Event Philosopher

Catch 'em ... Quick! Using Pokemon Go at your event

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:23:00 +0000

Gotta Catch 'Em All!
-Pokemon

It's taking the world by storm and now and you chance! The 6-day-old Pokemon Go strategy should be swiftly introduced to your event plans immediately... you never know how long it will last!

Okay, that might not be true or relevant to your event in any way, but let's get creative for a second and talk about how you might ride the coattails of this phenomenon at your event.

What is Pokemon Go?
Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game you play on your cell phone or tablet in which your GPS checks your surroundings and you are notified that a Pokemon is nearby. You point your device at it, and you throw a little virtual ball at it to catch it. It's like geocaching, but for Pokemon.

How can you use it at events?

Lure
There is a feature in Pokemon Go called a Lure Module. You purchase a lure and the likelihood of a Pokemon appearing there goes up. Yes, there's some bad press already about robberies and kidnappings from Luring kids to a Pokemon, but in the B2B and B2C world, you can purchase a Lure for your PokeStop (tradeshow booth or activation) and draw players over to you to catch them!

Build a Team
Invite attendees to join your Gym at your booth or activation. You'll have an entire army of devoted attendees playing with you throughout the event!

Run a Pokemon Pub Crawl
Whether it's an actual afterparty pub crawl, or an expo hall booth crawl, you can use Lures and PokeStops to get people to visit all of the places you want them to visit!

The Ultimate Booth Swag
iTunes or GooglePlay gift certificates will be sought-after event prizes now that people are using in-app purchases for more PokeCoins! But of course, anything themed Pokemon is going to be a huge hit with the crowd (be sure to get officially licensed merchandise, of course).

So get creative and share how YOU might use Pokemon Go at your next event.... and PLEASE share your metrics! The #eventprof world wants to know if it works!

Strategic sponsorships: Maximizing your sponsorship spend

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 17:39:00 +0000

“Money is usually attracted, not pursued.” —Jim Rohn

Why do you buy sponsorships? Beyond just the access to a booth and speaking slot, why are you paying for those other branding opportunities? The window clings, the lanyards, the coffee break? We've all done it... did we get what we wanted out of it? How do you know?

Unfortunately, a lot of organizations begin with the amount of money they have to spend and divvy it up accordingly, not spending enough time evaluating tactics that will bring results. So let's dive into some thoughts to consider before writing that check.

I know, it's just so cliche to say, "Start with your objectives," but.... well... duh.

Awareness:
If you're new to the market you are entering at this particular event, then an awareness play may be what you target. Blanketing the audience with your company name or logo through lanyards, signage, coffee break sponsorships, etc. might generate enough buzz to drive people to your booth to learn more.

Lead gen:
If you are looking to get new leads for your sales team to reach out to, then you want to focus on activities that will allow you to capture contact info. The booth is the obvious place for this, and if you need a place to do a demo, then a booth is the way to go. If the conference has other add-on events that allow you access to the attendee list with a sponsorship (a fun run, a special luncheon, etc.), that might be a consideration for your funds. It's important to note that these contacts are less likely to be pre-qualified as interested in your offerings, but if you are simply looking for names to nurture, this is a great way to get access to new contacts.

Thought leadership:
Getting a speaker in front of the crowd is your best bet at thought leadership and owning the narrative of your story. It can also support lead gen by activating the audience to go to your booth after the session. Sometimes you can also get the attendee info for those who participated in your session and can have sales teams follow up (note that these are generally semi-qualified leads since they actively chose to come to your session). There are a number of ways to get speaking sessions, including submitting to Call for Papers, purchasing speaking opportunities, or simply having a topic that is highly sought-after by the conference committee.

Brand loyalty:
If the event you are going to is a long-standing member of your marketing portfolio, you may have all the contacts you need from it and simply wish to deepen your relationships and provide a cheerful environment for your sales teams to interact with their clients. In this case, you might sponsor the evening event, throw your own hospitality activity, or simply take customers to dinner.

Of course, these are all standard off-the-shelf sponsorship purchase ideas. Don't be scared to get creative and work with the sponsorship sales team to build your own sponsorship package. I often bring up one of my favorite awareness plays that I saw at a pharma conference: A company was introducing a bladder control drug and sponsored all the bathrooms! Brilliant!

Feed the people!!

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:30:00 +0000

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

- James Beard

According to research from Successful Meetings magazine, when faced with budget cutbacks 49% of meeting planners cut the F&B budget first.

And yet anecdotally, next to conference rooms being too cold, food is the top complaint from attendees on post-event surveys.

As a conference organizer, I understand that budgets are not always based on the realities of an optimal customer experience. Most event managers (and their leadership) view food as something you have to provide, but fail to consider it as an integral part of the experience.

Since the intent of this blog is to wax philosophical about ideas (rather than prescribe how things "should" be done), here's my idea: Why not revolutionize the way conference food is brought to attendees?

Cruise ships excite their guests with massive buffet options. Food courts satiate mall-goers and air travelers with variety, speed, and price. And stadiums have even begun to wow their sports fans with amazing offerings. So what can we learn from these large-group-serving colleagues? It's about expectations and the experience.

When you go on a cruise, you know you're getting crazy buffets with mounds of food and a variety of restaurant offerings to choose from, usually included in the price of your ticket.

When you go to the mall or the airport, you know you'll get fast food, quickly, and you can pretty much bet that you'll have a choice of greasy fried food, salads, Asian options, and probably that ever-pervasive smell of warm pretzels.

And when you go to the stadium you may get that Club level food court, the hot dog & nachos stand, or the sit-down sports bar.

Right now, as you think about conference food, you are probably conjuring up lines of chafing dishes with food that started out great, but has deteriorated as throngs of attendees attempt to dig into the now-crusty casseroles. Or maybe you're thinking of the box lunch with the rock-hard sandwich, itty bitty whole apple, package of chips, and individually-wrapped pickle. Or if you're a vegetarian, you're remembering that every time you make it to the only vegetarian option on the buffet line, it's already gone because (shocker!) meat-eaters eat vegetables, too!

What if you looked forward to meeting a colleague for breakfast because it was like a coffeehouse with some proteins, some sweets, some hot tea, and some coffee, and the environment elicited a cozy atmosphere, rather than that of an aircraft carrier?

What if you were excited to get to lunch because you could sit with colleagues (not yell across a 72" round with strangers), or join an informal education session, or even hang out in a TV room to catch up on CNN headline news (a la The Varsity in Atlanta, GA)?

