We host monthly webinars designed to give our audience the event and association information you need to make decisions, manage your time and resources and feel more confident in doing your job.

Last month we brought you “Best Practices in Online Community Management.” You can’t just build an online community and hope your attendees will know what to do. Successful communities take strategy, diligent management and promotion, but it can be overwhelming to know where to begin.

You can access the “Best Practices” webinar recording and slides any time, to read and watch at your leisure. Put your feet up, grab your beverage of choice and take a look now!

If you want to stay in the know about our monthly webinars, sign up for our mailing list. You’ll get invitations sent straight to your inbox, along with that witty Pathable banter you’ve come to know and love.

While you’re at it, sign up now for this month’s webinar on event ROI, “Plan & Measure Your Events to Deliver Profit Improvement.” Presented by Ed Jones, President of Constellation Communications Corp., this webinar on May 24 is not to be missed if you care about your event’s return on investment.

We’re always looking for dynamic speakers and relevant, forward-thinking topics. If you’re interested in sharing your expertise through a Pathable webinar, drop us a line today!

Come and see our CEO Jordan Schwartz at D.C.’s Meetings Technology Expo on May 21! His 30-minute demo was nominated for an award at Sundance this year! (OK, not really.)

Jordan will be showcasing Pathable’s tools and latest exciting product updates from 2:30-3:00 pm. During the rest of the day, stop by and see him at booth #606. Pathable is powering MTE’s event community, so if you register for the event, you can connect directly with Jordan (as well as other exhibitors and attendees) before, during and after MTE.

Attendees who reach out to Jordan via the MTE online community or stop by and see him at our booth will get $500 off of a Pathable event community in 2012. Not only that, but you’ll get the chance to pick Jordan’s brain on social media, psychology and beekeeping.

MTE is  a great event for education across a broad range of technology topics and is geared for the corporate, association, independent and trade show planner. Come join us!

Are you a government meeting professional attending SGMP’s 2012 National Education Conference? Catch Pathable in New Orleans before we head to the East Coast. Mark your calendars for May 17 at 10:30 am, because you won’t want to miss Jordan’s dynamic session on how web 2.0 can build a community for your conference.

Pathable will also be making an appearance at PlannerTech NYC on May 15. While I (Tara Barnes, Marketing Manager) won’t be attending in person, attendees can see my 4-minute demo virtually.

PlannerTech is an event technology showcase designed to highlight technologies in quick, energetic demos, so if you’ll be in New York, get yourself registered! We hope to see you online and in the PlannerTech Pathable community.

Given the chance, everyone at Pathable would love to talk about our product and how it increases the value of events. We also think that creating new business relationships is just as fantastic. We hope to be shaking your hand (or giving you a high five, if that’s your preference) soon.

Building community is critical

How often do you pursue co-marketing opportunities with your customers or partners? One of our clients, Corelytics, is organizing the Small Business Tour. We’ve connected on Twitter, and are creating blog content throwing high fives in one another’s direction. It’s an easy and valuable way to build visibility on both sides.

More important, though, we’re collaborating, sharing ideas and creating general feelings of goodwill.

You may have sat in on one of our monthly webinars that we’ve hosted with our partners like Eventbrite and etouches. Yes, these webinars are fantastic ways to provide rich, valuable content to our audience, and that’s certainly our first priority. But the brainstorming, collaboration and camaraderie that happens before, during and after these webinars deepen and personalize our companies’ business relationship. That pays off in a myriad ways.

Here are some easy tips to strengthen and build your existing professional communities:

• Keep Communication Lines Open – It’s really awkward when you realize that you need to ask someone for a favor or input and you haven’t spoken to them in a year. Create calendar reminders for at least every 3 months to reach out to people. Block off a few hours of time and send out simple “How are you? What’s new in your world?” emails. Call your contacts simply to check in, not because you need something. Keeping in touch means that not only will you stay informed on what your contacts are working on, but you can also feel comfortable broaching them with favors or collaborative projects because it won’t be out of thin air.
• Scratch Each Other’s Back – Odd analogy in a professional context, but you get my point. I touched on this above, but we collaborate with partners to benefit our audience and build rapport. Identify projects you want to tackle this year, and see who in your professional network would bring value to and get value from being involved. You’ll get the benefit of having more great minds involved, and your contacts will think of you next time they’re working on something.
• In-Person Meetings – Here it is again, but having face-to-face interactions is vital to the health of relationships of all types. Make it a point to schedule in-person meetings with your partners at least a few times a year. If you’re traveling for work, see who in your business community lives/works in the area, and arrange a time to grab a cup of coffee or a pint of beer. Taking time out of your schedule to meet with people helps them feel appreciated, and you both get the benefit of seeing eye to eye (pun intended).

