Beyond Status Quo Part 2

One of the key reasons people blog is because we want to share dialogue, and often it seems a little one way, which is why all bloggers love comments.  

What is even better than a comment though, is when it expands, and in this case, a blog post I wrote is now the topic of this webinar, thanks to the forward thinking people at Invision.  Rod Mickels, the CEO of this engaging organization read this post, and had his marketing team reach out to invite me to share ideas - and the result is here.  http://blogazine.iv.com

The shifts we looked at include
1. Data. The internet is 20 years old, and my how things have changed.

2. Meritocracy. "I want to align my experiences with my individual sense of purpose."  How are you showing your guests your event / organization IS the best choice?

3. Hyper Connectivity. How can we use the reality that our participants are always on line to our advantage?  Why should we be using hybrid meetings?  How is S'Mobility affecting our marketing, planning and execution?

4. Global Content. Content is available all the time, around the world and accessible to everyone and we have a new Generation - Google's Gen C - who are using primarily video content to create and curate their own connections and build their own communities. How can your content stand out when we upload 48 hours of content to YouTube every hour? (not to mention all the other channels available)  How are you creating your own thought leadership and sharing this with your clients, members and future potential of each of these?

How can we create better environments for learning, participating, connecting, and yes, building our own communities with the tools available to us?  There are many ways, each unique to the objectives of your event - let's share those ideas!

10 Secrets - Hybrid Events

Content is King. If content is King then the consort is a great hybrid event. Hybrid events combine face-to-face and virtual audiences and allow you to share your content across a much broader audience. With appropriate use of back channels, either private within the media forum, or on twitter or other mediums a hybrid has the power to connect across borders and boundaries. In our current state of never enough time or money to do it all, hybrid events offer a great solution for bringing together the largest audience to learn and to collaborate. This week Sonic Foundry invited me to present a webinar on Behind the Black Curtain: 10 Secrets for Producing your Best Hybrid Event and these were the tips we talked about. You can also check out the on-demand webinar at the link above.

1. Start with WHY you are having a hybrid event.
2. Plan the structure of your meeting to consider how you will integrate the two audiences.
3. Have an event timeline that allows you appropriate time to setup, test all your lines and rehearse. Long before you go live.
4. Work with trusted partners - venue, av, live streaming, internet - everyone has an important role.
5. Create a collaborative space before, duing and after the event.
6. Consider the whole environment
7. Cameras are critical - minimum of two
8. Sound is critical - don't skimp on mics
9. Define roles - who is doing what before and on-site (including hosts and social media concierges)
10. The beauty of a hybrid is that you can archive for on demand viewing later - do it!

You can also check out more details on the overall meeting design with the White Paper on Event Camp Vancouver: An Experiment in Meeting Design.

If your association is proud of the education you are offering members, consider hybrid as a way to extend education to your community. If your organization needs to engage employees but it isn't practical to have everyone travel, consider hybrid.

Social Gaming - What can it mean for your organization?

I was invited by Terry Coatta to join him in a discussion on their bi-monthly AssociCom show, a show designed to provide information that will help associations facing interesting times as the changes come fast and furious to demographics and expectations.

There is so much data out there on how games can positively influence collaboration, productivity, engagement and innovation that in my opinion not looking at ways to include them is missing a potentially huge opportunity. if you follow the basics of good game creation, that have thousands of years of history to back them up, then your chances of success improve.

Some of the challenges we hear

• we don't have enough space to play a game
• our participants are here to learn, not play
• our participants are here to network, not play a game
• not everyone likes games
• it will take too much time
• you need a good enviroment and a good process for a game to succeed
• "we" don't think it will work

Some of the opportunities we see

• achievable goals a community can work towards create synergy, discussion and a sense of accomplishment
• you can close skills gaps in a more fun way that better engages participants
• you can create a common ground to build from in an environment that is safe - a game does not necessarily have real - life consequences but does require that you make decisions that will impact the outcome
• engaged learners find more ways to make the learning relevant to their own situations - play engages more senses, has more synapses flowing and creates more "connect-the-dot" moments
• people attend meetings to create connections - as Plato said "you learn more about a person in an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation"
• being part of something bigger than oneself opens up participants to a greater sense of community and connectedness
• combined depth of experience can be created and positive emotions are created - and as we are all emotional learners this will create better memories and more reason to return

Should you consider adding social gaming to your event? Heck yes! Consider though the basic constructs of your game. It has to have clear goals and rules, clear and continuous feedback, and it has to offer voluntary participation that shows agreement to the above inherent goals and rules. This takes time and clarity to achieve, and it may mean finding someone smarter than you (as we did with EventCamp Vancouver) to build out the game elements. You want to create achievable opportunities, and you also want to challenge participants - play to the highest level and you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

What can you expect when you add a well constructed social gaming to your next conference or event?