There's bound to be a creative way to bring the enjoyment back to conference meals; even for those 20,000+ person events. I encourage you to work with your conference facility team, your logistics teams, and your chef, and make food a universally AWESOME experience again!

Optimizing Your Event Portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 12:52:00 +0000

This is a guest post that was posted on Goombal's blog. Take a look at the other great content posted there!

In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
- Ben Bernanke

As your organization grows, you are beginning to manage a lot of events. You are being asked to report on results, return on investment, pipeline generated, revenue closed as a result of your events, and your team is spending more and more time evaluating opportunities for your next event engagement. So how do you make sure you are making the right decisions?

Like most companies, you probably go to some events because your sales team needs to support a customer, or an executive is interested in launching a product during a keynote, or someone just really likes to play golf with their customers, or you have a group of competitors going so you must be present (even though you don’t have a track record of ROI at the show).

You probably also have all the events where lead gen is job #1 and you have a solid track record of highly qualified leads (or a least a lot of leads). And then there’s that set of C-level events that your execs want you to run… So how do you know if you’re choosing the right events for long-term success?

I like to describe event portfolios as bouquets of flowers. The roses are your C-level events. The carnations are your lead gen events. The baby’s breath are those corporate sponsorship activations that keep the brand top of mind. Together, the flowers make a great bouquet, but individually, each flower has its own attributes; a.k.a. success metrics.

The secret formula is to start by identifying your corporate (or business unit) objectives.

If you are in awareness mode with your brand or product, you might focus more on brand awareness sponsorships and lead generating activities, and maybe some thought leadership events with the C-suite.

If you are in acquisition mode, you’re pretty much targeting lead generating activities for your sales team.

If you are in development and retention mode, you may focus on sponsorships and C-level activities, and opportunities to bring your customers together for upsell or loyalty.

But all of your events must tie to key metrics in order to know what to focus on.

Ideally, your C-level events are going to come with long-term pipeline and revenue numbers by associating those campaign members with active opportunities in your CRM system. If you are not currently using a CRM system to track the success of leads and relationships generated from your face-to-face events, then you’ll want solid sales anecdotal reports on the effectiveness of the engagement.

If you are unable to tie real opportunities or revenue to a C-level event, you need to get data to prove deal acceleration as a result of your event. in other words, was a deal pushed further down the sales funnel due to the content or relationships built at your event?

For your lead gen events, if you are using any kind of CRM system throughout your sales teams, this should be relatively easy to tie to pipeline. Once an attendee (or campaign member) is associated with an opportunity or revenue, you begin to see the value of the event.

If you are not using a CRM, or have dissimilar processes across your organization, this is an organizational challenge you’ll want to tackle first. Without the ability to measure the value of the leads you are producing, you won’t be able to evaluate your event’s effectiveness.

Sponsorships are a little more tricky. If it is a sponsorship in name and logo only, then your best hope is to measure using standard media metrics of impressions. However, if you are able to activate that sponsorship with an experiential element, you can get more detailed with leads, social media conversation density, or other engagement metrics.

It’s highly likely that you’ll end up with a balanced portfolio of lead gen, executive, and brand awareness events, but you may weigh more heavily toward one event type as it aligns to your corporate objectives.

No matter what your bouquet looks like, the most important piece is that you have some sort of consistent measurement in place by event type so you can reconcile your spend against investment or objectives.

You’re sure to have a few misses amongst your portfolio, but just weed out those dead or dying flowers and keep your bouquet looking fresh and beautiful!

For some tips regarding how you can go about doing this with a data-driven approach, read Vinay Iyer’s blog titled, “A Data-Driven Approach to Event Portfolio Management”. Vinay is the founder of Goombal, an Event Lifecycle and ROI Management solution, and he has an innovative solution that makes me excited about the future of event marketing!

Finally! An app that makes sense!

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 17:36:00 +0000

Update: We have launched a community in Skoop for Event Marketing Professionals - join us and try out this great new tool to keep up-to-date and in touch with other professionals like you! Download Skoop for Events and look for the "Event Socialshpere" community. To get the passcode, hit me up on Twitter @lizlathan

Eureka! - I have found it!
- Archimedes

As you've seen me say many times (like here, and here, and here), I believe that events and social media are intertwined like lattice. I like to say that events were the original social media, since it's where people can join their tribe, meet up with like-minded individuals, and share experiences and stories together.

I've also talked about mobile apps (like this adorable post from 2010 where I saw my first event app! and this one where I talked about vendor selection), but apps have evolved and it's time to leverage that evolution for the benefit of your attendees.

Check the apps on your phone. Is there an event app on there? Probably not. I'm guessing you deleted it about 24 hours after you left that last event.

But do you have Facebook? Instagram? Maybe you have something like WhatsApp or Slack? Why? Because it keeps you in touch with the people you WANT to be in touch with and the goings-on of their lives and your community.

So how do we make event apps more relevant for us, and solve that problem of year-round communication, riding the wave of an enthusiastic community long after the event?

Enter Skoop for Events. They've recently been spotted at shows like Expo! Expo! And Event Tech, and they are excited to be the new kid on the block, with what they think is the solution to this challenge!

I'm not here to give a product pitch, but I do want to share some of the features that I think will revolutionize how we look at event apps. It does all those event-appy things like bring in the schedule, the sponsors, the expo details, etc. But then it goes further... no longer are those contact you meet at the event stuck in an app, forcing you to only communicate through it. Now, anyone you meet can exchange contact info with a shake of the phone (literally!) and you can put them in your contacts or even connect with them on LinkedIn!

I know that seems like the perfect reason to uninstall the app after the event, but here's where it gets useful: You can create subfeeds within Skoop, so if you meet a great group of folks in a breakout session and you want to continue the conversation, you can add them to a group and keep it up long after the event is over. Boom. Your own community right there. And now you have your tribe.

Just imagine all of your event attendees creating conversations on your event app and getting to know each other throughout the year. They get EACH OTHER excited about registering for next year's conference! You can leverage this community for polls about content, music, etc. You can ask this community to contribute photos, videos, quotes - right in the app - and crowdsource your conference highlights throughout the year!

Just thinking out loud here... If your event is one in a sea of shows that attendees go to, they may even use the communities they've formed in YOUR event app to meet up at other events. And you can keep an eye on the conversation and perhaps run a meetup or other gathering there.

I look forward to seeing what changes Skoop brings to the event world! http://grabskoop.com

Death to the Albatross! (Let's get back to the basics on name tags!)

