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 Saturday,March 6th, 2010
Its amazing, in this new world of robust online technology, just how much there is to learn. Over the past year, I have personally spent quite a bit of time investigating the “ins and outs” of creating and producing online events, such as webinars and webcasts. It has been a rich educational experience.
To date, I have been involved, in various capacities, with a half dozen webinars. Through experimentation with these events I discovered I have a natural ability as a facilitator, or moderator to lead panel style presentations. Over time I am becoming more and more comfortable in this arena, although I still have much to learn.
This week I participated, as both a facilitator, and panelist, in a webinar, hosted by PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association). Our presentation was entitled “Engaging Attendees Today: How to Combine Virtual and Face-to-Face Meetings.” For a recap of the event please click here for that article.
By most accounts the webinar went very well. There was a terrific audience, nearly 200ppl. The topic is very popular right now in the events business, so there was a lot of interest around it. Our panel was very well prepared to address the learning objectives, for the event, and we had a strong Powerpoint presentation to support the discussion, which is a key component to a successful webinar.
However, there were some challenging moments, and therefore some learning lessons to this experience.
Learning Lesson #1: The Moderator/Facilitator is the Gatekeeper – As I was the facilitator, it was my responsibility to keep all of us panelists on track, and aligned with the expectations of the event. See Learning Lesson #2 below — I learned the hard way!
Learning Lesson #2: Get to your learning objectives as soon as possible – This webinar was a one-hour session. We spent the first thirty minutes in the Introduction phase, which was entirely too long. There was an important story, which added credibility to our presentation talking points, but we should have been more succinct in “teeing it up” to the audience.
Learning Lesson #3: Make absolutely certain the Webinar technology is completely functional – We had two tech rehearsals for this webinar, but neglected to verify one important detail; that the webinar chat window was operational. It wasn’t. As the facilitator, I was supposed to monitor the questions and comments from the audience … I could not see them. We eventually resolved the problem, but it created some awkward moments.
Learning Lesson #4: Always have a conversation “back channel” available – All three of us panelists are Twitter fanatics. Yet, we somehow forgot to promote a Twitter Hashtag channel, for the event, ahead of time. It happened anyways, as our attendees created one, on their own. But… that was slightly embarrassing.
Learning Lesson #5: Close the Webinar Platform Immediately After Event – If you plan to have a post-event briefing (a good idea) with panelists, it is wise to first close out of the webinar. One panelist and I thought the platform was already shutdown to the public, and continued conversing, after the event, only to discover, through feedback from attendees, that we were still live. Not a good thing!
Looking ahead, I will leverage these lessons in future webinar opportunities. I tend to be hard on myself, as I strive for perfection, but if life were perfect, it would be boring, for sure. 
Question: What learning lessons have you benefited from, in your experiences with webinars? If you attended this session, did I miss anything? Please share your thoughts with us!
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Friday,March 5th, 2010
Earlier today PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) hosted a webinar entitled “Engaging Attendees Today: How to Combine Virtual and Face-to-Face Meetings.“ As you may know this is a hot topic in the events business in 2010, and there were nearly 200ppl in attendance at the webinar.  
I facilitated the session, with fellow panelists Jeff Hurt and Christina Coster. Jessica Levin was also originally slated to participate as well, but unfortunately had to back out at the last minute.
The unusual slant to this webinar was to share our Hybrid event experiences through the lens of the recent Event Camp 2010, held in New York City on February 6, 2010. Christina was the brain-child, the genesis of that un-conventional conference. Along with Jeff, Jessica & I, Mike McAllen rounded out a five-person team that produced Event Camp.
In recap the following were the learning objectives for the webinar:
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Discuss how to use Social Media as tool to enhance attendee experience before, during and after meeting.
- Discuss strategies for increasing interaction between virtual & face2face attendees.
A Twitter Hashtag #EC10W was established for this seminar by our Twitter colleagues and there was a ton of activity in that channel during the event. A transcript of the chat can be found here. Here are the stats courtesy of WtHashtag:
A detailed discussion of what we presented in the webinar will be posted on this blog, on another day, but for now here are links to the slide presentation, which is in pdf format. Also, in approximately two weeks PCMA will have an archived version of the webinar available at their Online Learning Center.
Have a fantastic weekend!
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Tuesday,March 2nd, 2010
Over the past year I have written many blog articles in which I have referred to the Twitter Hashtag Community “Eventprofs.” My success in the blogging and social media world has been significantly influenced by my yearlong collaboration with this like-minded group of event professionals.
Several months ago, one of my Eventprofs colleagues, Christina Coster, a NYC based Freelance planner, came up with the idea of producing an “un-conference,” calling it Event Camp 2010. A team was formed to create the event, slated for the Roger Smith Hotel, in New York City. I was asked to become part of that five-person team.
The Event Camp 2010, held on February 6, 2010 was a huge success, and by all accounts will live on in social media folklore. Many blog articles, magazine articles and newspaper articles have been written about this event, in the month since it occurred. Evaluations, by attendees, of Event Camp were stellar, and there is a huge interest in the events business for the next version of this innovative conference.
