8 Favorite New Resources

Herb gardens at the Downtown
Grand Las Vegas (yes they
use these!)

Over the past year I have come across some great resources for (sustainably minded and tech forward) event professionals and it is time to share.  I look forward to any comments back that include your favs!  I have looked beyond my norm of the twitter feeds and LinkedIn forums and the more obvious daily or weekly reads which for me land in my inbox and which I explore by time and headline – like most of us! These include the PCMA Daily, EventTechBrief, BizBash, MeetingsNet, EventsUncoveredTV, #EventTech, TechsyTalk, EventManagerBlog, MeetingsPodcast(now also found on MeetingsNet), Skift, Padracino and a few more. These are all worthy of finding time to explore and are also mentioned on many other great lists.  Below are others which all have positive impact for me and our industry - and possibly YOU so have fun discovering those you might not be familiar with.

Blogs

Fuel: Passions that Drive Us is Liese Gardner’s ode to doing, seeking and sharing what we love and in every word ,she nails it.  

Eventcellany by Shawna McKinley always leaves me feeling as an individual (and we are as an industry) are still on the very cusp of truly doing events more sustainably – and provides thoughtful steps to help us all – working together – finding ways to improve.

Podcasts

GatherGeeks by BizBash launched in 2015 and I have listened to each episode where I have found the in-depth interviews to be an excellent source of forward thinking ideas and how to apply these to events.  It is an auto-download on Stitcher for me and I catch up on the way to work.  (monthly)

Sustainable Living by Jenise Fryatt and Marianne West

For those of us trying to do it a little better every day, this is full of useful tidbits and is truly from their hearts.

Books

Trending Topic - We have to do Something with Social Media #ButWhat by Gerrit Heijkoop and Paula Vos is defined as a management novel. What this offers to the reader who wants to learn more about using social media to promote your events and strengthen your association community is a highly readable romp through the anxiety ridden days in the planning process where you don't know how you will get your registration numbers where they need to be. This provides usable information and more importantly context –the WHY to use social media as one of your tools.  A refreshing change from the usual checklist format we often find this type of information offered in.

X: the Experience where Business meets Design by Brian Solis is masterfully designed and a great study into marketing across all spectrums with a focus on the digital. While not directly about events the principles can be applied in many ways across your business as well as experiential events.  I wish all informational books were this beautiful.

The Third Plate by Dan Barber delves deeper into the stories behind two of my favorite TedTalks by this thoughtful Chef and the story of his farm, restaurant and mission to change the way we think about food - production,distribution, waste and how we can all participate in this most human of topics.

Visual Strategic Tool

The Event Model Generation is an in-depth and well thought out multi-part tool developed over the last two years. I have worked on many events and conferences over the years and it is rare that I do these events with a deep understanding of the WHY and what the true desired outcomes of the varied stakeholders are.  This is a tool designed to ensure that every member of the team has this information at hand as they work through this and other important questions, and finish with a visual map on one page - the storyboard of this generation - before they bring the magic to life.

Event Model Generation

Tahira and Ruud at MPI WEC in Minneapolis 2014

Does your meeting planning team struggle with getting buy-in? Do you wrestle with dreaming up new ideas for your events?  What if there was a tool that fostered open discussion, encouraged creativity and still focused on meeting your business objectives?

I began my exploration of meeting design and how it can change the parameters of how people meet and more importantly what they get out of it several years ago. I have continued to enjoy the evolution, which for me led to co-authoring this chapter in the ninth edition of the CIC Manual, collaborating on EventCamp Vancouver and meeting people from around the world who share my passion.

As we delve into human nature, environment creation, presentation delivery and interaction based on neuroscience to increase engagement, analytics and return on investment of meetings, it always comes back to objectives before design.  There is always a challenge to derive the objectives and create an easy to understand story to present to your stakeholders about how you will use a meeting (or incentive event) to fulfill these objectives.

During this journey of learning I came across TNOC and the smart, forward thinking Ruud Janssen. About two years ago Ruud introduced me to the book Business Model Generation, a pre-cursor to what has now become his newest venture with Roel Friessen Event Model Generation.   This is a process which encapsulates all the information you want to collect about your event and its reasons for being and KPIs, and allows you to put it together in a simple visual presentation to share with your stakeholders. This is an incredibly simplified explanation, and because they are REALLY good at telling their own story please see this link for more detailed information.

FAQ's about #EMGcanvas =  #EventCanvas

Why do I think this is cool enough to write about?  There is always a need to be able to explain why an event is the best choice - whether as a marketing tool, a sales driver, a fundraiser or as the best way to deliver content and networking connections to your stakeholders, vendors and participants as examples. In 20+ years of producing meetings and events "EMG" is the best tool I have seen for getting everyone on what is now literally "the same page" - a one - page concept for success.  I have gone through this process on smaller events and have found it very useful - I can only imagine if this was enterprise-wide how impactful it can be to consistency in storytelling through your event touchpoints!  I am excited to see them bringing this to America at what is arguably the biggest industry experience of the year (IMEX).  Yes there is a cost for this, as they have assessed a value for the content you will return to your organization with, and is reflective of the time spent bringing this to fruition, and the expertise of the presenters in delivery.  In an industry where we often don't pay speakers (and we are not alone) and at a show with a focus on a hosted buyer program there are risks in this and I applaud all the organizations who will take risks for quality education.  

ps There is a good chance they will show up with Swiss Chocolate. (hint hint)