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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title><![CDATA[Event Engine Podcast]]></title><description><![CDATA[Actionable insights and expert interviews on the key aspects of successful conference planning. Covering marketing, technology, productivity, and more.]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/</link><image><url>https://eventenginecast.com/favicon.png</url><title>Event Engine Podcast</title><link>https://eventenginecast.com/</link></image><generator>Ghost 5.101</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:37:50 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://eventenginecast.com/rss/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><ttl>60</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[5:5 Building relationships in recruitment]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-5-building-relationships-in-recruitment-mike-frost" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-5-building-relationships-in-recruitment-mike-frost" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  What does it take to build meaningful relationships in the events industry, especially when recruitment is your focus? Mike Frost, founder of ExpoCast, joins Lee to share his journey and approach to recruitment for the events sector, emphasizing the importance of relationships, resilience, and community.Mike founded ExpoCast in March]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/building-relationships-in-recruitment/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">67375552dd6e090001d2268e</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 5]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:24:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_5.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-5-building-relationships-in-recruitment-mike-frost" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-5-building-relationships-in-recruitment-mike-frost" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_5.png" alt="5:5 Building relationships in recruitment">What does it take to build meaningful relationships in the events industry, especially when recruitment is your focus? Mike Frost, founder of ExpoCast, joins Lee to share his journey and approach to recruitment for the events sector, emphasizing the importance of relationships, resilience, and community.Mike founded ExpoCast in March 2020, right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and had to navigate the collapse of the events industry during the lockdowns. Instead of giving up, Mike and his co-founder chose to pivot—focusing on building relationships, helping out the industry, and being visible, even when there were no roles to fill. This episode explores how being a problem-solver and connector helped them survive and grow.Lee and Mike discuss the journey of navigating a business through difficult times, the power of networking, and the value of being genuinely helpful without an immediate payoff. Mike explains how ExpoCast was able to use the pandemic as an opportunity to become more involved in the industry by participating in various initiatives and conversations.If you're looking to learn how to build lasting relationships in recruitment or understand how resilience and community can transform your business, this conversation is a great resource.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast with video as well! You can watch the conversation with Mike on <a href="https://youtu.be/AXInOiLaSfc?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AXInOiLaSfc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen title="5:5 Building relationships in recruitment - Mike Frost"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Mike:<ul><li>Relationships before transactions: Focusing on building genuine relationships, rather than just trying to fill vacancies, helped ExpoCast build trust and ensure long-term success. Even when there were no jobs to offer, connecting and providing value led to opportunities later.</li><li>Resilience through tough times: Launching during a pandemic forced Mike and his co-founder to pause and find creative ways to stay afloat. They took mortgage holidays, minimized spending, and got involved in industry conversations to keep ExpoCast in front of the right audiences.</li><li>Networking is about helping, not just selling: Mike shared his approach to networking—finding ways to help people without expecting immediate benefits. This included offering career advice, connecting people with the right contacts, and just being available when needed.</li><li>Be clear about what you want: Whether you're seeking a job or looking to hire, knowing exactly what you want is crucial. Mike emphasizes that clearly communicating your needs makes it easier for others to help you, whether it's through networking or recruitment.</li><li>Honest hiring practices: Mike advises event companies to manage expectations accurately when hiring. This includes being transparent about the nature of the role and providing thorough onboarding to address any gaps in skills.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://expocast.co.uk/?ref=eventenginecast.com">ExpoCast Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-frost-exhibitions-recruitment/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Mike Frost on LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. My name is Lee Matthew Jackson, and today we have on the show, the one and only it's Young Mike from ExpoCast. How are you today, mate?Mike: I'm very good. Being called Young is a nice tree. I turned 40 the other month. That's great.Lee: I love that. I'm 42, so I can call you Young, legitimately.Mike: Fantastic. Does that mean I can call you Old?Lee: Absolutely. Ask me if you want any advice on being 42 and how to avoid doing your back in when you just do something as simple as sitting I'm here for you.Mike: I once sprained a wrist just rolling the window down in a vehicle. And that was years ago. That was in my early 30s. Yeah, no, I'd... Don't go there. No, okay. That's the whole of the podcast, isn't it? Yeah, we've gone off track already.Lee: The grumpy old men show, isn't it? That used to be on years ago. I remember that. We're actually old enough to be on that. That's scary, isn't it? Oh, goodness. Before we go too far down that track, Mike, who are you? Let our wonderful audience know all about you, the wonderful Mike, young 40-year-old and ExpoCast.Mike: Yes, young 40-year-old. Let's carry on with that. I'm Mike Frost, founder of a company called ExpoCast, which is a recruitment consultancy for the global events industry, and it launched in March of 2020. Basically, which is really painful first 12 to 18 months, but I'm still here, which is great, which means we survived, have a lot of fun, helping out event organisers, event technology companies, find the right people for their companies and their teams, basically. That's it in a nutshell.Lee: That's amazing. I absolutely want to go there. How the hell did you survive during COVID? You launched March, literally in lockdown. March was lockdown, wasn't it? Or was it May? But it was pretty much events were not happening.Mike: Yes, it was a very interesting first 12 to 18 months of running the business. I launched it I was a co founder at the time, and she and I had worked in the same for recruiting for the events industry. We knew what we were doing, and we knew what we wanted to do. We just couldn't do it because events stopped happening and recruitment industry went off a cliff as well. How did we survive? I got a mortgage pause. What do they call it when you have a pause on your mortgage?Mike: Basically, we just tried to-Lee: A holiday, yeah.Mike: Yeah, that's it. Mortgage holiday. Just basically stopped spending as much money as possible. That was it. We did a few slightly different things to get a little bit of revenue in, but mainly we took it as an opportunity to get involved in all of the industry conversations and initiatives that started happening because the whole industry just became way more collaborative for that period during the pandemic. Bizarrely, it ended up being a little bit of a positive for us in terms of being able to get in front of an audience of the industry. Even though we as individuals, our names were semi-known already, we managed to get the brand name out and elevate our own names within the industry. So when the vacancies did come back, A lot of them came to us just because we'd been so active, trying to help the industry come back as quickly as possible. It was a weird period, bizarre to think about it now. I almost don't really how we survived.Lee: That's the best answer, I guess. You could have said tins of beans and all that stuff.Mike: There was probably definitely some economical food choices during that time as well, definitely. That's phenomenal.Lee: But why I love what you've done there is you've recognised that this is a time where we can't necessarily provide recruitment services right now. We're going to find a way to personally, which you did, Epik, and we're going to use this time to be helpful and build relationships. That's something that people very often don't think about, isn't it? They think that I'm going to grow my business by marketing and selling my product to as many people as possible. Whereas you guys have gone down the, We're going to build relationships and be helpful to people. It sounds like when things shifted, i. E, we could now start meeting again, presumably that's when you guys started to get the opportunities.Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The people who we built really strong relationships with during that period are the people who came to us either to try and find a job now that there were jobs around or to use us to find the right people for them. As you can imagine, we had a whole heap of calendar conversations during that period with no vacancies whatsoever because of all of the redundancies. We, again, had managed to build up a fairly strong database from scratch during that period, even though we weren't actively trying to recruit for any particular roles. We were just attracting people who knew that they wanted an event's job as soon as there was an event's job available, basically. Yeah, it was pretty wild. Also, I think we just were naturally drawn to try and help out. I mean, neither of us had come from a marketing background anyway, so it's not as if we could have put together some really snazzy marketing campaign, say, Hey, we're here. We've got no jobs.Lee: That's a genius idea. Yeah, they're right. That'll get attention.Mike: But we like trying to solve problems. I've always, and I think I'm recognising it more and more in myself, I've always just been a problem solver. When it did work in other businesses, someone couldn't find a stapler or whatever mundane issue they had. This is probably selling myself as an employee. Like, I don't need a job. I'd always just get up from my desk and be like, Don't worry, I'll find a stapler for you. It's just like that natural inclination to try and help people out and solve problems, which I think is, hopefully, what I would say makes me a good recruiter and good at spotting the opportunities to match people with businesses and with teams.Lee: On that, just being able to look beyond the day-to-day, look beyond the marketing plan, look beyond your business, and actually start to get to know people so that you can help put them in jobs or find opportunities, how would you go about doing that then in this relational/problem solving mindset that you guys have?Mike: Yes. I keep saying we. My business partner, she actually left the business back at the start of the year on very good terms. But I can't say that Can't stop saying we.Lee: That's okay. We is good because it's the royal we and you're projecting the fact that you are going to grow in the future. So if you say we, we will forgive you.Mike: I appreciate that. It's always been quality over quantity, which means even when there are vacancies, it's a low volume of roles that we're working on any given moment in time. The chances of us having an appropriate vacancy for any a candidate who just stumbles across us or decides to get in touch because they've made that call that they want to look for a new job, it's actually not very high that we have a suitable role for them. Our, I guess, unspoken target for every conversation we have is that we always leave somebody with something, some positive action that they can take, whether it is talk to us about a specific role, that's the ideal. But even if it's just we've been able to give them some advice on where else they could look for vacancies, somebody else who might be a better point of contact, because my focus is all about exhibitions, conferences, and event technology. If I've got somebody for an agency background come to me for a new job. I'm not necessarily the right person, but I can point them in the direction of somebody that can. I guess it's about trying to build goodwill and a reputation of always trying to do the right thing by people.Mike: I guess that may mean, bottom line, don't make as much money in the short term. I'm really confident that in the longer term, all of that goodwill eventually brings people back around. If I don't make as much money, even in the long run, I can sleep well at night. I've got two young kids. Sleep isn't exactly unbroken at the moment as it is. I'd much rather have a It's a clear conscience that I'm always trying to do the right thing by people, whether it's clients or candidates. That's basically our ethos in not a nutshell because I've rambled, but yeah, that's how it goes.Lee: No, I get it. I also get the lack of sleep. I have a four-year-old who still hasn't worked out how to sleep all night, and I was sleeping next to him last night just for comfort, so I'm there, too. But I think what I'm hearing, the thread here is that we've got... It's still that problem-solving thing, really, that's inbuilt in you, where people are coming to you and you are developing relationships with people where you're asking them questions, What is it you're looking for? How can I help you? These conversations. When you realise, Well, I can't necessarily help you right now, but I do know somebody who can, you're also a connector. First of all, someone comes to you for advice, for a conversation, for help, and then you connect people. I totally agree with you. It does come full circle. At some point, someone's going to remember, Mike had my back at such and such a point. I've now got this amazing job as a result, and I know he specialises in X, Y, and Z, so I'm going to give him a call and see if he can find me some staff for this particular project that we've got coming.Lee: I truly believe that happens.Mike: Actually, the It has literally happened to me this week. Amazing.Lee: I'm going to soon say it.Mike: There's a chap who, let's just say, lived in an area where there were very, very few events opportunities and managed to very quickly find something within a commutable distance for him. However, through his own network, he ended up taking a different job that paid way more money. I was like, If you take my job, I'm going to be really annoyed.Lee: It's like, Take it, take it, man.Mike: My client was on the same page as well. He was like, Yeah, he'd be a crazy person not to say it. But he gave me a call on Monday and said, Right, we've got some roles. I promised I'd do right by you because I knew you helped me out even though I didn't go on your vacation. Here we are, at that stage now, signing on a new client. It does come around. It doesn't always work that way, but it doesn't need to always happen. I know that I've done the right thing, and If good stuff comes from it, fantastic. And that's it. It just then opens up doors for me to be able to help other people, too.Lee: We've essentially been, without saying the word, talking about networking, I think, for the last 15 minutes, haven't we?Mike: Yes.Lee: In a way.Mike: There's a very good chance that's what we've been doing.Lee: I think that's what we're talking about. The reason I say that is that we've talked about having conversations and we've talked about solving problems for people, et cetera, et cetera. But I bet some people are listening thinking, Oh, where do I go and find all these people? How do I find these people? How do I start these conversations, et cetera? Could you speak into that, maybe?Mike: Yeah, and look, that answer is going to be different for every individual involved. It depends on what the purpose for you wanting to network is. Although what I would say is that regardless of your purpose, networking is always going to be beneficial for you. It depends on which part of the events industry you're part of. I think for me, a big thing about networking is don't necessarily go out with too rigid of an expectation as to what you're going to get out of it, whether it's an in-person event, whether it's something online like Activate that you and I were both just on and you can network outside of the mainstream. There is serendipity in networking, and you can see that there's a lot of things that you can you do have some fantastic random conversations that can lead to incredible things. If you are going to have some structure to your networking, rather than build up a list of of specific people that you want to speak to. I would say it's more about leaning on the people who are already in your network. Get them understanding what it is you need at the moment, whether it is I need a new job, whether it is I need a mentor, whether it is I need to find a recruiter, whatever.Mike: Get your network knowing what it is you're looking for so that they can then make the introductions, because I think that is the strongest way to start any conversation is when it's come with a bit of a recommendation from a mutual, somebody that you know mutually. That would be... It's not really answered your question, has it? No, it has.Lee: In terms of where do they go? No, it has been. But it's highlighted something. I think it's highlighted something that we all actually have a network when we don't realise it.Mike: However small that network is, it needs to start somewhere.Lee: If your network is two existing clients of yours ever because you're a branch banking new business and you only know two people, or be it you've met a few people over the years at events and you've stayed in touch on social media, et cetera, you have a network. You could at least start at that point, couldn't you? If you've never met anyone in the industry ever and just have these few people. It could even be a mum and dad, I don't know. It's just the fact that we do have some network. You hit the nail on the head there, educating people as to what it is you're looking for. If people know what you're looking for and you can really verbalise that in something that's simple, that sticks in people's mind, the minute they notice something that Mike said he was looking for somebody who wore baseball caps and did podcasts. Oh, yeah, that Lee guy. Because it's super specific, super easy I remember. Super random. I know that's a terrible example, but you get the idea. That is educating that network. Also, flipping right back to the beginning of the episode where you're talking about helping people as well is not only educate those people, but also how can I help you guys?Lee: What are you looking for, et cetera?Mike: Because they're going to reciprocate. It goes two ways. This is it. It goes two ways. They will simultaneously say to you, Yeah, absolutely. I'll introduce you to anybody I come across. By the way, if you happen to know anybody who meets This criteria. Context is way underrated. I think a lot of the time we just wing it, don't we, with networking? You just go out there and see what happens. As much as, like I said earlier, don't necessarily have a list of targets that you want to go and network with because they'll be able to tell if you walk up to someone and they've been on a list of yours. Probably have a script. That person will know. There's some agenda here. But give people context. Let them know what it is that you need. That is something you can apply to looking for a job as well. I've done a free course available on the website. It's six videos. A big part of that is building this team of people around you when you're looking for a job. Essentially, there's the three parts of it. I've given them cheesy names. What were they? There's the hearts, which is people you know personally, whether it's parents, best friends, partners, whatever, who will understand more about you from an emotional perspective and whether or not a certain job or potential nine manager is going to fulfil that emotional need that you've got from a role.Mike: Then there's the heads, which is your network amongst the industry. Whether that's colleagues, former bosses, mentor, whatever, people who you know in the industry who can potentially be out there networking, trying to find opportunities for you. Then the pros, which is somebody like me, a recruiter who's out there advocating for you, has really got to understand what you want and can keep you in front of when that right opportunity comes around or whether maybe you want to talk to that person about having a shot, a few speculative introductions, really targeted. There is a whole value to giving context to your network and applying that to whatever your current ambition is, whether that's a step up in career, whether it's you need to bring on a few new clients for your current role, whether it's Whether it's a target that has been set for you by your line manager, for example. Apply your network. There's a wealth of knowledge out there. It's just not in your head yet. It's out in your network. Just go out and talk to people, but tell them what you need. I'm a big fan of just ask questions. Worst case scenario, it ends up maybe it was a bit of a dumb question.Mike: But if you're asking it of someone who respects you, they're not actually going to think any less of you. They should be like, Mike, that was, get one. You know the answer to that. But best case scenario, they give you the exact bit of information that you need to get you a bit closer to whatever your current goal is. So, yeah, huge fan of really recognising how you're surrounded by networking opportunities. You're probably doing it and you don't even realise.Lee: I think we're networking right now in theory because we're building up some rapport. I'm understanding what you do, the At the moment, somebody mentions to me they're looking for a job in the events industry. You are now the guy I know who I'm going to say, Yeah, you need to talk to Mike. He's really down to earth. Nice guy. He'll sort you out. If he can't help you, I know he'll pass you on to someone who can. There's a great example of a conversation that I've learned about you specifically and will probably do when it happens. I'm sure it will.Mike: In advance, thank you.Lee: Yeah, that's all right. I now need to go and find someone for you. Now I've said that. No pressure. No Could we talk about specifically people who are looking for jobs now in the events industry? I think this will be really useful to them. I don't know what level we should look at here, but some people know they want to work in the events industry, but they're not really sure how to, say, get into the industry or what it is that they necessarily want to do in it, et cetera. Because you mentioned goals and stuff earlier, and I think some people just don't really know what their goals are. For some of them, it's just basic burger. I need a job and I've got an event's degree, or I need a job and I like the events industry. It looks exciting. How can they start to unpack all of that so that they can actually say something that's helpful to people like you in order to get a job other than I need a paycheck?Mike: Yes. Sometimes it is talking to someone, whether it is a recruiter or whether it is, like I said earlier, family members or whatever, talking to people often helps you find out the answers that you hadn't already identified because you Because people will ask you questions in a different way than you would ask yourself those same questions. If you just try and sit down and go, Right, what do I want? It's too big. That's too big of a question. I recommend, if this is something you're going to just do by yourself, is at least for the first stage, break it down to what do you want from a personal perspective and what do you want from a professional perspective. The professional side of things, it might just be, Well, I need to pay my bills. That might be it. It might be that you know, Actually, I want to be on the festival side of events. I want to be on the trade show side of events. I want to work on the For an event technology company, whatever. Whatever you do know, write that down. If actually there's a few different types of things that you're interested in, write the list down.Mike: I'm happy for it to be festivals or trade shows or event technology. If you can prioritise them, great. If you can't, don't worry about it. But just get some structure to what you're looking for. If you really don't know, that's when I think it's beneficial to try and find someone maybe like me who or whether it's... I love all the industry associations are amazing. We've got a partnership with the Association of Event Organisers, for I'm always saying to people, even if you're out of a job, because their members are companies, but even if you're an event professional without a company, so you couldn't be a member of the AEO, they would still absolutely love it to hear from someone who's really excited and keen to get into the industry. That's why they do what they do. It's a not-for-profit, an association. They're not doing it to try and make a huge bottom line. They're doing it because they just really love the industry. If they get somebody reach out to them who's keen to get into the industry, that's going to get them really excited and want to help and help that person identify what they want to do.Mike: But there's lots of industry press out there. You've got Adam Parry running event, Industry News, you've got MASH Media and all of their publications. You can learn and consume information about the industry. The more that you do that, the more likely you're going to say, Well, actually, I much more enjoy reading the stories about concerts. Actually, I think I want to get into that entertainment side of the industry. Or, Yeah, okay, conferences might not be the most exciting format, but actually, I love researching things. I love deep diving into subject matter, and I want to get involved in putting the programme together for an event and trying to recruit the best speakers possible. I really enjoy that process. The more that you can consume information, the more that you can talk to people about your professional or personal goals, and let them ask you questions to help your mind turn the cogs in a slightly different way to get the answers, the easier you'll be able to identify what it is you really want, and then you can apply that to a job search. I don't think that process at the beginning of a job search is really thought about.Mike: I don't think Not enough. People just go, I need some money. I'll go on LinkedIn jobs or read or whatever it is.Lee: That sounds good. I'll apply for that.Mike: Type some keywords in, hit the apply now button. Whereas actually, you can be much more targeted, much, much more targeted. The thing that we saw a lot in the pandemic, which really makes my point, I think, regarding being targeted with these things, is that you had people who really needed a job, and they were applying. But every single time that you apply to something and get either no response whatsoever or an automated no thank you, or even if you get to an interview or whatever and you don't get the job, that's just rejection after rejection after rejection. If you're doing that in volume, that's a lot of rejection to take. We were seeing that it was really impacting people's mental health. It was So if you can afford to take a more focused approach to a job search, it's actually just healthier, let alone the fact that you're probably going to end up with a job that is much more desirable to you as an individual. It's just healthier, right? To be looking after yourself and your mental health and just not getting all of these knockbacks and knockbacks.Lee: That's really... Kind of blow my mind there.Mike: So We've got here, in most circumstances or in many circumstances, people know they want to be in an industry, but they don't know really why.Lee: Maybe they don't even understand their own identity, their own selves very much. Having those conversations and consuming the content and having a look at what content you're consuming and saying, Oh, actually, I seem to get really excited by that particular lineup, the event tech, and such and such said that I'm really good at solving problems. Such and Such said that I have a great communication skills. And such and Such said, I'm really good at sharing complex information in a way that non-tech people can understand. These are all things, and I can start to build up this amazing picture about myself. So now, instead of me just blankets applying for every single job going, I could actually now maybe focus on, say, a marketing role in an event tech company. So that's now a very, very specific role. And that's something that somebody else can go, Oh, yeah, I understand exactly what you're looking for. If I was to go into any networking environment, be it business, be it finding a job, be it whatever, and I say I'm looking for anyone or anything, then most people are just going to go, Cool. This is it, right?Lee: I can't think of anything. But if I go and say, I am looking to work in an event tech company as a marketing administrator, whatever, social media manager, or work on the conference, I don't know, gappertate, whatever the heck it is that you're really looking for, that's going to connect in people's heads, isn't it?Mike: Absolutely.Lee: It's less of a- Less of this- Less of this in theory as well because there's less jobs to apply for. In theory.Mike: Yes. Again, I'll caveat all of that by saying that I do understand that sometimes you just need a job. If you really just need to be able to pay your bills, ignore me and just do what you need to do. I'm by no means advocating that people risk the roof over their head to be able to get a perfect job for them. But it's also like, you know how you look up at the night sky and the longer you look, the more stars seem to appear because your eyes are adjusting. It's the same thing with this, this identifying what skills and traits you've got, what interests you. The more that you think about it and the more that you talk to people