We revisit the GSA Scandal show from last week to see what the fall out has been and how our industry needs to fight back and make the world understand what meetings are really about. Our gues is Joan L. Eisenstodt from Eisenstodt Associates, LLC – Meetings & Hospitality Consultant,Facilitator & Trainer

Things you can do today to help our industry:

Petition to change the GSA Congressional Amendment

PCMA, ASAE, MPI, IAEE, CIC, and U.S. Travel Join forces to bring a united industry voice to congress. Read more in ThisWeek@pcma and help this effort today! http://bit.ly/ImUqBt

Even more importantly than signing the petition is for those of you who are US citizens to write to your Senators and Representative and do so by MAIL not email – you’ll get far more attention. Do it NOW.  -Joan

http://www.mpiweb.org/OneIndustryOneVoice

eisenstodt@aol.com  or joanleisenstodt@gmail.com

Moderator: www.meetingsfocusforum.com

blogger at www.meetingsfocus.com
Twitter @joaneisenstodt

Who was involved-
General Services Administration 2010

What-
GSA’s Public Buildings Service spent $822,000 on the biennial Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas for only 300 employees, according to an inspector general’s report.

The expenses included $147,000 for airfare and hotel lodging for six planning trips by conference organizers. That figure included $100,000 on two “scouting trips” and five off-site meetings and an additional $30,000 on catering costs for those trips, according to the report.

Among the other expenses were $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on a commemorative coin set displayed in velvet boxes; and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle, according to the IG report, which was obtained by Federal Times.

GSA also promised the hotel an additional $41,480 in catering charges in exchange for the “concession” of the hotel honoring the government’s lodging limit.

The agency also spent $44 a person per breakfast and $95 per person for its closing reception dinner.

The agency also spent money on mementos for attendees, clothing for GSA employees and tuxedo rentals, according to the report.
$137,000
Travel expenses and catering costs for eight different trips that GSA staff people made to both Las Vegas and Denver, including one trip where five employees visited nine different Vegas-area hotels
$75,000
Amount spent on team-building exercises that included building bicycles (the finished bicycles were later donated to a local Boys and Girls Club)
$58,808
Cost of “audio-visual services”
$31,208
The “networking reception” included 400 pieces of $4.75 “Petit Beef Wellington,” 400 “Mini Monte Cristo Sandwiches” ($5.00 each), 1,000 sushi rolls ($7 each), and 225 units of a $16-per-person “Pasta Reception Station”
$30,208
Amount spent on cocktail reception and award dinner
$8,000
Cost of conference souvenir books and yearbooks
$6,325
The now infamous commemorative coins in velvet boxes that were given to all participants
$5,600
Amount spent on three semi-private in-room parties
$3,750
T-shirts given to conference attendees
$3,200
What the mind reader charged
$2,781.50
Water bottles for the growing “goody bag”
$2,717.09
A private hospitality-suite party on the third night of the conference
$1,840
Vests for 19 “regional ambassadors” and other employees
$400
Cost of rented tuxes for three officials
$44
Cost per attendee for daily breakfast

Where-
MResort Las Vegas
When- 2010

Fall out-
“When the White House was informed of the inspector general’s findings, we acted quickly to determine who was responsible for such a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. The president was informed before his trip to South Korea, and he was outraged by the excessive spending, questionable dealings with contractors, and disregard for taxpayer dollars,” Lew said.
The General Services Administration’s top official abruptly resigned and her top deputies were fired or put on administrative leave Monday amid a breaking scandal that the White House chief of staff called “a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Jack Lew, White House chief of staff, said in a statement that the administration acted quickly to discipline those responsible for the scandal.

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson said she made a “significant mis-step” when her agency squandered taxpayer dollars on its annual training conference in Las Vegas in 2010.
Bob Peck, commissioner of the agency’s Public Building Service (PBS), and Johnson advisor Stephen Leeds were also removed from their positions.

Those of you who listen to our podcast know we have already talked about the innovative event that Coachella is turning out to be. Jon is headed to the concert next weekend but something happened this weekend which was pretty amazing. AVConcepts brought the famous rapper Tupac Shakur back to life using high defition technology and a lifelike hologram for the 1000,000 fans that are the Coachella audience. The Hologram was a huge hit.

You can watch below. (mature content)

Also if you want to see another example the band the Gorillaz did a similar thing with Madonna.

In the past we have pushed using characters and media to energize audiences. Think about your next event or meeting and how you could change perceptions and engage beyondpowerpoint.

Related articles

• Creator Of Tupac Hologram Says Dr. Dre Helped Bring Rapper “Back To Life” (hiphopwired.com)
• Tupac Shakur came back from the dead as a hologram at Coachella [Video] (io9.com)
• [VIDEO] Tupac Shakur Hologram at Coachella 2012: Unbelievably Amazing (practikel.com)

How does a client know when they need a production company vs. an AV company?
How does a client know when they need to outsource their social media?
How do clients find you? Word of mouth? Website? Industry involvement?
Do you ask them about their goals and objectives?
Have you ever had a situation where the internal planners were worried about you stepping on their toes?
Do a proposal that lays out the entire program, which they can then take to another company.

Please add to the conversation below or email us at meetingspodcast@gmail.com

Related articles

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• Who Should You Outsource Social Media to? [Marketing Cast] (hubspot.com)
• 4 Signs Its Time to Outsource Social Media (windmillnetworking.com)
• Should Business Owners Outsource Social Media? [Marketing Cast] (hubspot.com)

Image courtesy of 1000awesomethings.com

A recent April promotion by WestAir has many in an uproar. Others applaud the idea.

What are your thoughts?

Related articles

• The Conference Compression Factor (socialmediatoday.com)
• Reese and Jake Blend Right In With the Coachella Crowds (popsugar.com)
• The box… (grassshackroad.com)
• Radiohead, The Black Keys, Snoop Dogg and more at Coachella music festival (thezigzagger.com)
• 2012 Coachella Music Festival Lineup Revealed! (justjared.buzznet.com)

Spoiler alert!   So if you haven’t read the Hunger Games books or seen the movies (coming out this weekend) this will make no sense to you whatsoever.   I recommend reading the books first before reading this post or just seeing the movie.  I am excitied to see this movie and I really enjoyed the books which are a quick, fun read.

Someone doesn’t have to die to have a great event

Every year the Capital holds the Hunger Games in Panum and every year they try to make it better experience for the audience.

I understand driving a bunch of kids and teenagers to kill each other is a stretch for you to think about for your next meeting or event.  Some of you reading this may be smiling thinking about a fight to the death with your current executives, but realistically your yearly sales meeting or event should be building your story to get attendees fired up.

Planners should be thinking about how to engage the audience behind the over arching message you want them to recieve.

The Hunger Games main message was to keep the districts down and not taking action.    This was accomplished by striving to make each hunger games better than the last.

Get your audience to do something when they leave the event.

Take action.

Figure out what kind of talent you have for your meeting or conference and build your event story

Sometimes you have executives who are awesome at their jobs but not great speakers or presenters.  Much like Katniss Everdeem the heroine of the Hunger Games stories.  She was a terrific game player but not a great speaker.

Working with your executives before they hit the stage helps you get the message for the meeting across in a more engaging fashion.  Presenters need to understand that it is about the audience not the speaker.

Much like how Katniss learned to do this before entering the Hunger Games. She learned her role and preformed beautifully.

For your events,  offer speech coaching, presentation development, and driving the message in an engaging way.  Using videos or images can help speakers have main talking points and help the audience sponge up the content.

On the other hand Katniss teammate Peeta Mellark was a fantastic speaker and could turn an audience to the desired message or action with ease.  Working with executives like Peta is a wonderful experience for everyone involved, especially the main focus the audience.  Tag teaming these types of speakers can also work well to hold the interest of audiences.

Your meeting design drives your meetings message and moves your audience to action

The designer Cinna who led Katniss Prep team before the Hunger Games made sure that Katniss  looked the part for the message he knew the audience would resonate with.  Girl on Fire!

The bigger picture game makers especially Plutarch Heavensbee made sure the game had a fresh look and new engaging things happened in the story of the Hunger games event.  The whole effect was cohesive and drove the message of the games.

Basically, the Hunger Games is a virtual event because the audience is watching virtually from home. Even Hybrid because sponsors could send things in to help tributes.

The whole Hunger Games campaign the design is to get the audience leaning forward, interested in each next session or chapter of the event.   This is why the look and feel of your meeting or conference should drive the message through design.

Hire your own Cinna team. A production company (like Grass Shack Events & Media ) or a creative director who can build that look and feel to drive your message or story through the agenda, environmental design, media design.

If you need another example look at the MockingJay pin that Katniss wore that became the logo of a movement.  It appeared in places to move the audience in the story to action.

Think about ways you can build a brand like that with your story.

Research your companies meetings or conference history, leaders and sponsors to build engagement

Haymitch Abenathy-  Haymitch was a grumpy old drunken ex-winner for the Hunger Games who was Katniss and Petas advocate.

Where I was trying to tie Haymitch to a certain position in the events and meetings world I drew a blank.   What I do think about his character is he represents history and experience for your meeting or event.

Make sure you are researching and knowing what has happened in the past of your company, vendors and make sure you mine this information to craft your meeting or event and to build your story.

Hamish was also entrusted to handle the sponsorship duties for his tributes (Katniss/Peta) It brings to mind what and how you want to get the most from your sponsors.

Getting the right person for this job can be monumental to the success of your event.

Don’t always judge a book by its cover.

Have a cause when building your meeting or conference theme

Their are advantages to having a villain in your event story.

In the a Hunger Games the fact that Katniss was an underdog, the villans were the Capital and President Snow as the chief instigator drove the story.

In the business world having a cause or a competitor can be used to engage the story of your meeting or event.  This is tricky and should be done carefully to inspire your audience, not to “just bash or complain” about competitors.

Make sure you are clever to gain the trust of your audience to move them to some sort of action. If its selling more widgets or learning a new product useing villains or challenges from your competitors is a  good way to get your audience behind you.

• Countdown to Hunger Games: See Liam Hemsworth’s Cutest Photos! (popsugar.com)
• On The Hunger Games Trilogy (wesleygant.com)
• Leadership Lessons from the Hunger Games (colleensharen.wordpress.com

On todays show we have Yan Heim CEO of Venue Booking Service Froomz.com.  Yan discusses how Froomz.com can save venues and event planners time using this breaktrough online service.

Folks who listen to the podcast know that I’m a huge music fan and concert devotee.  One of my big plans for this year is to attend Coachella, a large and well-regarded music festival held near Palm Springs each year.  I’ve never attended before, but I’ve heard they do some very cool art installations and are very forward thinking in how they approach the entire experience for attendees.

I received an e-mail a few days ago that my wristband and shuttle pass were being shipped.  Based on past experiences I was expecting an envelope with a ticket and a pass, and maybe a guide or some other information.

Instead, I received this 6” x 9” box.  Interesting….

I opened the box and I found this:

Included was a smaller box with my wristband and shuttle pass along with detailed instructions on how to register and use them.

An event guide, that was slick and nicely done with the lineup of bands and really cool photos of past events.

A desk calendar with photos that conveniently covers the dates clear out until the 2013 festival.

A sticker (branding) to show everyone how cool I am that I’m going to Coachella.

And, lastly…the box itself that has inserts to make a freeform diorama with highlights of past stages and artworks.

So, where am I going with this?

When was the last time you registered for a conference and got a package like this?

Yes, there’s a cost to put this together, and they had to do something like 150,000 of them!  But, think about how I view the festival now.

Fun

Creative

Unusual

Valuable

Yeah, they could have sent me a wristband in an envelope and fulfilled their obligation to get it to me.  But, they took it step further and found a way to make the simple act of getting my ticket an event.  You think that enhances my excitement about my decision to attend?  You think I may show up with an open mind and waiting to be surprised by the next cool thing they do?

Heck yeah!

When was the last time people were excited about coming to your event?  You may not have Radiohead to headline it, but does every event have to fit into the same “box” that you use every year?

What if you started at the very basics…like the invitation and asked how does this support the event and it’s goals?  Changes don’t have to cost a fortune, but try something that’s different than what you’ve always done in the past.

Shake it up a little and grab you attendees’ attention.  Make a creative video, find a cool offbeat menu to serve, take the meeting outside and read Dr Seuss to all of them (I’ve seen this done by the way and it was awesome.)

Sometimes actually doing the same thing over and over and expecting the SAME result is as crazy as expecting something different.  The world keeps changing and sitting a few hundred people classroom style in front of a power point may seem the only affordable answer for an event.  But, it’s not going to grab their attention and really connect…unless it’s one really darn good power point.

Take a minute to consider what Coachella did…they sent me a box when an envelope would have done the job, but as a result of that box I’m looking at their event next month in a whole new way…

Sometimes you don’t have to be outside the box to still be innovative and engaging.

Follow Coachella on Twitter @Coachella

• Radiohead, Keys, Dre Invade the Desert for Coachella 2012 (rollingstone.com)

EastVirtual website

EastVirtual Speakers

EastVirtual event blog

TSNN Blog on EastVirtual

Michelle Bruno’s Blog Fork in the Road Blog

The EastVirtual Event Workshop is being held on March 21, 2012 at the ASAE Center in Washington, DC for a one-day, face-to-face educational seminar that will take you from having little or no virtual event knowledge to walking away, workbook in hand, with an understanding of the exact steps for building a 30-day implementation strategy. The workshop brings together the nation’s most knowledgeable and influential virtual event and meeting talent—experts on the leading edge of virtual event strategy and implementation—all at a very low investment in time and money.