• better collaboration among participants as they work together to achieve shared objectives
• unleashed creativity and strategic thinking as participants seek to "level up" and achieve the next goal
• the creation of optimism and hope - when we can see regular progress, or face setbacks in the game environment and move beyond these, positive emotions flow
• With success comes a perception of control over our environment and the associated  powerful feelings can translate to our daily lives
• the release of positive endorphins leading to good feelings (hey you can't argue basic physiology)
• greater camaraderie among participants throughout and beyond game play - you have a shared experience that connects you to others
• this shared experience can be with the people in your space or it can be with remote players around the world - games can become much bigger than your physical meeting space

Consider the next time you are planning a meeting or event how you can use the knowledge we have about great meeting and game design and add even an element, test it out and see what the response is. All you have to lose is an opportunity to create deeper connections amongst your participants!

If you are using gaming, or scared to try it, please comment and keep this discussion going.

Thoughtful Event Design and Production - It Matters



Event Camp Vancouver getting set for participants

When I wrote this post it was before Hybrid was the buzzword of the year, but it was not all that long ago. If it was a TV Show looks at the different ways we can make event education more memorable for the guests and while certainly not cutting edge (since we had several years of examples of doing this) it remains important.

As we move from our viewing audiences being used to produced shows, full of laugh tracks and canned lines, to Improv (think "Whose Line is it Anyway?") to the plethora of reality TV now available, our tastes may have evolved, but our need to be entertained continues to be a reality for meeting and event planners.

When we look at the 2012 Event Trends from David Adler of Bizbash which articulate so clearly what attendees will be looking for, it does all come back to careful meeting design and thoughtful production elements that add to the overall experience. It is no longer enough to build a conference or event full of pre-determined one-sided topics being delivered, paired with traditional evening events, perhaps a welcome, an awards gala and maybe a farewell or closing event. Now we need to offer not only excellent education, we must also work with the presenters on making it interactive to build relevance and applicability for the participants, allow room for "hot" topics or organic growth of topics within the sessions, provide nutritious offerings to sustain participants, offer events that meet the expectations of the guests but also offer some surprises and delights.  We need to create "tweetable" moments and blog-worthy stories, these that happen so much more immediately than any post show PR you may get in traditional media. You must also be staffed and ready to respond to changes that may be necessitated by this immediate feedback received.

In all of this we also are considering not only the needs of face to face guests, but also remote participants, and how we can create education and interaction that provides value for both, and ideally between both audiences. This does require a certain amount of technology and expertise in its use, careful preplanning and appropriate preparation. Is it worth it? If your participants then become your biggest advocates that lead to greater success for your events in the future - I say YES. Plan, prepare, produce - and make sure it is authentic, relevant and memorable!

YouTube, Twitter and more

So in this day and age of Social Media - what are we doing to use all these new tools to enhance our meeting and learning experiences?  What are we doing to connect people on a continuous basis via all the available mediums?
Social Media Revolution

They say that there is 24 hours of content posted to YouTube every minute.  That is exponential.

Two great examples from Incentive Works were first the session on engaging the human dimension with @Alissa Hurley and Gayle Duncan from Maritz - with many examples on the ppt, in the room and using live feeds to drive content (and win prizes) who had fun with SMS, polling and tweets in the room. That added to and did not take over the session.

A great session on social media with Gary Vaynerchuk - a man who has driven sales in their family business using primarily social media tools, including their own YouTube channel - check this out - 125,000 daily - DAILY - viewers!

WineLibraryTV

When I sat down to hear Gary (@Garyvee) speak, he had been following the #incentiveworks I think as I had a direct message saying - hope you are in the session today - so a little new technology to embrace I think! 

btw if you have a nice steak, a little smoked sea salt on top - pair with a bordeaux!