The most important learning lesson, arguably, from this experience is the realization that “online relationships and events lead to, not replace, face2face events.” If you ask any of the 75 participants who attended this conference face2fac, if that is true, I am 100% confident you will hear a resounding “yes” from all of them.
   
This Friday, March 5, from 12noon – 1pm, CST PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) is hosting a free webinar addressing this very subject. Christina Coster, Jessica Levin, Jeff Hurt, all Eventprofs veterans, and the planning team for Event Camp 2010, along with myself, as Facilitator, will tell the story of what led to this event, and its impact on the events business. Sadly, our fifth team member, Mike McAllen, will not be able to join us.
This interactive session, in which our panel will take questions/comments from the virtual audience, will provide attendees with a behind-the-scenes look at how to plan and execute a hybrid meeting. Key take-aways from the webinar will include:
- Learn how social media can help you achieve and improve upon your meeting objectives before, during, and after your event.
- Discover how to manage technology to deliver a seamless hybrid meeting.
- Learn new strategies to increase interaction by virtual and face-to-face attendees.
To register for the webinar please click here. If you are not able to join us on Friday, an archive of this event will be available at the PCMA online learning center.
We hope you will join us on March 5th for this exciting session!
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Sunday,February 28th, 2010
Last week I attended two conferences simultaneously, one in Cancun, Mexico (MPI Meet Different) and the other in Santa Clara, Ca. (Virtual Edge Summit) Such is the life of a virtual traveler! While I certainly missed the face2face interaction at both events, the experience of navigating two conferences at the same time was very interesting, to say the least.
Both events had their highlights, including some great program content, but my “Ah Hah moment” this week was the realization, that event professionals have much to learn about perfecting the virtual attendee experience. To be fair about it, most organizations have not been playing in the Hybrid or Virtual event arena for very long, so it is reasonable to expect there is still much to learn about them.
Before going any further in this discussion I feel compelled to clear up a distorted perception, by some event professionals, as to what a virtual attendee is, and isn’t.
- Virtual attendees are real human beings, and just as “live”as their face2face counterparts.
- Event professionals (myself included) need to discontinue referring to face2face participants as “live attendees.”
For Hybrid events, the core challenges, for organizations, are to:
- Build community among the virtual and face2face participants, thus creating a common bond to the event.
- Design an engaging experience for all attendees.
It is not sufficient to slap a virtual component onto a traditional meeting, and then label it a Hybrid event. That approach will certainly lead to failure.
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Saturday,February 27th, 2010
Have you ever attended a Conference Keynote Session, and watched a speaker read their entire presentation from their laptop computer? Needless to say, it is not an energetic, or engaging experience! I’m thinking there must be some truth to the idea that, before God invented Tylenol PM, there was the “Robotic” Keynote Presentation.
Earlier this week, as I’ve mentioned in a couple of blog articles, I attended the MPI “Meet Different” Conference, as a virtual participant. Each day the program was kicked off with a keynote session. On Day Three (Tuesday) MPI attendees were “introduced” to the intellectual thoughts of author Marty Neumeier, best known for his “whiteboard” books entitled “The Brand Gap,” “Zag” and “The Designful Company.”
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Friday,February 26th, 2010
About 10 days ago, I wrote an article which, in part, was critical of MPI (Meeting Professionals International) for deciding to charge “non-members” a hefty fee for their Virtual Access Pass (VAP) to the 2010 Meet Different Conference. (occurred in Cancun, Mexico this week)
 Learning can be Painful!! Putting aside my disagreement with MPI’s pricing model, I registered anyways for the VAP and attended this conference as a virtual participant. I am glad I did, because, as it turns out, there were some good learning moments. As a bonus, I also made some new quality connections with other MPI attendees.
The virtual experience, from my perspective, was by no means perfect. In follow up, I promised to share my feedback with MPI, via this blog, and so, through the lens of a virtual attendee here are my observations, both positive and negative, of this Hybrid conference:
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Monday,February 22nd, 2010
Well, the MPI (Meeting Professionals International) 2010 Meet Different Conference kicked off in great style on Sunday morning, with it’s opening General Session, featuring Jeremy Gutsche, Innovation expert & author of the popular book, “Exploiting Chaos.” For context, MPI’s event is taking place in Cancun, Mexico through Tuesday. Unfortunately I am not attending the event face2face, but I am participating as a virtual attendee.
 By most accounts MPI really fired up their audience with this first session. From the moment Jeremy Gutsche hit the stage his energy was both engaging and entertaining. By the way, the webcast video was of very good quality, and the audio feed outstanding. There were some logistical issues with the Powerpoint presentation and other visual aids utilized, but that discussion is for another blog article.
The central theme, or thesis (as he described) behind Jeremy’s message is “by leveraging viral trends and methodical innovation you can generate ideas, harness creativity and ultimately exploit chaos.”
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Saturday,February 20th, 2010
I read a couple of tweets this afternoon that really got me fired up. They were from someone who was very critical of the hashtag community”#Eventprofs.” I believe criticism, when delivered constructively, and accompanied with proposed solutions, is healthy.