So, what are you waiting for? Stop reading this post and go make some phone calls already. We bet you’ll make some magic.

Last summer, our CEO Jordan Schwartz wrote this humorous but relavant post on Botox and face-to-face meetings. He mentioned that our company culture has mostly been based in remote, home-office-based environments, with daily GoToMeeting calls allowing us to scrutinize one other’s facial expressions and do things like compliment the CTO’s new haircut.

A few months ago, Pathable opened a brick and mortar office space for its Seattle-based employees, where our entire sales team now works, along with most upper management and three-quarters of our account managers. Do our employees need to be in the space to get work done and get it done well? No, as is evident in our success since 2007. Is the shared space and in-person brainstorming helpful? Heck yes. Being able to spin around and chat with the sales team, or pop down the hall if I had a quick question was priceless for me.

While daily video chats are better than phone calls or email, they aren’t as beneficial as in-person interactions. Belinda Luscombe recently examined the work of Kevin Rockmann of George Mason University and Gregory Northcraft, a professor of executive leadership at the University of Illinois who specializes in workplace collaboration in Time Magazine (Why E-Mail May Be Hurting Off-Line Relationships).

Their studies showed that higher-tech means of communication like email (and videoconferencing, though to a lesser extent) diminish the personal interaction needed to foster trust. And just like in the rest of our social relationships, business relationships need trust in order to have effective cooperation and communication within a group setting. No eyeball to eyeball = less trust. Got it?

Remember that the next time you’re contemplating skipping your annual conference or meeting. While you’re sitting at home, reading session handouts and scanning the Twitter feeds, your colleagues (and competitors) will be shaking hands, grabbing coffee and developing genuine, trust-based working relationships. Don’t miss out on those opportunities. Just remember to comb your hair and brush your teeth. Hygiene matters more when meeting in person, and we don’t need a study to tell us that.

“State of Social Media for Events”

In late December, Pathable opened the “2011 State of Social Media for Events” survey. Many event professionals chose to share their professional insights and experience and for that we say thank you!

The data collected is robust and is providing sharp insights and trend identifications on how event professionals used social media last year. We are working hard to compile all the statistics from the survey, and can’t wait to share the findings later this month. Survey participants will get the first chance to access report we are producing, and everyone else will be able to download the report from our website in the first week of March. We will send out an email announcement when the report is available for download by the general public.

Webinars

Pathable is committed to providing the best in content-rich, relevant webinars, and what better way to do that than to work with our brilliant and savvy colleagues? We brought you multiple webinars through late 2011 and into 2012, and are excited to announce a webinar for March you won’t want to miss.

On March 8 at 11 am PST/2 pm EST, special guest and writer/blogger/meeting professional Michelle Bruno will be joining us to present a webinar on Mobile Applications for Events. Invitations will be sent out soon, so keep an eye on that inbox and mark your calendars now.

Exciting Product Updates

Some may call us perfectionists or even “crazy”, but we always want to improve our product – because our clients deserve nothing but the very best. We have rolled out some really exciting product updates in January, so get ready to geek out with us.

• Multilingual: A single Pathable site can be viewed in over two dozen different languages simultaneously.
• Improved Exhibitor / Sponsor support: Finely tuned control over descriptions, easy-to-administer and delegate control to exhibitor administrators and support for arbitrary sponsor levels
• Private meeting enhancements: Improved control over who may schedule meetings when and for how long; ability to set capacity limits on resources such as rooms or networking tables
• Site-wide alerts: Announcements can be pushed in real-time to the desktop viewers and mobile viewers

The Pathable Team is Growing!