about it, the more you will recognise, Oh wait, yeah, no, I do. I do do that all the time, even if it's just a weird It's like, yeah, you can probably translate that into a potential skill set that be really applicable to a certain type of job. Once you start on that, I don't want to make it sound over the top, but that self-awareness journey or whatever, it doesn't stop.Mike: But I think that's a really good thing because you as a person are going to change throughout your life and career anyway. If you start getting into the habit of recognising things about yourself and asking questions and letting people know they can ask you questions about yourself, you're going to have a much better understanding of where you are at that moment in time and then what the next right step for you as an individual is.Lee: That's powerful stuff. This has got a really big picture.Mike: This wasn't my intention at all.Lee: Amazing. No, I love it. We said right at the very beginning, didn't we? We didn't know where this was going to go and we went deep. I love it. This is That's phenomenal. Can we flip then the script onto people who are recruiting for our role? I've unfortunately hired and had to, sadly, fire in the past. That could be for many reasons, including me hiring just the wrong person and not asking the right questions or me not even advertising the job correctly or whatever. But could you maybe speak into what people in the events industry who are recruiting could be doing to find better candidates and hire the right people? Because Having to rehire is just so freaking expensive.Mike: Yeah, it's expensive in so many different ways, isn't it? It's not just the cost of if you paid somebody like me, for example, for a fee, but it's also that cost of the time you've now got to spend not doing your core job, but actually reviewing applications, interviewing everything. To answer your question, there's quite a lot to do before you even really go to market. You can look at it quite simply and say, Okay, well, I need a salesperson. This is the type of thing I sell. So ideally, it's a salesperson who has also sold something like this already so that there's less training that they require. But there's more to it. We have just gone on a real big journey about finding yourself or whatever, It's also important to do that as a hiring manager, as a business. Lots of companies have got missions and values and whatever, whether it's somewhere buried on a website or painted on the reception wall or whatever. Are they accurate? Is that actually the, you'd call it the company culture that philtres down through the business? Or is it just words? Actually, in that case, let's get your employees involved and rewrite that stuff so that it makes sense and that everybody can really resonate with it and somebody coming in has the right expectations of what it is like to work in that business.Mike: A lot of the time when people don't work out in a vacancy is because expectations have not been set accurately. The company might just be in a bit of a hurry or they might just not understand how much detail they need to go into or how much information they need to gather about an individual to assess whether or not they're going to be the right fit. I had a conversation with a client earlier who had had some turnover in the and essentially it was because expectations hadn't been set regarding the difference in the clientele that the salespeople were selling to. It's a much more, I guess you'd call it, aggressive marketplace. Sales people needed a lot more resilience because they were going to meet with a lot more blunt nos before they eventually get that. Yes. People just weren't, candidates weren't being made aware of this. They'd worked in a business where they were really successful with sales. I don't want to call it a gentler clientele, but not quite so punchy. They were coming in and finding it really, really hard and having to work hours and just burning out and then having to leave the business because they weren't taking targets.Mike: So managing expectations accurately, whether that is the really quantifiable stuff like target numbers. I mean, For the love of God, be honest about the commission that people can actually earn, for example, or the bonuses if it's a bonus role. There's a lot of real That's an inward understanding that I think would be beneficial to a recruitment process if companies had the… Companies don't always feel like they've got the time to do this. It's super reactive, I find. It's very rare or rather uncommon to have strategic recruitment take place in the events industry. A lot of the time, it just seems like, Okay, well, all of a sudden, we've got a load more private equity money, so we're going to go launch, launch, launch, or acquire, acquire, acquire. We need to hire, we need bums on seats, or, Crap, someone's resigned because they've left to a competitor, or we've just completely burned them out. We need to fill that seat. It's so reactive. You don't have time to put the detail in. So it's rather than wait until you've got a vacancy to do this reflection to really build an accurate picture of what your, not even an ideal employee, but the persona.Mike: If you're in marketing, In marketing, you put together this picture of your ideal customer, your ideal customer profile, and you're used to building that. Do the same as a business. Do that ideal employee profile. It's not to say that you're only going to hire certain types of people or demographics. It's absolutely not what I'm saying. Because the whole other part of this is when you do go to market, make sure you're going out to the whole market. So all of your The advert, the job description, it all needs to be really inclusive language. You need to make sure that demographics who aren't necessarily on the platforms like LinkedIn or the main job boards are still able to find your vacancies. There are several DEI job boards that are specific for... There's a... Oh, gosh, what's it called? I can't remember what it's called now, but there's one specifically for the LGBTQ community. There's jobs that are specifically for, I think, neurodiverse people. It doesn't mean that those jobs have to be just for those people, but it's more about making sure your vacancies are findable by everybody because there's a lot of talent out there that just don't ever find out about your roles because you're just chucking up.Mike: You're copy-pacing your job description as an advert for a star, which is just the worst thing in the world. Then you're just chucking it up in one place, maybe two, throwing out to seven recruiters who are just going to spend maybe a day on it and then not risk spending more time on it because one of the other six might place it. Then seeing what comes out. There are ways to be much, much more strategic. Yeah, I could keep talking about this.Lee: I'm sorry, it was a massive question. But you've given us the main point here is that whilst the people who are looking for jobs need to do that introspection. We need to do that the same as a company. We need to understand who we are, who we serve, what our culture is like, what people we want to attract. We don't want to bring people in who perhaps, like you said with that sales example, I've had a softer experience as it were, and this is going to be a cutthroat. We need to be honest about that, et cetera.Mike: Keep going. It's not even to say that by identifying these differences, that means that actually you can't hire all of those people because they don't fit. It's about identifying gaps and then have your onboarding process and your procedure, have it really thorough for a start, but also agile so that no matter what somebody's gap in their skills, you are able to fill that. You do need to manage that. You manage expectations as to what they're coming into. If it is someone, just to stay on that sales example, if it is someone who's coming into something that you might consider a bit more of a harsher sales environment, they need to know that they're coming into that, but they also need to have faith in you that you can teach them that resilience that they need. You can teach them how to get the yeses, how to respond to more nos. If you cannot do that, then you shouldn't hire that person because it's not fair on them and it's a waste of money and time for you. But yeah, it's not about doing this real assessment of what you are as a business, who you are as a hiring manager.Mike: It's not about whittling down the candidate pool until there's only one person in the whole world who might be right for your team. It's about identifying all the different bits that would make somebody feel like a real part of the team. They've got ownership, they've got over what they're doing, that they're going to feel excited to go to work every day and want to do what they do. No matter how much resilience they need, they enjoy it and they thrive on it. If that's something that you need to help them develop, you have armed yourself with the skills to be able to develop them. I find it all really exciting because there's just endless possibilities to be able to upskill companies and hiring and candidates and employees. I don't know. It's a huge thing. It's people, right? There's no two people are the same. If you treat your recruitment as if they just got to meet this set of hard skills on a job description, then you're really going to struggle with retention and just hiring in the first place. I'm going to shut up now.Lee: No, but there's that. Again, I can understand that this role is going to entail all of the above. Not only are we looking for people who might meet some of those requirements, but equally, we need to recognise that there are going to be certain things that we need to support whomever comes in. When that person comes in, we're identifying any weaknesses that they may have because we're human, we all have weaknesses. I know me personally, too many nos in a row, and I feel pretty damn depressed, so I'm going to need someone to support me in that. Give me the cognitive behavioural therapy or whatever it is I need.Mike: In-house counselling.Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the counselling.Mike: I'm pretty sure some companies have got that as a benefit, haven't they? Yeah.Lee: They shouldn't be, really. But I certainly get the idea. I know that I do recognise that the question is probably a book and a whole series of books worth of answers. But you've definitely given us enough for that whole day. I'll write it one day. Yeah, you should, mate. It's good. I can tell it's in you. It's bursting out of you. Well, I mean, at that point, mate, this has been a It's been a phenomenal conversation. I know we could just keep going for hours. We should probably call it a wrap because I'm pretty sure most people are near the end of their commute and they've been listening and enjoying. For folks who want to get access to that, I believe you mentioned some downloads, etc. How can people find those and how can people connect with you? Then we'll say goodbye.Mike: Yeah, sure. Basically, for me, I'm on LinkedIn. That's really the only social media that I tend to actually see. Every six months or so, I try It lasts for a few weeks and then I fade off of it again. So yeah, LinkedIn is where to grab me. Then the website, it is expocast. Co. Uk. On there, in terms of just those free things, there is the course for Jobseekers, six videos, completely free to access, and hopefully it will help you put together that picture of what you really want. Then it gives you some of the real tangible stuff. There's CVs and there's interview tips and offer stages and all of that. Then for companies, we do also have a free assessment of your current talent attraction. It's about 25 questions, and it'll give you a customised report at the end that basically says, You're really good at this. You're a bit shit at this. You're middling to average in a few others, and then you're really good at this. Here are the things to try and work on to improve. That sounds really useful. Then obviously, there's a link to my calendar on there somewhere so people can book in for for a call.Mike: And that's that, really. Website and LinkedIn.Lee: Amazing. I thought you were going to say that you're also a big deal on TikTok and that we should all follow you because you can do these epic dances and you're gone viral multiple times. But clearly,.Mike: Sadly not. No, it's not in my repertoire just yet. My daughter is seven, so I have a feeling TikTok is in my future somewhere. Oh, no. Oh, dear.Lee: I deleted my account eventually. Well, thanks, mate. You are a I really, really enjoyed talking to you. I hope we can have you on again soon. Yeah, thank you. That's really appreciate it. Would love to. Have a good one and I hope you get some sleep tonight. Take care.Mike: Cheers. Likewise. Take care. Bye..</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5:4 Crisis management for events]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-4-paul-richardson-and-jill-hawkins" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-4-paul-richardson-and-jill-hawkins" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  How can event organizers prepare for unexpected crises and manage them effectively? Jill Hawkins from Aniseed PR and Paul Richardson from Vividink share their expertise on crisis management for events, offering insights into how to stay calm and handle anything that comes your way.Jill and Paul are experienced PR]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/crisis-management-for-events/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">67375531dd6e090001d22688</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 5]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:16:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_4.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-4-paul-richardson-and-jill-hawkins" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-4-paul-richardson-and-jill-hawkins" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_4.png" alt="5:4 Crisis management for events">How can event organizers prepare for unexpected crises and manage them effectively? Jill Hawkins from Aniseed PR and Paul Richardson from Vividink share their expertise on crisis management for events, offering insights into how to stay calm and handle anything that comes your way.Jill and Paul are experienced PR professionals who have worked with event organizers for decades. In this episode, they help demystify crisis management, explaining that a crisis is any situation that can impact your ability to deliver an event effectively. Whether it's a speaker cancellation, a data breach, or a natural disaster, Jill and Paul explain that planning ahead is key.We discuss the importance of having a crisis communication plan in place, and how the key to good crisis management is preparation and clear communication. Jill and Paul also share stories of real crises they've managed, providing practical advice on how to stay ahead of potential issues, communicate effectively with stakeholders, and turn a potentially damaging situation into an opportunity to build trust.If you've ever been unsure about how to plan for the unexpected, this episode is a must-listen for practical strategies that can keep your event on track when things go wrong.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast with video as well! You can watch the conversation with Jill and Paul on <a href="https://youtu.be/lMuyj7cIfP4?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lMuyj7cIfP4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen title="5:4 Crisis management for events"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Jill and Paul:<ul><li>Define what constitutes a crisis: A crisis can range from personnel issues to financial trouble, technological failures, or even natural events. Understanding what qualifies as a crisis for your event helps you prepare effectively.</li><li>Proactive crisis communication: Don't wait until something goes wrong. Identify potential problems in advance and plan for how you'll respond. Having pre-written statements ready can help you move quickly.</li><li>Flapping can be a good thing: If you find yourself worrying about potential issues, use it as motivation to prepare. Identifying potential problems before they happen can make you more ready to handle them.</li><li>Role play crisis scenarios: Practicing your crisis response plan helps identify gaps and makes your team more confident. Even running scenarios in a meeting room can help ensure everyone knows their role.</li><li>Clear communication is crucial: In any crisis, being transparent and communicative is key. Avoid "no comment" responses, which can erode trust. Instead, let stakeholders know what you know, even if you don't have all the answers yet.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://aniseedpr.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Aniseed PR Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillhawkins1/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Jill Hawkins on LinkedIn</a></li><li><a href="https://vividink.info/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Vividink Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulatvividink/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Paul Richardson on LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. My name is Lee Matthew Jackson, and today we are joined with not one but two legends we have here, Jill and Paul. Folks, how are you doing?Jill: Hello. How are you doing? Good, thanks.Lee: Good, good, good. Well, for the folks who don't know either of you. Let's start with Jill. Could you give us a quick introduction of yourself, and then we'll move on to Paul?Jill: Hi. Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me. I'm Jill Hawkins. I run a business called Aniseed PR, working in the events industry. Worked in the industry for about 25 years now, working with all sorts of industry suppliers, from events, from registration companies to venues, that thing. I've been working with Paul for the last few years, I guess.Lee: Paul?Paul: Yeah. Hi, my name is Paul Richardson. I run a PR agency called Vividink. We're 20 years old this year, and we spent the majority of that time working in and around events. I came to this in to doing this on an agency basis from client side. So I had 12, 15 years of running comms departments in large industrial companies before coming to do this. And this is far more fun.Lee: Excellent. Well, you just aged yourself a little bit there. I'm trying to do the math, but I would put you at approximately 45. Thank you. You're all. Just a little bit older than me. So I was saying to Jill just before in this conversation that I'm like the chief of flapping. I panic very, very easily. And today, I believe we're going to talk about crisis management. And I think what we should probably do, given as I am the chief of flap, I'll freak out at the most minute issue, what actually constitutes a crisis?Paul: Right. Anyone can answer that. That's a really good question because depending on the type of organisation you are, what you do, a crisis can be one of many things. Normally, you'd group them into five areas. So it could be a personnel related crisis. So it might be redundancies. It might be disgruntled employees doing whistleblowing. It could be some misconduct. It could be a death. It's a personnel as a human element of a crisis. Organisational. So your organisation has done something wrong. You're in legal problems. It could be an industrial accident, a spillage, a fire, something that affects the organisation itself. Technological, which is the one that's obviously crept upon us and become very prevalent now. Data breach, data loss, theft of data, outages, those things that rely on technology to operate. There are natural crises which tend to be fall into the act of God category. Snowstorms, blizzards, hurricanes, floods, things that are well outside our control. That can have a significant impact on the ability to operate. And finally, financial crises, and whether that's a bankruptcy or cash flow or misappropriation. And all of these can either be within your organisation or an impact from an external crisis of somebody else's organisation.Paul: So it's not just things that could go wrong with you. It's things that the outside world could also spring upon you as a surprise. I'm sure there's going to be a couple of some people saying, Yeah, but you didn't cover mine. As I say, it's a melting pot, and understanding where your own crises can arise is a really important part of the process.Lee: I think what I'm hearing then is that although I tease myself for flapping. Actually, everything in theory that I am worried about, these things that I am worried about, be it personnel, et cetera, I think, Oh, this isn't really a crisis. This is something small. But to me it is because I still need to deliver a great product to our clients. I still to meet certain deadlines, et cetera. I still want to manage perceptions for the people that we're working with on a project, and if I suddenly lost developers, et cetera, this isn't going to go great. I think we're saying it can still constitute a crisis that needs to be managed, maybe Crisis may seem like an extreme word, but actually all of these can constitute some action is needed to mitigate, as it were.Jill: It's basically anything that could impact your ability to serve your clients. It's your reputation. I think that's where me and Paul are coming from, is that whole thing of you can have crises, but then it's how you manage the communication of that crisis. Flapping, as you say, is not really a bad thing because at least you're preparing, at least you're thinking about it. That was the first thing I think me and Paul wanted to get across was that companies need to be aware of it. Companies need to actually consider Initially, what could go wrong and not put their head in the sand and think, Oh, it's all going to be fine. Nothing will go wrong. Because things do go wrong, as Paul said. It might be exactly as Paul said, it might be something completely out of your jurisdiction that you have no control over. Flapping can be a good thing.Lee: Well, Tim is my business partner. He's very cool-headed. I'm the person who flaps. He rolls his eyes and then, thankfully, he brings me down to work. But on that, you said being aware. How Can we be more aware? And how do we identify when either a potential crisis is looming or is actually happening?Jill: Well, I'm going to let Paul answer this one. Start with Paul.Paul: Thanks for that. Really, the What we're going to do is at some point, and wherever you choose to do it the most comfortably, is just sit down and we just map it out. And when we're working with clients, I mind map on a whiteboard, normally for a client, in terms in terms of them, right, what happens in the five key areas? What could happen to you and your business? What natural crises could trigger a need to manage comms for your business? And as we start to work through this, and we put the the framework the five areas down, that then starts to people say, Oh, well, hang on a minute. Well, what if so and so happens? Now, for example, and Jill and I were talking about this on the other day, if you have a key person in your organisation and everything hinges around that person. They may be the technical genius that manages all your in-house project management systems, and for whatever reason, they can't come in to work, they might have a car accident, or something to go down with COVID or whatever. There's an element there that does that suddenly become a business critical issue.Paul: And if they're going to be off long term, you will have an operational crisis plan. So you may have the things that you would do normally. But sitting alongside that should be your comms your crisis comms that says, right, this person is responsible for product delivery in this particular area. How do we make that happen? And how do we tell clients there might be a delay? Because the last thing you want is clients going through whatever media channels they use and saying, Hey, these guys are rubbish. I ordered this for the 10th of March, and it's now the 15th of September. Nobody's talked to me. There's those things, which comes down to something... I'll let Jill expand upon this, but the Five Wise Men of PR is as applicable here in this scenario as it is in any good news piece or any promotional piece. You brought that up, Jill. I'll let you have the glory on that one.Jill: Well, it's the... Thank you, Paul. It is the who, what, why, where, when that we always talk about in PR, when you're trying to put together a story for the press, you talk about what happened, why it happened, who it happened to, et cetera. Those principles, those words then relate really, really well to crisis comms planning as well. If you're putting together or when you do put together that plan, it's that very much that who's going to deliver it? Have you got everybody's numbers? I know we've spoken that the first step, as we said, would be to work out what your crises, is that the plural, could look like. We'll go with that. We'll go with that one. I've just made a word up. Your crises, what they actually look like. And then the next step is to actually plan for who's going to... What does your plan look like? How are you going to deliver if something does go wrong? How do you cope with it? And who are the people? Where are the places? Silly things, maybe. Like, have you got logins for all of your social media accounts? What if the person that does your social media is actually on holiday at that time?Jill: You can't get in. Little things like that.Paul: And just to pick up on that one, I And those people that use external agencies. So if you have a PR agency or a social media agency managing those two communications channels for you, do they understand what their responsibility is as part of your crisis comms plan? Because you may go out to your PR or social media agency and say, We've had a fire, it's burnt down our production capacity, or there's a major rail strike, the visitors are not going to get to our event, or whatever it may be, your PR agency and your social media agency may turn around and say, It's not in our email. We've never been brief. Because there'll be elements there. As an agency, we have professional indemnity insurance, and our contracts are back to back with our professional indemnity insurance that says, If we make a gaffe, we are covered for the gaffe we've made for you. But if somebody turns down and says, There's a crisis, we need you to handle this, is that within the contract we've agreed and are we covered to do that for you? Because it needs to be... Again, people only think PR as...Paul: And I think this is where some of the misunderstandings occur. And PR is all about fluff. It's all about the pretty, the happy, nice stuff and celebrities and photoshoots. Oh, isn't it all lovely? But there is a very-That's why we've got you on here, because you're famous.Lee: We thought we'd get you on.Paul: We've come on to bring the mood down a bit. None of us cheerful, happy PR. Let's get down into the dirt of it. Northern PL. Yeah. But there's those bits that you need to think about, this has happened. Do we have call out to our agencies? Do they know what to say and who to say to? Because, again, a crisis might just involve your internal staff. It might be internal and customers. It might be a public crisis. Now, we've seen happenings in the events industry in the last six months where people were queuing up outside a venue to get in to see a concert. The concert had already been cancelled. The organising unit, the venue knew, but nobody bothered to tell the customers. And so that was delivered to them right at the very last minute.Lee: Whereas- That's the worst, isn't it?Paul: And it's about timings, about who you're going to tell, how quickly you're going to tell them, priority order. So the long term reputational damage of a public venue The public are going to be a primary audience. They need to be kept informed. And I'm sure Jill will chip in on this one. We're not, as you identified earlier, I'm such a young chap. I can just about remember the days when the Internet didn't exist, and you waited every four weeks for the industry magazine to land. And in that, that's where they broke the news story about something happening. And you'd got a couple of weeks to work out how you were going to respond, to contact the editor, to get them involved, to give your side of the case. Not anymore. You've got one person standing outside a venue not unable to get in, and they're recording it live and streaming it down social media. So everyone's now a citizen journalist. So the speed of news, and especially bad news, because bad news, what was the famous phrase, it's halfway around the world before the good news gets its trousers on.Lee: Something like that.Paul: The speed of travel of bad news is exceptional. And social media has become a voracious consumer of bad news. And the ability of people to put that down with you. So that's another thing. Who handles that? How do you pick that up? How quickly do you respond? Do you have some poor social media person sitting in your office, popped up on amfetamine, staying awake 24/7, just watching for something to happen? How effective is your social listening? Do you have tools in place for that? There's an awful lot. Jill, sorry, I've talked for a minute now. You're good.Jill: Let's throw the ball back at me. Exactly as you were saying, I think Paul said earlier, you've got 20 minutes. I think the CRP, the PR and communications association said that it's something like 20 minutes you've got, and we think it's actually shorter than that before someone's actually taken a photo and got it out there to the world. Excuse me. It's that element of being Which brings us back to that being prepared. It could be that preparing just means writing down what your problems could be. Where are those single points of failures? Single points of failure, where are those in the organisation? Then also, where are those single points of failure in your comms plan as well? In that, are you relying on Joe to do X, but Joe's on holiday? Okay, who can step in?Lee: I think what I'm hearing here as well, folks, is that the PR element people will often believe is reactive. Because you said that PR was predominantly people think it's for the celebrities in that, but it's also people think it's for the, Oh, crap, we better clean up here and let's get the PR folks involved to spin this a different way. What I'm hearing is PR is a part of the overall communications plan, and we need to be proactive, we need to be prepared, we need to identify. When I'm flapping, I am actually asking the who, what, where, why, when, but it's just a little bit too