generosity and brilliance.

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.

Top One Prediction for 2011

In the beginning of the month (on December 7, the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor), I received an email from a company that I had previously blogged about. They somehow landed on my radar and I found their application interesting. The subject line of the email read, “A Christmas present from the Triqle Team.” After a pleasant opening—“we love you, because of your involvement and feedback…”—they made me a fabulous offer. Of course, I couldn’t refuse.

In the next part of the email, they offered me a challenge:

“Let’s talk presents,” they wrote. “We would like to give something to you. However, therefore we must first know what you need. We challenge you: dare to ask! Who are you trying to get in touch with for some time? What sort of problems do you run into ever again? Or the answer to what question are you looking for? We will activate our whole network to answer your question. Will you take on this challenge? Sincerely, The Triqle Team,” the email said.

Naturally, I couldn’t resist the challenge. So, I replied:

“Very clever email. What I really want can’t be delivered by a network, or can it? I want people to be so content that they will stop warring and hungering and suffering. In case you can’t address my problem, I wish your team a very happy holiday season anyway. Thank you for your thoughts. Michelle Bruno.”

Believing that my reply would be the last word of the exchange, I was surprised to receive another email from my Not-So-Secret Santas the very next day:

“Very clever response too! 🙂 Did you ever hear about the many drops that are needed to create a wave in an ocean? Plus the fact that people are often trying to fit in with the ‘social standards’ of their peer group. In that way, we all can use our network to achieve your wishes. We have to personally lead by example and ‘make some noise.’ Start small: be content, peaceful and helpful in your own daily practice. Show and share your experiences so other people can follow. And confront people around you that are ‘warring.’ The world is not as big as it seemed anymore. I believe we do have the chance to make a difference by mobilizing our social networks. An example in a very practical way: our service “What’s On?” will be free of charge for events that ‘contribute to a better world.’ It’s the least we can do… 🙂 So let’s do both! We wish each other a very happy holiday season AND we start to lead by example in being content, peaceful and helpful. Are you with us? Cheers! Gerrit,” the email said.

So here’s my top one prediction for 2011 (and, I hope, 2012, 2013, and so on):

Social networks will save the world. We will connect with each other around the subjects we are passionate about. We will learn how much alike we really are. We will see that someone whom we never met in Amsterdam can turn a semi-skeptic into a true believer in Salt Lake City. And, things will change.

Happy holidays Gerrit. The world deserves to know how cool you (and your team) are.

Green, Mobile, and Social: Triqle’s “What’s On” hits the App Attribute Trifecta

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Of all of the urges, predilections, and addictions that social media has spawned, the most obvious is the “need for speed.” Where information is concerned, we want it now, we want it continuously updated, and we want to get it wherever we are. Trade show and conference attendees are no different than regular folk—the info consuming public. In fact, their time is at a premium on the trade show floor and the printed show/conference schedule is going the way of the dodo. What to do? Enter start up company, Triqle Event Intelligence, based in Amsterdam.

Triqle’s first product, “What’s On?” allows event organizers—from conference planners to film festival producers—to distribute constantly updated event information to attendees. The schedule is viewable across multiple devices including kiosks, mobile phones, and tablets. Each program item has a detail page with more information and useful links. Visitors can add items to their personal schedule and use a like/dislike button to show their preferences.

In addition to being a centralized information resource (event organizers can post messages or warnings such as a session room is full, for example), the information is searchable by location or theme (and other criteria determined by the event organizer), and can be shared on social networks. “By sharing their program on Twitter or Facebook, a visitor increases the chance of having interesting encounters at the event,” says Gerrit Heijkoop, partner at Triqle Event Intelligence.

Triqle’s (the company name comes from a South Ugaban word that describes the experience of time and means something like “unexpected”) solution helps event organizers control their events and communicate with visitors over multiple channels in real time. Plus, visitors’ interaction with the program provides relevant feedback. “We have become accustomed to getting immediate answers to every question, sharing our activities with friends, and relying on our mobile phones for everything. ‘What’s On?’ brings all of that together,” Heijkoop adds.

When you throw in the environmental benefits, “What’s On?” hits the trifecta of app attributes—green, mobile, and social. To imagine events going forward without a product like “What’s On?” or something similar, picture yourself in an airport with no arrival or departure screens on the walls. To confirm your gate number, you would have to a) look at your printed boarding pass and hope the correct gate number is listed, b) ask someone, c) go to the gate printed on your boarding pass and hope it hasn’t been changed. How does that sound?

The Take-Away: Attendees, like everyone, have the attention span of a gnat. If you want them to stay on your show floor or in your conference room, let them know what’s going on all the time. Then, let them share it with friends.


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