In addition to hiring additional Developer ninjas in recent months, we have also added two new team members you may see or hear from in the near future. Vern Callero joined Pathable in January, bringing his winning personality and love of crisp white shirts to our Sales team. Welcome Vern! Katie Thorn came on board in February, and her addition to our savvy group of Account Managers further ensures that our clients get the white glove service we are committed to providing. Happy to have you, Katie!

Pathable has also added several new developers to our team and we would love to add more! Here is a list of some of our current open positions . Drop us a line if you know of someone who might be a great fit at Pathable.

Got a question for us? We’re always listening.

Change is in the air! With a new year comes a new era in the evolution of Engage365, an online community for event and association professionals. Pathable is now the owner and manager of this vibrant, growing online space.

Since 2009, the Engage365 community has been created, guided and managed by Christopher Uschan and the hard working team at Omnipress.

What the community has grown into wouldn’t have been possible without their vision and leadership as well as the dedication from Community Manager, Jenise Fryatt. While Omnipress is staying actively involved with Engage365 on a sponsorship level, they are handing the ownership reins to team at Pathable.

The Engage365 community is already familiar with Pathable’s product, whether they know it or not: The Engage365 community platform (Homepage, Inbox, Conversations, Contacts, Schedule and more) has been running on Pathable technology since the community launched.

We want to acknowledge and thank Jenise Fryatt, who was Engage365’s Community Manager from December 2009 through January 2012. Jenise helped shape, nurture and grow Engage365 to where it is today, and we appreciate all of her dedication and hard work.

“I really enjoyed sharing, chatting and spending time with the members of Engage365 and I’m proud to have supported Omnipress in its vision to create an online community for event professionals interested in innovation. The spirit of generosity inherent within the community will be a driving force as Pathable takes it into 2012. I wish them all the best,” Jenise said.

We at Pathable are so happy to get the chance to be involved with Engage365, and look forward to a rousing 2012 and beyond. We will be unveiling a reinvigorated site update soon, so stay tuned for information on new features and more!

Yes, Pathable is offering to reimburse attendees up to $500 for their registration fee for any event, but we hope that’s only a small part of the reason attendees will jump at this program.

So why are they recommending Pathable to the hosts of events they attend in such huge numbers?

“Attendees are paying so much in time and money to go to conferences and meetings; they deserve to get full value out of their investment,” explained Pathable CEO Jordan Schwartz. “This new program is meant to ensure that they do.”

“People attend events to network: to meet new colleagues, partners, customers, vendors, peers and friends,” Schwartz said. “Pathable’s industry leading platform for building private, branded social networks for events makes that easy.”

“Unfortunately, it only works if meeting planners know to offer a Pathable network to their attendees,” he continued. “If they don’t, well, you have a lot of lost people fingering drink tickets, squinting at name badges and making awkward small talk at ‘networking receptions’.”

With our newly announced program, conference attendees can suggest Pathable to the organizer of the conferences that they attend. If the conference hosts decides to use a Pathable community for their event, the attendee who made the recommendation will get a “thank you” to the tune of their full conference registration fee, up to $500.

“The genesis of this program came from our conversations with event attendees,” Schwartz explained. “Every time we’d describe what Pathable did, their eyes would light up and they would say ‘I wish the last conference I went to had used that!’ Well, now they can make sure their next conference does. The $500 is just our way of saying ‘Thank You’.

The way we see it:

• Conferences want to boost their attendance
• Attendees want to be empowered to create the experience they need

This program will meet these needs and make everyone involved happy about the outcome.

We believe this new program will help attendees get the networking tools they want with the kind of monetary “thank you” that everyone can feel good about.

To learn more about our new program or to recommend an event yourself, click here.

Looking for new ideas on how to reach your attendees via social media?  Pathable has teamed up with the event promotion experts at Eventbrite, to bring you the “Master the Magic Formula to Engage Attendees and Drive Registration” webinar series on November 17^th and December 1^st at 11am PDT.

Please join us for a very informative webinar discussion on tips and strategies that really work to increase attendee engagement and registration. You’ll learn how to:

• Engage with your attendees via social media before, during and after your event
• Keep your social media and marketing strategy targeted and efficient
• Drive traffic to your event page and increase conversions
• Meet your goals by acquiring the necessary information from your attendees

And so much more!

Extra, extra, read all about it

Sit back and let us bring you up to speed on what’s been happening in the (virtual and brick+mortar) offices of Pathable.