Full few weeks up ahead for this huge cant miss event. Well those of us that can’t go can get a nice taste of the South by Southwest hybrid portion of the event. So if you want to check out South by Southwest online here is the link to watch the online stream of South By Southwest.

Here is the offerings and the Hashtags in one place.
Here is the round up of sessions and hash tags. I would recommend using Tweetchat.com and put in the hashtag to filter out all the other tweets. Please realize that everyone else will be seeing your tweets that are not in Tweetchat- maybe message your followers to tell them you are taking part of the steamed- hybrid event and invite them to join you!

I contacted SXSW to see if they will have social media moniters for each session. I will update this blog if they do (they are probably pretty busy)

Friday, March 9
2:00PM Wireless Wellness: App-tastic or Just Fun & Games? #sxsw #mhealth
2:00PM Rethinking Civilization for the Social Age #sxsw #rethinkciv
3:30PM Gamify and Socialize: Beyond the Buzzwords #sxsw #gamify
5:00PM The Lean Startup: The Science of Entrepreneurship #sxsw #LeanStart

Saturday, March 10
11:00AM The Start-Up of YOU: 21st Century Career Strategy #sxsw #startYOU
2:00PM Keynote: How to Read the World #sxsw #keynotunde
3:30PM Making the Real World Easier to Use #sxsw #EasyWorld
3:30PM The Secret Lives of Links #sxsw #LinkLives
5:00PM The View from Inside Rainn Wilson’s Brainstem #sxsw #rainn

Sunday, March 11
11:00AM Tapping Into America’s Secret Sauce: Entrepreneurs #sxsw #USASauce
2:00PM Keynote: Ambient Location and the Future of the Interface #sxsw #AmberCase
3:30PM The Payment Revolution is Coming: Welcome to Interchange Zero #sxsw #interchangezero
5:00PM Network Effect: Building a Business Around Sharing #sxsw #Dropbox

Monday, March 12
12:30PM Create More Value Than You Capture #sxsw #values
3:30PM Content As a Means for Social Change #sxsw #ContentAs
5:00PM Don’t Shoot the Player While They’re Learning #sxsw #gdtruisms

Tuesday, March 13
11:00AM Advise THIS! Matchmaking Startups & High Profile Advisors #sxsw #Advisors
2:00PM Coding the Next Chapter of American History #sxsw #JPahlka
3:30PM Digital Debauchery with Anthony Bourdain #sxsw #Bourdain

Related articles

• The 7 best ways to follow #SXSW from home (forbes.com)
• How to Survive #SXSW Whether You’re There or Not (likeable.com)
• Infographic: What Facebook Says About SXSW Fans (wired.com)
• 2012 SXSW LIVESTREAM Links and Schedule Listings (chrisdrinkut.wordpress.com)

Have you had any really expensive, hard, challenging load in experiences for an event, meeting or conference?

(click on image to the left)

What are your top 5 issues?

1) Adequate time to load in.

2) Space on loading dock.

3) Dock location long runs from the truck to the meeting or event space.

4) Elevators – Sometimes can set a load in to a snails pace.

5) Union issues.

They discuss a recent conference where they tag teamed  an event as Social Media monitors (to many sessions for one person to cover) and the ways they engaged the virtual audience using social media, the conference streaming companies platform.  Both Elizabeth and Lynn are a wealth of knowledge and we have already set up another date  for a follow up podcast.   As most in the meeting industry are now learning, this type of engagement with a virtual audience is not just the way of the future for meetings and conferences , it is a reality right now.   So make sure to listen to the show and add this position to your next meeting or event with a qualified person!

Elizabeth Glau is the Chief Foundation Strategist Building Blocks Social Media

Lynn Randall is the Managing Director at Randall Insights LLC

It is free to attend, get education and network. The benefits are really great for anyone interested in the meeting and events industry.

America’s newest trade show, with unprecedented business opportunities combined with a great industry gathering. In partnership with the industry’s key associations, our unique model is complemented by extensive free education and networking. This first edition of this pioneering show was held in Las Vegas, supported by our HQ Hotel, the Venetian/Palazzo, October 9-11, 2012.  Last year over 2000 hosted buyers and thousands of visiting attendees met up with over 1800 exhibitors from 147 countries. The place for the industry’s top planners to conduct serious business with destinations and suppliers from the US and around the world.

Related articles

• Interview w/IMEX Group Carina Bauer @2011 Las Vegas IMEX -Show 197 (grassshackroad.com)

Content distribution ideas! Mike gives the session he did at PCMA last month in San Diego. Some easy ways you can get more out of your meeting and conference content.  1) Grass Shack Events & Media - Creative & Technical Production
- Founder of Event Camp- all about social media and event technologies
-Meetings Podcast.
Started to  talk about three different areas of meetings– Production, AV and Third party planning
200+ shows
Thousands and thousands of downloads.

Interviews
Roundtable shows
Meetings Podcast is the Media now- attend industry events like PCMA and MPI to help distribute content.
We are the official podcast of the 2011 Virtual Edge Summit.

2) How many of you know what a podcast is?
How many of you listen to podcasts?
What shows do you listen to? —-cooking, beekeeping, poured a cement slab for a pizza over- watched a podcast on how to do it.
How many of you have created a podcasts?

3)    @ stitcher -TuneinRadio Mobile Apps and of course  itunes-

Commoncraft podcasting in plain english from Rob Sbaglia on Vimeo.

4) (KIVA SLIDE) how did I get into podcasting. I started listening to them in 2006.  Then started producing them shortly after that…
recording sessions for clients and starting meetingspodcast.
Kiva.org – micro-finance- really fun way to get the information out from the mouths of the folks in the trenches
Podshack radio-

5) (Audio-Video Slide) Podcasting can be audio or video-(rip audio from video)–
Recent study by my friend Tom Webster at Edison Research found -

-Most actually listen from a desktop computer.
-Two-thirds of podcast listeners do it in their in their cars by connecting an iPod or other MP3 player to their car audio system
70 million Americans listen to podcasts and that number s growing rapidly.

-Podcast consumers index very highly for social networking behaviors. which means it will be shared more with friends

-The podcast audience has migrated from being predominantly “early adopters” to more closely resembling mainstream media consumers.

-This equates to approximately 70 million Americans listen to podcasts. 2010

6) (Keep Members/Attendees engaged slide) What would I podcast for my association or business?  Get found!

People come to events & meetings for the experience–so keep the experience alive after and then leading up to your next event.

7) (GOOGLE SEARCH Slide) find you on the internet—–

Why not capture and distribute?
AANS -They have different feeds- all free to set up.  (Really great- different subscribe feeds for different topics)

(iTunes University)– (story)  free education….. If you are educating your members let them access it in many different ways as possible (we will talk more about that later)

9) Video Camera/Sound Board Slide) Start in by capturing your conferences and meetings contents audio and video

Talk to your production company or AV company and tell them you want to record it and what it is for. Put it in your RFPs- work with a livestream company to capture (sonic foundry)

10)  Also start thinking about recording stand alone podcasts- Think about how your audience might like there content, try different things ask for feedback…

Weekly or monthly digests of what is going on in your niche or industry.
Interviews,
Panel discussions
Debates.
How to’s. _ Get great downloads
Demos
Episodic (script some show)
Monthly sit downs with leadership- answer questions from members. (wells fargo)

Make them in familiar radio formats such as news shows, plays, talk shows, reports from the field, journalistic investigations and so on they seem to work best.  But down and dirty recordings/interviews are also great.

11)  Distribution—- Kid slide
Distribution (title of the talk!!)
Engage and give more experiences to members and find new members.

People learn differently- so give them content in as many ways as you can.

Put those videos down your rss/subscription feed and use your distribution channels.
Also ebooks or pdfs can also go down your feed….. very versatile for your audience.

12) Captured Content Slide
Transcribe it-  Crabtree solutions
Summerize sessions Mitchell

13) Audio and Video Podcast Files
Break down into blog posts (summaries of recordings to – Mitchell Beers company Conference Publishers)
Articles for industry magazines/websites
Newsletters and email marketing messages
amazon eBooks  —  (4 million kindles were sold this holiday season) – ebook sales are up 175%… you can put them up there from free.
Yearly Highlight Conference Book?  Blurb.com  ( Hire a photographer)

14) Podcast Sessions/Show  files
Player on your website & Blog
youtube (make it interesting to look at) Use you audio file and add images (art card video) nothing gets lost in translation- Powerful tool
Itunes & Stitcher
You tube Channel
Wikipedia  for your association.  Best ranking spot. Add links to shows you create.
Webinars with content- bring speakers in for Q & A

14)SOCIAL MEDIA
Make sure you take the time to do- descriptions filled in(transcripts) – tags- hashtags- keywords (use free google adwords tools to find the best phrases in your descriptions for higher rankings)

Twitter (industry hashtags)
Facebook (groups) status post to page
Linkedin (groups) status
Google+Page on google+. Google is ranking google plus pages higher. fill it with your content- shows etc….
Industry Forum boards

Hands on— so if you want to create a podcast right now download the mobile apps:  italk, audio boo, evernote app or sign into blogtalk radio, ustream which are all free services to capture your content.
After you have captured it. Email the file or link and send it to a friend and there you will have your first podcast.

If you want to go farther with that podcast go to Itunes and read Apple’s own guide to Making a Podcast. For all the info on using their service to get it out to your audience.
———————————————————————————-

How to record a podcast.
Meetingspodcast has been made the same way basically since we started-
1) We record with skype for interviews.  (call recorder- $$$)
2) Conference call service that records calls and exports an mp3 for those who dont use skype
3) Bring the file into Garageband (Apple) and before that Audacity for the PC- simple bumpers that I use each time…. my wife reads a small intro and outro to music from a friends band (Delgato brothers)
4) Export to itunes- fill in id3 tags
4) Upload it to Libsyn.com  hosts the file.
5) Grab the link to put on your blog from libsyn
6) fill out description, tags and use google adwords.  (also where you can put your transcripts if you like…add links to trusted sites so your readers and google can find you for organic search–  Use the more button)

Post!

8)  Now this free content you have sent out to the world.

Related articles

• Remember That a Podcast is Just One Tool in Your Online Armoury (blogworld.com)

Related articles

• PCMA 2012 Show (grassshackroad.com)
• Sexiest Presentation Smackdown At PCMA/VES (grassshackroad.com)
• Virtual Edge Summit Hybrid Event Speakers- Show 204 (grassshackroad.com)
• Speaking at the upcoming PCMA Event (georgevanantwerp.com)
• PCMA Launches New Ad Campaign: ‘That’s What PBMs Do’ (prweb.com)

After seeing so many sessions the  below clever video reasonated with me. I myself fall into this script trap of what we think we are suppose to do when speaking to a group.  Though our creative team at Grass Shack designs awesome presentations and coaching for executives so they engage.   Speakers can learn a ton from the tricks of professional speakers, marketers, designers and PR folks to engage the audiences.

Adding a story to your presentation, images (no clip art) and knowing your audience is so important to get them hooked and learning your message.

The convention center was pretty overwhelming with the vast amount of sessions and a whole other conference taking place in the same venue: The Virtual Edge Summit.  But nobody was complaining.  The PCMA  Learning Lounge had several sessions going on at once.  Which worked really well but I did see some fantastic speakers with nobody sitting in the audience.  Sad.  But the Velvet Chainsaw guys who put it on are smart cookies and I am sure next year they will evolve it even more.

MeetingsPodcast was the official podcast of VES. Something we have never done and it was really fun.  This really meant we interviewed many of the speakers and then posted them on the VES site so attendees could get a taste of the sessions.  Many many downloads later we think will offer this service up  to help organizers and attendees get more out of the conferences they are attending.

If we had to give out a sexiest presentation award it really should go to Sexy Greg Ruby with his Foursquare session because that is the nickname given to him by eventprofs at Event Camp. I guess he holds the unofficial title!

Several podcasts are on the way from the show. Stay tuned.

The Stitcher Application is great because you never need to download the podcasts from your computer to your device. It is On Demand! As we launch a new show it will automatically appear on your mobile device!  Cool huh?

Related articles

• Stitcher pulls in $10 million in new funding (ipodnn.com)
• Thanks to Our Weekly Sponsor: Stitcher Smart Radio (iphone.appstorm.net)
• Stitcher Secures New Round of Funding For Internet Talk Radio (alltopstartups.com)

Jon Trask and Greg Ruby discuss the 2012 PCMA and Virtual Edge Summit in San Diego. (Greg also did a facinating talk on Foursquare) Overall the show hit it out of the park!

General Session made some changes and using Skype to bring in speaker Sally Hogstead making the general session a actual Hybrid event.

Other topics covered:

Jane McGonigal

John Medina, MD

David Rich George P Johnson

Amount of sessions

PCMA Tweetup

MeetingsPodcast Meetup

This podcast showcases some of the speakers at the Virtual Edge Summit that we interviewed!