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 19:31:00 +0000

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
- George Bernard Shaw

Name badges have gotten ridiculous. Event organizers have tried to capture so much information on the name badge, provide agendas at a glance, drink tickets, identification ribbons, sponsor level, event branding, and the kitchen sink all on one little name badge... it's gotten so bad that I feel like everyone is walking around with a giant albatross around their necks!

What is the purpose of a name badge? To help people connect. How can you connect when you have to fight to locate their name, look at their stomach (or a female's chest), or ask them to flip their badge around so you can find their name. How much of a jerk do you feel like when you can't remember someone's name, but there is zero chance of actually catching their name badge without them noticing?

We need to get back to basics on name tags. Keep them simple. Help people connect. Give them a large first name, a smaller last name, and their company. If you need security features (like colors to know if they are a sponsor or an attendee to keep them in or out of certain session), incorporate that seamlessly into the design. Let's get back to having name badges that can be worn higher up on the chest so no one has to look down the center of the body to locate a name.

And let's talk about ribbons: Ribbons no longer make people feel special. You know what makes people feel special? Having people call them by name and shake their hand. Maybe even hug. Imagine a world where you can hug without getting your name badge tangled up with your huggee!

And finally, once we've agreed to go back to name badges that clip or magnetically attach to the chest area, make sure your attendees wear their name badges properly. Wearing the badge on the upper right side of the chest, in line of sight with a handshake, is the most appropriate location for networking. Check out this great post by Carey Suevega on proper name tag placement
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Who's with me for a name tag revolution?

10 ways to save money on your tradeshow program

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Tue, 12 May 2015 20:35:00 +0000

If saving money is wrong, I don't want to be right!

- William Shatner

Let me guess, you were handed an extra $100k to execute your booth this time, right? No? Oh... your budget got CUT by $30k. Been there. Here are 10 tips to save money on your tradeshow program:

Use less signage. Every sign cost money. Sign reprints cost even more. Can you reuse elements from another show to save on printing costs?
Reuse the booth. If you're renting a new booth for every show, chew on this: Most of the attendees at this event were not at your last event. They won't know that you've used the same booth for both of them. Better yet: use the same booth for a bunch of your events! It sounds elementary, but it's amazing how many companies reinvent the wheel for every show they attend. Just by using the same rental kiosks from event to event, you can save thousands of dollars.
Cut the giveaways. You don't need to feed the trick-or-treaters. Be strategic in your gifting and only give premiums to attendees who engage with you in your booth.
Standardize the staff attire. Do you buy new shirts for every trade show you attend? Consider implementing an event uniform program, tracking who has been given staff shirts, and only refreshing their uniform when theirs is lost or damaged.
Lighten up your booth. If you send full, heavy enterprise IT racks to your events, consider a virtual version. If you have a metal booth, consider going with more of a stretch fabric design. The lighter your shipping load, the less drayage you have to pay. Money in the bank.
Demo offline. You can save thousands by not using a wired internet drop. Try canned demos, or using a personal hotspot if you need to get online.
Skip the rented badge scanner. Try a mobile app that snaps pictures of business cards. Have a backup plan, though, if someone doesn't have a business card on them.
Plan ahead. You can save upwards of 20% if you just meet all the deadlines the show organizer has put in place. Miss it and you start getting penalties and rush fees added on.
Reconsider your rental furniture. If you need a meeting table and chairs, it might be cheaper to find a local IKEA and bring in your own, then donate to a local charity after the event.
Go to fewer shows! This may sound really insane, but consider your event portfolio. Are you going to every show at a lower level to spread your brand around? Consider hitting fewer, more impactful shows to get the results you need and stop wasting money on the non-performing shows.

You'll never look at your Outlook calendar the same way again

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 21:04:00 +0000

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

- Peter Drucker

I came across this article on Facebook and it reminded me of the famous “rocks” story from a college professor. My calendar is usually how I run my day. This article has convinced me to completely reverse that. Enjoy!

The Chokehold of Calendars

Meetings may be toxic, but calendars are the superfund sites that allow that toxicity to thrive. All calendars suck. And they all suck in the same way. Calendars are a record of interruptions. And quite often they’re a battlefield over who owns whose time. Read the rest…

5 Tips to thinking strategicially about your 10x10

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 21:02:00 +0000

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

- Alan Lakein

So your sales guy comes to you and says, "My customer gave me a free 10x10 at their show!" "Fantastic!" you say. "What are you going to showcase?" silence....

Trade shows are a great way to showcase your brand to attendees. Or they're not. It's really up to you. The most frustrating experience for a conference goer is to walk around a trade show floor and see a bunch of exhibitors sitting behind a 6' table typing on their phone. I.Would.Never.Stop.At.That.Booth.

The second most frustrating experience is to BE an exhibitor standing behind a 6' table, smiling at people who just walk by, hiding their badge from your scanner. "Aren't these people here to learn about new things?", you think to yourself.

So how do you make the most of your 10x10 booth on a crowded show floor?

Know what success looks like. So your booth cost you $5k, and you spent another $4k on travel, branding, and giveaways. If one customer brings in $3k, then you need three new customers to break even on the event. If your close rate is 20%, then you need 15 hot leads from the show to make it break even. Aim for 30 and show real ROI!
Plan ahead. Most conferences will give you at least a list of companies and titles of attendees who are coming to the show. Use it to bounce against your target prospect list from your sales team and reach out before the show. Make sure your top targets know you are going to be there, know where your booth is, and are planning to come by for a demo or conversation.
Plan for drive-bys. The majority of conference goers know who they are going to look for before they step foot on the show floor. If you've done step 1, you are already on their list. But some conference goers may not know you're going to be there and are looking for products or services like yours. So plan for them. A branded backdrop and a smile may not be the most effective way to get someone to stop and talk to you. Take it a step further with an open-ended question. If you're selling widgets, try, "What's the best (or worst) think about widget today?" Even better - have something engaging in your space to draw this out of them: maybe a giant whiteboard where attendees can write in their favorite (or least favorite) thing about widgets. This will open the conversation and get people engaged.
You don't have to give to the trick-or-treaters. Everyone loves a good pen. But handing out pens is less likely to help your sales pipeline. Get attendees to USE a pen to write an idea on a post-it note or write about their favorite thing about widgets, THEN they can keep the pen. That makes it more memorable for them when they see the pen again later while cleaning out their conference bag, and allows you to only give out pens to people who have actively engaged with your brand.
Have a follow-up plan. How will you capture those great conversations? Will you take business cards? Will you scan badges? Whatever you intend to do, ensure that they are getting scored as leads for follow-up or leads for nurture and being put in a database/CRM back in the office... then make sure they are followed up on! Maybe your "nurture-only" leads don't need to waste sales resources, but they should definitely receive some sort of email follow-up thanking them for stopping by, and asking if they'd like to opt in to a newsletter or future communications. But most importantly, ensure those leads were scored at the event so you can follow up on the hot ones and book some sales. After all, that's why you went to the show in the first place!

