By: Eric Olson, General Manager, SMB Events
Active Network | Business Solutions
Eric Olson is general manager of SMB Events at Active Network | Business Solutions. He is responsible for driving global strategy and P&L for the company’s business-to-business events solutions serving small to medium sized businesses, associations and tradeshow and expo companies. These include event management and marketing technologies. During his tenure, Olson has grown the SMB Business Solutions business by more than 200%.
Last year I spoke more than a dozen times on event technology, and every time I encountered the same experience. A nervous, overwhelmed event planner pushes her way to the front of the room, thanks me and says, “What do I do first?”
It’s maybe the single best question to ask about technology. Yet, there is only one person in the room brave enough to ask it.
As digital tools flood into corporate and association events, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and it’s even easier to overwhelm your audience. So, my response is always the same.
“Make sure you have a very clear list of business objectives for your events. Then focus on implementing ONE piece of technology to better achieve those objectives; Do that one thing really, really well.”
It’s really that simple. And since January is a time for diligently penning resolutions to drop a few pounds or drink a few less cocktails, I think it’s also time for every event planner to make a technology resolution.
Three Steps to Creating Your Technology Resolution:
1. Create a measurable, stack-ranked list of goals for your event or events in 2012. Whether the goals are to increase attendance or improve post-event sales, create a prioritized list of goals that you can control and measure.
2. Make a list of the technologies your audience uses most often in their daily lives. For example, I noticed a recent technology conference that 80% of the room was using an iPad to take notes and interact during a session. Yet, the event had no connection between the live experience and those mobile devices. Instead the event had a single microphone in the middle of the room. Think about the technologies your audience uses in their everyday life to 1) find content and 2) interact and collaborate with each other.
3. Identify one technology from the list in #2 that will better help you achieve one of your goals from #1 and create a specific goal to implement it in 2012. For example, if your goal is to increase attendance and your audience is filled with LinkedIn lovers, your goal may be to implement a LinkedIn group to drive attendance at your event. Remember, technology doesn’t always have to hit your budget.
This exercise can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be for your organization. But, the hardest part is getting started. So, start with one thing. Make it measurable. And focus on doing it really, really well.
If you do it right, this isn’t just a resolution you can keep. It’s a resolution that can grow, expand and continue to benefit your business for years to come.
Cheers to good technology and great events in 2012 and beyond.
One of the general sessions at PCMA 2012 Convening Leaders Conference.
Last week, a promising college basketball player had to make a decision. It wasn’t a career altering decision. It was simply the noble question of whether he should “do the Dougie” at the team’s first home game.
The Dougie, for those who don’t know (I didn’t), is a dance that has reached notoriety with teenagers online. And the player, who, by the way, DID the Dougie, was one of the hottest prospects in college basketball. His decision to dance on the biggest stage of his career prompted one sports radio host to make the statement:
“Leaders,” he said, “don’t do the Dougie.”
Leaders, he argued, choose to lead. They stand out. They don’t do what others do. They exhibit maturity beyond their years. And, on the biggest stage, leaders shine. They perform. They get results.
So, as we convened our leaders in the meetings and events industry last week in San Diego for PCMA and Virtual Edge Summit, this story stuck with me and it occurred to me that our industry is at a similar decision point.
We can decide to lead. Or, we can decide to Dougie.
Convening Leaders. Converging Ideas.
The meetings and events industry has reached a point of convergence. This could not have been clearer than at PCMA’s traditional live events conference, combined with the Virtual Edge Summit, a progressive digital show. There we saw the convergence of ideas from our industry’s leaders, who badly want to elevate the reputation of events.
Talk in the hall centered on driving engagement, delivering ROI and building the value of events, while the discussion on stage relayed the findings of a recent survey, showing that just 38% of planners use the most basic attendee management technology.
So, while there’s a convergence of thinking and a clear opportunity to change, there is a gap in action and risk taking. And we, as an industry, are left with some importance choices.
Five Lessons From PCMA. Five Choices To Lead.
Throughout the weekend there were hundreds of examples of organizations that did choose to lead. Cisco demonstrated leading the way in virtual events by fully integrating digital and live environments to drive measurable value from their meetings. My employer, Active Network, announced its plans to forge the way for full technology integration by announcing the pairing of its engagement and logistics technology with StarCite’s leading strategic meetings management platform. And PCMA itself chose to embrace technology as the backbone of Convening Leaders, catapulting the association’s event to the front of this industry.