Adam Arthur, CDC Virtual Platform Initiative Lead, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
Dave Nielsen, Founder, CloudCamp
Kevin Novak, Vice President of Integrated Web Strategy and Technology, AIA

Related articles

• MeetingsPodcast is Official Podcast of The Virtual Edge Summit (grassshackroad.com)
• Virtual Edge Institute Releases Its Top 7 Predictions for Virtual Meeting Technology for The New Year (prweb.com)
• Interview with Michael Douglas of GenieMobile Show 201 (grassshackroad.com)
• Virtual Edge Institute Announces bXb Online’s $100,000 Commitment Towards the Digital Event Strategist Certification Program and Virtual Edge Summit Education (prweb.com)
• Virtual Edge Summit Hybrid Event Speakers- Show 204 (grassshackroad.com)

“Hybrid Events 101”

Todays show is a continuation of the Primer Series of educational podcasts for meeting planners and event organisers.  Mike McAllen founder of Event Camp and the producer of three EventCamp Hybrid events, plus technically producing many other corporate and association meetings and events using the Hybrid model. He discusses Hybrid Events 101.

If you are attending Virtual Edge Summit  or PCMA Mike or Jon would love to connect!  The MeetingsPodcast is the official Podcast of the Virtual Edge Summit Show!

Check out these other Blog posts to work on content for your hybrid meeting or hybrid event along with production.

Tips for making your Hybrid event “Quick, Light and Easy”

Top Blogs on Virtual Events

Hybrid Events with John Pollard 

Hybrid Meetings Offer Scalable Content Delivery

Hybrid Meetings Offer the Best of both Worlds
 

Interview with Mitchell Beer  (mitchell<@>theconferencepublishers.com) from Conference Publishers.    I have been a big fan of Mitchell and how his company captures content for meetings and events.

They capture targeted session summaries and sharp, compelling news capsules.

They gather and report the content as it is happening.

They also can help you develop onsite content and maximize its impact—before, during, and after the event.

I do like muffins.

Check this video out!

Lighting Choreographer – concept and system description - from drpopeye on Vimeo.

“How to look at a meetings venue like a Technical Director.” 

Jon gives some easy tips and tricks anyone who is putting on a meeting or event can use.  If you have any questions please email us at meetingspodcast@gmail.com and we will get right back to you.  This third edition to the Free Meetings Podcast Primer Series intends to provide AV knowledge for corporate audio visual planners for your meetings and events worldwide.

Jon Trask has always delivered on-budget and stress-free audio visual services and is in the business of making you look good.

Meetings Podcast Primer Series intends to provide AV  knowledge so that you get the most out of your services and rentals for meetings and events worldwide. Whether you’re organizing a 120,000-attendee conference, or simply need a microphone and speakers for a small presentation Jon and Mike are dedicated to the success of your event and ultimately your success.

If you have any questions please email Meetingspodcast@gmail.com or call 510 595 6921

Related articles

• How to look at a meetings venue on a site survey Primer Series (2)- Show 199 (grassshackroad.com)
• How to do Meetings Audio 101 Primer Series (1)- Show 196 (grassshackroad.com)
• Pixar FX Technical Director John Reisch and Effects Supervisor Gary Bruins Talk CARS 2 (collider.com)
• MeetingsPodcast is Official Podcast of The Virtual Edge Summit (grassshackroad.com)

Look for our booth at the conference where we will be interviewing, networking and enjoying the warm weather in San Diego. Please stop by and say hello.

Jon Trask continues on the Grass Shack Events Media/ Meetings Podcast

Primer series:

“How to look at a meetings venue on a site survey.” 

Jon gives some easy tips and tricks anyone who is putting on a meeting or event can use.  If you would like a copy of the check list please email us at meetingspodcast@gmail.com and we will send you one.

imex america

Todays show has Jon interviewing the CEO of IMEX Group Carina Bauer @ 2011 Las Vegas IMEX show.

Interesting perspective on how the Las Vegas IMEX show went and how much business had transpired at the show.

Is IMEX for everyone?

Who benefits from IMEX?

Related articles

• A breath of fresh air – First edition of IMEX America reinvigorates business with successful new collaborative model (hotelier.typepad.com)

The focus of Meetings Podcast Primer Series is to educate, train, our community on the ins and outs of our industry. Becides Mike and Jon we plan to bring in experts in all catagories of event and meetings. Our goal is to a add an educational componet to Meetings Podcast. Our audience is a wide demographic andfrom the emails and meetinsg we have had some have asked for tools and resources to create, plan and execute more engaging meetings & events.

If you are a student or a seasoned planner who wants to hear from other professionals we will have an easy way to the subjects you need on demand through a podcast which can be downloaded from the Itunes store for free.

On today’s show we speak with John Pollard from Sonic Foundry about Hybrid Events.

He defines a hybrid event, explains how to do a hybrid event.

Transcripts:

Welcome back to the Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen from Grass Shack Events & Media and today we have John Pollard who is the Event Services Program Director from Sonic Foundry on the show to talk a little bit about hybrid events. Most of the people who listened to the show probably know about Sonic Foundry and probably know about you, John.

Speaker 2: Well, that’s great to hear. Yeah, Sonic Foundry is now around for a little while. Maybe I should tell you a little bit about that just real quick. Sonic Foundry started in 1991 primarily creating tools, personal desktop tools for editing sound and video tools like Sound Forge, Acid, Vegas video and things of that nature and during the tech boom we bought a lot of companies and one of those companies was a company called Media Site and early in 2000 we sold all our other applications to Sony and focused primarily on the Media Site Technology which is a webcasting platform and one of the things that a lot of people probably don’t know in the events world is that we support hundreds well, actually we support thousands of customers but hundreds of educational institutions throughout the world use our technology to capture classroom content that is going on you know tens of thousands of content every semester is being captured using our technology. So what we do in my side of the business is we use that same technology to go to events and help capture content.

Speaker 1: Neat.

Speaker 2: [0:02:06] [Inaudible].

Speaker 1: Is that how they do like the — my wife actually is just looking into right now taking an online course like and is that — I’m assuming that’s how they do it then that wider capturing all these stuff for you know.

Speaker 2: Well, right. There are tons of ways to capture content. We believe that our solution is the easiest and the most reliable and the best supported solution. Obviously that’s what companies say about themselves. But I think with us easy to use and reliable and supported key terms. Yeah, so there’s a strong chance that she’s taking an online course that it is using Media Site.

Speaker 1: Very cool. Very, very cool. And so why don’t you also share who the heck you are and how you got into this business.

Speaker 2: Right. That’s a great question, thanks. It’s what we do, right when we talk back and forth.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: I’ve been in high tech for you know 17 years or 20 years something like that and works for a lot of basically big companies with acronyms, companies like SAP and I’ve worked for large financial institutions and eCommerce and came to Madison to work for a startup and that crashed with all the other startups that crashed in the tech room and after a period in and actually the creative world working with advertising I connected with folks here in Sonic Foundry and I started here actually as a product manager.

So coming to this from understanding requirements, listening to customers, what do they want, what do they need and help drive a lot of what is in today’s product and what we use to leverage on both sides and how it was bought in the education world and the corporate world too in training and eLearning that sort of thing and taking that into the events.

Now I shifted into the events world just within the last actually this year to make sure that we are delivering the types of solutions that our clients are looking for — clients like you Mike or like event planners or production companies and that sort of thing trying to make it easy but also some of the events, the way events people need content, need to use that content is a little bit different from the educational world but the interesting thing about the tie between education and events is that really and actually I was just watching a guy talking about education and he’s talking about learning and you know one of the guys that spoke at Event Camp Europe was talking about the ROI events and talking about a large focus of being really on learning.

[0:05:08]

I mean we all wanna be there together. We want you know network with people and we wanna have those experiences but one of the primary objectives of coming together for an event is typically learning. So the tie between our educational routes and how it’s use in the technology and how it’s been use in events is actually closer than one might think.

Speaker 1: I agree. It is interesting too that you said that because I was thinking about that like I was just actually just watching like this. I was just doing a blog post about the Old Spice commercial and how they did that and how you know the production behind it but they really had goals before that you know and when you’re putting on an event there’s goals that you know part of it is not just to have an event but they’re trying to get some sort of message across, right. So the hybrid event really helps because you’re not just at that event you can carry it on you know –

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: — afterwards. Much like you’re talking about education so this is all being captured. You know you can give it legs, all the stuff. Don’t just have that week of your conference but you know talk about you know having the people another places, getting excited about it also being able to share it later is such a huge, huge thing.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. So let’s just — just for the sake of clarity and in case and not to exclude anyone. Let’s just define what a hybrid event is because I know it’s kind of [Cross-talk].

Speaker 1: Wait a minute. That was my first question.

Speaker 2: Oh, did I just steal your question?

Speaker 1: I don’t get to say anything if I don’t get to ask the questions but yes, I’m just kidding. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: No, I just wanna explain and everybody’s got maybe a slightly different definition but you know a simple way to think of a hybrid event is just that we’re taking a physical meeting at a location where there are onsite attendees and we are adding an online component to that event and I think at the base level and again I mean the base level is making content available from that. There are all sorts of other interactive ways you know chats and discussions and other applications that can be built around but at the basic level when you’re making some of that content available from an onsite location then you can easily create a hybrid event into your point and you can bring people and extend the reach of that event while it’s happening and this is something I’d like to talk more about is okay, then we can talk about taking that and using that throughout the year.

You think of that event as just one touch point in this yearlong strategy of customer contact or community contact. You know you’re reaching out to your people, you’re trying to have reasons to connect with your people, your groups, your prospects, your customers or whatever and the content from these events can be a great starter if you will, a great way to create discussions, continue the conversation as Emilie Barta was doing a lot recently and one of the shows she was virtually emceeing. A great way to continue that conversation and take it on and keep people involved with your brand basically. It’s a very, very much a marketing thing and it’s more of a strategic thing. We just happen to unable some technology that supports them.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And it goes back to the goals. You have to have goals you know. I’ve so many worked over the years with people that just have an event to have an event you know and it’s.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: If you don’t have any kind of what’s that action you want those people watching or attending what do you want them to do. When they walked out there you should have a goal like this. What is that you want to be? Do you want them to buy something? Do you want them to sell more stuff? Do you want them to you know it’s really something so basic but people don’t always think about that you know and that’s sad because in my business it’s become a lot of that.

We’re just coming in and putting up stages you know and hooking up cameras and there’s no talk about that but this hybrid event I think really can — it’s an actual great way to start a conversation about all that. For me it’s been and we don’t always get to do any kind of a hybrid portion of it but it’s always kind of brings in that conversation can come up and go okay, well I know you wanna have all your people talk but where are those goals you know that you’re going through.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely and that’s why I like that ROI discussion from Event Camp Europe where Dr. Elling Hamso is talking about and it kinda blew me away because he says just a matter of fact you know event ROI is actually really easy.

[0:10:10]

I was like okay, you caught my attention there. It’s so easy. Okay, well how easy is it and his thing is like look, if you’ve changed attitudes or changed behaviors then you can measure the ROI and if you have not changed attitudes or behaviors well, then your ROI is gonna be lower. Specifically he’s talking about learning and saying look, if you haven’t changed somebody’s behaviors or attitudes then they didn’t learn anything and hence your event was not very valuable so.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. He was very good. He was really good. I have to get him on the podcast.

Speaker 2: I bet that would be interesting. He might be more interested in me I don’t know. He’s a doctor.

Speaker 1: He is a doctor.

Speaker 2: Oh, you aren’t?

Speaker 1: Stage name like doctor or something. Play it on TV.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: So what goes into a hybrid event because we’ve kinda talked about that also?

Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s another great question, Mike and I’m glad you asked. Basically, from our standpoint again there are different levels of hybrid event but let’s just talk about what’s the simplest way to like get started with a hybrid event. It would be to take some of that content. Let’s say you’re really nervous about this and you’re maybe overwhelmed by the concept.

You know one way to get started would be just to take maybe some of your general sessions and make those available or maybe take one room that’s happening at your event and make that content available. You could do that live or capture it and turn it around quickly. You know what we like to do and part of our technology enables is, is for people to get that content even if they’re not doing it live but to get it up really quickly so that they can keep that online audience actively involved in what’s going on at around the same time that it’s happening.

So look, let’s face it. People can’t always get to the event. It’s not that they don’t wanna be there it’s just like hey, either the resources they don’t have the budget or they just don’t have the time scheduling or what have you it just doesn’t work out. So what you’re doing is like I said before allowing that event to extend its reach, include these people that really would be there if they could be there but they can’t be there.

So help them be a part of it anyway by making some of those sessions available. Once you’ve experimented with that and you’ve had some success with maybe capturing one room or just some general sessions then you can look at you know capturing everything and then what goes into that is basically in the room where the event is happening in the case if you’re working with Sonic Foundry Events Services what happens is we just slide in next to your existing AV so what we do is we have a recorder that we designed and developed and actually we do all those [0:13:09] [Inaudible].

So we bring that in, slide in next to existing AV company that you’re working with or what have you. We just take feeds from them so we take the house audio feed, we take a video feed, now we take a feed from the VGA that’s coming out in the back typically of a laptop and then the recorder does all the work basically in terms of synchronizing presentation content and video content and makes that web ready so that it can be streamed to your online audience.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is a really easy, easy solution which is a huge thing because I’ve done you know satellite trucks and stuff in the past and you know to get some kind of a feed going out I mean in the past of course I’m not doing that these days very often but.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: It is really simple. It’s just literally is a box hooked in and then you get an operator from you guys or you know I guess there’s freelance people out there that do this, that they can get. Either way, anyway. It’s really a simple solution. And there are other ways to do it. I mean I’m not gonna tell you that you can’t do it other ways. There are other approaches that involve putting software on our presenter’s laptop or they’re involved other combinations of technology. I’m just saying the way it works with us is we come in there with the recorder, we slide the next DAV, we plug it in and go basically. You know I wouldn’t lie to you and say we’re the only way to do it.