CEMA Wine Country Women in Leadership Event Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 05 May 2014 21:02:00 +0000

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

- Albert Einstein

I had the absolute pleasure of getting to attend the CEMA Wine Country Women in Leadership event May 1, 2014, in Napa Valley. DMC Viviani Tours did a spectacular job of lining up a day full of education, networking, food, and of course wine! More than 35 event marketers joined us for property tours and winery tours, and inspiring stories from winemakers and winery owners.

Our first stop was the Bardessano Hotel, where CEO of Visit Napa, Clay Walker, welcomed us to the famed valley of the grape. Here’s some fun facts that Clay shared with us:

4/10ths of 1% of the world’s wine comes from Napa Valley
Napa is home to 400+ wineries, and 95% of them are family-owned
Napa has the most Michelin stars per capita of any wine region in the world (including two 3-star restaurants)
There is more than 200,000 square feet of unique meeting space throughout the Napa Valley

Then our Bardessano hosts took us on a tour of their breathtaking property… from the high tech bathrooms to the Leed-certified environmentally-friendly surroundings, our eyes were opened this unique luxury property nestled in the heart of Yountville.

Next up was Chimney Rock Winery. Little did we know that our tastings would begin at 10:30am… but I didn’t hear too much complaining! We learned about following your passion from Winemaker and General Manager Elizabeth Vianna as shared the history of the winery and her personal story of switching from medical school in her senior year of college to winemaking school to chase her dreams. Clearly a successful outcome, we “see, swirl, smell, sip”ed our way across her creations. I took away some incredible sound bites from Elizabeth’s talk, including:

Winemaking is an eternal learning curve
You’re only as good as your team and what mother nature gives you
I truly believe in following your instincts. But with reason.
Only 4% of winemakers are women
Winemaking is like events – it’s a place where control is very important

Our next stop was the breathtaking scenery of Hall Winery where we met Kathryn Walt Hall, owner and winemaker, as well as world-renowned caterer Elaine Bell. Kathryn shared her family’s history as grape farmers in Mendocino, and her story of following her passion and getting into the art and science of making wines. I took away some great sound bites from Kathryn, as well:

What differentiates one great wine from another great wine is: Did you have fun?
90% of winemaking is farming
This business is very relationship driven
I never want to make a profit at the expense of our pride and our team
Its said that cabernets are more masculine and pinot noirs are more feminine because they’re so elegant
We are, at the end of the day, fancy farmers and the experience needs to be enjoyable

Kathryn also talked about the event space on their newly-renovated property, and some teambuilding ideas, including blending wines. “Blending is one of the few things in life that is actually better done by committee,” she said.

We then had the luxury of a lunch catered by Elaine Bell, pairing perfectly with Hall wines. Elaine shared stories of her humble beginnings as a student chef, the first time she met Julia Child and how they became close friends, how she revolutionized the catering industry by actually cooking the food onsite with the little Kenmore range from her very own kitchen (which she hooked up to a propane tank and took onsite with her!). She talked about how she grew her business to more than $1m in revenue in two years, and how she expanded into the powerhouse catering company that she owns today.

We then were taken on an exploration of Hall Winery, through the exquisite art collections, past the tank rooms, and through the indoor and outdoor event spaces. The designers at the winery made every effort to bring the outdoors in and provide an organic-feeling experience at every turn. After a tour of the serene, artistic surroundings of Hall Winery, we embarked on our final adventure: Raymond Winery.

I have no words for this experience. Well, that’s not true. I have a lot of words. Here they are.

The first thing we were attracted to was the giant open frame garden, where we obviously had to stop for photo moments! This was our introduction to the theatrics awaiting us beyond the rose bushes… After a refreshing glass of bubbly, we toured the organic gardens of the winery (appropriately named the Theatre of Nature) and learned about the ecodynamics of the winery and garden. Our tour guide helpfully let us know that if there is a zombie apocalypse, Raymond Winery is the place you want to be. We saw Frenchie’s Garden, a dog park and kennel for winery guests’ four-legged friends. (The owner’s dog, Frenchie, even has his own wine! Not to worry, it’s for people).

We moved the party indoors (and thankfully out of the 90+ degree heat!) and began to take in the real experiences that Raymond Winery offers. This was the opposite of the winery we’d just visited… it wasn’t exquisite art with reminders to respect the work and not touch it. This was a hands-on, get-in-there experience. Touch the textures! Smell the aromas! Feel the dirt on your fingertips! And then… we met him. Owner Juan-Carlos Boisset. Oh the sound bites! Here we go:

We’re all actors of nature
You taste with your senses: Your nose, your tongue, your emotions
Of course the wine is great. We’re in Napa Valley. We want people to come here and have you say this is the coolest think I’ve done and this is a luxury product I want to be a part of.
We believe the best events are the ones that create an experience way beyond what you would expect… and this is why we have mannequins.
We want to make all our guests vibrate. You should see our parties!
We’re an experiential winery where guests can live something different

We thoroughly enjoyed the company of JC as he took us on a tour of the fermentation tanks, the wine-making experience room (a special event facility where guests can blend their own wine), and through other intimate meeting and wine education spaces like The Library (where you can taste the same wine from different vintages through the years to understand how a wine changes with age), and the Terroir Room (where you learn how the different soil throughout California impacts the flavor of the grapes and the wines). And finally outside to the outdoor event space, the learning kitchen, and the guest house, and into the JC Lounge.

This CEMA event was part networking, part education, part inspirational storytelling, part fam trip, and all a luxurious break from reality. It was a very unique CEMA experience and I look forward to more memorable experiential moments in the future!

An open letter to hotel room designers

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Common sense is very uncommon.

- Horace Greeley

I'm not a road warrior, but I'm in and out of hotels often enough to understand how most people generally use a hotel room. There's a bed, a bathroom, and electricity. For the most part, those are the important parts.

With that in mind, I would like to share some helpful tips for hotel designers.

1) The bed. Thanks for upgrading almost all of the hotel beds to be heavenly or signature or whatever. That's great! I really don't need decorative pillows that I'm going to throw in the floor. They look pretty, but they take housekeeping an extra 2 minutes to arrange, and I just push them off the bed anyway. Ditch that, please.