late. It's at the point where things have actually gone wrong, and now I'm asking those questions, and now I may need to get PR involved and everything else to clean up, which makes it way more stressful than actually identifying in advance, Okay, these are the third-party things that could affect my upcoming event, and these are the internal things that could affect my upcoming event. For example, a speaker cancelling last minute, how do I fill that slot? Maybe the keynote speaker is not going to show up.Lee: How do I communicate that to people and how do I replace that perceived value with something else? Having a plan for that. I never actually had a plan for that. All the events I've ever done, I've always hoped to God everyone shows up. On that, something that was outside of my control was 2020. In 2019, I launched my first ever conference. It was a resounding success, if I say so myself. I did what I thought was wise, which was on the last day of the event, I pre-sold the following year, which was 2020, and I nearly sold out all our tickets, which was amazing because they'd had such a great time. But this was now another in-person event in May at the height of lockdown coming up. I could see It was in February, March time that there might be some upcoming problems. Everyone was talking about this flu and it had all sorts of names back then. I was starting to get really worried. I was then like, I don't know what to do. I was definitely flapping. I didn't have a plan. I knew I couldn't really refund everyone because the money had already gone into paying for venues and everything else like that, and I was still negotiating with sponsors.Lee: Leaving everything to last minute and starting to really, really panic. At first, I was digging my heels in emailing saying, This event's definitely happening. We're not going to let this stuff as yadi yadi. But then lockdown became a certainty and also a legality. There was no chance that I was not going to be able to run the event without breaking the law. That forced my hand and I had to say, Hey, everyone. At this point then, I had this struggle. I had no communication plan, so I had to work on everything last minute. I was like, Well, what do I do? I was like, Well, we're going to do the event next instead. We're going to postpone the event, but I'm also going to do an online event for you this year so that we can still all meet with the same speakers. We managed to pull that up, which was good. But we'll throw in your tickets for next year for free because that was the only thing I could think of doing without refunding because people were asking for refunds and I'm like, Well, there's no money here. The event needs to happen for there to be money.Lee: I scrambled my way through that. Honestly, I think some people don't like me anymore. Most people do. I I think it worked out in the end of most people like, You're really generous and you didn't have to give us a follow-on event in person the following year and all that stuff, which was them to say. But I do know there are other people that probably felt annoyed with me and frustrated and all that's somehow been robbed, et cetera. Have you guys got anything to speak into that story? A big mess.Jill: Covid was unprecedented. We have never been in a situation like that before. There were a lot of things happening that We were lots of companies were just finding their feet, just working out what they were going to do. But then we have had things like that before hit the events industry. We know when the volcano and the ash cloud happened, however many years ago that was, and that grounded flights, that impacted on events. Because we are in the very nature of pulling people together, there will be physical limitations to that. As you said, you might have a speaker cancel or a flight delayed that means that the speaker can't get in. There are physical reasons why people haven't been able to get together over the years. As you say, having a plan in place and working out, Okay, what would we do? What would you do now? I'm going to throw it back at you, Lee. What would you What would you do now then?Lee: I would make sure I had better terms for a start off. Okay. Because I hadn't got them in place, the proper ones that said if there was an issue, I couldn't do the event. You wouldn't get a refund. I hadn't got those terms in In theory, it was arguablyable as to whether I should be refunding people or what. I didn't have anything like that set up. That was the one big thing I should have done in advance.Jill: Because if you listen to the World Health Organisation, people like that, which I don't want to be really negative, but COVID could happen again. I don't think it will happen in the same scale as it did lockdown, but we could come under another virus like that. I love the fact you've learned from your experience and that you've learned to actually, okay, we need the terms and There's all these conditions in there. You would have a plan now. We all know how good virtual events can be. Actually, okay, what we would do is we would have a virtual event and we would postpone it for... When we did realise quite how long lockdown would last, did we? We all thought.Lee: I actually have to postpone the event for two years because I'd said next year, but there were still lockdowns the following year.Jill: Yeah, exactly. It was still happening. I think when it's a global crisis like that, people are kind in the majority of cases as long as you communicate and as long as you are honest, as long as you are as honest as you can possibly be, I would say. That sounds a bit PR-ish and spinnish, doesn't it? But it's being honest and open. One of the best communication stories I've heard recently was when Alton Towers had the big accident. I think it was the Smiler roller coaster, and people were injured with that. And they were Very open and honest. They were very open and honest, and they were, even just to say, We don't know. We don't know what's happening. We're waiting for government guidance in your case. We're waiting to find out. But we are looking into it just to get that reassurance, just to get those messaging out there. Just don't go quiet.Paul: Yeah. In any crisis comm situation, and I certainly have heard people advising to the contrary, and it makes me cringe, is when they say, Oh, just say no comment. And if you want to throw the conspiracy theories to bone, no comment, what are they hiding? Why aren't they going to comment? Why aren't they speaking? Even if it's a case of we know something's happened, We're looking into it. We will get back to you within a time frame and tell you what we know then. And at least then you set expectations on what your communications are going to be. But just flipping back to your example, I would say from what you said there in terms of reputational management, and okay, there's always going to be one or two people that are going to bear a grudge and be grumpy about it forever. But in terms of reputational-wise, you handled it really well. The fact that the first thing was right, I need to tell everybody what's happening, then I need to tell it. And that overcompensating in terms of delivery as well as communicating with people is really important. A very quick anecdote, when I was working PLC-side, a fuel delivery company put 20,000 gallons of heating diesel into a local river, and obviously that then killed everything in that stretch of river.Paul: It would have been very easy for us to just turn around and went, They did it their fault. Blamed them. But they were a small organisation. They got no media handling capabilities. And we could just see this spiralling out into a nightmare. So we just went on the communications offensive, and we took the element of responsibility ourselves. And we said, This has come off our industrial premises and into the river, so therefore we're accepting that responsibility to do something. Operations Finally, the guys on the floor then brought in people to do a cleanup at our cost. The damage that was done to the fish stocks, we restocked the river. We then got all the local groups So you got local wildlife people, got the RSPCA, got the local press, brought them in to the premises and brief them in a makeshift briefing room about what we were doing, the actions we were taking. And we communicated the hell out of everything that we were doing to rectify We had a situation. And we went... The first photograph I saw, and the first thing we knew about it was in the local press, there was a picture taken from the other side of the river of an RSPCA guy holding a dead mallard in his arms, photographed laughed against our factory back wall, where only six months previously, I'd had six foot high letters of our corporate brand name put down the back of it.Paul: And you think, the things all lined up perfectly for us to be the villains of the piece. And we were in that first news article. Within three months, we were the heroes of the situation. And we didn't do anything deliberately, but the press and the media worked out where the problem originated. And And then it was, well, we can't believe they've done this. And it wasn't actually their fault, but they've stepped in and they've done all this, told us that we're doing all this. Real reputation saving exercise. Took a lot of work, took a lot of effort, but we had a plan in place. We had something that said, at this point, we trigger this. We know who the local press are for that particular site. Right, we get them involved. Who are the influencer organisations around? So get them involved. And that communicating, and careful communication. You don't stand up and say, yeah, it was all It's not our fault, so was. But it's carefully distributing a message that says, We know something's happened. We're investigating this, but in the meantime, there's a problem that needs dealing with. So we're dealing with it. And that's pretty much what you did.Paul: There's a pandemic. We know there's a pandemic that going to stop me having my event, but I'm going to make sure you can still do something. So I'm going to put my virtual event on, and I'll even give you an in-person event afterwards. Now, that is overdelivering on that side of telling people. Now, as I say, I'm sure Well, even now, if you mention it in the local town where it happened, the people will still moan about my previous employer as being a filthy polluting horror story. The majority of people who were directly involved all thought we're great. You're never going to be able to catch Which are that last 2 % of people who are always going to have a moan. There's always going to be those. The unfortunate thing is they also tend to be really vocal. So it's how you deal with those people because they're the ones that are going to be the thorn in your side in perpetuity. So So don't ignore them, address their issues. And then once you've addressed the issues, if they keep coming back, you can then just point them back at the information you've already given them.Paul: Leading them to how in the wilderness, they can then start to gather more...Lee: Some momentum, as it were. Yeah.Paul: Yeah. And I think it's important that you do address those issues, so don't leave them hanging. But what you did, I think, for a flapper, you flapped that beautifully. He did. He did.Lee: I need a flap. If it had a plan, then I guess that we could have... The title of this show should be how to Stop Flapping and Start Planning. There you go. Genius.Jill: It depends on how you define flapping, because if you're running around screaming, that's not so helpful.Lee: I was definitely doing that at first.Jill: But if all you're doing by flapping is just thinking the worst, it's that. Think of the plan for the worst. Expect the best plan for the worst, isn't it? That thing. As Paul said, it's that classic customer service issue that if somebody has a problem in a customer service, classic customer service, somebody has a problem, that's your opportunity to turn it around. Actually, some of your biggest advocates- That's the story, isn't it? Yeah, some of your biggest advocates can be people that initially had a problem with you, and then actually you love bombed them and turned it around, and they're now your biggest advocates. It's the same with crisis comms, isn't it, Paul?Paul: Yeah, absolutely.Lee: On that then, just basic customer service. This is something that me and my wife talk about very often. We understand there are sometimes going to be issues, and it's always how the people deal with the issues that decide whether or not we're happy. Just a couple of weeks ago, we went on a last minute holiday. I won't mention the company, but it was a lodge. It looked amazing and luxury on the website. It, so we booked it last minute deal, all that job. We all go as a family. When we showed up, there was certain cabinets were hanging off the wall and the bathrooms were dirty, et cetera. I just went and said, Look, we're really disappointed because your website makes this look incredible. The lady was instantly, I'm so sorry, this definitely shouldn't have happened. We're going to send the maintenance over, we're going to send the cleaners over to you and get this sorted out. That's exactly what they did within minutes. There was four people in sorting stuff out. Clearly, there'd been some miscommunication internally and stuff like that, which was fine, and I get it. They'd had a busy season and they were coming right to the end of it.Lee: They made good. They replaced shower heads. They did all sorts. They gave the whole thing, and I think it took them 20 minutes to just make the whole place tip top, ship shape. We had a great holiday in the end, but they responded very quickly. They communicated well, they threw in the extras and made us feel good, etc. That was phenomenal. From feeling like we would never go back for that first half hour of anger and frustration and annoyance to, We're going to book again next year because they delivered in the end. It's huge, isn't it?Paul: That's where the operational and comms side cross over because operationally, they picked up the baton and ran with it, which headed off the need to roll out the crisis comms plan because they haven't got a very angry view, photographing everything and slapping all over Instagram saying, This company is shocking. Look what they did. They did what any good organisation will do is they took the wind out of your sales straight away.Lee: Absolutely.Paul: A good company will overcompensate and say, Right, great. Take your family down to the pool. Go have dinner, go in the pool for free on us, and when you come out, we'll have it all fixed, operational fixed. Then you come back here, wow. And then you've suddenly become, I hold my hand up to this, Love More, hate them, Virgin Atlantic. I love what they did. When I was still on the corporate side, I was heading over to the States to a conference, managed to drive my, and I have I admit to owning a BMW at some point in my life, drove over to- They've got indicators, my boy. I don't know what the stalk is on the side. That's what it is. I had to go to Manchester Airport in a blizzard and got there. And as I ran up to the check-in desk, and it was another famous British airline whose name sounds very similar to that. And I ran up to their deck. They were flying me down to Heathrow to fly out. And as I arrived at the desk, I gave them a ticket and said, Look, this is it. And they were very helpful to the point where they realised I was connecting with a virgin flight, at which point they said, Oh, well, I'm sorry, it's boarded and stuff.Paul: And I could see the plane with the stairs still there. And I was thinking, No, no, I can see people still getting on. You can get me out to that plane if you really wanted. So that was cut and dried. They weren't going to do it. So I walked around to the Virgin desk. I explained to this lady behind the counter what was happening. And she was brilliant. She just said, Right, okay, boof. Check your package in here. Next time you'll see that is when you're out in Florida, in Miami, then that can go through. We'll sort you out a connecting flight. We're going to have to bounce you here in New York. And they did all this. But when I landed at Heathrow, the bit that blew me away was I was walking up to the transfer desk and there's a young lady behind the check-in staff. She came out and said, Mr. Richardson?Lee: What?Paul: Who? And she said, Well, come this way. We've got you on this flight, blah, blah, blah. And I just said, So how did you know? She said, My colleague in Manchester rang me up and said, there's going to be this very frustrated, flapping, panicky-looking bloke dressed like this. Coming down to your coming up to the desk. And that was it. They thought to me, I'm about to go. I arrived in Miami, bags were there and everything. And now I've told that story probably a thousand times. So Mr. Branson has got a thousand adverts from me for his transatlantic airline. And that's because his staff were able to intercept the problem. And we drifted into customer service away from crisis comms. But what they did do was they prevented a crisis comms instance happening. So I wasn't sitting there, I mean, back in those days, writing very strong letters with myagement and quill saying, 'Potence on the Internet when the Internet's invented. ' But they stopped me complaining and turned me into an advocate for them. So I've suddenly become his best advertising. I mean, whatever else you may think of him as an ally, nothing.Paul: In that instance, they behaved brilliantly. Absolutely. Absolutely, Brind me.Jill: That does go back into communications. A long time ago, I did some consultancy. Really, really weird situation for Wood Hill Prison in Milton Keynes It was random. I met the governor of Wood Hill, which is a maximum security prison near where I live. When I said consultancy, I just chatted him for a bit, gave him some advice, really. He said to me, Oh, the local press only cover us when something goes wrong, when somebody escapes. It's like, Yeah, I can see why they would do that. Somebody escapes, something- That's going to get eyeballs.Lee: I said, Well, and They said, They never ask for our opinion on it.Jill: They never ask for what happened. They always just publish and not talk to us. I said, Well, you need to build a relationship with them. You need to actually invite them in on the good times. Show them around, get to know them, get them on side, build advocates in the press. And any company should be doing that so that if something does go wrong, that journalist knows that they could actually ring the managing director up, bring the PR off and go, I've heard this. What's happening? And you've got that person on side. And they might still publish, but at least nine times out of 10, especially in the events industry, they're good guys. They're not horrible journalists from the red top the events industry, they are actually... But they're still looking for a story, but they would actually want to get your side of it as well. So build relationships. As Paul said, that advocacy follows through to building press relations as well as customers as well.Lee: Yeah. Customers, I know we focused on that a little bit, but they can be the source of those crises, can't they? Because I did take pictures, for example, of that unit that I was in. I think you 20 minutes or something like that. Had they not within that first 20 minutes, because it literally was 20 minutes, with regards to calming me down, et cetera, and rectifying the issue, then I probably would have posted. I've got 8K followers on Instagram. Many people who would be interested in the UK, who would be interested in going on a holiday there. To them, that would then become very rapidly a crisis. Then if I'd have used specific hashtags or whatever of that brand, then boom. We've gone from disgruntled customer to, Oh, not only do we need to sort this guy out, but also we've got it all over the internet with people sharing stories on his comment about how when they showed up, it was terrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, journalists pick up stories from Twitter, from Instagram. I read one today with the tweet embedded.Jill: I won't comment about lazy journalism or is it just a source of information? You could argue that it's out there in the public domain. If people are talking about it, they want to cover it in the press. So, yeah, you could end up sparking a huge story on the BBC about it.Paul: It would be interesting to understand whether that particular resort or accommodation had any form of crisis comms and escalation process. Because, again, when you're looking at your crisis comms, it's not only top down, the management spotting something to be aware of. Normally in organisations, the first people to be aware of something just about to go boom, the people at the grand level. So that person who helped you out, did they, as part of their process, go, I'll just alert whoever's head of comms or whoever's the comms person. Got this guy, we've really let him down. Probably need to be aware, just keep an ear out. He might post on social.Lee: Yeah, I look like that. That guy.Paul: He looks a bit dodgy. When you were videoing him talking to you and you were asking the questions. That sounds quite... Yeah, that sounds like a joke, but some people are really that, get that aggressive on social media. It has changed the dynamic in crisis comms completely.Lee: Especially so as well when people are at the event. So if someone's at your event and something's going well, like big queues for the restrooms or whatever, there's all of that. So planning, I guess, ahead for that. And if someone is there at the event, there's WiFi, there's 4G or 5G. Now you don't even need WiFi. It's not even a problem anymore in half of these venues. So people can absolutely go live and start lambasting your event. This is terrible. It's crowded. No one showed up or whatever, however they want to spin it online.Paul: There was a lady injured at a con convention in in the US last year. She was an influencer in that particular area. I won't mention any brands. It'll save me getting sued out of existence. And she was involved in a piece of entertainment on one of the stands, exhibition stand, surrounding it. And it was a gladiator-type participatory thing, where it was a bit like the Poogle sticks and you bashed each other with these big.Lee: Is this the girl who broke her back?Paul: Yes, that might be the one.Lee: Yes, that was the It was all over the Internet. Poor girl. It was indeed.Paul: She was actually posting that in terms of that she'd been injured and nobody came to help her. There were people around who followed her that were filming her, that filmed the incident. And that went from zero to a million miles an hour in minutes. And the repercussions were huge. Those things, it's small things that can do that. Again, you can remember, was it Tani grey Thompson went to collect her sports personality of the year at the awards ceremony? And as she trundled down to the front, they realised that there were only steps up to the stage. Oh. Yeah, bigger. But those things, it's thinking around those what ifs, what ifs, what ifs. Now, that was an operational what if. But the PR comms afterwards, how How do you even explain what you've done there and why that's not been taken into account? The immediate contrition and willingness to do better next time.Lee: We screwed up and putting that out there, we have absolutely screwed up. Yeah.Paul: In those moments, it is a hands up. There is no excuse. But knowing you have to do that is one of the things because it was natural reaction is to go to defensive mode. Oh, that's a second diner's fault.Jill: Or is Or bury head in sand and it will blow over what it was. Or even it's perfectly acceptable, isn't it, Paul? We've spoken about this. You have a statement ready and you may never have to use it. I've done that before with clients, where a client's lost a massive contract very publicly or something like that, or a venue has been sold or something like that. And we've been ready to put something out if we're asked, but we're not. So we're not going to raise it actually because no one... It was injured or anything like that. It was just a business decision. We didn't publish it, but we were ready just in case.Paul: And going back to your event of cancellation is, I would hope that every organiser, at any event of any type has a process for saying, if we're cancelling this event, how far out do we do it? Who do we tell? What do we say? And looking at the criteria for why it's happening, which of those are the influencing factors? And again, focus and clarity. If you said, oh, it's because, yes, there's a fire out in Indonesia that's caused us to cancel the event in London. And by the way, oh, yeah, we haven't got the chief executive. It just sounds like a whole bunch of excuses. There'll be one trigger. Be focused, be clear. This has happened and that's what's caused it, et cetera. And clarity and overcommunication. Can't to dress that enough.Jill: Absolutely. That hands up. And there's a lovely story. We were talking about this earlier. There's a great book called Live at the Brixton Academy, written by Simon Parks, who was the guy that bought the Brixton Academy for a pound in 1982, turned it into, it was a virtually derelict building, turned it into the amazing music venue that it turned into in the '80s and the '90s and then sold it to O2. He had booked Nirvana to play. They were coming to the UK, they were going to be touring, and Nirvana were playing at the Brixton Academy. We all know then what happened, that Kurt Cobain died, took his own life, and suddenly, Simon Parks was left with having sold out, sold every single ticket for that show. And because of the pre-publicity and other things going on, if he'd have had to have refund every ticket, he'd have gone on. That was it. There was no more Brixton Academy. So he was in that crisis situation. And he's a genius in that what he did was he realised that those tickets could actually become collector items.Lee: This is the gig that Nirvana never made. Oh, my word, yeah. I'd never thought. Absolutely.Jill: He was very creative.Lee: The last ever, yeah.Jill: Yeah, exactly. These were tickets that had gone on sale for a gig that never happened. He put an ad in the NMS me. He went on radio saying, If anyone's got their ticket and wants to sell it back to us, please get in touch. He created a demand for those tickets as these collector items, we've got collectors desperately trying to get hold of their tickets, please sell them back to us. Hardly anyone did.Lee: I felt like reverse psychology. I feel like a big plate.Jill: I'm not supposed to people should do that. It just shows that whole creativity that he had to flip it and think and the fact he talks about the book's brilliant. If you're interested in anything to do with it.Lee: I'm totally reading that book. I'd never heard of it. So thank you. And folks, if you're listening, we'll put that in the show notes as well, so you can go ahead and check that out. I get it on your Kindle or wherever and enjoy.Paul: I think all of this is down to every organisation can have something like that happen to them. I mean, that is so far out of his control. And there's nothing Anything he can do about it, he's just had that pile of brown and smelly land in his lap and how he communicated to resonate the situation. And that, he didn't have a plan. But if you use that as an example of what can happen, It should really give people the impetus to do an assessment, to have a look at what they think might be their risks. And as the military say, no plan survives its first contact with the enemy. You're I'm not going to be able to roll out a comms plan, a crisis comms plan, and everything drop into place and work perfectly. But if you know you've got something that you can go to, that you can say, here's my starting point. I can jump off from here. I know I need a I need a spokesperson. I need two spokespeople. I need a substitute. I need this. I need that. It gives you that starting place. And even if you've got some pre-existing templates, I can tweak that statement because it's not the widget, it's whatever is that's not working.Paul: So yeah,. Those things it gives you. The other thing Jill and I were talking about beforehand is, and it's something I believe passionately in, is don't treat it like you do when you get a business Consultant comes in and they write you a consultancy plan, you put it in a ring binder, it goes on the shelf behind you and you never touch it again. It's a living, breathing document. Your business changes on a daily basis. The market changes on a daily basis. Get it out, review And if you can test it. I was lucky to be part of the best crisis PR test ever in that I managed to crash a military helicopter into a massive LPG tank and blew up half of Doncaster. That was wonderful. And for a lad from-Lee: That's where I've seen you before.Paul: Yeah, well, as a lad from Rothering, blowing up half of Doncaster was one of the best days of my life.Lee: Sounds amazing.Paul: I know, a bit of South Yorkshire There's a rivalry there. But what they did, it was the Civil Contingency Organisation, approached as if they could run a test. So we scoped out what could happen. And the Five Brigade were involved, the police were involved. We had people volunteering to lay down in the gutter on the road with makeup and blood and bits of plastic metal sticking out their chest. And we ran the whole scenario that this explosion happened at five o'clock in the morning. And so all the thing went out. I got my crisis comms plan. I was absolutely copulare. It was going to be... And as I'm driving into sight, the civil contingency guy stepped up and said, Hi, who are you? And he knew who I was, but we were obviously role-playing this. Who are you? Explain what I was. And he said, Terrible. Sorry, sir. Head office has been blown up because that's the way the LPG tank was facing, and it's taken out the entire building. So my command and control centre was a pile of rubble. So he just thrown that Kerb. And obviously I went, Oh, thank you very much, sir.Paul: That's very you. Thank you for doing that. But it's those, right, well, what do we do? Do we have a second place to go to? If this happens, where do we go? And this chap was having a great... He was on a field day because he was throwing these. The fire service were coming down the road. He said, Sorry, these high tension cables are fallen down. There's no electrical current running across the road. And the local electricity company I've called them this off as a high risk area. You can't access the fire this way. So they had to go all the way around, Doncaster, come back in from the other side. But these are real things that happen. And we'd organised for the press