Speaker 2: No. No. There’s gazillion ways to do it but it is in my experience you guys have been very easy and I’ve worked I think a couple of times now and it’s been just really simple experience and simple medium. It worked really well and it was easy and it wasn’t something that I had to worry about which is for everybody who plans events, knows those are the things you look for. Things that work that you know you don’t have to worry about so.

[0:15:12]

Speaker 2: Right, and maybe really quick to just insert and if I’m an event planner or I’m an event whatever I’m overseeing the event and I am in charge of determining whether we’re gonna do hybrid. Maybe some of the questions you wanna ask about whatever technology you use is you know is there any impact on the presenter, are they gonna have to do anything. I’m just saving with us, we don’t change the way the presenter presents.

So there’s [0:15:39] Inaudible]. They’re not uploading presentations but you know again, there are different approaches but that’s something to consider you might ask about turnaround time, how quickly can we get that content available if it’s not live. If you want it live then that’s another thing to ask if you want it live or if they do live. So those are some questions we can consider and that’s interesting too because the hybrid portion of it I mean you’re capturing it that’s one thing you could just capture. You don’t have to live stream it.

Speaker 2: No.

Speaker 1: Not at all but I mean that’s a great addition to have. I mean much like these pods you know that we have done at these Event Camps. I mean we’ve been doing that forever. There wasn’t a name for them but you know you stream it out into a different room at the event maybe an overflow room or something that’s the same thing.

Speaker 2: Certainly something you can do, yup.

Speaker 1: Yeah, there’s an overflow of throw. An overflow room you know when you have too many people you might be brining it out it’ just you’re brining it out anywhere. So it could be anywhere in the world really that you have an internet connection.

Speaker 2: Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting. It is something that’s very accessible that I think people should think about more to grow audiences also. Our company does mostly internal events for companies like we don’t do a lot of you know conferences. I mean we’ve done a few. We have a couple conference clients that do big association kind of stuff but I am always kind of pushing it saying you know they’re always complaining about like the budgets and they can’t bring people in and like the whole pod thing is really a great option because you don’t have to fly everybody in. You fly in you know I mean of course you want everybody there because there is that face-to-face interaction that you can’t really get over the internet regardless but you can do the pod thing where you have teams in different areas and they can be involved.

Speaker 2: I think you’re right.

Speaker 1: And then if you’re capturing I mean there you go again they can go back later and go hey, I want you know everybody watch this kind of a thing or you know. It’s just a really great way to keep content go in and it is really affordable when you look at it as an event option.

Speaker 2: And I like what you’re saying about the pods and I think the pods are gonna become more interesting as we go and I think that will be a fun one to explore and another one of these maybe not separate podcast because there is so much that you can do then. With that concept it’s just that it does I think involved to your point about goals and planning. You know you gotta think a little bit more to make that an interesting experience but at the basic level people have in information. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: And would we call that podcast a podcast.

Speaker 2: Well, that’s interesting Mike.

Speaker 1: I really wanna do that now. [Cross-talk].

Speaker 2: They’ll be no confusion or anything, right.

Speaker 1: That’s fantastic. We have to do that right away. You should trademark that name.

Speaker 1: Okay, so what else do we talk about? It’s funny because for this stuff I love talking to you or Erica, the lovely Erica about [0:19:01] [Inaudible]. People are so fantastic. And I’m not kissing your ass at all because there aren’t like you guys.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: But there’s so much that goes into this that we can’t chat about. So what do you think what else — I think we should.

Speaker 2: Well, how I can leverage that strategic portion, right. I was just thinking that let’s talk maybe a little bit about how could use this technology before an event, during an event and then after the event.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: If it would make sense. So let’s say you are you know you’re getting ready you have this event coming up and of course everybody is trying to drive interest in the event, get people to register, get people to attend. Well, one of the things that we’ve had pretty good success with in some of our own company events is actually creating little trailers for the sessions.

[0:20:10]

So the presenters have put together little one, two minute clip that sort of gives a highlight, just a video that they shoot and then they send that over and upload that to the backend you know part of our webcasting platform and then they can embed that on their event site and make it available to the attendees before they even get there so the same platform that you can use to stream the content during the event. You can actually use in advance as sort of backend content management system to get out all their content to that audience to use to market if you will.

So beforehand I think that’s a cool way to do it. It would be to have some little trailers if you will that would help people understand where they’re getting into, where they signing up for?, and maybe that would even you know if somebody were on the fence like oh, should I go and I’m not really sure if I know anything about this event. Maybe I’ve never been to that event. I don’t know. Even that might be even not enough to say oh, that looks really cool. I’m going you know. Other people that you know maybe our new Mike maybe I’m gonna test the waters this year just by checking it out. Then again there are all those people that we’ve already talked about. We just can’t get there.

So then during the event you can obviously take that content and you can have that embedded in any number of web applications or you know just to have simple pages that are displayed the content. You know you could try that with Twitter for other discussions, chat forms that sort of thing. During the event too you can also use platforms like ours to ask questions that they can be sending to the speaker or the moderator of that room that can be asking those questions but the idea here is you know and I think one of the things that some of the Event Camps have done really well is experimented and trying to pull in that online audience and keep them actively engaged with the event as it’s going because you know if I can’t get there but I’m interested in the topic I’ll watch that and I wanna be tweeting and I’m following the tweets and I’m seeing what people are saying and it gives me a sense of real participation in the event even though I’m not there.

Then after the event obviously now I’ve got well, I could have tons of content depending on the size of my event but now I’ve got this rich, hopefully rich content that you had all these experts there, you got it captured and now you can start sort of trickling that out throughout the year reminding people that it’s there. Maybe you’re embedding that content into a community site that you have or maybe you’re embedding it into blogs or discussion forums where you’re trying to get people to continue thinking about that or discussing it or changing their behavior based on what they’ve learned you know taking it the next step if you will after the content and then when it gets to be closer to next year’s event you can use some of that content or take little snippets of that content. You know just take in our solution we have a really simple editor that would allow you to sort of create new presentations just from little short pieces of the presentation so that you have like highlights from last year and say hey, this is what happened last year, get excited of what’s coming up this year and something that would make people feel like yeah, we wanna be there.

Speaker 1: Very cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2: I mean that’s just you know obviously there are tons of ways that if you have great content and you’re thinking strategically and you’re marketing and you have all these initiatives at your organization and especially as event planners and event professionals I think it would be who to help our clients be more strategic about these things and offer them some solid thinking about you know we provide technology. That’s’ what we do but you guys as the people that are working with those clients you can add a lot of value by helping them think differently about these events and how they can broaden the reach, the scope and how that fits into their overall marketing plan for the year.

Speaker 1: You know it’s great to have because like you said there is gazillion stuff you can do like gazillion amount of things you could do around hybrid events but what you’ve just explained before, during and after is a good little kind of road map for people to think about, to get started too. I mean there’s some things that they can do and it’s very simple and giving your event legs after the event is just an awesome thing. They build it up for the next one.

Speaker 2: I agree. I think that yeah, that’s a great way.

[0:25:00]

Speaker 1: But it’s so simple. I mean it’s really simple. It’s really a simple solution too that would really market your event like crazy. An easy way to get a lot of content to market like crazy or plus if you want I mean that’s to increase attendance but of course if you wanna keep your content going for your sales people or your whatever, whoever, whatever they’re doing your widget makers.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: This is all the stuff that can be — you just refuse in so many different ways.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah and I think if I’m an event professional if I’m going into that client you know you could almost have a little workshop with these people and do something very simple like that. You know get your light poured out and put people, during, after and talk about, brainstorm a little bit about how are we gonna touch these people, how are you gonna involved these people. What can we handle? What you know not biting off more than we can you know physically handle in terms of people who are gonna be able to monitor this. You know I think sometimes you feel like you need to go, get really crazy but there’s just a lot of value in starting off simple too and just –

Speaker 1: Oh, I agree.

Speaker 2: — experimenting, getting that because there’s nothing that sells the concept more than just having some basic successes. So hey, if you have a long term relationship with these clients or you wanna have a long term relationship you can’t look at this like I just wanna get this one and that. You gotta be thinking and look, I wanna build, I wanna do all their events. I wanna be doing, I wanna work with these people so I wanna help them think a little bit you know more than just transactional on this one event.

Speaker 1: Right. Right. Right. Right. No, that’s great. It’s a nice I was just — my mind is whirling now about [mom]. I need to present that’s better with clients, it’s a great way of the smart, before, after should be I mean that should be done just regardless for your event not even talking hybrid.

Speaker 2: I mean I’m not yeah, I’m not [Cross-talk]. You know from my standpoint it seems that I would mix some.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Alright John, so how can people get a hold of you if they wanted to talk to you more about this?

Speaker 2: Mike, again that’s another fabulous question. Thank you.

Speaker 1: That is so insincere. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: I have to give you a hard time. Its well, you can reach me on you know email is johnp as in johnp@sonicfoundry.com. I’m on Twitter occasionally @johnp_sofo. johnp_sofo.

Speaker 1: Sonic foundry that’s what it is right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, [0:27:49] [Inaudible] if you’re interested in buying stuff, please do and you can find us on the Nasdq@sofo as well.

Speaker 1: Very cool.

Speaker 2: That’s at sonicfoundry.com. I’m happy to you there.

Speaker 1: Alright.

Speaker 2: I’m happy to see you at the next event.

Speaker 1: Yes, Yes. Alright, John, so I look forward to talking to you again. I think we should do our podcast.

Speaker 2: Yeah. [Cross-talk].

Speaker 1: So people look out for that and I will talk to you soon, John.

Speaker 2: Thanks Mike.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Related articles

• Hybrid Meetings Offer Scalable Content Delivery (grassshackroad.com)
• Why hybrid meetings and events will continue to grow in popularity. (grassshackroad.com)

Organizers Traci Browne and Greg Ruby, talk about what you can expect when attending EventCamp East Coast.  They will be following the Conferences That Work peer-conference format developed by Adrian Segar, there will be a cross-country virtual connection with EventCamp Vancouver on Sunday as well.

Related articles

• EventCamp East Coast moves to the Nation’s Capital! (eventcamp.org)
• Make Plans for EventCamp East Coast November 4-6 (grassshackroad.com)
• Two Concurrent EventCamps to Occur in DC and Vancouver, BC! (eventcamp.org)
• Tahira Endean from EventCamp Vancouver Show 186 (grassshackroad.com)
• The Making of an Event Camp (eventcamp.org)

On today’s show we interview Jason Falls of No Bullshit Social Media

Jason gives some examples of how small and medium sized companies have used social media and a little taste of what you can find in his new book.

Some links to find his book and where you can contact Jason.

http://nobullshitsocialmedia.com/book

Jason’s Blog http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com

Jason wrote the book with Erik Deckers. It’s from Que Publishing and is entitled No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing.

Also if you are in the Boston area check out a show Jason is involved in.

Awareness Exploring Social Media Business Summit  Monday, October 17, 2011 from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM (ET)

Whether you’re a small business owner looking for answers, a brand marketer hoping to learn what’s next for your brand or an agency or firm connecting companies with their customers through social channels, this power-packed day puts you in the know. The top thinkers and practitioners in the industry will bring practical, actionable to-dos that you can begin using immediately to help your business become more social and successful.
Awareness and Exploring Social Media are proud to present the Awareness Exploring Social Media Business Summit, an all-day, intensive learning event, Monday, October 17, 2011 at the Boston Marriott Burlington. Speakers include Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang, Shift Communications principal Todd Defren, OneForty.com’s Laura Fitton and a Who’s Who of digital marketing and social media marketing notables.

ESM and Social Media Explorer CEO Jason Falls, Content Rules authors C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley, mobile and event marketing expert Tim Hayden, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies co-author Mike Schneider, Awareness’s Mike Lewis, email and social media marketing expert DJ Waldow and SocialFresh founder Jason Keath will also speak at the Summit. The event will also have a brand and agency case study panel that includes Dave Kerpen from Likeable Media, Rick Racela from Comcast Sports Group, Jonas Nieslen of Mindjumpers and Taulbee Jackson from Radious

 

Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen from Grass Shack Events & Media and today’s guest is Jason Falls from the Social Media Explorer. He also has a new book out called No Bullshit Social Media. I met Jason several years ago in Las Vegas when he had one too many slushies at and he made an ass out of himself.

Speaker 2: Oh, I did. Okay. That’s not how I remember it but alright.

Speaker 1: I’ve been trying to change the perception of that. I put something into that so anyway Jason, thank you for talking with me and it was actually me who drank too much but you introduced me to the slushies of Las Vegas so.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. We had a good time and that was fun.

Speaker 1: That was a really fun time. No, it really wasn’t that fun. I mean I’ve never had a good time but I was very hazy after that because I had had with [Brogan] I just met him it was like a podcasting thing. Was it a podcasting conference?

Speaker 2: It could have been. Yeah.

Speaker 1: And I’d sat next to him and he had another little conference attached to it the Bourquin brothers had put on and he and I sat there the whole day. I had no idea who he was I mean he wasn’t at his you know popularity that he has now but he’s such a great guy. We sat and chatted. We sat next to each other the whole time and then he said oh you gotta meet my friend Jason and of course I meet him at a bar and the bartender was an old college buddy of mine so the drinks were a little heavily concocted I guess is a good way to put it.