2) The bathroom. Sometimes I travel on business alone. Sometimes I travel on business with a colleague. Sometimes I travel with my husband. In all situations, I do not want a pretty sliding door with frosted glass. Or even no door at all. I want a door. A real door. One that I can close and that will keep in the noises that happen in bathrooms. If you are so inclined to provide me with a non-noise-barring solution to my bathroom, PLEASE at least consider adding a ventilation fan. I would like to have some option of masking those bathroom noises without having to turn on the TV and crank the volume. This can't be too much to ask, can it?

While I'm on the topic of bathrooms, I believe that the next revolution in bathrooms should be the bath sheet. Bath towels are teensy and I really like to fold a nice bath sheet around me when I get out of the shower. But if I had to choose a door or a bath sheet, please give me the door.

3) The electricity. I have a laptop, a phone, and a tablet. I need to plug them in. Please don't make me crawl under the desk or unplug the lamp to locate an outlet. Seriously. When you're designing your sleek, modern little built-in for the TV, just think about putting some plugs in a reasonable, reachable location.

Thank you for your consideration.

Liz

Getting re-inspired

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:42:00 +0000

Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.

- Brad Henry

I disappeared off the map last year as planning for my company's 6,000-person user conference kicked into high gear.

Then I disappeared "for good" for 3 months as I had a new little baby girl in February!

So now I'm back at work and back exploring event trends and technologies and trying to reignite my inspiration. It may take me a little more exploring to find that right inspirational moment, but I have no doubt it will hit me soon and I'll be back on track with my regular posts.

Strategic Meetings Management Programs: Our Journey

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:34:00 +0000

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”

- Seneca

Today I had the great pleasure of speaking at the PCMA Education Conference on the topic of Strategic Meetings Management with Kevin Iwamoto, VP of Enterprise Strategy for Active Networks. Kevin is a person I would call "the father of strategic meetings management," and it was an honor to share the stage with him.

Myself? Well I have about a solid month of strategic meetings management experience (plus 5 years of on-again, off-again research on the subject!)

My company began exploring an SMMP about 5 years ago, in partnership with our Travel Procurement team. That first attempt at an RFP resulted in so many requirements and wishlist items that the final printed file comparing responses was a 6 foot by 7 foot Excel spreadsheet! Completely incomprehensible, overwhelming, and was actually laughed at and put in the storage closet.

So I made a friend in the procurement department and we began to exchange war stories. Together, we had informational sessions with a number of SMMP providers, and we explored from more of an RFI point of view, rather than an RFP. We even lightly and non-contractually partnered with a company that could act as an SMMP resource for teams to leverage if they needed event venue sourcing support.

A few procurement directors and event marketing directors later, we tried it again, but couldn't get any traction with leadership at all.

Finally, last year our company launched a savings initiative, seeking ideas from leaders within the company on how we can save money by doing simple things. My procurement team and I submitted the idea that we can save over $2M annually by implementing an SMMP (knowing full well that other companies our size have saved upwards of $10M by implementing programs like this!).

We dusted off our RFI and RFP responses and began to evaluate what we really wanted out of this program. By bringing us back to the objectives for the program (tracking meetings spend, mitigating contract risk, etc.), we were able to identify the true benefits of the program and what was really important to the company. While the first 4 RFPs were led and directed by procurement, this last one was supported by procurement with the event team writing the RFP document and evaluating the responses. Procurement managed the RFP process, scheduling, and support of the respondents.

We determined that we did not have the funding to implement a fully-scoped SMMP at first, but allowed competitors with technology solutions to bid anyway to get a full understanding of the possibilities and what a full program could look like for us in the future. We knew that we needed to land on a solution that would be covered with commission-able rates.

As we rolled out the program, we got three consistent responses from team members:

1) They were concerned that we were forcing them to select the cheapest property – which is by no means the case. This process is simply to get competitive bids. Full control lies with the event manager to determine which property they wish to use.

2) Event managers claimed that it’s faster to just call their national rep or local hotel contact, rather than fill out a form and wait on our SMMP to get back to them. As they’ve starting using the SMMP, though, they find that a 5-minute form and 10 minute conversation with their SMMP rep is much better than leaving 3 voicemails with their hotel contact and negotiating concessions on their own!

3) Our APJ team has some team members who firmly believe they will get better pricing going direct. We have not fully rolled this out yet in the region, so we will continue to operate in pilot mode this year as we determine what the realities are in the region.

The event team had concerns about moving to an SMMP for fear that they could no longer use some of the event management agencies they are comfortable with on large-scale programs. We agreed that any large program where the event management agency would use commission-able rates to lower their fees could continue to be used. If, however, the team was going to hire an agency specifically for a venue search, they should use the SMMP.

Knowing that this would be a giant change for our teams, we agreed with our SMMP provider that we would take year one and operate as a pilot program. We have monthly check-ins with team members to discuss bumps and bruises and get our program working smoothly. Once the 1-year pilot ends, we will evaluate together the results of the program and determine if it is beneficial to continue with an official 2-year agreement.

We agreed to roll out the program in the US and EMEA, and roll out to APJ and LatAm later in the year. However, the APJ and LatAm teams were excited to try out the program and have begun leveraging the SMMP already as well.

We have worked hand-in-hand with procurement to draft policies, review addendums, write blog posts, send corporate-wide emails, and craft a newsletter to keep everyone informed of the program, the available venues where cancellations have happened, and hot dates and rates from our SMMP. The Event marketing team has taken the lead on rolling out training to the corporate admins, and the procurement team continues to be involved as the program involves.

We’ve had the program rolled out for about a month now (48 programs are in process with a handful having been contracted) and are already seeing an average 10% savings off of the catering-only events, and 20% off the events with room blocks that have been contracted through the program.

With the savings, event owners are able to show higher ROI from revenue generated from their customer-facing events, or are able to use the money saved for more strategic investments like speaker fees or marcom collateral.

Event managers are thrilled to not have to worry about contract clauses and concession negotiations. And even more thrilled to not have to wait on legal and procurement to review contracts!

From a procurement standpoint, by tracking our meeting and event venue usage, we are able to drive more business to our preferred hotel brands and thus negotiate even better corporate rates for the future based on volume. We are also able to have great conversations with A/V companies in these properties to drive those costs lower on volume, as well.

By reducing the logistical costs of the events for customer-facing activities, we will increase the total income earned from the converted revenue, while not reducing the attendee experience in any way.

If your company is exploring a strategic meetings management program, I highly recommend picking up Kevin's book from Amazon as step number 1!