Here are the tweets (without User’s name) … you decide if they were appropriate or not:
First Tweet: “#eventprofs tag makes me cringe. It used to be cool but now all I see is RT & FF spam from self-promoting suits. I’m not learning anymore”
Second Tweet: “….but now #eventprofs is just used to advertise events themselves & promote useless tweeps who RT each other’s useless articles & quotes.”
 While I don’t take these comments personally, I am an active member of the Eventprofs community, so I gotta say, I am not feeling the love here!! In response to this person my two questions (via tweets) were:
- Why (do you feel the way you do?)
- Are you contributing?
I believe those are fair questions. Those of us connected to the Eventprofs community (myself included) are always interested in learning and getting better at what we do… that has always been the spirit of the group. And, when I hear someone say they are not learning anymore, I tend to wonder whether they are making any effort themselves. Hmmm…. what do you think?
So, really, I have three thoughts to share here, based upon my own perspective and experiences.
- If a person is interested in building relationships with other people and growing their sphere of quality contacts, it will really serve them well to treat others in the manner they would like to be treated. Yes… the good ole fashioned “Golden Rule“ I learned that simple truth long ago and it appears to be timeless in its meaning!
- Criticism is a good thing, as long as its delivered with dignity, and with solutions.
- I believe a person receives value from an opportunity proportionate to the effort they put into it. For example, if I spend positive energy and reasonable effort into my interactive experiences on Twitter, then most likely I will receive the same type of response headed back my way from those I am communicating with.
You can refer to this as “good Karma,” you can label it “considerate behavior” … I just call it “Common Sense.” What’s your opinion?
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Saturday,February 20th, 2010
I had a lunch/meeting with two Experient colleagues this past week and our conversation really was terrific. At some point our discussion turned towards social media. (Imagine that) One of my colleagues referred to my enthusiasm for social media.
Admittedly, I do have a passion for technology. In fact, I am fascinated by it. What really gets my “motor running” though, is thinking about utilizing technology as a customer service tool. Since I work as a consultant in the Meetings and Events business I am very interested in the influence of technology on services provided to meeting attendees. Most notable of those services is education content.
Reasonably, education sessions, at a meeting or conference, should not only share quality information with participants, but perhaps, more importantly, should engender a healthy learning atmosphere. Unfortunately, education sessions often fall short of that important objective. Many people (myself included) believe the core challenge lies with education design.
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Saturday,February 13th, 2010
Some of you may recall last July (2009) MPI (Meeting Professionals International) rolled out a “Virtual Access Pass” (VAP) for its WEC (World Education Congress). The fee for this pass was $299.00 providing access to all their sessions virtually.
This move caused quite a controversy in the Events community, because of the aggressively high price tag for such an event, combined with a tough economy. Subsequently there was a surge of blog activity, unanimously denouncing this pricing model, as being short-sighted and non customer service focused. For a more complete synopsis of the discussions that took place back in July read this blog by Jeff hurt.
This past week, I decided to check into the possibility of acquiring a VAP for the upcoming “Meet Different” MPI Conference in Cancun, Mexico, taking place February 20-23, 2010. I visited the MPI website, and learned MPI is in fact offering a VAP for this program. The good news is MPI is now offering the VAP to its members free of charge. A VAP is available to non-members, but sadly, for the hefty price tag of $325.00.
Like many business professionals, I am provided financial support, by my company, to be a member of one industry organization. For many reasons, I have chosen PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) as my organization of choice. Besides delivering superb education and terrific events PCMA also routinely offers “free” webinars for hot industry topics, and also, with the recent January 2010 Annual Meeting, free virtual access to their meeting content, regardless of membership status.
Ironically, I can purchase, if I wanted to, an MPI membership for $375.00 US, and then I would have access to a “free-of-charge” VAP for the Meet Different Conference. Unfortunately, as with many other people, my budget will not allow for that. Even if I could afford to purchase a membership, I wouldn’t. You see, I am not convinced that MPI is very forward thinking. I believe they are missing out on a huge opportunity to acquire new members and greater visibility of their organization.
Put yourself in my shoes for a moment … as a non-member, if I were offered a taste of MPI events, on a complimentary basis, or at least at a low price point, then I just might embrace the spirit of what they did and consider joining the organization. Instead, I am forced to make a choice, write a large check to attend an event virtually, without any notion of what real value I will receive, or choose not to participate.
There are many conferences and events, with virtual components, being offered on a complimentary basis. For example, the Virtual Edge Summit is being held over the same dates as the MPI program. I have registered (for free) for the Summit, and will attend that event, instead of MPI. The folks that put on the Virtual Edge Summit are thought leaders, and they understand customer service. I will focus my time and attention on their conferences and events. In fact, I will probably buy from them, in the future.
It seems to me, that MPI could have funded their virtual technology for this event, by leveraging sponsorship opportunities. Perhaps they are doing that too, I don’t know. Maybe they just need operating revenue, and that is the bottom line.
Question: What is your opinion of how this has been handled? Do you think organizations should put a hefty price tag on virtual content? How do you think these services should be funded? Please share your opinions!
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Notice: This is my personal blog and is not officially connected in any capacity to my employer. The opinions, strategies and ideas expressed here are strictly my own.
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