Speaker 2: Yes, they were pretty potent.

Speaker 1: So yeah, that was fun time but anyway sorry, we should get off at that and get back to you because that’s why we’re here. So why don’t you tell the audience who you don’t know you from your slushy fame.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I like to jokingly sometimes tell people that I am a social media douchebag but I am a social media consultant and strategist. I have a long career in marketing and public relations but use social media on a personal level for a long time and then in 2005/2006 I started you know taking ideas to clients and an advertising agency that I was working at that time named Joe Anderson in Kentucky and it just so happened that some of our clients included Makers Mark Bourbon and a couple of other pretty big brands and that was an era where there were no social media strategist in the spirits industry anyway and so because some of my ideas actually you know made it to market and what not I got invited to speak at some places and do case studies and what not, did you know run the interactive department and did social strategy by Joe Anderson for a few years, left a couple of years ago to go out on my own as an independent consultant and now I’ve expanded my consultancy to an educational and information products company.

We’re working on market research products that we hope to launch this fall. We do events exploring social media business summits and then we also have exploringsocialmedia.com which is an online learning community and question and answer site where you can ask digital marketing experts not just me but other people as well. The questions you have and work through some of the trouble areas in not only the technology but also the marketing and communications problem. So that’s’ what I do. sociamediaexplorer.com is my blog. It’s been I guess an off red and heralded social media industry blog for a while now and that’s kind of what I’m up to.

Speaker 1: Very cool. And you’re up to a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: And you have this new book.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So tell us about this book. I love the title.

Speaker 2: Yeah, No Bullshit Social Media is the title sort of stems from kind of my approach and my attitude especially when I go out and speak about social media because I have a very practical no nonsense business approach to social media. I don’t think that social media is all about joining the conversation and engaging and holding hands in the circle and singing Kumbaya. If you add the word marketing to the phrase social media you’re talking about business and so you have to talk about business metrics, you have to talk about you know profits and revenues and customer service and customer satisfaction.

So you got to talk about a lot of things other than just holding hands in a circle and singing Kumbaya and so the book really confronts that what we call the social media purist which we lovingly refer to in the book is tree huggers and hippies and we basically say look joining the conversation, engaging, listening all of the philosophical tenets that social media purist dispels.

[0:05:07]

We don’t disagree with them. We think that you need to have them sure but that’s not all that you need. You need you know the business awareness of what you’re doing and you need to be able to drive people and persuade people to do things and so the book really has that sort of no nonsense approach. Let’s stop being tree huggers and hippies and let’s start figuring out how this works for business. In the book the underlying sort of outline of the book is that it takes you through understanding the seven business drivers of social media marketing, what social media can do for your business so that you can decide which ones you wanna focus on and then we talked about how to approach those strategically and measure them.

Speaker 1: Very awesome and now I had written to you about these before because I you know read up on you a little bit and listen to some podcasts other podcasts that you had been on and I was offended by the whole hippies thing because I live right here in Berkeley, California area and you know I grew up in San Francisco. My parents are from the Ashbury area. I’m actually a child of that whole love time.

Speaker 2: Sure. Well.

Speaker 1: So I was thinking what he’s [0:06:15.

Speaker 2: Yeah, keep in mind now again we don’t think the hippies and tree huggers are 100% wrong. We just think you know they’re not 100% complete and the reference is and we say in the book and I’m happy to say now I consider myself to be a social media purist. I agree with all those tenets. I just wanna take it a few steps further and so you know we just try to have a very practical approach to social media marketing that goes beyond the puritanical philosophical tenets that people have been espousing for so long.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And there are even several social media purist out there who will say to you, you cannot sell using social media and you can’t measure human interactions therefore you can’t measure social media and we’re trying to make sure that business people understand that those are myths and those are things that we need to call bullshit on.

Speaker 1: Oh, and I think that’s great because I have a small business. I have for the last 10 years and I have been heavily involved in social media kind of stuff but I just enjoyed it because I like just knocking to people so I’m --

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 1: -- right away. But I have really had a problem with using it for business because I’m not politically correct all the time but I do own my own business it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care but you know people wanna work with me; they wanna work with me because they wanna work with me. They you know it’s not.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: So I am excited about reading the book and I have not read it. Is it out?

Speaker 2: It is out. In fact…

Speaker 1: It just came out though didn’t it because?

Speaker 2: Yeah, it just came out and actually we’ve gotten confirmation that it is actually in bookstores now. So they’ve started actually filtering in the bookstores. It’s been available online for ordering for a few weeks from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and places like that and there are online retail outlets but it is now actually in stores. We have some photographic evidence that it’s on shelves.

Speaker 1: Nice.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we’re excited to get it out there and get it in people’s hands and excited for people to give us feedback and my publisher keeps saying make sure you tell people to give us feedback on Amazon reviews because those are very important. I don’t care where the feedback comes from but if you are inclined to review it on Amazon, please do so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s great because I’ve always now gotten to the point now where I’m just you know I got people you read about how people should use social media you know with their business and you know I used to have two Facebook accounts you know one for business and one for one where I show pictures of my butt kind of a thing you know. So it was like I had two different ones and then that didn’t work. All the questions I got why do you have two different accounts you know. So I’m excited about your book knowing you and the title. I’m excited about kind of getting down to the task of this whole freaking thing because I and you spend so much time at it. How much time did you spend at it? You know it’s just something shiny for me like I’m --

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 1: I should be doing my work but instead I’m on Twitter you know.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well and it’s funny a lot of people have told me in the last couple of years that they noticed that I’m not as active on Twitter as I once was you know a few years ago and I don’t think the volume of my activity has changed all that much. I just do it in sporadic chunks because if I sat on Twitter all day and had conversations with people all day I would never get any work done.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And at the end of the day I have to have you know I have clients who I’m consulting with, I have events that I’m trying to build and promote and prepare for. You know I have a research product that I’m trying to do research on and write and if I don’t get those things done I can’t pay my mortgage so --

[0:10:01]

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: – social media from my personal interactive standpoint can be at times it can be a distractor and it can be anti-productive.

Speaker 1: Uh-hum.

Speaker 2: Or counterproductive but you can also use those interactions and you know sort of smartly and say you know what I’m gonna share good content on Twitter to build more of an audience and I’m gonna make sure that when I have a few minutes between meetings or phone calls and what not I jump on and respond to people or answer questions or something of that nature so that I am a human being interacting with other people there and I’m a credible source on Twitter and then oh, by the way when my market research report comes out you know in November which is what we were hoping I can then turn to my Twitter audience and say hey, if you’re in this industry we’ve done some research we would love for you to take a look at this product that you might potentially buy and so that’s kind of a very simple way of looking at how you can use Twitter for business but you can also use it in other ways too.

If you are a company that has an audience that’s big enough and that the demand is big enough you can say you know what on this particular Twitter account we’re just going to share coupons and so for anybody who just wants coupons to our business follow this Twitter account. If you wanna engage with us we’re over on Facebook or we’ve got a separate Twitter channel for that but it’s okay to have just a buyer’s only channel if you want. Dell [out] is the perfect example of that. People who are enthusiastic about gadgets and wanna get good deals on computer hardware follow Dell out on Twitter and they’re gonna tweet our links to over stock situations where you can buy stuff cheap and they’ve got millions of followers and have driven millions in revenue from doing that not following the social media purist viewpoint of you have to engage in the conversation. You know they’re just saying hey, for this channel we’re just gonna give you good deals and we’re not necessarily gonna have a conversation with you here. There’s other places where you can talk to us but right here we’re just gonna say collect my junk, buy my stuff and there’s an audience out there that wants it.

Speaker 1: That’s a great idea.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So in the book do you have several like case studies that are…

Speaker 2: Oh, like this. Absolutely. I mean we go through the seven business drivers that we talked about in the book which are the seven sort of major areas that you can focus on driving business through social media marketing and I’ll list those in a second. We go through each one of them and give a couple of case studies within each of those seven so that you get really good broad understanding of what we’re talking about there and then we also have several other sort of case studies that sort of you know turn back those myths and call bullshit on this you know philosophical tenets that social media purist you know like to a espouse without backing it up with business metrics and what not.

Speaker 1: Uh-hum.

Speaker 2: But there’s plenty of case studies in the book and you know we touched on some that people have heard of before. I mean it’s hard to write a social media book and not talk about Dell and not talk about Comcast and Southwest Airlines and a couple of others but we actually find some really good case studies especially small business case studies that I think are pretty fascinating to a lot of people alike and so if you look at each of the seven business drivers or the seven things that social media marketing can do for your business just to quickly enumerate them. It can enhance your branding and awareness and so we have several examples of that, a really good case study using green peas as an example there.

The second one is protecting your brand’s reputation and that can be finding people talking bad about you and mitigating that or finding people talking good about you and amplifying it or it could also be the technological side of protecting your reputation. If you’re the best in flower shop in you know San Diego, California and when someone goes to a search engine and types in you know San Diego florist you need to come up number one if you’re the best but if you are not doing things whether it be through social media or through search engine optimization to make sure that you rank number one. You may not rank number one because your competitors maybe doing it so social media adds to that technological reputation protection as well.

The third area that we talked about is enhancing public relations I think you understands what PR and media relations is and certainly social media allows you to be your own media and allows you to you know get a lot of you know [column inches] on the internet and build an audience for your own stuff without having to go directly to meet your folks.

The fourth one is building community. A lot of people talk about that one and we talked about ways that you can build a community like building an actual online social network and driving people to it but then there’s also sort of the intangible building community of people that just like you or follow you or comment on your blogs or post on Facebook and become sort of your brand ambassadors online. So we touched on that a little bit as well and then the fifth one is enhancing customer service. I think we all sort of know and understand that. That’s where you’re Comcast and your Dells are gonna come into play in those case studies.

[0:15:01]
The sixth one facilitating research and development and we found some really good case studies that show obviously particularly among larger companies but if you think about it using social tools then cost a whole lot of money so now even small businesses can do RnD if they focus on doing that in the social media space and then the last of the seven business drivers is actually to drive sales and leads and we talked about some case studies in the book of companies that literally set out to increase sales and using a social media channel and social media strategies.

Speaker 1: Oh, very interesting. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Speaker 2: Cool. I’m glad. I hope everybody else is too. I would love for everybody to go buy 8,000 copies and –

Speaker 1: Give them to everybody.

Speaker 2: – give them to the people who haven’t already brought 8,000 copies so that you spread the love a little but… Yeah, I would love for a lot of people to go buy the book and we hope it’s gonna be useful for folks. I think we wrote it with the small business owner or the medium you know medium to large business marketer, communicator who are still rather skeptical and maybe not quite you know bought in to social marketing yet but I think people who are already sort of embedded in the space will get a lot out of it because while we do a good job of convincing that first audience we also I think do a pretty good job of saying okay now that you might be convinced or you might be bought in let’s look at how you would strategically plan to use these channels in your business and so I think people who are already bought in are gonna get a lot out of it too.

Speaker 1: Very cool. So for a small business what’s the biggest challenge for using social media?

Speaker 2: By far it’s the time. The time and energy that they need to put into it to understand it. I mean I spoke at a conference back in January that was actually a retail show for guns. It was gun show and this shop owner came up to me unarmed I think and said alright, social media smart guy I work from nine to 5:30 everyday and I cannot take my eyes off of my show room. I have to watch every person who comes into my show room because I have weapons on the walls and what not and I’m a one person show. I’m a one you know like a [0:17:32] [Inaudible] location. When do you suggest I have time to you know be social online when I have to worry about the foot traffic that’s coming into my store and my response to him was you know what I’m gonna answer this a couple different ways that might surprise you a little bit.

If you’re getting enough business without social media right now and you don’t have to drive more foot traffic then maybe you don’t need social media and there’s businesses out there that maybe don’t need to be using it but if you want to increase the frequency in which your customers come back or you want to increase the foot traffic of new folks and you don’t wanna have to spend a bunch of money advertising and what not then I would suggest maybe you go in 30 minutes early or you stay 30 minutes late or you devote a few hours in the evenings for a while until you get used to it to providing some content on your website or building a Facebook page and connecting with some people there and communicating with a greater audience that either doesn’t know you exist but would be interested in your product that they did or the core audience of people who you already know, the first people that are gonna come like you on Facebook are the people who already shop at your store.

So get them to come and interact with you online and then their friends will see that they’re interacting with you and so on and so forth so you can sort of virally and organically grow the number of people that are paying attention to you online and once you have that set up and you get use to the technology you can be sitting there watching your store and update your Facebook page from your phone. You don’t have to have complex computer systems and all that good stuff but at the same time I think that there’s a really good example of a person who may not need it and sometimes there are people who don’t need social media and I think you can make an argument that anybody could use it and it could be positive for any business but there are some people who because of the way that they get new customers, because of the amount of revenue that they have or the amount of revenue that they need maybe it’s not gonna be a top priority for them and that’s okay too.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say that you’re [0:19:34] [Inaudible] like give away bullets or something but that’s interesting. I was just thinking too as you were saying that you should have a workbook that goes along with your book.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Just because I’m so something shiny guy that I see something shiny I can’t stick to a plan. It’s hard for me to stick to a plan but I guess that’s probably why you should work with somebody who’s a you know social media expert or something you know hire them like yourself.