Step number 2 is to develop perseverance. You will try to launch a program. It will fail. You may try again unsuccessfully. You might even give up for a while. But keep at it! Eventually, the stars will align and you will have the right leadership in place to support your goals.

Step 3 is to develop the right partnerships between marketing and procurement. Get the right people on board to help each other, develop relationships that are open enough to allow honest conversations about problems and outcomes.

Step 4: go forth and conquer. It won't be easy. But it will be worth it.

Lifelong learning

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:59:00 +0000

Don't just learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade.

- James Bennis

In the never-ending season of budget cutbacks and layoffs, it's harder and harder to justify attending educational industry conferences - especially for corporate meeting planners. But if you have truly selected event marketing as a career path, and not just a job, you must find ways to stay relevant and keep learning your trade.

Personally, I get to pick one event industry conference per year that my company will cover, and I must do any others on my own dime. However, I find the content, networking, and environment so inspiring that I make sure I do attend more than one per year.

This year, I have the added benefit of getting to present at two of them! On June 11th, I'll be at PCMA in San Antonio talking about Strategic Meetings Management Programs, and July 15-17, I'll be at CEMA Summit in San Diego talking about the New Realities of Branded Conferences, as well as presenting a session on Social Media 101 for event managers.

But attending conferences outside of my own profession is highly inspirational, as well. I love going to corporate events that my company attends to take in and explore ideas (not just focus on making sure my booth setup is going well). I truly enjoyed the "Study Tours" of Oracle Open World and Dreamforce that CEMA hosted last year. And I'm very sad that I missed the one for SAP Sapphire - I REALLY wanted to see that one!

In March of this year, I spent a little time at SXSW, Austin's famous Interactive, Film, and Music festival, taking in the buzz, plugging into the socialsphere, and absorbing the creativity.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the Word of Mouth Marketing Crash Course in Austin, an event I highly recommend to all event marketers who have an interest in social media and guerrilla marketing.

What other not-exactly-event-marketing conferences inspire you?

The importance of events in pre-commerce

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:01:00 +0000

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When you put yourself in the customers shoes and begin your dialog from there, an immediate connection develops that stems beyond basic commerce and encourages loyalty.

- Steve Maraboli

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I had the pleasure of attending the Word of Mouth Crash Course yesterday in Austin, Texas, and enjoyed every single session I went to… Truly rare at a conference! While some of the conference logistics could be improved, the content was well curated to provide really sharp speakers with really interesting case studies and points of view.

The content primarily centered on word of mouth marketing and the social media tools that amplify it, creating customer advocates, and using behavioral analytics to provide better customer experiences.

One of the great sessions I attended was a fireside chat with Bob Pearson, a former colleague at Dell, and author of Pre-Commerce: How Companies and Customers are Transforming Business Together. Did you know that only 1% of a consumer’s time is actually spent purchasing something online? 99% is spent researching, exploring, talking, evaluating, and engaging in other pre-purchase activities. And today, 3 out of 4 people look to their peers before making any purchase decision.

Events are huge part of pre-commerce. By bringing together like-minded customers and potential customers, you give them the opportunity to research, explore, touch and feel your brand, products, and solutions, and provide an outlet for them to talk to their peers about their options.

It’s important that your brand advocates are at your events to provide the customer voice that your prospects are seeking. While you probably already provide comp passes to your potential customers, be sure to keep some comps for your great retention accounts, too. The more you can have customer brand ambassadors speaking at your events and networking with your potential customers, the more word of mouth can influence purchase decisions on that coveted peer-to-peer level.

Why offsites are imperative

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:37:00 +0000

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Fun is good.
- Dr. Seuss

It takes a certain type of person to love event marketing. You have to thrive on tight deadlines, chaos, ambiguity, and late nights. You have to have a family who can support your travel, your need to be connected at weird times and in weird places. You have to want to be a workaholic.

And it takes a certain type of company to invest in these kinds of people. I’m not talking about salaries or massages or even vacation time. I’m talking about offsites. And again, I don’t mean scavenger hunts or movies with the team. I mean real, meaningful time together with the team to talk, share, laugh, think, plan, and gear up for the future.

During my time as a manager of a team of 18, I made it a point to hold an offsite every quarter. Yes, it’s a day or two out of the office which is a huge challenge for most people. Yes, it cost $500 or so ($25/pp). But YES, it is worth it.

My formula for a successful offsite is simple:

Spend a little money on an excellent facilitator; I hire two improv comedy instructors to lead us in creative thinking games and help get us through the day with levity and skill
Plan problems that need to be solved
Give groups time to solve the problems and present to the other groups
Intersperse the right meaningful activities for some fun and to get everyone’s juices flowing

Feedback from these offsites has been tremendous! Not only do we get a few hours to get our heads out of email and thinking about the future, but we get to play. Remember the FISH! guys from Seattle? They totally had it right – making sure your team gets a chance to play together while actually solving real-life problems produces AMAZING results.

Try it sometime! And let me know if you need a GREAT facilitator. I know a couple. :-)

Top 5 event things I'm ready to see evolve

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:02:00 +0000

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

- George Bernard Shaw

5) Registration websites: you know me, you know my company. Why do I have to fill out the same information again?

4) Registration lines: They are the first impression of a conference. Why are they so hard to get right? Why do I have to wait so long, only to get something I then have to go into a corner alone to read and figure out what to do next next?

3) Plates and cups and not enough places to put them: The conference grab-and-go breakfast; the evening reception with appetizers. Never enough high boys, and no event venue uses those AWESOME plate+cupholder things that I can take to a tailgate party! Come on people! I need a free hand to shake/eat/social media with!

2) QR codes: I tried to like them. Really, I did. But I'm convinced they are mostly useless.

1) Badges! I hate where they hang, I hate waiting in line to get them, I hate that they flip around and do not serve their purpose for identifying people 100% of the time!

What do you want to see evolve?

Why Social helps remote attendees

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:59:00 +0000

"Events are the original Social Media."
- Liz Lathan

It's my mantra. :-) And on days like yesterday and today, I'm really living by it! South by Southwest 2012 (know as SXSW) is taking place in Austin, Texas, and my husband is attending live and in person. I, however, am home with our 4-year-old and our dogs who just had surgery. I'll get to join in the fun tomorrow, but in the meantime, I'm keeping up with the scene via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and the various live blogs going on.

The social pipe from SXSW is insane. Every refresh of my social tool Hootsuite brings up like 400 new posts. Every picture I see of sessions has 80% of the attendees looking down at their digital device (presumably taking notes or posting about the speakers' thoughts).