to come down to watch us do this so they could see that we were a responsible organisation, and we were working with everybody else to make sure everybody was safe in that part of Doncaster. And they came down and we then had to move them to a different place where we said there was going to be a briefing. And I explained what was happening. And they then were writing very nice things about us that professionally handled, well done.Paul: So part of that pre-empting anything happening in our organisation happened there. But that rolling it out, you start to look and go, oh, hang on, there's a hole here. And ours was, what happens if the head office goes? We haven't got a second contingency plan. So get your plan off the wall, run it, roll it out, even on a desktop exercise, sit in the boardroom and a role play in the boardroom. You don't need to go absolutely out into the field and close your venue and tell for your-Lee: And blow up buildings, no.Paul: No, I'm just lucky I got to play with that in that particular scenario.Jill: Must have been brilliant.Paul: It's great fun. And the thing that stick in my mind is one of these volunteers walking out of the place they were getting changed in this particular room we had set aside for them, cheerfully said, Morning. He's got a big piece of steel sticking on his chest, the wood all down his front. Morning. Then he walked over the road and laid down on the pavement. Fantastic. Brilliant. But just running your own, because as you run through those scenarios, you can say, Well, hang on a minute. What about that particular media channel or that press outlet, or if this happens, how do we contact them? And as Jill is saying, in those scenarios, you're un right. What if whoever it is that runs our social account is away on holiday that day, or it's the weekend and they've gone camping in the Lake district. What do we do? How do we cover that off? And it will pull all those little wrinkles out, and you're never going to cover them all. Never going to get them all. But you will find those little ones that could be a lifesaver should anything happen. And hopefully, fingers crossed, you never, ever have to do it.Paul: But it's like car insurance. You never want to pay it, and you never want it until the point that somebody bumps into you. And then it's the best thing since slice bread.Lee: Absolutely. It's similar to business continuity planning as well. I mean, this is essentially a part of business continuity planning. If your head office goes, you need to test, what's your backup? Where's your data? How are you going to restore all your data? How are you going to get your workforce back to work? Is it going to be a building somewhere? Is it going to be from home? Whatever that is, test the plan, test the plan. Test it again six months later, etc. Keep reviewing it. I mean, I think the biggest takeaway I'm getting then is number one, it's okay to flap because that means you care. I need to be considering my who, what, where, when, how, which I can't remember the exact one. I think it was who, what, where, why, when. Was it something like that? Something like that, yeah. When I'm flapping, that's what I'm doing. But if I can start to have the who, what, where, when in advance, that's going to be extremely helpful. Start to then go back to basics and work out a whole range of scenarios that could happen. We're planning for the best, planning for the worst, hoping for the best Write some plan, even have some communication plans in place, as it were, for those sorts of scenarios.Lee: Make that a living, breathing document, so don't have it up on the shelf, but actually check it regularly. Then role play some of those because in the events industry, we're not going to be blowing up any buildings. That sounds like you've had an epic pass there, but we can at least role play in the boardroom, in a meeting, on a Zoom call, however that is. What do we do if keynote speaker doesn't arrive or venue has a fire the night of, how are we communicating this? Or someone at the event does this and our MD is not there or who, what, where, why? All of that good stuff. From the end of this, I feel better about myself. I feel like I've learned an awful lot. I'm also a huge fan of pulse stories here. I need to learn more, mate. I'd love to have you both on the show for us to carry on this conversation because we have run out of time, but I feel like there is so much more that we could all talk about. So I'll be sliding an email to you both to try and get you back on soon.Lee: But before we do wrap up, I'd love to just hear from you the best ways that we can connect with you both, and then we shall say goodbye.Jill: Oh, I'm Jill Hawkins on LinkedIn or <a href>jill@aniseedpr.com</a>. Or, yeah, that's pretty much it.Paul: Yeah, I'm Paul Richardson. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me there through the company, Vividink. And vividink. Info is the web address. My email is paul@vividink. Info. Just happy to get in touch and have a chat with people.Lee: Well, thank you so much, folks. If you are still here, well done for making it this far. If you're watching on YouTube, give us a like, subscribe, and all of that good stuff. Let us know in the comments what your biggest takeaways were. If you're listening in your car, keep focused on the car driving, etc. But do be sure to come and check out the show notes over on Event Engine com later on to check out the links to connect with these two wonderful people. So both of you, thanks again for being on the show. Have a wonderful day.Jill: Thanks for having us.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5:3 Creative marketing for events]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-3-creative-marketing-for-events-cat-kevern" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-3-creative-marketing-for-events-cat-kevern" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  How can event organizers and suppliers use creative marketing to stand out in the events industry? Cat, founder of Electric Cat Productions, joins Lee to share how her marketing agency helps event suppliers and organizers create impactful, engaging campaigns that drive results.Cat founded Electric Cat Productions to help small]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/creative-marketing-for-events/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6737540bdd6e090001d22681</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 5]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:04:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_3.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-3-creative-marketing-for-events-cat-kevern" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-3-creative-marketing-for-events-cat-kevern" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_3.png" alt="5:3 Creative marketing for events">How can event organizers and suppliers use creative marketing to stand out in the events industry? Cat, founder of Electric Cat Productions, joins Lee to share how her marketing agency helps event suppliers and organizers create impactful, engaging campaigns that drive results.Cat founded Electric Cat Productions to help small and medium-sized businesses, particularly in the events space, navigate marketing without getting lost in industry buzzwords. Cat focuses on making marketing accessible and engaging, helping clients avoid the overwhelming jargon and deliver effective results. Electric Cat works with clients who may not have dedicated marketing teams and need help integrating marketing into their overall business strategy.In this episode, Lee and Cat discuss how event organizers and suppliers can leverage creativity to achieve big results in a competitive market. Cat shares her journey from freelancing during COVID to building a thriving marketing agency, explaining the importance of knowing your audience, clearly defining what you offer, and not being afraid to experiment.If you’re struggling to find ways to make your marketing stand out, Cat's advice on keeping it simple, focusing on your strengths, and being strategic with your efforts could make all the difference.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast with video as well! You can watch the conversation with Cat on <a href="https://youtu.be/d01nek8ElTQ?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d01nek8ElTQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen title="5:3 Creative Marketing for Events"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Cat:<ul><li>Start with your why and who: Knowing your purpose and who you are serving is essential. Define your goals, audience, and what problems you're solving. This helps align your marketing and makes it more impactful.</li><li>Don't try to do everything: Focus on what works for your business. Instead of spreading efforts thinly across all platforms, identify where your audience is most engaged and concentrate there.</li><li>Marketing is more than posting: Whether it's on social media or other channels, understand why you are creating content. Avoid the "post and ghost" approach—engage meaningfully with your audience, respond to comments, and build relationships.</li><li>Be creative, not overwhelming: Creative marketing doesn't have to mean big budgets or flashy campaigns. Even smaller, genuine content that showcases your team and behind-the-scenes moments can be effective. Documenting rather than crafting elaborate campaigns can build a stronger connection with your audience.</li><li>Ask for help when needed: Marketing can be a full-time job, and trying to do it all yourself might not be the best use of your time. Recognize when it’s time to reach out for professional help, whether it's for strategy, execution, or even a bit of peer advice.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.electriccat.co/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Electric Cat Productions Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/electric-cat-productions?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. My name is Lee, and today we have none other than Cat. Cat, how are you today?Cat: Very good, thank you. Thanks for having me.Lee: Excellent. I just hyped you up there, folks. Cat is from Electric Cat Productions. I think I see what you did there. Are you the cat?Cat: Guilty.Lee: Guilty as charged. No, I love what you did there. For the folks who don't know who you are and who Electric Cat Productions are, would you mind giving us a I don't know, 60-second bio?Cat: Yeah, sure. Electric Cat Productions are a B2B marketing agency, and we work almost exclusively within the events world. We work with a lot of suppliers and organisers in helping them with their marketing.Lee: I like it. That was very clear and concise. How long have you been in the marketing space?Cat: It goes back to my degree. I actually did study events and marketing, so I'm now where they both cross over. Really interesting. I started out more on the event side, freelancing, straight off the bat of graduating. Then COVID happened, so I fell back on more of my marketing experience The rest is just history, really, with Electric Cat. We've really brought the two together. Now I'm in between both worlds where I do still do a little bit of freelancing myself, but a lot of my focus is on Electric Cat and building the business because we're still That's the worst time, isn't it?Lee: To get into the events industry just when our entire industry nearly closed. Well, did close down, didn't it? For a significantly long time. You mentioned that you moved into the marketing space. How did you make that switch and what were you trying to do during that time? Because it was very difficult for everyone.Cat: I think it just happened really organically because I always really enjoyed marketing, but I never really saw myself working for a big marketing company where it was data and it was huge numbers and very detached. The impression I had about marketing when I was at uni is that it would be very salesy and very... I was picturing big Coca-Cola campaigns, which, yes, when you see them on TV, they look great, but the reality behind that is not as exciting as what we do at Electric Cat. That's where I really started to see lots of small businesses emerge over COVID. The very first project I got involved with was, of course, my dad's restaurant opening. I did his his logo and his branding. Then my other friend did. She started her vintage brands and I did help for her. Then it really just snowballed from there. Everyone in my family got a new website. Then it was all of my colleagues that were then in the events industry when I felt confident that I could tie my experience with Uni, the more theoretical with real-life experience. That's when it all really started to take off, when the industry was coming back and getting back together after COVID.Cat: That's when it really took off. Then Electric Cat really was born off the back of having all of these great marketing clients and then events coming back. I found myself really, really busy all of a sudden on the border of burning out. Then the electric cat happened very organically after that.Lee: Well, I'm glad it didn't burn out. I'm assuming you didn't, although we've all been there before.Cat: Yeah, it comes in ebbs and flows, doesn't it? But it was just seeing that there was an opportunity there. Actually, that's what I find really interesting is not only do we do... Yes, we do websites, yes, we do graphic design, but we really work with companies who often don't have a marketing team or they don't have... Not a huge company, we have some owner-founders, we've got medium-sized businesses. It's really looking at marketing through the lens of helping with positioning sales, business development. It's more than just a tick box exercise. If we need to get five posts out a week, it's really integrated into the whole business plan and strategy more than just the deliverable in itself.Lee: Well, I guess a very good example is, so an event engine, we've got a web platform for event organisers, so we supply the events industry. We're very good at what we do. We are all developers and designers. That's all we do every single day. But what we don't understand necessarily is that whole marketing piece. What's the difference between marketing and sales? Absolutely no clue. What is good marketing? Sorry, absolutely no We are absolutely very often checking boxes. Oh, let's do an email thing. Let's do some social posts. We've got this scatter gun approach. We also, for better or for worse, have this a little bit of an opinion when it comes to marketing, because all we ever hear, if we say go on YouTube to go and research it, is lots of buzzwords and B2B this and data analytics that, et cetera. It just feels so overwhelming. I was very encouraged when I had a look at your website, folks. The link to Cat's website is in the description, that you focus on making it unboring and actually understandable. Can you explain a little bit about how you do that for people like us?Cat: Yeah, well, first and foremost, I always say when I do a discovery call with a potential client and they say, We get all of our business through word of mouth, we don't do marketing. I want to work with them because it means that they've built a sustainable business through word of mouth, so their product is good. To me, that's a green flag. That's exactlyLee: I feel good already, Thank you. That's exactly what we do.Cat: It's just about having those conversations and thinking. I've been reflecting on this quite a lot recently, and especially for smaller businesses. If you're a new company or you're perhaps trying to gain in market share and become a bigger company, a bigger supplier or overtake your competitors, you do have to really be quite creative because there has to be some It's a purpose. Funds are limited. There are lots of things that need paying. Often, marketing can be more at the bottom of the important scale in terms of you do need to pay your bills on, you need to pay your rent for the office that you have, your warehouse, your storage, whatever that might be. You need to pay for your software if you're a software company. Your tools, your project management software, your this, that. It adds to that, doesn't it? You've got other things that you need to be considering. I always try and think outside the box and think of marketing as really... And again, we've had these really interesting conversations. What's marketing? What's sales? What's business development? How does they all work together? I really see marketing in its form of bringing in that.Cat: If you think of the marketing funnel, I think for me, marketing really sits at the top. It's about the brand awareness. It's about getting your name out there, it's about people knowing who you are because they're never going to ring you if they don't know who you are. There's that first piece, and then the sales and business development I think business development sits in parallel, and then that's when it becomes sales, is you need to have the right product to convert that potential customer. And it's really funny because I was just doing a workshop with a client around mission and vision and things like that. And it's just so important to do the groundwork, putting in place solid foundation. So learn, just be really clear as a company, as an individual, what are your goals, what's your mission, what's your vision, what are your values? Very linked to another talk I'm doing as well around corporate culture. If you're clear on those things, you've got loads of great content to talk about and you can position yourself. I think thought leader is perhaps a word that is a bit of a buzzword at the moment, not so much in the B2B space.Cat: Well, I guess in the B2B space, but you're going to be a thought leader on what. I think that's just so important, knowing your why as a business, getting your team involved, people buy from people. I think for us, a lot can be done on LinkedIn, yes, but not falling in the trap of being too salesy. If we did this event, we've just done this, we've achieved this. You need to be putting out content that is relatable, that is meaningful, and it will help build a community.Lee: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Now, You mentioned during that about... You didn't say standing out, but that's pretty much what I think you're alluding to is how can you actually stand out and how can smaller businesses stand out with those smaller budgets, et cetera? I think your words were being more creative. What does that look like?Cat: I've always challenged conventional thinking in the ways I do business, I guess, because I've never worked in-house for a big agency. Everything that we're doing is we're doing what is organically is right, that works for our clients. What works, we do more of it. If something doesn't work, we scrap it. We're not tied to lots of processes and rigid. We're very agile as a business, and lots of our clients don't have huge budgets. What we'll do is really, again, just going back to those foundation blocks of being, what are your goals? Being really clear on your value proposition, your services. If I land on your website and it takes me 10 minutes to figure out what the hell you're actually selling, I just like to strip things back and go to basics and saying, right, okay, you've got 15 services on your website. What are you really selling behind the scenes? Is it three? Is it one? Is it really 12? Equally, I doubt it. People aren't going to be coming to you for This and that and this and that and event manager.Lee: That's the best way approach, isn't it? Where we're hoping that someone will come in on one of those services, but that's probably the wrong way of looking at it.Cat: Yeah, not being afraid to niche a little bit in what you're portraying and just being really clear. You said you went on my website and it was very clear that we do B2B marketing, it jumped out. It sounds really silly, but just starting by really honing in on exactly what you're trying to sell and to who and just being realistic and saying, Yes, I'd love to work for beauty brands, but I've worked in the IT space for the last 15 years. Well, realistically, our beauty brand is going to really be able to... I think you just have to have difficult conversations with yourself if you're an owner founder and with your team, if you're a bit of a bigger company, but really just honing in on what you're doing, who you are, and who your audience is. If you know that everything else just happens very naturally, so just not I think people we're running a lot when we're running a business, you're keeping your head above water and it's hard to really pause and go, right, even if you stop posting for a month and go, right, that time I was spending posting, let's just revisit some of the basics.Cat: Let's pencil in. Okay, 2 hours this week, we're just going to focus on brainstorming around what's worked, what hasn't. I take an hour with the team and go, Right, okay, we have an Instagram account, but we have 50 followers, and the three likes we get are my sister and two of the employees. Is that really working? But how much time are you spending on that? Are you spending three hours a week on Instagram and probably some of it just scrolling? Is that really valuable? You're engaging with other accounts, but they're not engaging back. Is it that it's very hard to sell B2B on Instagram, so why are you even really spending that time? Then maybe you're just cross-posting, What is their value in that? I think really just taking the time to go back to basics and think, Okay, what's working? What isn't? What are we trying to achieve here? And then going forward, why you're doing things and setting a bit of a budget. If I was to ask in the audience, if there were 100 company owners, founders, smaller companies, what's the budget and how are you going to spend that for the year?Cat: It's more just people are just catching their tail a little bit. So just being really clear on the budget and saying, Okay, this is the budget we have. And then with that, it's easy to rule things out because it can be overwhelming. You think, Okay, do I exhibit an event? Do I put money on email campaigns through paid? Do I do paid social? Do I attend events? Do I spend time on my personal branding that will then lead to this? There is an overwhelm of things that can be done. I think people often make the mistake of trying to do everything. I need to create a TikTok because now TikTok is value, but you're not going to... I'm not going to start posting on Electric Cat's TikTok about how we do graphic design as a service because nobody cares. That's an advert and people do not like to be sold at. It's all about just creating personality, showcasing who you are, and leading in with the product and services a little bit around that as well. But just being really creative in.Lee: I can't remember who said this, but it was someone said document rather than create. Is that a good way of doing things if you're going to do stuff on, say, social media, et cetera? So document what's going on behind the scenes, i. e. Showcasing yourselves rather than saying, Hey, we've got this amazing Whiz-Bang product that does exactly what you need. Instead, it's like, I can't think of anything now, but I know his is doing some development in the party we had afterwards or whatever, I don't know, or his lead knitting because that's what he does in his breaks when he's stressed and can't solve a bug. So I just sit here knitting for a while to de-stress. Just sharing some of that stuff behind the scenes is probably, I guess, I don't Definitely.Cat: It's just always about having a strategy behind whatever it is you're doing, you know why you're doing it. When you talk about your content pillars, there's going to have to be some content that is around your product and service. Ultimately, you're not going to That is where you are. That is what you're selling, so it does need to be clear. An example could be maybe instead of posting a... I'm trying to find an example. Say it's a prop company and they do props for events and furniture and things like that. Instead of posting a photo with saying, Our props are available for high, get in touch. Here's the phone number. I just can't really picture myself scrolling on I go, I'm scrolling on LinkedIn, I see a prop higher, a company saying, Hire our chairs. I don't know. I'm worried about what I'm having for dinner. I'm worried about that I need to go get a manicure.Lee: Let's face it, you're sharing reels with your best friend who doesn't read them, but carry on on Instagram.Cat: Instead, maybe trying to... If I find a prop company and they've just posted a really funny video of someone in their warehouse on the furniture doing some knitting, it's a funny video. I still know that they're selling and it's more likely to be something that I remember. I think an example of this, there's Social Pantries, there's some really good content. I think it's them, but there's another prop company that I see on It's not normally the content that you'd want to go follow, but they've got loads of followers. But it's also just thinking about which platform you're using. I think if you were to start posting too much of that on LinkedIn, it might devalue your offering as a business and your credibility. But if you're doing it in a way that knowing your why in everything you do will then mean that everything else really makes sense. Just thinking about your different platforms, different audiences. Quite often as well in B2B, we have the struggle that A lot of our clients have two audiences. They're split between... A security company will need staff to come on board, but they need clients. They've got a B2B element to it.Cat: They've also got a always B2C, B2 Two audiences, same with staffing companies. Venues are a good example of that as well. They've got the people that turn up to go to an event, and then they've got the clients that they're trying to bring on board. You just have to think about why you're doing it. So much comes down to the why.Lee: It's a great book, by the way, Simon Sinek, folks. I believe that's probably one of the books you'd recommend, I'm guessing. Start with why.Cat: I wish I had time to read books, but I'm quite guilty of not reading as much. I listen to a lot of podcasts.Lee: Okay. That's good. You're on one right now as well. Yes. I think that what I'm hearing here is there is that start with why, but also starting as well with who. So who it is that you are and who it is that you are serving and what problems are you solving for them or what are you helping them achieve? It doesn't have to be problems. It could be their aspirations, et cetera. All of that, along with a why. Why am I even doing this? Do I even care about this? Do I care about what it is I'm doing? Do I care about who it is that I'm serving? If you can package all of that up, as it were, into some statement plan, whatever that is, and get everybody on board. If it's just you, great, you're fully on board. If it's a small team, get everybody on board and everyone can I understand that. Now we can go ahead and go and create some content. Maybe if we're that prop company, show us playing a game of Tetris, putting the props into a container or something like that with the Tetris music on it, because that's just a different way of doing it as opposed to the latter, Hey, we've just had an influx of microphone stands.Lee: Click the link in the bio, et cetera. Have you any cool examples of stuff your client has been up to as well?Cat: In terms of what, really? Because it's so raw. We work with quite a few different companies. I guess maybe off the wall, any marketing activities that they've engaged with that wouldn't be perceived as the norm that you've helped with.Lee: Something that has helped them stand out as opposed to what people often do, which is your token post on social media or do a quick email blast that's not really relevant to a database that they purchase that they're not even sure if those people exist.Cat: Well, maybe something I'd like to speak about because it's just something that we've implemented a little bit more recently at Electric Cat. Because we do social media management, I love the posting and ghosting concept. That just really resonates to not post a ghost because I think it's quite catchy. It's easy to remember. Don't just put a post up and then ignore LinkedIn for the rest of the week. If you're going to the- That's me.Lee: Go and look at my LinkedIn. It's totally me.Cat: Anything, do it properly. If you're going to exhibit an event, don't just think, I bought and stand. We turn up on the day, we give away pens, we say we sell the reg platform for your event. Bye. What's the strategy behind it? With social media engagement, it's so important to tie sales and marketing. You need to be speaking with those two teams. One of our clients are a headphones supplier. They're called Silence Seminars, and they're also at Event Tech Live. We're that way, we're that. Yeah, just really thinking, okay, so there are going to be companies they work with already. They're the relationships they want to be nurturing. We need a little bit of a list. If we're interacting as them on their social media, we need to know who are the accounts they're going to want to engage with. Those will be current clients. Obviously, it just makes so much sense because you're promoting them, they're promoting you. Also working in partnership with other accounts and people and brands is always going to help that message go a bit further. Then in their CRM, there's going to be clients that they're trying to get over the line or potentially they've had a discovery call with or they met at a trade show.Cat: I just think Thinking about things strategically, linking things up with sales, business development, your CRM, and making marketing really just targeted. I think that's just an easy thing that anyone can go and implement is, are you following every single potential lead as a business, your business as their business, your personal as to their business, your personal to their founder's personal, or if it's a bigger company, if it's a bigger company, If you might be hired by the Ops person, then go follow the Ops person. If you think you might be hired by the resourcing, go follow the resourcing. Whoever is that's relevant to your... Who is going to be bringing in your work, go and follow them and engage with them because maybe that project didn't come through because the requirements changed, the client changed their mind, the event got cancelled, they went with another supplier. But how are you going to then... It's not a goodbye, it's more of a, Okay, how do we then nurture that so that that relationship might potentially turn into a sale. With Electric Cat, a great example of this is there is a client that we pitched to and it was