[0:20:13]

Speaker 2: Right. Well, and quite frankly that’s another you know big challenge for small businesses is that you know getting help is not cheap –

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: – in general. Now, there are some you know alternative options like anybody can go to Google and search for what they’re looking for or how to set up a Facebook page and you can find you know resources out there that can help you do that from nothing but most small businesses because of the time commitment and because they’re focused on you know a lot more than just marketing much less social media marketing they need an easy button. They need you know somebody to do it for them or to at least hold their hand for a little bit to get them to be able to do it and it takes time investment and if you’re gonna hire somebody to help you it obviously is gonna take a monetary investment and there is not a lot of people who are doing that for cheap because the demand is so high.

Speaker 1: Uh-hum.

Speaker 2: And so we’re in one of those worlds where the supply and demand in economics just say if you know something about social media and you can help businesses you can charge for it and demand a fairly high dollar these days. That’s unfortunate because that leaves a lot of small businesses out of the equation.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but they can read your book.

Speaker 2: They can read my book or they can join my learning community which is the low price of $25 a month.

Speaker 1: A learning community. Tell me about that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So exploringsocialmedia.com is it’s sort of based on the learning community premise so we have all these great content that like we have qualified content of how to build a Facebook page and how to FTP files to a server and you know all the different little technical tricks that you might need to know if you’re setting up your own digital presence. But then that content also scales up to how do I develop strategies. You know how do I measure you know social media activity so on and so forth.

So we get really in depth in these topics too but instead of having a learning community that also had a question and answer form beneath it we flipped it and so the premise of exploring social media is you don’t have time to search all this content you need somebody to answer your question. So you come in and ask your question and then myself and a couple of other digital marketing practitioners are basically on call to answer your questions and we’ve had questions that range from how do I add an administrator to my Facebook page all the way to I’m developing strategies for a nursing home and I need some advice and some ideas and our attitude is if you’re paying us to be in our community we’re gonna answer your question regardless of what it is.

Now we’ll tell you hey, I may not be the most qualified person to answer this question but here’s what I think or I’ll go out like I had somebody come in the other day who is a member of the community who works at a digital agency and so they asked a little bit more advance questions. They’re not worried about the one on one how to stuff. They’re worried about hey, I need to know what Facebook applications are good for contest. You know they’re looking for recommendations on products and what not and they asked an SEO question that was beyond my personal understanding and so I reached out to a friend of mine who is an SEO expert and said hey, a member of my community asked this question can you help me answer it. And so I tapped into my network of resources to help answer the member’s question as best we can.

It’s myself, Tamar Weinberg who has offered the book New Community Rules you know marketing on the social web. There’s DJ Waldo who used to be with Blue Sky Factory, he’s kind of an email marketing expert but also a social media digital marketing strategist. He’s in there. Nick Yoon who used to be the lead digital strategist for Yum! Brands which is KFC, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s.

So we’ve got some expert level opinions in there that can help people answer their problems and then if you come in and you ask a question like I need to know how to convert my company. I set up my company as a Facebook Profile page and I need to know how to convert that then we simply answer the question by sending you a link to the lesson within the community that shows you how to do that and we show you how to do things via screen tests. Sometimes we do the little talking head just kinda talking to you to the ideas and then we have also obviously a lot of written content with instructions as well on how to do certain things. So it’s a pretty well robust resource for people. We haven’t put a whole lot of marketing you know money behind it or anything. It’s been kind of growing organically. There’s a couple hundred people in the community now and we’re being helpful and useful in answering their questions.

Speaker 1: That’s very cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: It’s a really great resource for somebody to use. Who’s in that community?

Speaker 2: The guy who owns the gun shop. He’s in there.

Speaker 1: Oh, really. Oh, that’s great. So what kind of local business if they just wanted to start out what do you recommend they do?

[0:25:05]

Speaker 2: Well, the first thing that I would recommend any business does is do a little homework first and know what you can get out of social media marketing and those seven business drivers that we talked about those are the seven you know main things and once you understand those the best starting point for you is to decide which one of those you wanna focus on because if you don’t start out with a goal or with a set of goals then you’re always gonna be frustrated because you’re never gonna know how far you’ve gotten.

We used the analogy in the book you know participating in social media as a business without a goal, a plan and some objectives is like piling the family into the van getting to the end of the driveway and saying okay, we’re going on a vacation and you haven’t booked hotels, you haven’t packed, you don’t know what the weather is, where you’re going because you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have snacks in the car for the kids, you haven’t put the DVD players in the car so they can watch movies. Your vacation is gonna be a nightmare and you’re never really gonna know when you get to where you’re going because you haven’t planned to go anywhere and so that’s the same thing that happens with businesses that are like okay, I have a blog, I have a Facebook page, I have a Twitter account, I’m social or what are you doing with social. I’m joining the conversation. Okay.

Well, what are you asking people to do? What do you mean why am I asking people do? You’re not allowed to sell these social media. Well, what are you getting out of it? Well, I don’t know. What are you trying to get out of it? I don’t know. And so the most important thing you can do as a business to get started is figure out what you wanna get out of it. Is it better customer service? Is it sales? Is it insights and ideas from your customers that will help your business? Is it you know a community of advocates and loyal followers who will promote you online. Figure out what you want to get out of it and then focus your goals there.

Speaker 1: Very cool. So one thing I wanted to tell you too is that a lot of people that was in this show, all four of them, they were all events and meetings professionals basically and that you were the keynote at our very first Event Camp and I don’t know if you’ve been following Event Camp at all since you came and spoke and it was really cool the way you use the Twitter for you that was next to you just a couple of years ago.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So the Twitter Feed that was actually was great that you turned in and was looking at it while you were talking and you were answering questions from the feed which I thought was very cool because no one has ever really done that since but we’ve had them now just to tell you that we just had it in Europe. It was the last one and they’ve been all over the world now and one is coming up in New Zealand and they’re happening all over the place which is pretty cool and you were the one who started it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: You started it so people should know that you were one of the founders so to speak of Event Camp so.

Speaker 2: Oh, that was very cool. That was at the [Roger Smith], wasn’t it?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that was cool then. I remember that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and there’s one coming up at Vancouver and you know but a lot of the people who goes to the show are [0:28:08] [Inaudible] so I wanted people to know that you’re a very good speaker. So people should – are you still speaking I’m assuming.

Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. I’m in the midst of — I’m booked to speak at least one event every week through in the middle of December this fall so but it’s part of the book tour. I mean I’m…

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: I’m trying to promote a book so it’s a little higher –

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: – higher frequency than normal but yeah, I typically I do a couple of events a month and I stay pretty active out there on the road. I do a lot more non-social media events you know an industry trade shows and what not because I’m trying to reach that audience that hasn’t quite adopted social media yet but I still show up at the Blog World in the Southwest and what not so you know I keep my road bag packed.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re speaking at Blog world that’s right coming up.

Speaker 2: I will be in Los Angeles. I’m really looking forward to it. I think we’re probably gonna be putting together a little book party celebration for the book. So yeah, it’s gonna be fun.

Speaker 1: [0:29:09] [Inaudible] slushies.

Speaker 2: There will probably be slushies. If they don’t have any on the menu we’ll make them make some. I think Chris is gonna come too so we’ll have to revitalize the slushy thing.

Speaker 1: I’m not gonna come.

Speaker 2: Oh, come on. Don’t be a party blooper. Just don’t take [Laughter].

Speaker 1: It’s not possible. So let’s see. So where can people get a hold of you and give us all your — I’ll put it on the post too on the blog post but share where people can find you.

Speaker 2: Sure. The easiest place to connect with me is probably on Twitter. I’m @JasonFalls. I’m typically Jason Falls on most social networks so you can find me on a bunch of those places. social mediaexplorer.com is my blog. We tried to produce some really good content that makes people think about social media and digital marketing a little bit more intellectually thank some other blogs do but we try to stir up some conversation there. It’s certainly exploringsocialmedia.com which we talked about. Come there and check out the learning community and if you’re interested in the book which we hoped you are nobullshitsocialmedia.com. We’re trying to make that real easy for people to find. You can order it there from our publisher or from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and [book Smullyan uplift].

Speaker 1: Very cool. Alright. Well, Jason I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re a very busy man so thank you.

Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn’t miss talking to you for the world, Mike because since that first slushy bar incident it’s good to hear from you because we worry about you sometimes.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Thank you and yeah and I’ll see you probably see you down in Blog World.

Speaker 2: See you there.

Speaker 1: Thank you again.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 1: Okay. Bye. Bye.

We appreciate and thank you for listening to the Meetings Podcast. Please email with any questions or comments to meetingspodcast@gmail.com. The Meetings Podcast theme music comes from the Delgado Brothers which can be found at delgado brothers.com.
 

Related articles

• Jason Falls: ‘No BS’ In Print, In Person, Online (mpdailyfix.com)
• Jason Falls & Erik Deckers on MTB Radio (marketingtechblog.com)
• 2 Minutes of Jason Falls: Why He’ll Never Miss a BlogWorld Event (blogworld.com)

We also announce our next live Podcast Meetup to be held October 12th at the Venetian/Palazzo Resort during IMEX America.  Listen in and then join us live in Vegas to network and have some fun on a Wednesday night!

FYI- For those who noticed the missing shows will be coming up soon- I had to get this episode up and I didnt want to go in and chage all the file names so the numbers would be in order!

Related articles

• The Evolution of Event Hashtags on Twitter Show 185 (grassshackroad.com)

If you havent seen him speak take a second and watch this.

Today Mike talks with Gerrit Heijkoop from Amsterdam’s Triqle Event Intelligence talks about  their web, mobile solution “Whats On?” Gerrit tells us about how it works, solutions it provides for event organizers and attendees. also runs us through a few case studies.

Little tip on how to pronounce Gerrits last name and company for our American friends:

Garrett High-Cope  from Trickle Event Intelligence

Transcripts

Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen with Grass Shack Events & Media and today we have Gerrit Heijkoop from Triqle Event Intelligence. Hi Gerrit.

Speaker 2: Hi Mike.

Speaker 1: You know we talked a little bit before we started this interview and then I forgot that we actually just met over the internet again but I guess we’ve talked to each other before in the past but –

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: — for the Event Camp Europe on the Google Hangout.

Speaker 2: Exactly. We spend the whole day together. Well, you were the sponsor of the day.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Greg Ruby was there all day.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And I was there as well.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a really fun experience. I had never really used Google Hangout except for one other time and that was really fun. It was just kind of a fun little way to interact.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. It is a very cool back channel because it’s more focused somehow you’re only talking to like 10 people and then you have the visual interactions through the video. I really loved it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was interesting though we didn’t really have to sound on though so that was kind of strange for me. I mean it was neat to be able to see the other people. So I felt like there’s a little chat room in the Google Hangout whoever is listening that hasn’t used it before but there’s a little chat room and then it has all the video webcams of all the people that are in your hangout. So you can actually have a good — you could have a chat like we could have all been talking but everybody was watching the live stream and then everybody was on Twitter also.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a bit schizophrenic huh.

Speaker 1: And the pictures we set back and forth of how we had it all set up on our screens was very nerdy.

Speaker 2: Yeah, very but this whole internet hybrid events is a bit of the nerdy side of the events industry.

Speaker 1: Right. Very much so.

Speaker 2: I guess.

Speaker 1: And so where are you located? I guess people should know that too.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we’re calling at this moment from Amsterdam the Netherlands in Europe.

Speaker 1: Nice.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Nice. Nice. Nice. I’ve met a lot of really nice people from Amsterdam over the years.

Speaker 2: Oh, cool.

Speaker 1: It’s funny I’d love to go up there sometime I’ve never been but someday I have to get up there. So let’s talk about Triqle first of all. So Triqle is it’s an Event Intelligence Company. Tell me a little bit about Triqle.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we are actually a joint venture of guys who are really good in web building actually male guys, a graphic designer and me and myself I have an event management and social media background. The funny thing is our web guys are also two semi-professional classical musicians on cello and violin and our designer is a film festival fanatic.

So all in all we have quite some events experience and also had some event frustrations and those are mainly in part about how organizers or planners or who run events how to have to communicate with their at least because there’s always a lot of stuff going on, always a lot of stuff last minute changing and how can they reach us.

So from that personal frustration that’s when we decide hey, I think we can do that better and if we combine our skillsets I think we have everything in the room that we need to create cool solutions and that’s when we found it beginning of 2010. It was one-and-a-half year ago we founded Triqle Event Intelligence first on the side of our day jobs and went out to launch our platform WhatsOn and that’s basically our technology platform that we developed and besides that we also provide consultancy and project coordination on the whole field of communication between the organizers.

Speaker 1: Very cool. And so can you tell me a little bit more about how — one thing that I thought maybe if you could say you know what would it be like for a customer to how it work probably actually why don’t you do it from an attendee background like if you were an attendee in an event how would it work.

Speaker 2: Well, I can do both but most often I start with the planner, right because those are our customers.

Speaker 1: Uh-hum. Uh-hum.

[0:05:00]

Speaker 2: And then imagine you’re running an event and your event has a program or a schedule so you somehow need to convey that message to your attendees. Everyone in the events industry always has to do that what’s going on at what place and what time and who’s there and why should you be there. That moment ago you start with the website, right? So you put it on your URL/program and you type in the whole program on your website or maybe even before that you start in some Excel or Google block in your team and you create a program.