Tips that I'm picking up from being a remote attendee this weekend are:

Ensure that your hashtags are available to remote folks. I can find the hashtags of the sessions I like on the sxsw.com website, so I can filter the feeds for the sessions I want to follow. Yesterday, I spent an hour following #sxswi #whedon to keep up with the Joss Whedon session I so desperately wanted to be at.

Enlist in live blogging or live tweeting help. Thanks to the good folks at Snarkmarket, I was able to watch live blogging of the aforementioned Joss Whedon session of the conference. The blogger was a guy from NPR who did a great job of paraphrasing the fireside chat, the audience questions, and Joss's responses. Pairing that with the Twitter feed made me feel like I was there! I was privy to the floor seating outside of the session because it was so packed. And I even was privy to the high five that Joss gave an attendee on his SuperBetter quest!

Have a Pinterest board. Here's one I'm not seeing yet from SXSW. I search for SXSW and I just get a few results. I heard that some brands were doing Pinterest boards, but I haven't found them yet. From the Tweet stream, I know Pinterest is the hot topic at SXSW, so now we have to go figure out how to make it work, how to make it work for events...and how to monetize it!

Check the stats. The social pipe from SXSW is insane. I can't keep up. But the SXSW organizers must be loving it! Make sure your company has a Social Media Listening Center - doesn't have to be as sophisticated as Dell's (http://twitpic.com/8t7804), but someone should monitor the feed, the statistics, and the tone of the conversations happening at and around your event.

More posts to come after I actually get my chance to BE at SXSW tomorrow!

Leaders of the future

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
- John Quincy Adams

I’m in a leadership class through the employee resource groups at my corporation and we’re studying a great book called “Leaders of the Future 2.” My team recently taught a chapter on leading through crisis and complexity. One of the sections talked about nonprofit leadership, another on Army leadership, and another on corporate leadership.

I was completely fascinated by the differences among the three, and the subsequent threads that can be woven through them. Army leadership (or armed forces, more accurately), promote their leaders 100% from within. They don’t put out job openings for commanders or generals. Therefore their entire culture is focused on teaching, training, mentoring, and teaching every person how to teach, train, and mentor. Amazing! I have seen very few organizations that have a good succession plan, even among the rank and file team members. I see groups that are shocked and totally unprepared when a team member finds a new role. The majority of corporations hire “important” roles from outside, believing that experience in a similar role in another company will bring wisdom far beyond anything learned within the walls of the company. I don’t understand. I don’t disagree or dislike it because I’m sure one day I’ll be looking to leave and find a role based on that principle, but it got me thinking about my organization.

I confess that I don’t know how to mentor effectively. I can train. I can teach. But how do I mentor someone to take over my job? I honestly don’t know how I got my job myself, so how could I possibly mentor someone else to take it over? Are there training classes on how to be a good mentor? I should look into that...

One of the teachable moments about crisis for me was that corporate and nonprofits leaders spend their lives avoiding crisis, while the Army trains their leaders for a crisis, understanding that crisis are inevitable and you’re sure better know how to lead and manage through them if you want to survive.

Nonprofits also fascinate me, having worked at two of them and volunteered at many of them. Due to the unfortunate salary discrepancy, a lot of leaders in associations are very young, needing a lot of mentorship from their board of directors (many of whom are more experienced in their roles or have experience in corporations). Taking the lessons learned in the military and in corporations to the board of a nonprofit is a vital way to nurture nonprofit leadership.

From this, I took away the importance of fostering leaders, nurturing leaders, and mentoring leaders for the future. I was inspired to rejoin a nonprofit board I left about five years ago. I was inspired to seek out a mentor of my own and try to feel my way through this mentorship idea. My next challenge: learning how to take someone that I want to mentor and convince them that they need mentoring… where’s the book on that?

The zombie apocalypse and my skills

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:29:00 +0000

You're a great friend but if the zombies chase us, I'm tripping you.

- Anonymous

So I’m reading this book about the zombie apocalypse (I know, completely silly… it’s called World War Z – TOTALLY recommend it), and it’s presented as a historical account of the zombie war. One chapter talks about the skills of the population in the face of this unique society-rebuilding challenge. It calls out the service providers versus the workers, and gives a fictitious example of a maid having to be the manager of her former employer because the maid has actual useful skills, as opposed to the former employer who was something like a marketing executive in a corporation.

The topic really piqued my interest as I’ve been thinking lately about how I really don’t produce anything anymore. I manage people and I manage projects, and I write words electronically, but I don’t MAKE anything. What useful skills do I have that would transfer into a post-apocalyptic world? I could maybe cook something. Or lightly mend the mildly wounded. Or nail some boards together, if asked. I learned to make a pillow in my 8^th grade Home Economics class.

Zombies, aside, what skill could I learn that would make me useful outside of the corporate and computerized world?

Mining your networks for a cause

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:22:00 +0000

The way of the world is meeting people through other people.

- Robert Kerrigan

Social media buzz – loads of fun, keeping up with friends, updating your resume, posting pics of the kids. But where’s the value? I have a real-life case study of the value of my LinkedIn network. I hosted a Corporate Event Marketing Association event in Austin and, not knowing a whole lot of event marketers in the area, I began leveraging the network.

First, I posted about the event to my network, and asked them to share with their network.

Next I started using the search bar to locate networked friends of mine in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

After that, I searched on the terms of interest like Events, Tradeshows, A/V, and other key terms.

LinkedIn doesn’t let you spam people you don’t know, nor does it let you put a URL in a message to people not in your network. But it does let you send an invitation to connect. Through LinkedIn, I was able to connect with more than 50 people who were not originally in my network to invite them to the event. And in the process, got 50 new connections in my world to share information with in the future!

I absolutely do not advocate spamming random people. But if your goal is to build real connections or a tight community of like-minded folks, using the network of your network you already have is priceless!

Thank you, American Airlines

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:15:00 +0000

The average American is nothing if not patriotic.
- Herbert Croly

While sitting on an American Airlines flight on my way to a site visit to Vegas, I witnessed something that warmed my heart. Say what you will about the airlines, but I just saw a flight attendant gift a U.S. Army serviceman an upgrade to first class when there was a seat left. I absolutely love seeing things like that! Congratulations to American Airlines for considering our servicemen and women, and thank you to those who serve our country!

Why I love hotels.

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:38:00 +0000

I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wake-up letter.
- Steven Wright

I love hotels. I have always loved hotels. I have wonderful memories of checking into a hotel with my parents, my dad handing me the ice bucket, and sending me on my mission: locate the ice machine and bring back a full bucket. I really don’t remember my parents ever using the ice, but it was a very important mission for me.