Our Team is Growing

In Q3, a new team member joined the Pathable ranks. Please join us in welcoming James Gallagher, our new Vice President of Sales & Marketing. James has an extensive background in sales, lead marketing and account management, and we couldn’t be happier with the knowledge and drive he’s bringing to our efforts.

James noted in his bio that he enjoys the occasional sunlight in Seattle, which means that he’s not a vampire. Which is too bad, in a way, because it would have really added to our street cred. Welcome anyway, James!

Pathable 2.0 is Almost Here!

If you follow our blog or subscribe to our newsletter (and why wouldn’t you?), you know that Pathable is releasing a 2.0 version of our award winning product in Q4. Don’t worry: if you’re not up to speed on Pathable 2.0, our chortling CEO can tell you all about it.

Our first customer launches on the updated platform next week, and all new customers in November and onward will be on 2.0 as well. We are so excited to bring Pathable 2.0′s complete mobile experience, lightning fast speeds and updated interface to all of our valued clients, returning and future. Interested in learning more? See for yourself how Pathable can build your online community – whether you have 10 events per year, 1 event, or even none!

Updated Website

If you’re reading this blog, you’ve no doubt noticed another of our news worthy announcements – the re-launch of our first generation website. We’re still the same Pathable company, but with an identity facelift. We encourage you to check out our newest case studies, see some pricing examples and download some of our great resources for event organizers. We’re happy with our new look but always encourage feedback. If you have thoughts, please share them!

But Wait, There’s More…

You can continue to expect more great things from Pathable into 2012. Keep your eye out for:

• An educational webinar series with one of our valued partners
• More insightful case studies
• Industry specific whitepapers

Not only are we hoping to help make your events and online community better, we’re want to help make your job easier through support and education. Because we sure love what we do, and believe everyone should feel that way about their job too.

Pathable 2.0 will:

• Create year-round customer communities from multiple event communities
• Bring the full power of an event’s social network to all your mobile devices
• Sets new standards for speed and performance (6 – 10x as fast as previous versions)

Excited? So are we. Last week I sat down to chat with self-described tireless visionary (OK, I made up the “tireless visionary” bit) Pathable CEO Jordan Schwartz; he divulged the “why” behind Pathable’s updates, and just what has him geeked out and giggling.

Q: Pathable seemed pretty great as it was. What prompted these updates?

A: Over and over, customers were coming to us and saying “We have great engagement and participation in our event community – thank you! But the event itself is over now; how do we keep that engagement and excitement going year-round?” In other words, they were asking “How do we leverage our event community into a membership community while taking advantage of the momentum and engagement we’ve already built?”

Frankly, we didn’t have a great answer. Sure, we could leave the community running, but there were a number of architectural and user experience decisions we had made early on that didn’t lend themselves to year-round communities.

In 2.0, that’s been solved and then some. We are now the only provider of social networking services that allow the organizer to host multiple event-centric communities and a year-round membership community under a single organizational umbrella: consistent user profiles, single management dashboard, but separate, overlapping membership lists.

This means that attendees and organizers can take their connections, discussions, and engagement that swirl around the in-person event and leverage it into ongoing engagement and on into the next year’s event site.

Q: What new features in Pathable 2.0 are you most excited about?

A: Besides the multi-event communities, there are two things that are giving me the giggles.

The first one is kind of geeky. Pathable 2.0 is part of a new breed of web applications like Twitter, BitTorrent and LinkedIn Mobile that are effectively browser-based applications instead of traditional web-server based services. I won’t bore you with the tech details, but there is one big impact you’ll see: the site is blazingly fast. A page that might have taken 3 – 4 seconds to load in the past is now ready in literally a few hundred milliseconds.

The second one is mobile: we know how pervasive iPhones, iPads, Droids, and other mobile devices are, and we know how critical on-the-go information is when you’re walking down a hallway, trying to figure out what room to go to next, or who that guy that just said “great to see you again” to you was. Our new system supports all major mobile platforms with the same speed and level of functionality you find on the web site. That means we can provide before, during and after engagement for all attendees.

Q: Pathable’s a pretty innovative company that’s won really cool awards in the events industry. Why do you stay focused on the events space rather than branching out and building technologies for other industries?