quote number one in zero, which is, as any founder will know, very meaningful.Cat: I spent hours and hours on that proposal because it was the first one that we'd really done with our Electric Cat branding. I do remember spending about a day working on this proposal and I was so proud of it. I was so happy. It looked so good. We sent it to them and then they actually ghosted us. But it is a nice story because in the end- I was playing the overwhelming music in my head, to be honest. We've nurtured that relationship, stayed in touch. A lovely example of that is that I commented on their post because they put out some really cool product photos. I just went and commented on the founder's post and I said, Those photos look epic. Love them. Then he emailed me and said, Hey, I've been meaning to email you. This was literally two years ago. It was May 2022 that we've sent that proposal. He's now come back to me and said, Things have changed and we are definitely keen to open the conversation again. It just goes to show that not thinking of social media as, Oh, we got to do it. It's It's boring. How can you leverage it?Cat: How can you integrate it as part of your sales funnel?Lee: Here with social media, I think what I'm hearing is that to be creative is not to come up with the next viral campaign that's going to go crazy on social media. But be creative is, in fact, you mentioned earlier, again, understanding who it is that you're targeting and also who it is that's going to be potentially bringing in that business. Then, of course, still post on social media, but don't ghost that post like I sometimes do. I love that phrase. I'm going to keep that. I'll post something, and I know loads of people comment, but I don't respond to them until a week later when I finally got around to going back onto LinkedIn again. That's probably a bad move. I can be creative just by replying to comments on my own post. But the other part of that creative process is not, again, becoming viral with any content creation necessarily, but actually having that communication plan by following the five different event marketers that are on my radar right now that I know could really use my product. It would be great if I can go and engage on their posts and show that I'm interested in what they're doing and maybe even post some helpful content that I think will really help them that's maybe got nothing to do with me necessarily, but would be really cool or tag them into something.Lee: Ha ha, I thought of you when I saw this. It was funny or whatever. But I think that's where we're going with this. Would that be a fair summarization?Cat: Yeah, exactly. Whatever you're going to do, know why you're doing it, do it properly, invest a bit of time really think it through and think, Is it serving me? Is it serving the business? If it's not, just not being afraid to let things go as well. I think we're quite hard on ourselves sometimes. We try and try them. If something's not working, just try something else. I always like the image of exactly what we did for Electric Cat at the beginning when we launched was just we tried lots of different things. We work with and we test things on ourselves as well because then we can see if it will work well for our clients. But sometimes it's just doing a little bit of everything or doing some things well. At the beginning, you're going to want to try and do a bit of everything to see what works. It's like, Okay, so I've got £10,000. I'm going to put £1,000 on some PR. I'm going to put £1,000 on in time and developing the website. I'm going to put... You can allocate into buckets, Okay, attending an event or two, the budget would be as an attendee, maybe £500, and just really test different things.Cat: Then if something doesn't work, It's really not helping. But another brilliant example of this is people say, Oh, you're always getting shortlisted for awards and you're always doing this and that. But those things don't just happen. It's PR. You have to do it yourself often. There are lots There are loads of awards. As soon as you start looking, you can find more and more. Just having a quick look at that, and it's quite easy to do relatively. It's not high. You just fill in a form. So realistically, you can do... And some of you can do a video application. So if you don't like filling long forms, spend one minute recording a video. I kid you not, we had Jet2 contact us off the back of an award. They literally... I thought it was spam. I almost did an answer. I was like, No way. Imagine you're in your first year of business and Jet2 comes to you and then you put in a proposal for £100,000 worth of work for two projects. We didn't win it, obviously, because there were other companies that were much better.Lee: But your ego got a massive boost. I mean, that's amazing.Cat: It just demonstrates. It's not so much the ego, it's more it demonstrates that market does work. It would be for me. That's the proof of the pudding that you try different things and it's very hard to calculate ROI, but you have to look at things holistically. You think, Well, if I wouldn't have spent that half an hour, that hour, two hours applying for that award, I never would have got it. But equally, you do have to do all the things to see what works. It's by doing all the things that you reinforce your message, that you engage with all of your and your message gets across.Lee: Start with the why, the who, the what, and all of that stuff. Once you understand your messaging and the who and everything, then move into the doing all the things first to test all the things that we're all aware, all the main things we're aware of, and then start to drop the things that are definitely not working. If you're posting on Instagram and there are literally three views and your mom's the only person who's liking it, and it's been three months, probably not working. Your audience probably isn't there. But if you're actually getting lots of responses on LinkedIn and you're meeting amazing people at events, then maybe that's the track that we're going down for our marketing. I think I've learned today as well that that's all still marketing. It's all still the top of that funnel area, isn't it? Where we're getting our name known, be that our personal brand, be that the brand of our business. We're making those connexions and we're encouraging them to the Titty top of that funnel where they hopefully will at some point fall in and capture one of our wonderful products along the way.Cat: Don't be afraid to ask for help because I think often marketing, if it's smaller businesses, I've seen office managers in charge of marketing, I've seen EAs, I've seen Ops people. I'm recognising that marketing is a whole... It's a whole skill. There are lots of skills in marketing, so it could be that actually you're doing really well with social media, but if your website really needs refresh, the time that you're going to spend on learning to do it yourself or the time wasted by your operations person trying to figure out the ins and outs of Squarespace or WordPress, that time wasted, sometimes you're just better off. It is tough, I think, especially as a new or small business. For us, we've made some big business decisions, like working with consultants, that it is a huge cost. But ultimately, and I say this all the time, the value that they bring is just It's just incredible. Whether it's on a consultancy level, on a strategic level, don't be afraid to reach out, whether you know someone or whether it's a freelancer or whether you want to work with an agency, whatever that might look like. Or even just if you know someone else that works in a similar business, similar role, having a bit of peer-to-peer advice.Cat: What do you think? I always have friends send me their CV or I'll send... What do you think of this logo? Having just those sounding boards is really valuable as well.Lee: That's really good advice. I certainly appreciate that. On that then, how can people connect with yourself if they're thinking, You know what? We need a little bit of the electric cat in our lives and we need some help.Cat: Yeah, definitely. I'm very active on LinkedIn, as you can imagine. It's just cat Kevin on there. Also, electric cat, we have a website. If you want to see the behind the scenes of what we really get up to, go and follow us on TikTok.Lee: You have a TikTok? Oh, you're so cool. I closed mine down eventually because I can't dance and I didn't know what to post on it.Cat: It's a struggle, but we move. Yeah, go give us a shout. The nice thing is we want to work with businesses and really help them. We do everything from a couple of hours a month, consultancy to full scale. We could come and replace your marketing team and do all of those requirements. So don't be afraid to just reach out.Lee: So from literally that sounding board, couple of hours, etc, to we'll take it off your hands and do everything. So folks, check the links in the show notes and be sure to connect with cat, even if you don't want to do business, but you just want to get to know her and her team and how cool they all are because they really are. So cat, thank you so much for your time. You're a legend. I hope we can have you on again soon. Take care and have a great day.Cat: Thank you.Lee: Cheerio.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5:2 Building community through virtual and hybrid events]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-2-building-community-through-virtual-and-hybrid-events-baris-onay" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-2-building-community-through-virtual-and-hybrid-events-baris-onay" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  How can communities and virtual events create meaningful engagement in the post-pandemic world? Baris, founder of Precision Communities, joins Lee and Adam Parry to discuss the role of virtual and hybrid events today.Baris founded Precision Communities during the pandemic to address the need for virtual engagement in communities that]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/building-community-through-events/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">673753dedd6e090001d2267b</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 5]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:56:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_2.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-2-building-community-through-virtual-and-hybrid-events-baris-onay" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-2-building-community-through-virtual-and-hybrid-events-baris-onay" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_2.png" alt="5:2 Building community through virtual and hybrid events">How can communities and virtual events create meaningful engagement in the post-pandemic world? Baris, founder of Precision Communities, joins Lee and Adam Parry to discuss the role of virtual and hybrid events today.Baris founded Precision Communities during the pandemic to address the need for virtual engagement in communities that lacked traditional in-person spaces. With years of experience in digital marketing and event strategy, Baris saw an opportunity to partner with community managers to build virtual events, digital assets, and media publishing solutions that fit the needs of online communities.Baris, Lee, and Adam discuss the evolution of virtual events, the changing dynamics of in-person versus online interactions, the value of niche communities, and how traditional event organizers can leverage online communities to foster in-person engagement. Baris does highlight that while face-to-face interactions are invaluable, virtual events offer expanded opportunities to reach global audiences and provide flexibility that wasn't as widely accepted before the pandemic.If you're curious about the future of virtual and hybrid events, or if you’re exploring how to build a thriving community, this episode is a useful resource.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast with video as well! You can watch the conversation with Baris on <a href="https://youtu.be/fFt9uvcu0dY?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fFt9uvcu0dY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen title="5:2 Building community through virtual and hybrid events - Baris Onay"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Baris:<ul><li>Communities exist without your event: Real communities will thrive even without your event—they gather online independently. This is a key indicator of a true community rather than an audience that only connects during event times.</li><li>Niche focus brings value: The richest opportunities lie in identifying and focusing on niche audiences. Whether building a community or an event, targeting smaller, specific groups fosters stronger engagement and growth.</li><li>Virtual events are here to stay: While in-person gatherings are irreplaceable, virtual events have become a vital tool for connecting widely dispersed audiences and providing ongoing value.</li><li>Communities lead, events follow: Building an event on the foundation of an existing community is often more effective than trying to create a community around an event. Join existing groups and see how you can add value before planning an event.</li><li>The role of hybrid events: For many audiences, hybrid solutions—mixing in-person interactions with virtual access—allow more people to engage and help overcome barriers like travel costs or scheduling conflicts.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://precision.community/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Precision Communities Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonay/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Baris on LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. My name is Lee Matthew Jackson, and today we have a wonderful co-host. It is Mr. Adam Parry, and we are joined by the one, the only. It's Baris. How are you, sir?Baris: I'm all right. Thank you so much. How are you all doing?Lee: We're wonderful. How are you, Adam?Adam: I'm very well, thank you. Well, typical weather in Manchester, it's raining, so I'd rather be somewhere sunny, but there you go.Lee: No worries. And Barish, you are from Turkey. I believe you- I was somewhere sunny not so long ago.Baris: So it just came back to this horrible weather. But what can you do?Lee: Welcome. We always talk about the weather. So you are the founder of Precision Communities. What I'd love to, first of all, find out from you both is how you guys met and what circles you rubbed shoulders in.Adam: Well, I feel, but it's like we've known each other for a long time now, almost to the point where I can't remember the first time we met. But I do feel like we were introduced through to a common mutual friend, Mr. Mccoy, maybe his time at visit N200. I think so. I'm pretty sure we've had you speak many times at Event Tech Live as well, mate.Baris: Yeah, this is what happens in the industry, I guess, because It's a very incest industry. It's called people don't change much. So you know each other for such a long time that you just lose track of who you met where because we attend so many events. And Adam, you do some of those events that we meet regularly. So basically, you lose track of where you started in the first place.Lee: So you've known Adam essentially just before his voice broke. That's amazing. So I'd love to jump in a time with you, Time Machine, Boris, and just find out a little bit about Precision Communities and what sparked the idea for it, and I guess how have virtual events changed since then?Baris: Well, absolutely. I cut my teeth in the industry working for the very big, let's say, companies like Hive, Tarsus, all those big ones, and I did big jobs with them. In doing so, I was always in charge of the, let's say, digital marketing, sales marketing, all those things for those companies. And I always was trying to emphasise that we could do better with the digital side of what we're doing on the customer experience and other things. So that was my overall background. And with the pandemic, that suddenly became a thing. That suddenly became the main thing. And so during the big pandemic shuffle, I created my own company. And you remember the time when digital was the only game in town because we were locked down and everything. So precision communities came into fruition back then because I had a thesis that there are a lot of communities out there that meet digitally all the time. Then they show up to events. And they do not belong to the event as a community because they're in a community in their own right. Maybe they're on Reddit, maybe they're in something else. Maybe it's a Facebook group.Baris: I have no idea. And these now, all of a sudden, during the pandemic, They had a level playing ground with an event organiser because the event organiser could not do its face-to-face big pitch, so they found themselves on level footing. So we created the company to give our years of know-how events to community managers and to communities out there and to partner up with them to build digital events, digital assets, media publishing for them. So That's how we created the first spark of the company.Lee: Yeah, that's amazing. And you mentioned, of course, the pandemic. Dare we talk about that season of our lives? Just off the record, I miss always being at home. It was great. I have to go out now. On that, we're actually seeing that people are going back into in-person events. What's the future looking like in particular for these virtual events, for communities, etc?Baris: When we started, We never envisaged that events were dead or this is why we're doubling down on digital. It's going to remain this way. We had another thesis that that phase would end, but it would leave virtual at a much transformed place. And I'll just use my hands to visualise this. Virtual was this before the pandemic. It went on to become the everything. Then it came down to that. But if you just forget the pandemic, between pre and post-pandemic, now, it's almost five, six fold bigger or maybe 10 times bigger, virtual events. Because the thing is, it was something of a ridicule, virtual events. Who wants that? Then everyone tried their luck at virtual events. Some did it well, some didn't. But the whole world got exposed to virtual events. It's not something alien to anyone anymore during the pandemic. And then, of course, we went back to face-to-face events, and we fully support face-to-face events. But the residual growth in the virtual has been exponential. So that's why we are now still continuing on virtual-only mode, because that's how we are set up as a company to for virtual events around the world or global audiences.Baris: But the market has grown exponentially. The blip during the pandemic was always going to be a blip. It was not ever going to replace face-to-face events or face-to-face instruction. But now I think we're in a place where it's incomparable to pre-pandemic levels. So it's much bigger now.Adam: If I could ask you a question around both communities and what we just discussed there with Virtual Digital Events Baris. Do you think there is more opportunity for the events market to capitalise on virtual events and communities, or is there more opportunity for those who run communities to capitalise on virtual events and physical events? I'm trying to understand, if I were to look three to five years into the future or maybe a decade into the future, where's the growth potential in the market? Is it the ones with experience or is it the ones with the communities? I'd be interested to see what you think on that.Baris: Yeah, you're asking me who's going to hit who's lunch? I think it's mostly the Currently, I think, at least, the advantage is with the event organiser, definitely. Because there's the experience, the community has, how do I put this, a tradition of being there. And it's a date. It comes and we go. So that is unbeatable, right? But on the community side, we work with some communities that are growing, that we do global events for, and we get asked, When is the next event in person? And we always say, Well, we don't do in person. They're like, Oh, really? Why? So that conversation, I think, is maybe coming for some communities that they might go up and do their own runs. But we're lucky as the events industry, because the barrier to entry to actually doing an event is quite a big jump if you've never done it before. And there are not too many companies out there that would do a turnkey event for you from scratch. And I think it's a great example of this was David Audrain's ExpoDevCo. In the US, he has done turnkey events, and it's a big business. It's really powerful.Baris: But if there were So many of those available to communities who want to do their own shows, their own conferences for a fee. Maybe that would happen. But I don't see that as an existential looming threat to the in-person event organising companies because of two reasons. One, the communities by themselves are generally not very well structured. They are not an entity. They don't have a commercial side. It's a community of people that have come together somehow on some platform. That's the way state we find them, at least. We don't go and say, Okay, you're an existing company with a 10,000 community. Let's run that for you. That doesn't really happen much. So the types of people that find us are different. And the second one is, I think we, as the events industry, putting myself into that lot, we've learned a bit in the pandemic. I want to say that we did learn our lesson in it. Because pre-pandemic, you remember there was no burning platform, and we got the mother of all burning platforms. And so basically, I see most of our peers trying to do a better job at digital, trying to do a better job at transforming themselves, trying to do a better job at serving their communities outside the show as well.Baris: So basically, I think we learned less than working actively on it.Adam: I think one of the things that just from your explanation there that jumped to my mind was actually the short term opportunity is for existing event organisers with events to find the communities that have something in common, some relationship to them, and actually work with that community to offer them a space or a place, a moment in time to come together in a physical capacity. And then in some way, that's a benefit to them. I mean, the number one goal of every event organiser is to grow their audience, right? And we have venues and infrastructure and things in place. So maybe hat's the short term opportunity for event organisers to say, Hey, there's a community of people over here. Let's bring them in.Baris: I think you're absolutely right. This brings me back to one of the first, let's say, events that we've done virtually. And one of the speakers was speaking on communities. And the first thing she said was, If you're thinking about launching a community, start by joining one. I think that that is a great advice for anyone and for us event organisers. Everyone now think about your own event. You can be sure there are people that are gathering online in the topic or an adjacent topic to what you're organising an event annually on. So it's your benefit to reach out to them and give them a platform to meet up because they do want to meet up. I think Adam, you're absolutely right. That is a low-hanging fruit that is maybe not addressed actively by the industry.Lee: I think I'd love to share an experience I've had. I Over, say, the last nine years, I've run a podcast called Trailblazer FM, and I grew a huge audience of web developers and web designers all around the world. We even had a Facebook group, which I eventually deleted because it was far too much work, which had over 4,000 people in there, which was amazing. But what you described earlier is very true. You have this globally spread out community, and they are all meeting in one place, i.e, the digital space. So I thought, Well, this is a great opportunity for me to put on a physical event. I did that in 2018, which went really well. It was a conference. A few people from around the world tried to fly in, but obviously, we're all coming to the UK here. Predominantly, we had UK people in there. But I also found that despite the size of my audience, actually getting people to get tickets and get them in the room was way harder than I expected. Thankfully, we hit about 80 people in the room, which was good because we had a good size room and we didn't want too many, but I didn't want five people to show up either.Lee: That was a very difficult experience. Sorry, that Was that early 2019? Whenever it was. But anyway, the pandemic hit in 2020, that was it. I'd already done the second, let's all do this in 2020. We'd sold the tickets and everything. We were forced to go online. We managed to mosey on through and didn't do a bad job. Then as soon as everything was lifted, 2022, we did it in person again. But I did find, again, that people from around the globe were unable to get in either through new fears of travel, of new costs as well, because the costs were spiralling, et cetera. Also just a change in mindset for a lot of people as well. Why isn't this just an online event? Why can't you do this digitally? I've been considering for the last few months, maybe doing my event again, but just completely digitally to test, do we get more attendees? Is this something that's more attractive to my community? Because we're not organised around any particular business. We're just a whole lot of folks who have a massive amount in common when it comes to design and development, as opposed to the other example that you chaps were talking about earlier with regards to an event where there's a focused industry and people are looking and merging together.Lee: You got anything to read into that?Baris: Well, I think really one of my recent, let's say, at one of my recent events, I was chairing a panel. One of the speakers tuned in from Australia. It was 1:00 AM where they are. I was in London, and the other speaker was in Chicago. So it was early morning. And you cannot do that in person. But nonetheless, the value of an in-person interaction is immeasurably higher than any of us. And we know that, and we're not challenging this. But not everything Can't grant a face-to-face meeting anymore. Because face-to-face, I've written extensively about this on LinkedIn, and the value of face-to-face interaction, I have a pyramid, it's at the top. So you don't go to the top for everything. But before the pandemic, it was. Remember, all the client meetings were face-to-face. You would travel, you would look up to a building, get your ID, go to the floor, whatever, meet somebody. That That was okay. That was it. You would have one client meeting per day, maybe two. You would fly to meet clients. And now we just do everything. It's socially acceptable. It's new norm. So therefore, at the beginning of the podcast, when I talked about virtual going from this to that, but shrinking to a much bigger degree, this is why.Baris: This is why I think now there is a space for the lower, let's say, of meetings that people are okay to do online, to be done online in mass. So therefore, this is the niche we're playing to with our virtual events. But that doesn't negate, or actually even, I think imitations really glorify the actual thing. So basically, it even amplifies the importance of the actual face-to-face meeting that is unmissable, and it's not something you can Trump by just doing too many digitals, and it doesn't add up to that face-to-face. Therefore, these two forces are, I think, helping each other to a new level.Adam: No, it's fine. I think as well, there's a case for doing what you can digitally around thought leadership, education, discussing ideas, discussing day-to-day challenges as a community. And then actually the in-person piece, the value there is, and me and Barish know this as well as anybody else when we go to industry events, is the conversations in the aisles, in the networking drinks, at the after-party, at the breakfast in the morning. I think we spend so much time with the value proposition of come to our event and learn and get educated. But for anybody, whether they're senior leadership or in marketing or any of these other disciplines, to be sat in a conference room for eight hours just looking at a stage, I don't know. Me personally, I question that. Don't get me wrong, there are amazing events out that do that very, very well. But where I get the most value personally of attending any event is spending time with those people that I rarely get to meet and catching up with them and discussing ideas on one-to-one or in groups and things like that. So I would hope that the reason to come together is actually the dwell time and spending time and those things rather than necessarily having the conversation around something that arguably we could do online.Adam: I think that's my... If I was to relaunch everything again, maybe that's the way that I would go. Trade Show model is slightly different, don't get me wrong. But from a conferencing event or a community event or things like that. That's maybe lagging in my head from all those conversations we had through the pandemic about formats, but I still feel like that's still true, even today.Baris: I'm going to second that. I'm sorry, Yeah, go ahead. By saying another thing that we learned when we launched the business. I fell into the trap of copying something on a one-to-one. We tried to recreate an in-person event online. And what we've done is, okay, there's this session, and then there's networking break, session, networking break. That's the way we did the first event. And we did spend a lot of money to get some virtual round tables and, let's say, randomised one-to-one calls, all that stuff. We built lots of... Not built, but purpose, lots of technology available at Adam's show, anyway. So what we done is because we thought people wanted to speak to each other. That really flopped. Because we realised online, just like you said, Adam, people's reason for attendance is actually the content. They want to listen to the content. Networking is maybe number three, number four, because they are dipping in and out to a virtual event. You don't sit in front of your TV for eight hours watching a virtual event. You come in, watch something, you go. You come in, you go, because you know you're going to get the recording anyway.Baris: So that's the way that format works. So we've gradually given up on that virtual networking because people are at least the audience that the audiences we cater to, did not require it. But they do require to know who's in the room. They want to know, okay, this person is maybe I want to reach out on message. Maybe I want to reach out on LinkedIn. That is incredibly valuable. So networking is there, but not like this, not