As an event marketer, I have the pleasure of really nice hotel rooms during site visits, and really bad lower-than-run-of-the-house rooms during the actual event or during regular travels. No matter the hotel, no matter the property level, there are a few things that I just love about hotels. Some may sound like pet peeves, but it’s these qualities and features that I find endearing about hotels!

Behold my photo essay.

The Kleenex flower.

Why do I have a flower made of tissue on top of my tissue box? When I need a tissue, it’s usually because I sneezed or actually just need a tissue. With the tissue flower, I have to pull out the massive lump of tissue that is now unusable because someone else touched it and crumpled it together so I can’t easily get a single tissue from it. My favorite was the time when I removed the tissue flower only to discover a completely different color of tissue in the rest of the box. I was given a “previously owned” tissue flower! Ew!

The little shampoo and conditioner and lotion.

Of course the lotion is only in the nicer of the hotels. More recently, hotels have begun renaming things from the mundane “Shampoo” and “Conditioner” to the more glamorous – and frankly confusing – “Hair Revitalizer” and “Hair Protectant” or "Hair Mask." If you have to think for more than two seconds to determine if they are actually shampoo and conditioner, then it’s too complicated for the guests.

Free coffee.

Why is the coffee free, but the water is $7?

The magnifying mirror.

I love this thing. I do not actually own one at home, but when I go to a hotel, I look forward to checking out my giant pores and random eyebrow growths at ridiculously intensely magnified levels.

The wake-up call.

Since I can never trust that the alarm clock is set, I really like this service. I especially love it when it’s a real person who tells you good morning and offers the weather for the day. I do not love it when it is 15 minutes late, which leads me now to always use my phone alarm clock as a 5-minute back-up to my wake-up call.

The phone in the toilet room.

Has anyone ever used this phone? I don’t know, and that is exactly why I will never touch it. What kind of phone calls have they had on the toilet? Were really amazing business deals lost or won from this phone?

The TV in the bathroom.

I don’t watch TV in the mornings when I’m getting dressed. Nor do I have a TV in my bathroom. This is exactly why I always use the TV in the bathroom in hotels that offer this feature.

The remote to the bedroom television.

The things this device has seen… oh lordy. Why don’t they put a protective cover on it? Much like the toilet phone, I cringe when I touch this remote. I believe I will add a plastic bag to my travel carrier to protect myself from this going forward. Brilliant.

Non-HDTV.

And along the lines of this remote are the HD televisions in all the hotels without a single HD channel. So I get to watch my favorite Seinfeld episodes all squished and out of proportion. And why does it take so long for the channels to change? What’s up with that?

The stationary.

When was the last time you wrote an actual letter. When was the last time you wrote an actual letter on hotel stationary? I actually remember the last time I did this: I was 13 years old and in a city in Japan. I wrote a letter to myself about my trip using the hotel stationary. Now I check to make sure it’s in the drawer when I get to the hotel. It provides comfort.

The Gideon Bible.

More important than the hotel stationary, this item must be in my nightstand drawer. If I am in a hotel that the Gideons have not visited, I go online and report it to the Gideons immediately. I’m not kidding.

What are you favorite things about hotels?

Conference justification letters

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:10:00 +0000

The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.

- Zig Ziglar

I’m seeing a lot of conference justification letters around the internet these days. I like the concept: provide a ready-made letter for managers to understand the benefits of sending their employee to a conference. But the execution of a lot of these letters is cheesy and pure marketing language.

I have also seen some really awesome ones, though they border on something a little too formal for an employee to hand to their boss.

When preparing a form letter for your attendees to use, consider the audience. This isn’t a brochure. This is a real, active letter of persuasion and value proposition for a manager or finance team to evaluate whether the money should be invested in sending a person to this engagement. It feels incredibly silly to type this, but consider what you would need to convince your management to go to an event. I found one industry conference justification letter that pointed out the evening events, the bands that were playing, and the opening pool party and reception. Really? Not helpful.

Be brief, but impactful. Don’t talk about the parties and don’t over-talk about the networking. Networking is a key reason anyone goes to an industry conference, but education, uncovering opportunities for sales or new vendors, and bringing back knowledge and perspectives to coworkers.

If you’re going to build a conference justification letter, be sure you also send out conference notes and key take-aways to your attendees so they can show the true value of the content they just experienced.

The complexities of your event mobile app

noreply@blogger.com (cheshirecat) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Please all, and you will please none.
- Aesop

What do we want out of a mobile app for our event?

Feedback (surveys)
Engagement with content or people (QR codes, connections, check-ins)
Maps of venues
Agendas, especially if they are personalized
Notifications from partners or updates to agendas
Partner content
To work on iPhone, Android and Win 7 phones

And then there's all the random stuff we might want to add: games, rewards, etc.

I haven't found any off-the-shelf solutions to meet all of these needs, but have worked with some custom design companies to get us what we want. With mixed results.

My recommendation is: Choose your vendor well.

Vet their personality as a company - are they willing to work insane hours to meet your goals? Are they willing to partner with you to allow your event to shine? Are they willing to be onsite to help if anything goes wrong? Do they intend to work with you again, and will they support you throughout the build and implementation process to ensure you want to work with them? Have they ever gotten apps approved through the four majors marketplaces (iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry)? How many have they done? Can they code in such a way that even after the app is approved and in the marketplaces, a few tweaks can still be made?

Be careful as you get into mobile app development for your events to determine why you are doing and what you hope to gain. Apps are awesome and they are fun and they are cool, but usage rates are still relatively low for the majority of event participants. Some have corporate phones that prevent them downloading apps. Some are on Blackberry and can't get any cool features. Some prefer paper. Some just prefer to save their battery for more important things.

To do an app right, you need to have amazing content. If your intent is to meet the minimum requirements of app-coolness, pick an agency that will load in your agenda for you. If you actually plan to have loads of cool info in the app, ensure that you have the internal resources to gather, edit, and manage the inclusion of the killer content.

Have a plan for the future. The first thing I do after an event is usually remove the app from my phone. That's 3MB-6MB my phone doesn't need on it! So if you expect me to keep your app on my phone, tell me why and then make sure it's something I want to keep. Just about all the conferences I've been to in the last 2 years have changed app vendors year over year, making me download the new app anyway.

Perhaps there are other methods you could pursue - like leveraging LinkedIn or Facebook. Or perhaps going with an event social network like a Vivastream or SocialGo.

So when it comes to signing up for an event mobile app: think before you ink! :-)