Now, then next its 2011 so everybody around you will tell you well, you need to go mobile. Oh, yeah great so we’re running a mobile app. So here’s the second to a third thing where you’re gonna enter your program info and put all the stuff in there, bios and beginning time and end time and then someone says yeah but we got this really nice venue and the venue invested heavily in this costing system, they got a lot of screens up there so we should use the screens. Oh, yeah. Yeah, good idea.

So let’s make some slides that we can put on the screens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you’re gonna put — you make slides and put the program on there and well, 2011 so it’s iPads also. We might also want a mobile website and well, of course there’s always the people that still need print so you also have to make something in print and then one day before your event you get a phone call that your main speaker is sick or his plane is delayed or you have to switch rooms you know everybody I tell the story this recognized program. Event programs are changing. Always. Last minute.

Now, in the above case you have to in a worst case scenario you’re dealing with like six or eight suppliers everyone having a bit of your content. You have to call them, make these changes everywhere and anywhere and you probably won’t be able to do that. So your visitors are confused. They’re showing up to a room where rescheduling was. Well, lots of frustrations.

Speaker 1: Uh-hum.

Speaker 2: And mainly lots of questions on your head during the day of the event. Now what we thought is as we recognized that you always have to convey this message let’s see if we can get as much as more important than the medium you choose to convey. So that’s when we came up with an online service called WhatsOn where you have a sensual database with all your program information and everything you wanna convey to your visitors and based on web technology that’s already available all of these devices that I just made they had browsers they can run an internet browser.

So we made some really smart user interfaces which adapt to the screen that you’re looking at and always shows your — wow. So that’s part one. So you have one click, you update your information and it’s up to date everywhere from any place. Now as a visitor if you look at our interface we provide the schedule as a chronological list so you see the first item on the top and the second and the third and the first and during the day the interface runs with the program.

So everything that’s past, that’s no longer in progress that disappears from the list. So if I go on my mobile and I go to the mobile website or I take a look at the screen or I go in the iPad or whatever I want I always see on one glance what’s going on right now, how long it will last, what’s the next thing after that and on the mobile that I can also click on it, read what’s it about, do some interaction with it like give it a like or a dislike or leave my comments on it. So there we really pull in the interactivity.

Speaker 1: Very cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: That sounds like a great thing because it just seems like I’m always either well in the past I always fiddled with the programs that you get you know and you’re always like looking for that one page that you’re carrying around this giant thing.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. One page and you’re flipping it or you just fold it and…

Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds great and a lot of these apps now like you said they always have like you have to kinda scroll through it to try and figure out where you are on the…

Speaker 2: Exactly. That’s the other thing that we’re noticing also in the apps but also in our own practice or we’ll also incorporated that in a redesign that we’re working at. What our industry is gonna be doing is trying to put that whole book that you’re talking about trying to fit that on the mobile device.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So we put the whole list in there, we put all the bios in there; we put the abstracts in there. As much as possible we all want it in the app and we need a map on there and we need well, as much as possible and what we’re seeing from our users and also what our data or analytics data is telling us that people don’t wanna read that on their mobile phone. So.

[0:10:05]

Speaker 1: That’s true, huh.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it is not the nicest device to consume all that information.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: So if you wanna read about the session or read about the speakers I think the website is still the best place or even the book. I mean the book is nice to read about the event it’s just not nice to navigate through the event. And in our next read I mean our current interface already does that but we’re working on the redesign which even more brings out the — I don’t know if that’s a proper English would but the actuality so really about what’s going on right now.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: This is what’s on in the schedule, this is what’s being on in Twitter, this is what the organizer at this moment wants to tell you or stress out and then really capture the power of the cross media. So on all devices everything at the same time, real time up to date.

Speaker 1: Very cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I remember even at this Event Camp Europe you‘re using it there. Are you?

Speaker 1: Yeah. What’s going on now and you’d kinda sent me a link within our little hangout we were in and oh, this is very cool. I didn’t even know that you are the one who [Cross-talk].

Speaker 2: Yes, I made that. Well, and it is a generic solution. So the basic layout and the list and the bars that’s generic but the colors and the logos you can really quickly edit those and make it look and feel like it’s really yours and your event. So I do believe in a generic solution for all events but then still on your specific event it should look and feel like it are really especially for you. So there’s no logos from us and there were no colors you can really style it in your own way.

Speaker 1: How does that work if I was gonna say I’m a meeting planner what’s the interface like for me? Do I log on to the website and just drop these things in or how does it work?

Speaker 2: Yeah, we have two models. We have if you go to our website you’d see on the bottom there’s two big bars and the one says why I spent money on stuff you can do it yourself and for those people we have WhatsOn do it yourself which indeed you create an account and a website and you enter the information all yourself but to do that you have to be a little bit tax savvy or a nerd so to say from the beginning of our talk and on the other side we have why I spend time on stuff the pros can do for you and that’s our pro service.

So in your dream scenario you don’t have to do anything you just throw your info at us or we even come and get it from you and we’ll make sure that everything is alright but then you have to pay us and in the first scenario that’s a lot cheaper and then you have to do all the work. So that’s basically how the business model is designed. You pay a low license fee for a relatively low license fee for the technology and you pay for service.

Speaker 1: That’s awesome. So then if someone does gets the hang of it they can actually do it themselves but you guys are there to help them in the process of –

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: — learning and you guys will do as much or as little as that the planner need.

Speaker 2: And what we’ve learned from the one-and-a-half year that were working now is that most meeting planners and organizers don’t wanna do it themselves. You know they just want that guy or that email address and say fix it. I don’t wanna think about it and that’s fine we love to do that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s very cool. Yeah, and well that’s kept me in business too all these years because people can do what I do too but they want somebody else to do it so that’s great.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that’s how the industry works, right. You need a really good meeting planner or organizer that ties together all these strings to a big cohesive knot.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 2: And each string should be a really good supply of who goes out of his way to make it work.

Speaker 1: So like the updates, the on the fly updates then you would have somebody standing to do that.

Speaker 2: No, both ways. Yeah. Yeah. So it could get us on sites and help you out with all the stuff and also make sure that you’re still up to date or you have a backend interface where you can do that yourself.

Speaker 1: Very cool.

Speaker 2: And you can either change one item because it switched the room or speaker change. You can also use operations. For example you take all items up to the break and you’re moving back 10 minutes and then the break you shorten that one 10 minutes and then you’re back on track from the break on.

Speaker 1: Very cool and that’s so important. Wow, that’s very cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can see this being used for a lot of internal things because our company does mostly internal meetings for corporations. We don’t do a lot of conferences.

[0:15:04]

I mean there’ll be internal conferences and I could see there’s been very, very helpful for internal use.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we’ve actually used it for all time events. We did some medical conferences, we did some one day simple presentation like events because there’s different reasons to use it. I mean on the big conference you wanna use it because there’s so much program information and it’s so complex that you wanna have it in one way and the WhatsOn now feature is really neat.

On the more simple events which we call technically like a one track event so you have one room with speakers and a break and a lunch or whatever that is actually more of a decorating feature. You put these screens in there like these big screens or you beam it up behind the speakers and it just creates this whole look and feel of your event in the venue because it has your colors and your logos.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And your stuff that’s going on.

Speaker 1: You said narrowcasting earlier and I don’t know what narrowcasting is. What is narrowcasting?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I should be careful with that term. I had to learn that one day myself too but it’s actually the opposite of broadcasting. So broadcasting sends out a TV message to millions of people in their homes and TVs. Narrowcasting is basically creating designated content for a small group in a certain venue. I guess you have it in the States, right. I don’t know how you…

Speaker 1: Probably. I just never heard of it.

Speaker 2: I’ve been known to forget things I learned too so.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so like the larger venues or they have these screens all around their place and the system that gets the content on their screens that’s a narrowcasting system or at least we call it that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s very cool. It’s a very good term. I’m gonna steal that and use it all the time now.

Speaker 2: Watch out because people don’t know what it is.

Speaker 1: Let’s go to the make me seem smart for once. What’s different from your solution than from other you know mobile solutions? What’s the biggest differentiator?

Speaker 2: Well, the biggest difference is that we’re not trying to be so complete as possible we’re trying to be so relevant as possible.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And we leave stuff out.

Speaker 1: That’s great.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense and it’s very green. I guess you’re a green company too because you’ve…

Speaker 2: We are also green solution if you choose not to print but I’m not there yet saying you should not print never anymore. I mean there’s people who still like to print a program and as I said to read about sessions is a nice medium but we did some events like one for the MPI here in the Netherlands which went totally green and what we did we had the mobile website and we had the screens and the venue and at the morning of the event we send every delegate a personal SMS or a text message that is in English saying well, welcome to the event today. Click on this URL and you’ll have your program guide on your mobile all day and in that way we made sure that at least everyone had access to the mobile program and well, for the people who didn’t have a phone with internet.

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2: They can look at the screens.

Speaker 1: That’s very cool. I didn’t even think about that because everybody I mean I just assumed everybody has a mobile but some people don’t, huh.

Speaker 2: There’s still people who don’t I mean it’s like maybe 80% or 90% of the mobile phones has internet right now but.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And that’s our whole point and that’s why we also went away from building the perfect event app. I mean a mobile phone is just one of the ways you have to communicate to your visitors and if the statistics says that there’s only 80% of your visitors having a mobile and the number is lower but I mean they all have the mobile but they don’t all use apps. As an organizer you always need to communicate to a 100$.

Speaker 1: Yeah, because you need to reach them all.

Speaker 2: Right. Right.

Speaker 1: And that’s why they live in the integrated cross media solution.

Speaker 2: Very cool. So do you have another example of an event that you’ve worked on that might be interesting.

Speaker 1: Well, so like I said we did the smaller event which went paperless. We also did a very large public theatre festival in the Netherlands which spread out over a 10 days and there were like 1200 shows going on.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 2: Another feature that we have is that you can use tags, you can create categories of tags and you can label certain program items with these tags and then you can quickly filter the list based on these tags.

[0:20:04]

So for example a tag was that was theatre, there was music and there were art projects. So if you click on an item and you said well, this is in the category music and you click on this music tag it will show you all the other items in music going on at that moment. We also had like geographical tag because it wasn’t an island and the island was divided in three parts and we had west, middle and east. So if you click on the tag east you only got all the stuff that was going on at the east side of the island and that’s how you could navigate through the [0:20:41] and enormous program and get what you were looking for.

Speaker 1: Wow, it’s very cool. So it works at all sizes. That’s awesome.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And specifically for that event it was cool that we have a life integration with a ticket sales software. So we could actually show live on the items rather the tickets were sold out or still available or limited so that also created some sense of urgency.

Speaker 1: Very cool. So are there any other features that we’ve missed to talk about or…

Speaker 2: Well, these are the most important. I mean but that’s not something you can brag and we have a fool Twitter integration so both inbound and outbound so we show all the tweets that also really nice on the screens.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And we show the tweets on the mobile and our devices and every program item you can very easily share with your friends on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn and we’ll produce these tweets saying I’m at this and this event going to this and this session with the hashtag and a link.

Speaker 1: Very cool.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: That’s very handy and a lot of people like they’ll just follow the tweets than your broadcasting. That’s really fantastic.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Get another people interested in your event.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Alright well, thank you Gerrit. I guess we’ve covered everything I’m trying to make sure we get everything so I think we have.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we do.

Speaker 1: And I’d love to have you back on the show again when you get some updates going and I’m sure you guys at Triqle were gonna come up with some other cool stuff.

Speaker 2: Yeah, as I mentioned a couple of times we’re actually in the process of redesign to incorporate all the lessons that we learned last year but we’ll come out with that probably at January 2012. So I’m still a bit on two toes you know. I’m still very enthusiastic about the current solution but I’m even more thrilled about what’s coming.

Speaker 1: That’s fun. [0:22:45] [Inaudible]. Where can people find Triqle and find you. Give us some info on how to get hold of you.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We have a websites at www.triqle.eu and I’ll spell that because it’s not [0:23:02] [Inaudible] it’s triqle.eu from Europe and you can send an email to me at WhatsOn so that’s whatson@trigle.au or find me on Twitter under @Triqle or @heijkoop and I’ll spell that last one. It’s my personal twitter account and that’s @gheijkoop. And I love to hear from people what they think, their questions and we see if we can help.

Speaker 1: Perfect and I’ll put on the links on the Meetings Podcast site too so you know if someone is too lazy to write that down they could just go click from this podcast site. But Gerrit, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me Mike. Really cool.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I look forward to talking to you again and hopefully one of these days we’ll actually meet up face-to-face.

Speaker 2: Yeah. The coffee or the beer whatever you want is [0:24:09] [Inaudible].

Speaker 1: Sounds great. Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Thanks.

Speaker 1: Bye. Bye.

Organizers Traci Browne (@TraciBrowne) and Adrian Segar (@ASegar), assisted by Andrea Sullivan (@BrainStrength) and Greg Ruby(@Greg Ruby), have added an additional day based on comments from the folks that attended the original EventCamp East Coast. In addition to the retaining the Conferences That Work peer-conference format developed by Segar, there will be a cross-country virtual connection with EventCamp Vancouver on Sunday as well.

Those that attended EventCamp East Coast left commenting on the powerful bonds they made that weekend:

“…one of the most innovative and eye-opening professional experiences I’ve had. Aside from coming back with lots of new tips and ideas, I easily established triple the number of new contacts, and formed stronger relationships with them, than at any other conference I’ve been to.”
“…an experience that was unparalleled and will definitely remain a highlight of my event education for years to come.”
“…I have never been to a conference where I felt like I got to know so many new people so well.”