clicking a button and jumping on a video call with someone randomly because it just didn't work. So we learned through the pandemic that that is reserved for face-to-face. People who want to talk, they want to talk face-to-face. They want to talk on this medium with people that they don't know.Lee: One funny story for us is we were on one of those virtual events, Tim and I. Tim got stuck with a really random conversation on one of those. It's almost like speed networking environments, which was really, really awkward for him. The chap was in the complete wrong industry and they were stuck together for, I think it was the longest five minutes of Tim's life, trying to make small talk until it all reset and he got to meet someone else. But just on that, though, you mentioned that people dip in and out of virtual events, and I hear that as a common frustration of event organisers where they want to see loads of people online engaging in the content and stuff like that. So these are the metrics they're doing. Is that, again, a mistake of, say, the event organiser who's, especially if they say, sold sponsorship, et cetera, are they measuring a virtual event how you would measure an in-person event? And is that the wrong way to go around that We have come to accept that fact.Baris: We thought we would, No, we just do this. If we add more, I don't know, features, people are going to stay. People won't stay. Because I I accepted this fact now. As an organiser of virtual events in the past four years, we don't beat ourselves with people not staying. That's not the stick we beat ourselves with. The thing is, because when you're doing a virtual event, you don't have the full attention of your audience. Your audience is physically not in the room. Your audience is..Lee: Including people who listen to this podcast are probably doing emails and half listening to us. I'm calling you out.Baris: Maybe they're taking a walk. Maybe they're doing some chores with the headphones in their ears. I don't know. Or there's the next tab on your The grocery is Netflix. Who knows what can happen? It's Game of Thrones. So the thing is, in virtual events, we should not aspire, even, to deliver an attention value on par with face-to-face. It's not going to happen. So what can you aspire to deliver better, even better than in-person is interactions, downloads, digital measurement of what the The audience is doing and actually wanting, polls, this, that. So these are the things that you can do even better than face to face. So let's focus on those things. And most of our sponsors are in it for the data, because we give them access to portions that listen to them, to their session or stuff like that. Or we give them their own registration form and they send it out. So all these things, the data play, the interaction, the deeper knowledge of the people in the room, that is more valuable, I think, rather than people actually listening to you talk about 30 minutes or whatever. Because the attention span, as you just said, are going lower and lower and lower.Baris: And if I am watching something, it is very... This can happen, but it's very hard to create a moment where it feels more than watching. And That interaction is really hard to put together. I cannot claim that I can always get it right in that regard.Adam: I think, how would you define a community? What are the key ingredients for it to be a community in your eyes? Is that size and scale? Is that interaction? Is that the purpose of the community? I don't know, Baris, we are part of community What is ourselves that we're active participants in. What are the secret ingredients or what do you think are the ingredients? And I guess just bouncing on from that as a further thought, once you've answered that, is what advice would you give anybody looking to start a community maybe in 2025 going forward, whether that could be a platform to work with or that could be a place to start or something like that? I think people are looking for those tangible frameworks of how to get a community going?Baris: Sure. On the first one, the difference between an audience and a community is I think the community will come together regardless of you putting an event or not. They don't need you. If the community needs you to be together, it's not a real community. It's an audience. It's a broadcast. If the community comes together on its own, if it's self-organizing, if it's finding its ways of coming together digitally, that is a community. So that's That's why we want to work with people like that, because we know there are real communities. And then we give them the secret source of events and media and all that stuff. So I think that's the biggest, let's say, test that you can do. Would they come together if your event flared away tomorrow morning? If the answer is yes, then you're working in a space that can foster a community or the community is already there. Now, the slight drawback for event organisers, me being one, is that the events we want to put together are much bigger than our communities that we can find. So basically, you should think of your event as a collection of communities, not one big community.Baris: Because I'm going to pick on you now, Adam, in your show. There are different audiences, different personas. It's not one big community of event tech live goers. There are definitely registration people. There are marketing people. There are this people, that people. Those But for those communities, you can be sure they exist online. You can be sure there's a WhatsApp group of those communities. I'm not going to give you any advice on your successful show, but if I were you, I would focus on finding who those are and working with them, giving them a platform, giving them a stage, or making them more engaged with the show. And to hold a big trade show like yours together, you need multiple communities in conjunction. So the last question, if you're thinking of Starting a community, start by joining one and see how it goes. Because just like in events, we've all been there. It was like event entrepreneurs. There is an event for everything already out there. So start by going to that event and then see how you can beat it if you want to do a better one. So basically, if you want to start a community, I would wager 99 % that community currently exists today.Baris: Start by joining it and see what happens. And Then if you can really find a value proposition that can transcend the original, do it. If not, just don't.Adam: Great advice.Lee: That is very good advice. I'm just thinking here, an example I guess, of a community, for me, at least, would be the WordPress community. This is for those that don't know, it's a content management system online. It runs about 40% plus of the internet. I'm pretty sure, Adam, you've used it, haven't you, on event industry news? Et cetera. There is a huge WordPress community out there. And yet even looking at that WordPress community, there are many sections of it. There are the developers, there are the designers, there are the users, there are the people that use mid-level tools to create websites who don't even know how to code and don't even know how to design. There's all of these different pockets of communities, and it's very hard to create a catch-all WordPress community. But it is very easy to say, Right, I'm going to focus in on agencies, design agencies that work with WordPress, and that's where I live because that's what I do in my business as well, and I'm going to meet all of those people. And I think the mistake I've made listening to you and only just having this moment is I have very often kind of focused on the big overall or overarching community, and given myself, a terribly difficult job, you know, trying to attract everybody, as opposed to just focusing in on, that particular area. But equally, I think what I'm hearing here is that for potential growth, I should recognise that there are different pockets of communities as well, not just agency owners, but there's also freelances over here who have many of the same needs as agencies, but also have their own unique needs in their own communities, etc. And broaden the net slowly where things are relationary. Is that a word? I made that word up.Adam: Relationary is a word, man. I totally get what you mean. I think we often to... Just in general, I think this is the same for every industry, every entrepreneur, everybody, we think bigger is better, right? We always look that scale is a sign of progress. Somebody said to me years and years ago that riches are in the niches, as in the value is often in the really small, really tight elements of our lives. And it's not... Bigger doesn't mean better. It just means there's more of it, which is actually sometimes harder to actually get the value out of. Whereas I'm sure if you come to our show, Baris, if you come, you're not interacting with 100% of it, you're interacting with the 10, 5% that really is a value to you. And I think we often go the wrong way in direction of thinking that in order to provide value, we need to be the biggest, the best, the most, where actually we probably don't. Actually taking away and just focussing right down on the agency element for WordPress organisers and stuff like that is the way to go.Lee: I was exhausted. That's why I closed the group down eventually, because I went very, very, very broad. As opposed to now, I have a very a small list of just agencies, and that's the most valuable list I've ever had. I actually get replies to the emails as opposed to the thousands of people that I was messaging in the past. Now, Barish, I'd really love... You've had what, four years now of virtual events? I'd love to hear one or two success stories that you've had with online events, some customer feedback that you've had.Baris: Yeah, I'll give you one. In the company, we own one of the communities that we with. And that was a pet project because when we were starting out, now I can tell you all these things, how I think it is. When we started out, we didn't know. So it was really hard to convince anyone to trust us with your community. We started with creating one. We went against the grain of everything we believed in and everything we learned in doing events. Don't do an event for a community that you're not part of, but we did it. Anyway, in the world of agencies, though, it's called the Agency Growth Events. So we've created a brand that caters to digital agency owners. And like Adam said, Riches are in the niches. We really tuned this because there are lots of agency events, and lots of them are for everybody in the agency world. But we wanted to create because of our B2B events experience, we wanted to make sure that we only get the decision makers. So we created a niche that will appeal only to founders of agencies, to no one else. So we created this brand called Agency Growth Events, and we talk only about how to grow your agency faster.Baris: Is it through profitability tools or I don't know, anything you can think of. But only about if you're a digital agency and only about accelerating your growth. And there are levels to growth, like starting up, raise to 10, and then scale, super scale, exiting. It's all those things. And Now, three years, something later, that community is 5,200 agencies strong around the world. And we do two flagship events in the year. They're all virtual, but we get hundreds and hundreds of people coming in. We publish ebooks with them, and those are downloaded thousands of times. And we got AA great big sponsors coming our way to be part of our shows and books and things. It has second time, but it has taken It has grown because it was a very small niche. It did not cater to the social media Marketing Manager in the agency. They didn't care. It did not appeal to the graphic designer at the agency, but it appealed only to the founder. When you choose your audience as a niche and you speak to them, then at some point you get heard. That is our biggest success story so far, that brand, Agency Growth Events.Baris: The I think that the main thing has been the choice at the inception of going very niche, not broad. Because if you wanted to go abroad, there's the drama and there's the really big, let's say, people out there that do a fantastic job of catering to the world with industries. Like Adam, industry news, awards, trade show, everything. You cannot start and compete with Event Tech Live just because you know a few Event Tech person. But Adam, your competition, when it comes, it will come from a niche, definitely, of people who do X in the region of Y. When you put those parameters and really hone in, that's where you can, in that niche, thrive and build something. So that's, I think, the biggest advice I can give to anyone who wants to build a media brand, who wants to build a community, who wants to build a media community brand, and then eventually move on to events, is to start with a very small niche that you can relate and actually pinpoint. Go on LinkedIn, you can find these people by name, by position, search founder. I don't know, whatever it is. So you want to pinpoint people that you want to invite to the community because when they start joining, they start talking to each other and others join, others join, others join.Baris: So that's how it becomes a movement.Lee: Yeah, that's really good. I think my biggest takeaway here, I think we've solved which came first, the chicken or the egg, and what comes first is the community and then build on from there, which is phenomenal. Any takeaways yourself, Adam, from this conversation?Adam: I think I have to agree with you. I think the most successful events are born out of those who organise the events being right at the start and centre and connected to the people that they're bringing together, right? I know for me, personally, a lot of our exhibitors really value the fact that I've got a very close personal relationship with them even after 10 years. And I think just paying real keen interest into seeing that element of that community grow and that part of the industry grow really does serve you right. The only thing I would probably say, and this is just maybe my own selfish way of thinking of things, because this is the way that we went with the media, we went broad. When a lot of people go niche, niche with media. So we went industry-wide rather than exhibitions or conferences and stuff like that. But the events and the awards, we went niche. So that's the way that we went in terms of our structure. And maybe that's one way that you could roll things out.Lee: That's amazing. Well, folks, thank you very much for tuning in with us. First of all, Adam, what's the best way for people to connect with you?Adam: You can reach me on linkedin.com/adam.parry, I think it is.Lee: Awesome. We'll make sure there are links in the description. And Baris, which is the best way to connect with you? And then we shall say goodbye.Baris: Just search me on, find me on LinkedIn, and I'll be happy to connect and talk to you.Lee: Awesome. You're going to have some new LinkedIn buddies, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a great day, folks, and we'll speak to you real soon.Cheerio.Baris: Bye now.Baris: Cheers</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5:1 Maximising your event content]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-1-maximising-your-event-content-bogdan-maran" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-1-maximising-your-event-content-bogdan-maran" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  Do you know what to do with all that content after your event ends? Bogdan Maran from Visual Hive shares why event organizers need to rethink how they manage and curate their valuable event footage.Events produce mountains of content—hours of video, photos, and more. But too often,]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/maximising-your-event-content/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6737535edd6e090001d22673</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 5]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:47:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_1.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/5-1-maximising-your-event-content-bogdan-maran" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/5-1-maximising-your-event-content-bogdan-maran" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/11/5_1.png" alt="5:1 Maximising your event content">Do you know what to do with all that content after your event ends? Bogdan Maran from Visual Hive shares why event organizers need to rethink how they manage and curate their valuable event footage.Events produce mountains of content—hours of video, photos, and more. But too often, this content ends up forgotten on Google Drive or buried in YouTube with no clear plan to maximize its value. I sat down with Bogdan Maran, founder of Visual Hive, to explore how event organizers can transform their content strategy, turning raw footage into curated, highly engaging experiences for their audiences.Bogdan is a former photojournalist turned data scientist who has worked with brands like Reuters and Red Bull. He shares how his background in media and production shaped Visual Hive's mission to help event organizers use their content effectively, adding value long after the event is over.We discuss the importance of curation—taking the vast amounts of content and tailoring it to different audience segments through short, easily digestible clips. Bogdan introduces the concept of user-curated content, where attendees themselves can select and share impactful moments, creating personal and engaging experiences.If you've ever wondered how to get more out of your event content and build lasting trust with your audience, this conversation is a must-listen.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast with video as well! You can watch the conversation with Bogdan Maran on <a href="https://youtu.be/gvu0eneOZ7o?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gvu0eneOZ7o?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen title="5:1 Maximising Your Event Content"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>Bogdan shared a lot of practical advice and insights on content strategy for events. Here are some of the key takeaways:<ul><li>Don't let your event content go to waste: Simply storing your event videos on Google Drive or uploading to YouTube isn't enough. Without curation, valuable knowledge gets lost.</li><li>User-curated content is the future: Empower your attendees to engage with the content. Allow them to save and share the most interesting parts for their networks.</li><li>Content curation builds trust: Help your audience save time by creating short, targeted clips. This not only adds value but also encourages repeat engagement.</li><li>Leverage AI to improve discoverability: Use AI-driven tools to make your content more searchable and interactive, helping viewers quickly find the information they need.</li><li>Consistency matters: Posting consistently, at the times your audience is most active, helps build a habit and keeps your content top-of-mind.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://visualhive.co/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Visual Hive Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdanmaran?ref=eventenginecast.com">Bogdan Maran on LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, we have the one and only. Hey, it's Bogdan from Visual Hive. Mate, how are you today?Bogdan Maran: Getting better. It's not raining anymore, so we're feeling better about it.Lee: You see, I quite enjoy the rain, though. I find it extremely relaxing, and I'm one of those people who listens to the rain to go to sleep.Bogdan Maran: Oh, God, I did the same thing. I do thunderstorm, specifically. I don't like the quiet rain, but I do have a dog and the kids, so I have to go out of the house quite a lot. I've got a Springer spaniel which is quite white, so it gets dirty every day.Lee: Oh, yeah. No, I can imagine that's no fun at all.Bogdan Maran: No, that's not the fun part of the rain, definitely.Lee: Not at all. Speaking of fun, though, and this is a Great segue. You are the founder of Visual Hive. Could you let us know what inspired Visual Hive and what it is that you guys do?Bogdan Maran: Visual Hive has a relatively long history, ironically. I started Visual Hive in 2019 out of an experiment. My background comes from media and photojournalism, specifically, and production. My best friend Nathan gives me this best description. I'm a former photojournalist turned data scientist. I really like the idea of what content is, regardless of the form of content. Content, technically speaking, nowadays is a behavioural trigger. It can be a bad or a good behavioural trigger. I was fascinated by the way Reuters and Red Bull, two of my early trainees and companies I worked for and for me, used content to sell other products. In Red Bull's case was a can, and in Reuters' case was financial services because that's how they make money. But they use content to position their brand. They use content to trigger behaviour. They use content to build communities. They use content in many, many, many, many, many work on a photographer's on demand type of concept called Splento. We did quite well, but the company moved in a different direction. In January, with my friend Nathan, we were sitting down and we were, We need to do an engine for this content because it's nothing that links them together.Bogdan Maran: Keep in mind, this is way before the AI was what AI is today and we think AI is today, the magic wand thing. We started building from there. It just started on the idea But look, events and specifically, your target audience, we're talking about trade shows and conferences are one of, if not the biggest content producers in the world, especially around video. Talking about volumes here, and I'm talking about volumes here. I'm not talking about Netflix type of very sexy things and very nice things, but good content, technically speaking, if you know how to make it work. We don't do anything with it. We don't know how to use it. We don't know how to add value to it. That's how Visual Hive started. Very good concept.Lee: Of course. What are those common pitfalls then? Let's just think about my own event. I've put on several events myself. We've done the video of all of the talks, etc. We've got some great B-roll footage as well of the event itself to capture the ambiance of the event, etc. It's now taking up terabytes of space on my Google Drive, and I have no idea what to do with it. I am probably a typical event organiser.Bogdan Maran: You are somewhere in the middle. Yes, you are definitely somewhere in the middle. You've done the first bit, you've recorded it. I've seen so many companies, and I've talked to companies that wanted to use our services to improve and get more out of their video, and they didn't have any video. We're not a production company. We can help you produce, we can help you tell you how to produce it, not necessarily produce it itself. But if you don't have any content, is that in the water. There is no conversation. The other common pitfall is that you put it on a Google Drive, which is almost the equivalent of it on YouTube. Yeah. And why I say that, and I know it's controversial because YouTube now is one of the biggest search engines in the world. The way I look at YouTube is, you know those prank cameras and all the videos that we watch now on Facebook and Instagram stories with funny bits. There was a show on iTV that curated those bits, like the best of cats and the best of that and the best of that. Youtube is like that. It's like everybody dumping everything with no curation.Bogdan Maran: There is almost no chance of you searching and actually finding something relevant. I'm not talking about finding your half an hour, 45 minutes, one hour, eight hour conference. I'm talking about something relevant. I'll put a caveat here because every case is specific because we are in events and events is a very broad thing. But the most important thing that your audience has is time. If you're going to give them a hard drive, let's put it like that, or a Google Drive, I don't know how many hundreds of hours spanning, I don't know how many years of content, nobody's going to watch it. Simply because as far as I know, at least, and I hope I haven't missed this once, but we're not Netflix. We don't have drama, we don't have murder, we don't have sex, we don't have love, We don't have things like this on stage. We have knowledge, which is highly valuable, don't get me wrong, but we have knowledge. Now, your job in my head and where we can help come and help is to curate that content, editorialise that content so we can target your audience, so we can save them time.Bogdan Maran: If you save them time, you build trust. That means that the audience comes back. Again, that's probably not a conversation for a 20-minute podcast when it comes to trust in this world, considering the elections are going to come this year and so on and so on. We have fake videos and fake AI and all this stuff. But trust is highly valuable. If you're going to tell me here is a half an hour interesting keynote without giving me those sound bites that you use, for example, for this podcast that take me to the long-form content, so you use short-form content to long-form content, then it's not going to be valuable because I'm busy, everybody's busy, everybody has a tonne of things on their calendars. So curating content for your audiences, and not just, Look, this is my audience. These are my audiences. Sorry, my English is my second language, so I'll use that as an excuse.Lee: You're doing amazing.Bogdan Maran: The plural bit of it. It's The idea would be that at this point, it's possible to curate content to a specific individual, even if you have 5,000 people in your audience. And that's one of the most common pitfalls, not thinking about it.Bogdan Maran: What comes first? Okay, Fair enough. You don't know how to do it. You don't have time. We can help you. There are other companies who can help you, but just think of that first.Lee: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, we've got hours of content over the last few events that we can make available, but people don't sit and watch the entire half hour talk on XYZ. Most people might read a blog. Most people might maybe watch a short with a sound bite like you've just said. I'm just thinking of my own consumption of, say, Netflix. I actually just find all of that content too overwhelming. There's too much, and I end up clicking through for ages and then not watching anything, and actually going back to Instagram reels and then showing funny ones to my wife. That's the norm.Bogdan Maran: The best show on Netflix is browsing through content. That's the best show of Netflix.Lee: That's pretty much it. We were even considering cancelling it. Now, we've started, for example, with the podcast episode. So with this episode, it's video content, and we have started to cut small sections out of value where the guest is maybe giving a little bit of a sound bite, but we have struggled to get an audience to that. And again, we've been using YouTube predominantly. Could you speak into that? Maybe give us some point of some advice.Bogdan Maran: I haven't seen your videos on YouTube, although I do use YouTube, and I think this is a great segue. I've seen them on LinkedIn. The idea is to find out your audiences. I use YouTube for NBA basketball, for example. I use YouTube for AI talks. When I'm trying to learn, I use to YouTube for dev demos and things like this. That's where I go to YouTube. I like how to set up my microphone or things like this that are very practical or the highlights from the basketball. I do use LinkedIn for education, on the other hand. I know the algorithms are quite bad when it comes to trying to following the right people and trying to targeting the right people. But you need to look at how... The video is a layer K, so you need to look at keywords and how you use keywords, how you use your transcription, how you use your posts. All of that the sun with big capitals and everything else are bad for For LinkedIn's algorithm or for YouTube's algorithm because everybody does it. You have to have the text assigned to it. It's not just the video, it's more and more and more adding to it.Bogdan Maran: It's about the interactions and it's about knowing when to post when your audience is online. But from my perspective, I think more importantly is consistency. You want to post, you know you get more engagement at 8:00 AM on Tuesday. I'm just giving a A random example. 