SVP, JR Sherman, announces the launch of Active Network | Business Solutions and the acquisiton of Starcite, at the PCMA 2012 Convening Leaders Conference.
Some of the best are choosing to lead. But, most are still years behind the needs of their businesses and associations – not to mention their members and attendees.
How can we glean from the best and choose to lead as a group? Here are five choices PCMA and VES should inspire YOU to make in 2012:
1. Choose to Embrace Digital Convergence
With VES fully co-located with PCMA, the world of digital events has changed. Virtual now includes all digital content, leaving behind hard-to-understand virtual worlds for new extended definition of content. And numerous case studies showed that good digital strategy can extend the reach of events, and provide content that adds value to live experiences.
Digital content is proving to be highly measurable, interactive and directly responsible for driving interest and attendance for live events. In fact, many of the people I met had been exposed to VES through free digital content before deciding to attend.
So, good planners are left with a choice. We can decide to embrace the convergence of live and digital content – and use it to drive more value through events. Or, we can continue to ignore it and lose attendees as they choose to spend their time elsewhere.
2. Choose Technology Integration
As technology floods into live events, most organizations have purchased it a la carte. Marketers tend to choose technologies focused on engagement while meeting planners choose solutions to solve logistical problems and control spend.
With Active Network’s announcement of the StarCite acquisition, the company is showing that the events world is ready to embrace the benefits of integrated technology solutions that meet the needs of both marketing and procurement. And it makes sense because technology is designed to improve experiences, create efficiencies and drive measurable value. So, if that technology doesn’t work together and support the whole attendee journey, organizers sacrifice experience, lose valuable data, spend too much money and lose efficiencies.
Technology is only important if it drives result. So, in the maze of new technology and cool ideas, integration just may be the most important feature we choose to elevate our industry.
3. Choose to Give Up Control
The way we communicate has fundamentally changed. Attendees make buying decisions based on friends’ recommendations. They want to learn from each other. And they want content built to support their objectives.
So, the best things we can do – although tough for event people – is to hand over the reigns to our attendees whenever possible.
The Active Network Educational Pod, in the Learning Lounge of PCMA's 2012 Converging Leaders Conference.
PCMA introduced interactive “idea” areas and learning lounges this year. I heard more comments about the value of these self-guided experiences, than about the sessions. With access to people and information becoming free and easy, event-focused organizations need to drive value in new ways, like facilitating attendee-driven content and leveraging it to drive engagement.
4. Choose to Commit to the Value of Events
We hold events to sell products, services or ideas. Yet, most planners spend most of their time managing logistics trying to save costs. While that approach got us by for years, and as digital technologies open access to people and information, our industry needs to focus on improving value.
One of the saddest stories I heard this weekend was of the British government’s massive cuts in events. In a time when it’s more important than ever to share information and bring people together, the government eliminated its event’s focused department and slashed tens of millions of dollars from its programs.
And despite the fact that it could now demonstrate the value of its events, it was too late.
While it may seem difficult at times to measure engagement, there were plenty of good examples at PCMA and VES of orgs that do it well. It’s important to set value-driven goals, implement measurement tools and leverage data to drive more value to events-driven organizations.
Data is the new currency of events. It’s time to commit to treating this discipline like other marketing and sales areas that have long embraced tactics to drive value before anything else.
5. Choose to be an Architect of Engagement
It’s becoming very clear that in order to accomplish everything – and in order for meetings and events to become a thought-leading industry – the definition of a planner needs to change. And the skill sets we bring in to our organization need to expand. It’s time to become architects of engagement.
It will require more education. But, we’re an industry built on learning. It will require restructuring. But, we’re an industry built on restructuring things.
We’ll need to add skills and technologies in community building, marketing, data analysis and the psychology of learning. It’s a new challenge. But, it’s a new opportunity for our industry, steeped in a tradition of building and monetizing relationships, to once again lead the way for corporations and associations.
These aren’t easy decisions to make. And they aren’t always comfortable. Yet, if events and meetings are going to thrive, we all need to commit to growing up. We need to commit to redefining our role and our value. And we need to commit to leading.
It’s time to make a choice. Are we going to lead? Or are we going to Dougie?
Written By:
Eric Olson
General Manager, SMB
Active Network | Business Solutions