EventCamp East Coast is what YOU make it to be. There are no predetermined topics and presenters. Participants share their learning goals during the opening roundtable session and later suggest topics and cast votes on what sessions they would like to see given. Sessions are facilitated by your fellow EventCampers and bring out the many years of experiences of fellow attendees. No PowerPoint presentations here! It is meaningful learning outcomes where you have helped to create the weekend’s programs.

There are two pricing options available to attend EventCamp East Coast – full and day passes. Full conference registration is $425 (until October 21) and includes two nights lodging and all meals from dinner on Friday through lunch on Sunday. Day passes are $250 (until October 21) and includes dinner on Friday, lunch and dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. Many local attendees of last year’s EventCamp East Coast regretted not staying over and missing out on the camaraderie with fellow Campers.

Check out our website at www.EventCampEastCoast.com! I hope you will decide to join us for a productive weekend of learning and fun.

ShowGizmo combines web and smartphone technology to create more productive, valuable events. It enables event organizers, sponsors/exhibitors and visitors to access and manage information for trade shows, conferences, exhibitions and other events events and better connect with each other using the wide range of functions to achieve better results and improve their return on investment.

Transcripts:

Speaker 1: Welcome back to the meetings podcast. This is Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media and today our special guest is Marie-Claire Andrews. Hi Marie.Speaker 2: Hello. How are you?

Speaker 1: Hi. Hi Marie-Claire. You are from ShowGizmo.

Speaker 2: That’s right.

Speaker 1: And you are down in New Zealand which is fantastic and so first why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into like the events world.

Speaker 2: Sure. So we’ve actually been running ShowGizmo or smart shows the company name for just over a year now which I think makes us if not one of the oldest mobile app for events companies probably at least a teenager if not kind of middle age and before that we were selling virtual events technology. A group of us thought that we’re being based here in New Zealand we have all sorts of challenges about reaching audiences and getting people to come here is quite a big deal, it’s a long long way and I think people are still worried sometimes that the lights aren’t on the weekends and the sheep are going around the treadmill to keep the internet going and things like that.

So we were trying to think of ways to encourage people to participate in events and virtual event technology seemed the way forward but it was a little too difficult for our community to grasp. It wasn’t a satisfying experience at that time. This is a couple of years ago you know when the tech was just coming out and frankly everyone still wanted to mix and mingle but we took what we learned from all of that and our experience in running events ourselves and watch the smartphone revolution just coming at us full and thought right let’s take a look at those good learnings and create a mobile app for an event but not a shiny fancy glitzy one for the big huge events. We wanted to be the smartphone app for everyone.

Speaker 1: That’s cool.

Speaker 2: And so that’s what ShowGizmo is. We’re aiming for midsize organizers and the associations and anyone who really wants to take advantage of the technology but maybe not spend quite so much and not have to learn very much about [geekery] where we take our best place.

Speaker 1: That’s nice. It’s very good.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: People like for us to be simple. I was looking through your website and you just don’t do events there in New Zealand you do them all over the place.

Speaker 2: Well, there’s only four million people here so there aren’t that many events actually really going on. There’s probably about only 40 major event organizers here so for a company like ours to be successful we have to be out there and we have right from the start. So we’ve been mobilizing events over in the UK, we did complex over there, we’re in the Middle East, in Dubai, Bahrain, Kenya, Australia. Yeah, right around the world and we have our first US event is just happening this month. So it’s very exciting.

Speaker 1: Oh, really. Where is that?

Speaker 2: Pretty much — in Ohio.

Speaker 1: Oh, how funny. That’s great.

Speaker 2: Uh-huh.

Speaker 1: Congratulations.

Speaker 2: So every continent but Antarctica. I’m not sure there’s a massive events industry there so we don’t see about that.

Speaker 1: No. No. No. No. So tell me what is ShowGizmo. What does it do?

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 1: For you.

Speaker 2: Internet show. ShowGizmo is actually a website really. It’s an event community. So that profiles the show, the exhibitors, the delegates and that’s where the analytics about whose doing well what and whose interested in what gets captured and then it’s supported by native apps, native smartphone apps that put the show in everyone’s hand. So think of it like a template really. The app ShowGizmo is in the store all the time and our event organizers populate it in real time by entering information into the site so they get native apps really quickly. You know by the end of the day if they’re speedy in filling in their forms but they don’t have to code a unique app for every event or wait for those apps to be put in the store. So it’s like yeah, it’s like a template I guess. We also write label and create custom apps but really ShowGizmo is a cool product.

Speaker 1: And so ShowGizmo is like pick and choose like from a menu of things that you might want for your app. Is that how it works?

Speaker 2: It’s actually a structured template. So the event organizers give away a little bit of flexibility and return for the speed and efficiency I guess really. But it has pretty much everything you would expect. So it’s a digital show guide. It’s got the exhibitor listings. It’s got Twitter feeds. It’s got a floor plan. It’s got the schedule. It’s got speaker presentations.

[0:05:00]

Speaker 2: It’s got all of the things that we notice people really want to wanna take their phone out of their pocket for an event you know the key things and that it also actually has integrated lead capture in it for exhibitors. So through QR code scanning they can basically generate more leads. So the delegates use our app to scan their code at their booth, get a little of that exhibitor’s information straight to their phone and then return, give their name and email and information to the exhibitor.

Speaker 1: Wow. That’s very cool.

Speaker 2: Kind of like eating away at those third party bar code scanners that have been out and about in the market for a while.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Everyone has a scanner in their hands so why bother.

Speaker 1: Right. Right. And I guess then they can give you also all their information about whatever their booth is or whatever they’re selling, right.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: That’s the exchange.

Speaker 2: Exactly. So you don’t have to carry around all of that fancy brochure stuff that looks so shiny and smells nice and then you throw it away when you get home.

Speaker 1: Right. It’s very green. So I guess you’re saving all the trees and everything in the world.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

Speaker 1: So how do you find and this is a question just because I’m just sadly here in the United States most of the time.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So how is it for like for these other countries like for internet. Is the internet faster? It’s interesting because it’s so slow here and you go into these big conferences and it’s just you know these great cool apps you get here and then you go to like comfort and you can’t use it because everything is so slow.

Speaker 2: It’s so slow.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I wondered how it is down there in New Zealand and then how you scale that to other countries.

Speaker 2: New Zealand is kind of fascinating because it’s a small population. We actually get used as a test case for quite a lot of tech innovation. So we have pretty awesome internet here and actually every event I’ve been to here in New Zealand has really good wireless app to shows. So unlike we went to the UK for example and whilst their general 3G is great once we got into the events you know you are being pillage for the amount of money you have to spend to have a decent internet connection inside the event arena. So it’s quite mercenary there. It’s still good quality but very expensive and the data roaming charges are just deadly.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that’s the challenge. That’s the thing we have to think long and hard about is that you know whilst our first premise was to try and encourage more people to participate in events if they’re dealing with data roaming or you know just to browse an exhibitor’s profiles it will cost them 23 bucks and that’s not really ideal. But in the Middle East it was pretty good. Bahrain a little bit slightly slower. It’s just the pricing of it is what effects the uptake really and they use.

Speaker 1: Right. It’s funny this is so kind of out topic.

Speaker 2: Yup.

Speaker 1: But I met a guy recently here where I’m very close to Silicon Valley where all the tech is going on too.

Speaker 2: Yup.

Speaker 1: So I met this guy and we‘re having a beer and he was telling me he has a small company and he just brings his own internet into the outside the event and he can just shoot it across the whole –

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: — comfort center and I should be handing this case carried out to everybody because he says.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 1: And then you can brand it as whatever you want and supposedly it’s free space that anyone can do that.

Speaker 2: Awesome.

Speaker 1: Here. Yeah, and it was way faster plus it’s branded so when you go the front page it says ShowGizmo would like to offer you free internet and so everybody you know it’s pretty cool anyway. I thought that’s…

Speaker 2: I’d like to meet — yeah, I’d like to meet that man. He sounds cool. Send him down.

Speaker 1: So what are you finding with ShowGizmo that people, the attendees, the best features what is or the organizer what are they most jazz about it when you weigh how are you getting all these clients everywhere.

Speaker 2: Well, first of all because they can have a native app instantly. So often they’re making decisions they like. We’ve got to have an app for an event. It’s a box to tick, the world is telling us apps, apps, apps. I’m not quite sure oh I’ve left it very late. What shall we do? And we can roll it up super-fast for them so that’s one thing. And then also we have an account management service so we actually help them with their mobile strategy as well so yes, we’re geeky and we’ve got some great tech but we’ve also got a team of people that know how to bring it to the event mix so that helps them hugely but in terms of the features the system itself the delegates mainly what they want to use as the map and the schedule. They wanna know where am I going and what’s happening next that’s the thing we noticed they click on most.

The exhibitors love the lead capture. They totally understand about getting their brand in people’s hands for a whole lot longer than just one or two or three days of the event and then yup, knowing that they can capture more leads through the QR code is just a complete winner for them and then the producers they make money from it, they get it sponsored and there’s various but real estate they can use to get the apps sponsored and then they’re also capturing a whole lot more analytics about whose doing what which can help them sell next year’s event and then just little things like the push notifications and the alerts and the emails you can send out through the system just extends their whole life of the event.

[0:10:29]

So we’re all trying to find ways to you know leverage the event itself outside of the short period of time it’s live and then starting with a lot more with Facebook and lot more with LinkedIn and then the mobile app being available for basically up to a year that’s a really you know build up community and talk with them for a lot longer and…

Speaker 1: Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: No. No. That was full stop.

Speaker 1: As you were talking I had 16 questions I wanted to ask you but that being said that’s the coolest thing too was that you said is that you’re totally dialing in to people to use this.

Speaker 2: Uh-hum.

Speaker 1: Do you ShowGizmo because I know that we’ve had so many problems trying to get apps up and running fast and then also to have somebody to you know to help you along –

Speaker 2: Yup.

Speaker 1: — with some sort of strategy that’s brilliant, right because it is that’s just always the problem that we have because people are decided to do events how late now they don’t all the time.

Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. And they I mean the technology at the end of the day I mean Tim will kill me for this but it’s just technology, right. It’s just cool tech.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: They only matters if people use it and they only use it if they understand what the point is and so there’s a whole new communication strategy for event organizers. They have to explain the benefits and how it intermingles with all the other communications they’re doing around the events so that’s what we help with. We give them that language so that they know how to get people to do things and enjoy it.

Speaker 1: That’s fantastic. And then also with the push notifications then you can also make changes the whole time. I mean.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: So if there’s a change some speakers said or something you can alert people or.

Speaker 2: Yup, and they can actually update the content that goes out into the apps in real time. So they just use their websites, change the schedule around, reload the presentations and then next time you have a quick look at the schedule you’re seeing the real schedule.

Speaker 1: That’s very cool.

Speaker 2: It is live. Yeah, we think so. Thanks.

Speaker 1: So obviously however is in Ohio can they go check out. I guess you can’t just walk to an event to check it out but how would somebody find you.

Speaker 2: So the best way is our website. Showgizmo.com gives people the chance to connect with us and then get a free demo. So people can explore and create an app and download the system and play around at our website as if they’d already brought it if they just rock along to the website.

Speaker 1: That’s awesome and then if someone would want to get a hold of you how could they get hold of you.

Speaker 2: My long complicated name at showgizmo.com.

Speaker 1: marie-claireandrews@showgizmo.com. Okay.

Speaker 2: It’s just my first name. We should make it MC should we.

Speaker 1: Yes, we should because your name is very difficult Marie-Claire. Okay, well thank you very much for talking with me. I would love to have you come back another time to you know I’m sure you guys are gonna — sounds like you’re constantly doing new stuff too. So –
Speaker 2: Yup.
Speaker 1: — to have you come back and talk again next time.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I’d love that. Next stop Antarctica.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. That would be fantastic. Alright, Marie-Claire thanks so much and thanks again.

Speaker 2: Thanks, Mike.

Speaker 1: Bye. Bye.

Marie-Claire Andrew Event Tech ShowGizmo Tuesday  09/27/11

Gerrit Hiejkoo Event Tech “WhatsOn?”  Tuesday 10/04/11
Jason Falls    No Bullshit Social Media Tuesday 10/11/11
John Pollard  Hybrid Events  Tuesday 10/18/11

Related

Ever wonder how they made the Old Spice commercial with the handsome guy? Owning a production company is a wonderful thing sometimes. I read how the creative team of Craig Allen and Eric Kallman who work at Wieden + Kennedy put together the commercials. The goal was to make a commercial women would like.  The research shows they do the shopping for most households. They also wanted it to be fun for men to watch. They talked about doing the creative and not worrying about how it would be made. That would be up to production team! I love this because this is the goal in any creative brainstorm on how to get the clients message across to the audience and have them walk away to do some sort of action. So you think BIG without worrying about costs. Then let the production team figure out how to produce the content.

This can be translated to any type of video, media, meeting or event. What do you want your audiences actions to be when they leave that ballroom after your conference? Watch that video. After interacting with that Media.

The first video that was the sensation was done in one shot with a little CGI (Computer Generated Imagery)done int he editing room. Basically the part where the diamonds pour out, the old spice body wash comes out of his hand and the clam. But everything else was done in one take. Well As I read it 3 days and 150 or so takes. Pretty awesome.

The video below looks like they used a stunt double

What are the goals of your next event or project? Love to hear how you thought about the goals of the project and made it work…