8:00 AM on Tuesday, post 8:00 AM on Tuesday, because I know that at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, I'll see something from you. It creates that response from my brain. I go, At 8:00 AM, I find something valuable from Lee, and I'm going to watch it. If I I have it, I'm going to go for it, I'm going to look for it, I'm going to try to find it. The most complicated thing is when you start understanding your audiences to start bringing them towards your own platforms because we're going to see a move in the next 3-5 years towards Web3, which is, technically speaking, bypassing these big platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on. Having that content on your own platform, with a caveat, is not just putting some content on a website because that's pointless. You're not going to get anywhere. It's about the added value that you bring.Bogdan Maran: For example, now because we have AI, and one of the things that we do with your hype is It's creating an interactive on demand, whereas I can go and search on your content and say, Tell me what event tech is trendy, or Have you talked about registration? It's not about just one video, it's about going into all of that database, because it's a database, technically speaking, of knowledge, and allowing me to save time, not to watch three years of content, but saying, Okay, this is the things about registrations. Here are the five clips, the short clips. Do you want to watch more from that perspective? That's the interactive bit. Then is the curated bit where you would understand who I am and you would give me values. You know I'm bold, so you'll give me things about how can I make my head shiner, for example. That means that I can come to you. I don't have to go to YouTube or LinkedIn or anything and wait for something to be served. Because I'm trusting you, and we've mentioned trust before, I'm going to come to you because you give me these interactive things. The third thing is sharing.Bogdan Maran: Let me curate your content for my audience because you I have your audience, I have my audience, we are all on LinkedIn, we are all professionals, we all have this audience. There is no marketing team in the world that can beat your audience if you give them the right tools. You asked me about how visual archive came to be. A visual It came to be also from a concept that I've been working on since about 2019 when it started initially with Visual Hive, which is user-curated content, which means it's not user-generated content. We have to be very clear about that. We know what user-generated content is. Other curated content is me going to a show, let's say, and being able to pick good content, so quality content, out of that whole show and share it with my audience. Let's say I take a... We talked about short form video content. Let's say I have a tool, an app, which is something that we are building, for example, in visual high, where I would save my most interesting paragraphs from Lee's keynote. I would have that afterwards in small clips, which is very doable. It's not just us.Bogdan Maran: Everybody can do that now in terms of... There are lots of companies that do this and share that with my network. Now, if you have 100 people at your event, I'm not talking about big events. I'm talking about 100 people at your event. If half of them share a clip on social media from your trade show, you've got 50 clips going out on a day. Nobody I know of, and I'm talking about Mobile World Congress and the big shows with big money, don't have the capacity to have that. Now, take Mobile Congress or Money 2020, where you have 20,000 to 100,000 people. Percentage-wise, let's say not 50%, but 20% of those people share content that is on your brand that adds value to their profile because that's the idea of user-created content. You produce the content correctly and I just share those 30 seconds, for example, from a keynote. You can't beat 100,000 people. You cannot beat 5,000 people, technically speaking, to use that in your engine.Lee: Yeah. That's a really interesting concept. I've heard of user generated, but user curated. Let me just try, make sure I've understood this because this is a completely new concept to me. I am putting out tonnes of content. Let's go back to my event. I've got my event. Somebody comes, it's two days of them sitting there going, whoa, I've got eight hours a day of information. I'm now overwhelmed. However, what they could do is go to my online portal, let's call it a portal for now. They can go, What are the key takeaways on, I don't know, discovery calls for web agencies? And the system will then go, Okay, these are all the talks that covered that, and here are some of those sound bites. And then that person can go, Yes, and they can do two things with this. Number one, they can go, okay, that's going to go in my head. I'm learning from that and I'm going to action that. That's number one. Therefore, they've had the value and built the trust with my event because they got that out. But also for themselves, they're going to say, right, I want to share this valuable nugget with my audience, too, which will help them and also improve my own brand.Lee: I didn't create the content, but I've curated this content for my audience to say, Hey, I've had value from this. You'll probably get value from this, too. Is that a fair you're trying to build?Bogdan Maran: That is absolutelyLee: It sounds amazing.Bogdan Maran: Absolutely. That's the idea. And imagine the behavioural that I from there. Imagine the actual data, not the registration data that everybody takes the buttons, but the actual interest people have an actionable interest that they have coming out of their show, the knowledge, the trust that you give them the tools to look better, to know better, to feel better, and everything else.Lee: That's incredible. I think I get the impression then that as long as event organisers have video, this is something that they'd be able to do, regardless of if the event was five years ago. If they still have all of this content sat there and they're doing nothing with it. How can we leverage this? You're saying we would be able to do that?Bogdan Maran: Yes, you should be able to do that because you've got... Again, I'm not a salesperson in my company. I don't necessarily have a service person in my company. But that's where we are going in terms of what we are building. That's what we are helping organisers to come in in terms of, I know you don't have the team and I'm going to give you some tools if you want to do it alone, but we can come in and put this strategy in and give you the bespoke or or whatever tools you need for this to happen. It doesn't happen just on video, it can happen on text, it can happen on photos, it can happen on anything from that perspective. That's the conversation we had behind the show. That's the idea behind the AI engine, marketing engine we are trying to build in. We're trying to build this logic, contextual logic with artificial intelligence and machine learning and neural networks and all these things so that we can give the organiser the tools or the service to say, Happy birthday, this is it. Make me very happy when he comes to your event.Lee: Could you share with us maybe one or two examples of how you have been able to help event organisers over the last few years with AI?Bogdan Maran: Yes. One of the most interesting case studies, which I found was with Informa market, they had a big problem on one of their shows that this came in the pandemic, but it's still quite flagrant in my mind because we've built a lot based on that. You have your guided tours at events. There are no guided tours because there are no live events and happy days. We've built a concept around the idea of creating verticals on their show. It's a life science show. I'm not going to go into details and the names because I probably cannot pronounce half of them. Whereas we used video to engage the buyers and created... The output was fantastic because the idea was that we had innovation verticals. Within each vertical, we had 5-10 companies that were creating something innovating. We created a series of three questions or five questions, I don't remember exactly, for each company, so it was the same question. We recorded everything, of course, with each company saying, Okay, so what's the innovation? What did you do here? What did you do here? We didn't create the questions. We had a university professor on each vertical that created those questions.Bogdan Maran: Out of there, we created this pyramid of long-form content, whereas this leader of the vertical, the university professor, would conversation it and would explain why this is an innovation, what each company does, and why it's important, and where it goes. Then you went all down to every single question answered in a certain way, every single free questions, every company, every vertical, all the verticals, you can curate the content. We started targeting this at buyers, understanding who the buyers are, putting this short form content so we can manage their journey from, Oh, this is interesting. I've seen this 90 second. I want to go to see the next one and the next one and the next one and actually go and see the company. We did this, and the show happened by the end of the day, but the output of this content targeting was more sales than they ever had doing just this in person because the buyers came in way more prepared, being curious, knowing what's happening, a lot of value for the exhibitors. This was just a specific example. But the idea of using video content in a targeted, curated manner became way more valuable than just walking people by hand I'm not saying having a group of 15 people going from A, B, C, D, and just listening to something and being bored, which is not saying it's not valuable.Bogdan Maran: I'm saying it just adds value. And that was the point of where I were trying to go. We are trying to add value to existing things.Lee: Yeah, I think as well, Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the difference here is that the buyer has taken themselves on the journey to educate themselves as to the relevance of this and therefore have become invested in it. They've built that trust, which is what you talked about earlier as well. And they therefore want to go in because I've gone to many buyer events. I'm not really sure what to expect. I don't really understand who's going to be there, what the benefits are. I'm just going. It almost feels like a waste of my time. I learn everything at the actual event itself, whereas I think here, again, you are giving the tools to the user. This is, again, user curation they're going through. They've gone through that journey themselves. They've said, Okay, that was interesting. That 90 seconds, I'm going to carry on on this journey. They've brought themselves to the table, as it were.Bogdan Maran: Absolutely, because you have to look at when it When it comes to this example, when it comes to using video, we need to stop thinking, and I'm not saying we because we are all in the industry and we need to teach each other and we need to work with each other. We need to look a little bit higher up past the two days, three day, one day event. It's because before behavioural changes, before behavioural changes, during and behavioural changes after. We have to curate the experience regardless of what the experience is based on that. How am I accessing? Am I digital? Am I online? Again, It's where am I? How am I talking to you? It's that ongoing thing. With the caveat, which is one of my pain points in the industry, there is no 365 engagement. You don't want to talk to that individual that is going to be on your website every day because you have competition and there are other people in the market. You have to bring them, like we said, every Tuesday at 8 AM, I'll go to Lee and say, What have you got for me today? Because tomorrow morning, I'm going to go to Event Industry News, I'm going to go to IBTM, I'm going to go to IMAX, I'm going to go to that, I think that you're not the only one in the market.Bogdan Maran: From both the event and the podcast, I think we have about 400 podcasts in the event industry at this point. Something to that degree. Sorry, my computer started exploding with somebody's calling. So it's not just, again, your podcast. I have a podcast. Everybody has a podcast. There are 450, so you don't expect me to just come to you, build trust, and know that I'm going to listen to these four or five other podcasts on the road. But if you give me more tools, I'm going to share your name better because I trust you more.Lee: No, that's really valuable. I mean, I myself have another podcast. I've got the Event Engine one. I've also got the Trailblazer FM podcast, which has got 450 episodes on. We've been going for like eight, nine years now, et cetera. I'm just thinking several things here. But the main thing I'm thinking is I have an awful lot of highly valuable content with some amazing guests, which has added value to thousands of people around the world. And I know I could... Giving them this opportunity sounds rather exciting. Now, you did mention we're talking on podcasts, your podcast. Could you tell us a little bit about yours and how we can go and check it out?Bogdan Maran: So the podcast, I co-host because I'm not alone. I'm not that brave. I co-host it with this amazing individual called Merijn van Buuren. He's the founder of Event Mender. It's live every Tuesday on LinkedIn, so We raise the bar a little bit to put more pressure. That's how we like to do things. You can find it on LinkedIn, and then you can find it on YouTube or on any podcast spreading content thing that exists out there from Google to Apple to whatever it is.Lee: And folks, we will make sure that there will be links in the description. So that'll be on the show notes and on our website as well. So you can go ahead and check that out.So, Bogdan, we are coming in to land. I would really love to know the best ways for people connect with you, and then we shall say goodbye.Bogdan Maran: Best ways is LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn or on email on <a href>bogdan@visualhive.co</a>. Or just call me at some point if you want to.Lee: Folks, if you want to have a conversation, get in touch. He's a legend. Thank you so much for your time, buddy. Have a great day, and we'll have you on real soon.Bogdan Maran: Thank you.Lee: Cheerio.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:9 The net zero event reality check]]></title><description><![CDATA[Is running a net zero event even possible? Nick shares his experience running a large yearly Expo.]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/net-zero-event-reality-check/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65ce0df83d41a900015aa3a8</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:00:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/49.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-9-the-net-zero-event-reality-check-nick-westerman" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-9-the-net-zero-event-reality-check-nick-westerman" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/49.png" alt="4:9 The net zero event reality check">What would it take to achieve a completely net zero event? Is that even possible amidst the flights, builds and waste streams inherent to large conferences and expos? I brought those questions to Nick Westerman of <a href="https://www.nhsconfed.org/?ref=eventenginecast.com">NHS Confederation</a>.Nick oversees sustainability initiatives for NHS Confed's massive annual expo in the UK. With thousands gathering each year, he's constantly searching for ways to lower the event's environmental impact. He was candid about the obstacles they face and the reality of reaching carbon goals.Nick and the team behind NHS Confed take a holistic approach. From public transport incentives to recycled venue materials, Nick shares the incremental changes making their large event noticeably greener.If you feel overwhelmed on event sustainability, don't miss Nick's pragmatic vision.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/KPH5D25uwi8?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KPH5D25uwi8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:9 The net zero event reality check - Nick Westerman"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>Nick busted many preconceived ideas I had on sustainability. Here's some of my key takeaways:<ul><li>Achieving a completely net zero event footprint is likely impossible due to factors like travel emissions and temporary venue builds. However, meaningful progress can be made.</li><li>Avoid "greenwashing" where organisers claim sustainability through buying offsets that don't really cancel out emissions adequately or quickly enough.</li><li>Focus first on cutting the biggest polluters - delegate travel, single-use flooring and materials, waste streams, etc. Even modest cuts here make an impact.</li><li>Educate attendees and exhibitors on sustainability best practices around transportation, hotels, booth materials, swag, etc. Get buy-in.</li><li>Make sustainability a guiding principle, not just an add-on. Enlist experts to measure and advise on planning greener events.</li><li>Iterative changes like incentives for public transport, recycledbuilds, food waste diversion, paperless campaigns, etc. compound over years.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.nhsconfed.org/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-westerman/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee. I'm here with the one and only, it's Mr. Nick Westerman. How are you, sir?Nick: Very well. Pleasure to be here.Lee: Thank you. Excellent. Nick, you are from the NHS Confederation. Could you tell us a little bit about that and your sofa our listeners.Nick: Sure. The NHS Confederation is a membership body that represents the NHS. We're a lobbying group, not healthcare is our business, essentially. In terms of me, I'm Head of Strategic Partner events. Goodness knows what that actually means. Essentially, I run their big expo each year. Awesome.Lee: To help us picture what that looks like, could you describe what the expo would look like?Nick: Sure. It's about 200-ish exhibitors, 195 content sessions, and about 7,000 people on site. Wow.Lee: And is that just once a year?Nick: Just once a year. Yeah, more.Lee: Than that. I was going to say it sounds exhausting just listening to it. So you're enjoying being a part of an event rather than running it?Nick: Very much so for today.Lee: Now, today we're going to talk about sustainability. I would, first of all, love to hear from you your reason why event organisers should take sustainability seriously. Well, the problem with.Nick: Sustainability, let's start there, is that events are not sustainable.Lee: Take this behind me. I'm not sure we can reuse it.Nick: Exactly. It's not for want of trying, and it is fundamentally important that we do at least try and introduce sustainable practises as far as possible. If we're going to continue to deliver events like this, we have to be mindful of our carbon footprint. We have to be mindful of the fact that travelling to these things is hugely costly for the environment, for individuals. It means that it is something that is our moral and social responsibility to do better because there is only one planet at the end of the day. And yes, our time on this, putting on events and running the expos is part of that. But if we are going to continue to do so, then sustainability has to now sit at the core of that.Lee: So it's not something that is a nice to have. I think you're saying this is an essential practise both for the environment and just for our moral duty to society.Nick: I think so. I think so, very much so.Lee: What are the biggest mistakes you think that event organisers might be making when it comes to trying to be sustainable?Nick: They're looking only at their parts within the sustainability ecosystem. They're thinking, Well, we will make sure that our travel and the parts that we contribute to the show are as low carbon impact as they could possibly be. But actually, if we only take those in isolation, then you get very close to greenwashing. Because take an expo like this, anything that's got a space-only build where someone has come in and they're using timber and they're using MDF and they're using all sorts of acrylic-based paints or anything that essentially is going in the bin after today, that's all part of the impact of this show. That's all part of the show's sustainability. They wouldn't be here if we weren't putting on this show. I think as an event organiser, it's our responsibility to also say to particularly space-only builders, we want you to work within these parameters. This is the most sustainable way of building your standard. These are our objectives for the whole event, and that applies to you too.Lee: That's really interesting because I've made that mistake. I, as the event organiser, have just considered what is my impact, how much am I spending, where am I sourcing my foods from? All those sorts of things. And that's actually a very small part of the overall picture. I had exhibitors bringing all of their own kit. A lot of the stuff got thrown out. They had all this extra swag that didn't get taken, etc, and very often they just leave the boxes and off they go, etc. There is an awful lot of voice, as you say. How could an event organiser then start to approach sustainability at a more holistic level? Because it does feel a little overwhelming now that we've said that because of all these different moving parts. How could they get started and climb that mountain, as it were?Nick: Being brutally honest, it is overwhelming. I think most people who are waking up to sustainability because I feel like pre-pandemic, pre-2020, sustainability actually wasn't something that we considered. The world reset itself in 2020. Then as we've come out of that and we've gone back to having big live events, sustainability now actually is fundamental, but very few are aware of how to approach that. From my perspective, and this is something that we're doing with our show, we've brought in an expert. We brought in someone to say to us, Okay, what can you materially change? Let's do a base level of what you're currently doing with your show, and here are some suggestions. Here are some ways of improving what you're currently doing and reducing your carbon footprint overall. And I think essentially asking for help. That's how you approach this because you can spend hours reading stuff online and reduce this and make sure that you don't have paper there because that's sinful. Make sure that you only use reusable coffee cups, et cetera, et cetera. But if you then try and do all of that at your events, A, you're not going to achieve it because it's expensive, and B, you're probably going to find yourself in an early grave actually trying to do it because it's not achievable all in one go.Nick: It's very much a journey that you've got to go on.Lee: And is it fair to say that no event can ever be 100 % sustainable? It's just a level, a percentage that we need to try and achieve?Nick: Essentially, yeah. We've been working with a company called Events Decision, who measured our 2022 show and said that we were in the 54th percentile of all shows that they had measured for the amount of carbon that we were producing as a result of our show. Our 2023 show, after them giving us some really decent recommendations, dropped to the 47th percentile. Where we want to be getting to, though, is the 20th or 30th percentile. That's our aim. And the only way that we're going to be able to do that is to keep on going on this journey with them where they say to us, Right, the things that you need to tackle more than anything else are delegate accommodation, delegate travel, and your space-only stance. Uniting those three things and mandating to all those people that we expect you to travel using public transport. Please don't drive to the venue. If you feel like you are travelling from London to Manchester and you think that getting on a flight is the right way to do that, don't. Granted, getting a train in this country can be problematic. But it's a downside better than getting on a plane.Nick: Yes. So mandating that thing to our delegates. Same with our space-only contractors, mandating to them that they should only be using particular materials, that they should only be using certain floor coverings that haven't been bonded in a particular way that means that they can't be recycled. Stopping more stuff going to landfill is what's right for sustainability.Lee: I think what we're saying here is that trying to run a sustainable event is certainly overwhelming. You're never going to get 100 %, especially not straight away. You need to measure. Before you even do that, you need to find the experts. Sorry, let's reiterate, you need to find the experts first, then do the measurement, take their advice, make the relevant changes starting with you, the organiser, and then try and also educate the people taking part, that's both the attendees and your exhibitors, continue to measure and to continue to then try and improve year on, year out as you develop.Nick: But also explain that to every person, every stakeholder who's involved with your event. So looking at the floor here at Even Tech Live, they've chosen not to carpet it. I think that's actually brilliant. Obviously, carpet is one of those things that constantly ends up in landfill. I know that a lot of providers are now able to recycle it, which is fantastic, and it gets turned into plastic pellets and then could be reused for bottle making and stuff like that. But that's actually quite rare for that to be the case. So asking yourself, Well, do I need carpet live in? On one hand, you're probably thinking, Well, it's going to save me 20 grand doing this. Great. But no one here is thinking, Oh, my God, this is outrageous. How dare they not carpet this again?Lee: Actually, on that, I actually thought that. I came in and I was like, Oh, the floor is a bit mucky. But as the days progressed, I realised how unimportant that was. I've not looked at the floor once, no one has, and we've still had loads of people at our stand, and we've had some incredible conversations, including this. You are totally right. That's a perception I have, I had initially, that was.Nick: Completely trashed. But it should be something that the ETL folks actually wanted to talk about and say, Well, we're not doing this because it's going to affect the carbon footprint of the show. You're here helping us achieve our sustainable objectives. And part of that is we've chosen not to do this. Is it impacting your show? No.Lee: Because, well, thankfully as well, everyone else. I mean, a few people, I think, have carpeted their own area, but most people here have just chosen to go with the floor as it is, which is phenomenal. That's something I hadn't noticed, and I think that highlights there for, doesn't it? The importance of an expert or someone with insight. Obviously, I'm not saying you're an expert in sustainability, but you have learned an awful lot more than me. This is a great example of how I haven't even thought of the carpeting on the floor or that overall impact. As I walked down here, we're at the Excel in London right now. There's another event going on just down the way there. They've carpeted the entire venue. It's the same similar square footage as this. And that's an awful lot of wastage because I assume they're not... It's cut up in all sorts of different shapes to allow for the design. There's no way they're going to be able to use that and that is going to go in landfill. That's actually quite shocking. Something as simple as that. Now, you mentioned earlier on about the experts that we should connect with.Lee: How did you go about finding the company that you worked with? And also what was the name again?Nick: So it's Event Decision. And we were here at Excel, I think it must have been 2022, came to Convex. They had a tiny stand. They had nothing to tell us what they were doing. My colleague who I'm actually here today with said, Why don't we go speak to this person? We're wandering around the exhibition. We've spoken to a few people. Let's go find out what on-earth event decision is. Matt from Event Decision was hugely engaging, hugely knowledgeable, and was such a warm character that actually we thought, Well, this is someone who really knows what they're doing. I think over the course of maybe five minutes talking to him, we were converted to, Everything you've been doing with your event so far is wrong. You haven't been addressing sustainability, but I can help. And we thought, Right, well, yeah, let's go.Lee: I'm sure he was able to have the conversation with you, get some information from you and offer in some valuable insights into what you were already doing wrong. So he was demonstrating he already knew some of the issues. Exactly that. Throw in, of course, a magnetic personality and energy and enthusiasm, which obviously sounds like it led to one of the main factors of your decision, alongside, Oh, this guy clearly understands. Precisely. Okay, well, that's very helpful. We'll make sure folks in the podcast episode that we also leave a link to Event Decision. I'm assuming their decision to have a very small stand was part of the sustainability. Because again, if I think of what we've done with our stand, we have purchased things. We tried this year to make sure that we publish, create anything that can be reused again for next year. This year, we didn't put dates on... I'm not very wise, but still wise. There's no dates. We've used vanity URLs as well that we know we can change for other purposes, etc, So that if we need to, we can put them on, etc. The only one thing we couldn't do was this backdrop behind us because this was part of the actual event, so I don't know whether they can give us it or whether we can use it again.Lee: I have no idea.Nick: Unlikely, however, what I would say is that this is a printed backdrop. They've not attached it to a timber frame or anything like that. They're using a system called either Alley Vision or B-Metrix. By the look of it, which is entirely reusable. Actually, sustainability is still baked into what's happening here. Oh, good. Because you've not got a custom-built set piece.Lee: Also feels like cloth of some.Nick: Sort as well. I imagine it's some form of vinyl. Yeah. But yeah, there are clearly considerations that have happened to you that have gone, Okay, one element of this may not be sustainable. But what we will do is to make sure that it's attached to things that are not also custom built. There is a lot of reusable stuff going on here.Lee: Yeah, absolutely. My colleague Tim was in here yesterday and he saw them building everything. So all of the construction material is all stuff that they can repurpose multiple times as well, which is phenomenal. And again, thank you for that insight because I actually had no idea. Also, the furniture that we got here was all rented from here, which again, is all reusable. Presumably, they're going to use this at multiple.Nick: Events, etc. Well, also the fact that it's not come on the back of a truck from elsewhere, some warehouse in Norwich or something like that. Immediately, we're reducing the carbon footprint.Lee: Yeah, absolutely. Funny you mentioned earlier as well in regard to travel, we actually had the conversation with somebody who actually came from near Manchester and it took them five hours to get here on the train. And I actually just, again, me not thinking about sustainability said, Oh, it would have been easier to get a plane. And of course, it would have been easier.Nick: It's there's an element of weighing up the personal responsibility there. Because don't get me wrong, train travel is a dream. It took me three hours to get here from Leeds. I don't think I've had a successful journey to London this year on a train, which wasn't delayed, cancelled, wrong type of leaves on the track, whatever it might be. But it's still more important to me that I would get a train regardless of all those delays, because getting on a plane for the 45 minutes when you're in the air is completely irresponsible.Lee: Well, I've made myself sound terrible. Thankfully, though, I don't do that. I do also take the train. But three hours from Leeds, that's a good record, mate. That sounds all right. And plenty of time to relax on the journey, I think. It depends what's going on with the train, I imagine. As we're coming into land, there was a comment you mentioned earlier on, and I've been meaning to ask you, what does the word greenwashing mean?Nick: Greenwashing is where you are painting a picture that you are being more sustainable than you actually are. You tend to see this where people are purchasing offsets in a bid to put claims that they're carbon neutral or have achieved net zero, which are two very, very different things. So particular carbon neutrality, where people are saying, Right, my event produced zero carbon. Even though we had trucks there, we had loads of people travelling by plane, rail, whatever it might be. We didn't care about the food that we were putting out there, but we've planted 1,000 trees, and we've paid a scheme that's planted 1,000 trees, and therefore that's going to offset our carbon output for the event. That is greenwashing. It's absolute nonsense because.Lee: Yes.Nick: We've already put the carbon out there, but also carbon capture from trees and other slightly less reputable schemes can take up to 100 years to recapture the carbon that you have put into the atmosphere. So it's not going to happen in your lifetime. It's not going to happen in the lifetime probably of any of the people that were at your events. And that's also assuming those trees do actually go on to survive because depending on where they've planted and whether or not they've been looked after and all that stuff, it's outrageous, actually. Thinking that you can pay your way out of it, I can have an absolutely atrocious event from the perspective of my carbon footprint. But don't worry, I've paid money. And it's all right. We're all good. It's drivel. It's absolutely drivel. Whereas working towards net zero, which is genuinely making an impact, so it's making sure that there's no wastage from your event. Anything that could be going to landfill is diverted from landfill. Whether that be going to recycling centres, whether that be in food waste now ending up in compost, whether that be taking any of the food waste and giving it to local charities to redistribute to homeless people.Nick: It might be that you choose not to have your carpet at all future events. It might be that you ban your exhibitors from ever bringing a leaflet to site and going entirely paperless. It might be ensuring that you're using technology to the best of your ability. That might be that you're now having a hybrid event where you've chosen to have fewer people in person because you can now live stream everything that's going on here. First Sight Media doing a great job here at Event Tech Live for that.Nick: It could be that your app has got everything you could possibly need on it because you've got all your speaker presentations on there. You've got everything that you need to know about the show. Those are the things that are going to work towards Carbon Net Zero, and it's something that we as event organisers would love to achieve. I don't think we're going to get there, if I'm perfectly honest, because events aren't sustainable. I come back to the first thing I said, but we can certainly do a hell of a lot more to get to that point.Lee: Well, I will butcher this statement, but there was something that was read at my by my brother-in-law, and he said, If you aim for the moon, even if you miss, you'll still fall amongst the stars, or something along those lines. But you may never get to net zero, but like you're pushing for in the 20 to 30 percentile, you're aiming high and you're slowly getting there. Over time, you're learning the lessons, you're getting the experts involved as well to help you on that journey. You're making tough decisions. You're educating people as well, which I think is extremely important. You've educated me today on just the carpet alone was something I didn't realise, which hopefully Adam and the team can do even better next year in communicating these things. They probably have. I've probably just not read the email, to be fair. Emails have come out. I'm not the best email reader, so Adam, if you're listening, don't hit me. But yeah, that's totally fantastic and very insightful. I guess as we come into land then, are there any resources, any associations, etc, that folks might be able to follow or connect with just to learn a bit more about event sustainability?Nick: There certainly are. I would recommend looking up ILA. They're exhibiting here at Event Tech Live. They are a fantastic resource for all things event sustainability. There are a huge number of resources online too, but again, I'm going to push them because we're working with them, event decision. I would absolutely recommend people just having a mutual conversation with them. I think your eyes would be opened by how quickly you can change things on your event.Lee: That's fantastic. Ilaa for online information and resource, they're also here and event decision. Nick, thank you so much for your time. You have opened my eyes and educated me significantly. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. Folks, let us know in the comments over on the website what your biggest takeaway from this episode was. Nick, before we go, how are you enjoying the event?Nick: Oh, it's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. It's such a buzzy atmosphere. The content that's going on on the stage is brilliant. I've had some really great discussions with some potential new suppliers. And also, there are so many people here that I actually know that it's just delightful to catch up with him.Lee: That's the great thing. Throughout the day, just, Oh, all right. How's it going? And then having a little ketchup. And now a new face. I've made a new friend you Nick. Thank you so much. Take care and enjoy the rest of your day.Nick: Thank you.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:8 Bootstrapping event tech for success]]></title><description><![CDATA[Wonder how startups bootstrap world-class event businesses with no funding? Mads spills the tea.]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/bootstrapping-for-success/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65cdd4143d41a900015aa35b</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 22 Feb 2024 09:00:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/48-Vn02.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-8-bootstrapping-event-tech-for-success-mads-kjer" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-8-bootstrapping-event-tech-for-success-mads-kjer" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/48-Vn02.png" alt="4:8 Bootstrapping event tech for success">Running events can feel like a risky business at times. Between tight budgets, high partner expectations, and strong competition, the odds often seem stacked against us as event organizers. We're forced to pull off minor miracles at times on a strained budget.My guest in this episode, Mads Kjer, bootstrapped Ticketbutler starting with just an idea and sheer determination. We learn how he went from "moonlighting side-hustler" to leading a thriving event ticketing and badge printing company armed only with hustle, smarts and an unwavering commitment to customer experience.If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to turn your idea into profit, you need to hear Mads' story. From leveraging side incomes to laser-focusing on customer pain points with his ticket builder software and portable badge printer hardware, he shares the tactics that allowed Ticketbutler to constantly punch above its weight class despite limited resources, and a lot of competition.So whether you're looking to bootstrap your own event tech startup or simply take your existing event business to the next level without going into debt, don't miss the key lessons from Mads' journey on how he beat the odds through resilience, agility, and customer obsession to turn his passion project into a global reaching operation with just the power of bootstrapping.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on YouTube.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vUAURyi1uYU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:8 Bootstrapping event tech for success - Mads Kjer"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>Whenever I talk to Mads I learn something new or get inspired. Here's what stood out to me this time round:<ul><li>If entering a crowded market, consider focusing on the customer experience and identifying an underserved niche.</li><li>Look at leveraging modern technologies like 3D printing to rapidly build MVPs before heavily investing in product development.</li><li>Seek partnerships to access expertise outside your core competencies rather than trying to build everything in-house.</li><li>Aim to obsess over customers by listening closely to their pain points, then solve their actual problems.</li><li>The constraints of bootstrapping encourages you to deliver real value to customers first, rather than prioritising growth above all else.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/madskjer/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li><li><a href="https://ticketbutler.io/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee, on today's show, yet again, live and in-person this time, we have the one and only, Mads Kjer. How are you, sir?Mads Kjer: Amazing. Thank you. Nice to see you in real time. You're not a robot.Lee: I can touch you. This is incredible. Oh, yeah, you're real.Mads Kjer: That's fantastic. I think you're not a robot.Lee: No, I'm not a robot, despite the fact that we do offer AI.Mads Kjer: OkayLee: I was joking to somebody that I was actually the prototype AI bot that we'd created and made to look lifelike. And you know what? Nobody laughed. It's just a classic dad joke, I'm afraid. Love it. Folks, if you're not aware of who Mads is, he is the co-founder, I think, of Mads... No, your name is Mads Kjer. He's the co-founder of Ticket Butler. He was on the show just a few weeks ago. We had a fantastic time and it was all online. This time we get to have a conversation all about Ticket Butler and how you got started essentially bootstrapping an event tech business. So before we jump into that, could you just give people a very quick 30-second bio of Mads, and then we will jump into your journey?Mads Kjer: Sure thing. My name is Mads. I'm from Denmark, Copenhagen. I live in Copenhagen from Aarhus, the Jutland side of Denmark. Yeah, as you said, I'm a CEO and co-founder of Ticket Butler. I founded six years ago. I'm a former gymnastics. And if you've listened to the previous podcast, you figured that out, I can jump on my butt and I can still do some tricks. But you can't see that today in this episode, unfortunately.Lee: Because I think you said you had stiff legs anyway.Mads Kjer: I do from trainings yesterday. Exactly.Lee: You can also google and you'll be able to find the Denmark's Got Talent as to what we're talking about. You said it. I did indeed. And it's also in the previous episode, so we're all good. So, Mads, today we want to look really at bootstrapping an Event Tech company, and that's something that you guys have done. So could we jump in the imaginary time machine back six, seven years ago? Could you share your initial journey into building a ticket builder?Mads Kjer: Yeah, it started with me working for a company in Denmark doing gymnastics shows. I was sitting there selling tickets, do the marketing and everything and sitting with ticketing systems. My brother lived in Australia. He was the lead developer for a ticketing system in Australia. Went out for a beer. I visited him in Australia, went out for a beer. We just sit there complaining, complaining about ticketing systems and how they did things and how I was complaining about how I was doing things in my work. Then we got drunk and then at some point we was like, Whatever, we do it ourselves. Let's build a company. Come on, bro, let's build a company. The day after Hangover, we were like, Oh, well, let's do it. Back then, he was living in Australia. I was in Denmark, so it took some time before we really began building it. But that was really how it started over beer.Lee: You complained about an experience you were having in the real world and you were like, We can solve this problem. How did you go about starting to solve the problem? I guess what's the problem in a sentence that you decided you wanted to solve? Then how did you start going about solving it?Mads Kjer: Yeah, so we saw the ticketing systems back then being super advanced and super expensive. Actually, what we wanted to build was a free ticketing system for everybody funded by ads. Sounds good.Lee: Yeah.Mads Kjer: But you need a shitload of volume to actually earn money on ads, like a lot of tickets. Long story short, we changed that price model and resulted in doing the same price model as almost everybody else. But that was the learnings. Back then, we were just naive. I didn't have any entrepreneurial experience or anything back then. My brother had a bit, but that was just for fun. We needed to learn every step of the way by just doing things. That's also part of the bootstrap journey. We didn't have the experience with finding funding and everything. I'm not saying that's the reason why we did bootstrap, but we just need time for learning. But that was actually before six years ago.Lee: Okay. How did you start to develop the product and I guess invest in it? Did you work a job on the side for a while? Or how did you connect?Mads Kjer: In the beginning, we were moon shining. Do you know that?Lee: I've heard of moonlighting. Moonshining. What's moonshining then?Mads Kjer: Moonshining is when you work on it at the shine of the moon. You work on your business in the night. Oh, right. Yeah, okay. I was studying at engineering at DTU in Denmark, Denmark's technical university. My brother was working at a corporate and we were working on it at the night. That's moonshining. That's a part of being bootstrap. You don't have money to pay yourself. We were actually moonshining until I could pay a salary to myself. At that point, my two co-founders founded a IT consultancy, which goes very well hand in hand with having a tech company as well. That's been a part of the journey, is having this IT consultancy funding some of the salaries, but having that capacity together with a tech company goes very well hand in hand in terms of resources that you can take resources from the IT consultancy into the tech when it's needed. But you also can have a few customers on the side working on IT consultancy. We were very much more flexible in terms of IT resources, which is really, really expensive when you're building a tech product.Lee: Absolutely.Mads Kjer: That's part of how we were bootstrap. That's the first biggest thing. The second thing is being bootstrap, it forces you to deliver really well and it forces you to make your customers come back, not to make your customers come back, but to make them like coming back because you can't churn customers. If you keep churning customers just like a big black hole you put money and resources into. The way we've always been super duper focused on giving an awesome experience from our customers. Because that's what we're grown from. We don't grow from Investors, we grow from our own customers. By giving them an exceptional experience both with support and product and everything, we make sure they come back. From that profit, we make sure we can help other organisers. That's how the snowball has been rolling, as well as the customers have been recommending other customers. It's just this positive effect. But being bootstrap, you're really forced to think about those effects because you can't just pull out money out the window.Lee: No, you can't mess it up, etc. You want them to have a good impression. You want them to, like you said, spread the news far and wide to all of their associates, and you can grow through that. How did you, as a bootstrap company, you've been moonshining. Yes, you've got the IT consultancy on the side to help bring in some cash flow, etc, But how did you go about finding those first few customers? Because there is the credibility element, isn't there? You're a young, small, bootstrap company. You don't have a big, flash, big head office and a big, flashy website, how do you get a company to say, All right, I'll take a pun on you?Mads Kjer: Yeah, that's a good question. In the beginning, there's much, I won't say hustle, but I think we've expanded our features and product portfolio slowly. In the beginning, we weren't taking on tasks that we couldn't deliver on. If you have an abundance of money and you could just deliver or develop whatever you need, we couldn't do that. We were very precise on only taking in customers and tasks that we knew we could deliver on, again, coming back to the customers coming back to us again. But it was difficult. It was hard. It's been hard work, man. It's really hard work, especially in the beginning with... And also starting a ticketing business. There are so many ticketing customers, like ticketing providers doing such a good job. It's really good ticketing providers out there. But back then, we had no experience. We're just naive, just doing it.Lee: I think there's something, though, admirable about saying, You know what? We can see what other people are doing. There are some frustrations that we would like to solve with that, and then stepping into an already crowded market and going for it. That's very admirable and braves. Some might say stupid, but hey, six years later, you're still going. That's a great thing, too. But also you guys have done something very different, I think, as well. Maybe born out of you being bootstrap, but I believe you guys have differentiated yourself significantly through branding. You've got a great brand, but also through the products that you're delivering, especially with that niche into sustainability. Was that a purposeful?Mads Kjer: I'm a product engineer and a part of my education is like, go ask questions and stay quiet. Ask about the frustrations, the pains and everything. After the customer number 20, 30 said, Mads, help us with printing name badges. We hate it for small events. This is not the thousands of people events, just the smaller events. I couldn't help myself. Let's build that printer. We've never done hardware before. Let's build that printer. But let's come back to help the customers, help them solve some pains, and especially that name badge printer. We had the experience and we've hit a niche market with the name badge printer that helped us growing. One and a half years ago, we printed our first name badge outside of Denmark. Today we've been in 29 countries with the name badge printer, five upcoming in five different continents in one and a half years. We've also seen, but this is the same methods we've been using since the beginning, is like listening to what are the pains and just delivering that awesome experience for the customers and the organisers because that's what helps us grow. Especially now with the name badge printer where we have an even better product market fit, we have better niche that we see not others are doing.Mads Kjer: There's a lot of good on-site name badge printer providers out there, but we're just doing it differently. In a way, I don't see anybody doing it.Lee: For listeners, could you describe what you're doing as well as the folks who are aware of what ticket butler does?Mads Kjer: Yeah, we both do the ticketing part of things and we're aiming of doing things simple. We can do advanced conference and stuff like that in the ticketing, but we are focusing on having a more intuitive UI, like a intuitive interface meaning whenever we have a new feature, we don't put it in the dashboard because otherwise you couldn't find a button because of all the buttons. That's for the ticketing side of things, doing it simple, integrating it on the homepage, your branding, your data, and everything. But talking about this niche with the name badge printing, we've built this small portable printer where it's a label printer, but it's extended with a computer, where we've built in software and hardware, making it seriously plug and play.Lee: It also looks really cute as well. Sorry? It looks cute as well. It's a nice design.Mads Kjer: You could bring it on the plate. It's super portable. The plug-and-play thing is you turn it on, two buttons, you scan a cure code on the back, that's the setup. It literally takes one minute to set up. We've made this technology that's normally need a technician into something everybody can use, meaning it can be used for events with 50 attendees. We have had customers having 30 events over four months all around Europe with different operations team each time managing that without us handling everything. We had one point of contact, and that point of contact just handled everything else, but the contact wasn't physical in place because it's so easy to operate this printer. Seriously, turn it on, scan the cure code, begin printing. You scan the cure codes when the attendees arrives and then it just prints the name badge.Lee: With the bootstrapping methodology, how did you also... No, as in on this, how did you actually build the hardware? Because that sounds like a lot of research and development. I'm assuming as you've bootstrapped and slowly grown, you've not got thousands of pounds to at this. How did you get from a low-budget development of this product?Mads Kjer: Good question. We are using some modern technologies, for example, 3D printing. We got 3D printers in the office printing the casing, which makes the production super agile. In the casing, we have different devices. We can adapt the casing depending on the devices we use. We can swap out devices, everything. 3d printing is one thing, but also these agile development methods, not investing in these moulds in China and you need to build 1,000 devices before it makes sense economically, financially. We're just using these modern ways to develop things, as well as we do have a lot of experience with the software and we hired people for the hardware as well as the product development, as well as my experience within product engineering. All that combined made us move super fast, super efficiently, having time to market really, really short because we had some good agile techniques internally as well with this 3D printing technology.Lee: It sounds like you've used 3D printing to get rid of that whole case production saga, but also you've used reusable off-the-shelf parts that you've put together, plus your own software and some hardware all melded into one product. You did that on purpose. Was the MP... Was that just to get an MPV out there? Sorry, MPV? MVP. I'm saying the wrong way. Was that to get an MVP out there as quickly as you can to test the market? Or has the product changed much since then?Mads Kjer: Yes and no. The cute little design hasn't changed. Actually, the parts inside has changed a lot. The first MVP was, of course, different from the one we have now on the inside, but the outside has been the same because we actually pretty much nailed the design from the first version. Not the MVP. The MVP had a cardboard box next to it with some things in it.Lee: Well, like the Apple One.Mads Kjer: I'll say the MSP.Lee: Okay.Mads Kjer: The minimum sellable product.Lee: Oh, okay.Mads Kjer: Not viable product, sellable product. Yeah, so we did it to time to market, but we still do it today because it just works. Looks good, it's flexible. We can produce printers from day to day almost. Part of the story is also like we have one model where you can rent it for one event and you can also scale it up. You can have 15 printers for one event if you have 8,000 attendees, or you can just have one if you had an event with 50 attendees, and you can also have them in-house. You as a company, if you run a lot of events over the year, you can just have them in-house and just pull them out on the shelf and use it for that event with 30 attendees and then use it next week again. But back to the production is we do have these very short production cycles, so we can deliver very quickly because everything is in-house and we don't need to ship things around in China. Sustainability-wise as well, also a thing. We don't produce anything that's not needed. Yeah.Lee: You build the cases on site at the office. In theory, you could send the files to someone else as well, couldn't you? For them to put something together or the instructions or whatever in another country as well based on what you've done. That's phenomenal because you've not got too much in there that's absolutely custom to you that Apple has to get its own chips made and then placed on boards, etc. That's a fascinating journey. I think I'm hearing here as well that in order to bootstrap tech innovations, be agile, build the MVP first, obviously, but also the minimum sellable product, i. E, solve the problem and no more, and put it out to market. Don't get too many people involved in it. Don't drag the development out for months and months, which we've done as a software company. We've sometimes taken two years to develop a product, which if you add up all of the salaries and the time invested, it's an awful lot of money. When really we could have shipped something a lot sooner. We've learned a lot nowadays. We don't do that. But originally our very first product took us two years to develop, and that costs an awful lot of money.Lee: So we were certainly not bootstrapping. But I think that's some big lessons I can learn here. Is there a point, as you've grown, that bootstrapping or the philosophy of bootstrapping no longer is needed because there is now good cash flow? Or is it a philosophy that you want to continue to adopt as you grow? Yeah.Mads Kjer: We might find funding at some point when it makes sense for us. We still feel affected by being bootstrap. I'm sure everything have been running even faster if we had funding. But right now we've just built such a great culture and we've been taking it in our pace until now. We've been very controllable, especially during the COVID. Oh, yeah. Having investors in that time have been a shit show. Sorry, my French.Lee: It's very good French. It's actually "Merde" in French.Mads Kjer: But we could have been taking decisions down the road that has helped us, but has also been dragged a bit out the time of development and the amount of customers we have had had and stuff like that. But at some point, we might find investors, but that will be for growing even faster.Lee: But I think I mean not just investors because as you've grown anyway, your income is naturally increasing and your profitability going up as well. I guess what I mean is when you look at the bank balance, you're thinking, Oh, this is looking a lot healthier than when we first started. We feel, psychologically, a bit richer as a business. Perhaps we can make decisions that we never used to make. Let's just invest in X, Y, Z because it's going to look good or look better, etc. I guess I'm saying, does the bootstrapping mentality eventually start to leave you, or is it something you think is going to be around for a long time because it keeps you so agile?Mads Kjer: Good question. Well, it certainly doesn't feel as limiting anymore because, of course, we have a higher revenue and we've got a lot of employees and everything. It gives more freedom to test new things, to invest in new marketing, sales channels, product things. But the things I'm most proud of lately is we have enough resources now to invest in sustainable solutions, which hopefully can get a return down the road. But I've chosen to invest in some sustainable solutions and development now because it's dear to my heart. For example, we've been offsetting our own carbon footprint with 105%. We've been developing a feature in the ticketing system where the ticket buyer can offset their footprint at the event as an opt-in. We don't earn anything on it. We do it because we want to help the climate. We've been building some... How we transport the name badges, we've developed a foam box for the rental printers that can be sent back and forth with a low carbon footprint. I've done a bunch of different things, which is way more sustainable because we have some more money to be able to actually do it. We have freedom to do stuff like that now, which I wanted to do two, three years ago, but I didn't feel we had the resources.Mads Kjer: But we do have that now.Lee: Now, you mentioned earlier the C-word COVID, which brings back many bad memories, I think, for many people. How did that affect you guys? Because you're a bootstrap company with a brand new product that you're bringing to the market, i.e, the ticket butler the software, etc, the ticketing side, you're also looking at creating this ticketing machine. How did COVID affect all of that? Because the events industry practically switched off overnight.Mads Kjer: We launched the name badge. We sent the first invoice for the name badge printer in December 19. The day before COVID, the first rules of distancing and everything, like closing events down in Denmark, the day before those got enforced in Denmark, we launched the plantable name badge, referring to our earlier podcast about sustainable name badges. We have this name badge you can plant. We launched that the day before the rules got enforced in Denmark. I was like, Bye-bye. But we chose to say we know physical events will come back. Some said the event industry will never be the same again.Lee: Well, here we are, thankfully.Mads Kjer: I was like, Yes, it will. It will be changing a bit, but people will never stop meeting each other. We need to sit in front of each other, give each other a hug, even though we haven't seen each other before in.Lee: Real life. Well, now we're BFFs.Mads Kjer: Yeah, exactly. We knew that, so we didn't begin building any virtual software or anything. We were like, Nope, we want to be the experts within the few things we do. Then we just begin hustling. One thing was we had the IT consultancy on the side. That helped a lot. Then we just build a marketplace for online events, but with a physical aspect of it. We help organisers execute online events where we help them sending out whatever physical packages for the attendees. We did rum tasting, bakery courses, all sorts of things, whiskey tasting, chocolate tasting with a guy from Costa Rica, he was doing the tasting for Danish participants, all sorts of things, just hustling the way out of there. But being bootstrap, that was difficult. Super difficult.Lee: But does bootstrap, though, during that time also give you the benefit of being able to do that? Because there are some big companies that would not be able to hustle like that. They wouldn't be able to make any of those decisions because of the managerial hierarchy, etc, Whereas you guys could do it all, put your heads together and say, Right, so what are we going to do during this? Let's do this. We've got the skills in-house.Lee: Quick three weeks later, your MVP is another week later, your MSP. Now, new phrase I've learned, I'm going to be using MSP all day now, mate.Mads Kjer: I'll tell you, not even three weeks. We were sitting, us three partners at a- No.Lee: One likes to show off, mate.Mads Kjer: I don't know, like a month in or something like that. We were sitting, us three partners just being very stressed out about the situation. What do we do? Do we lay up here or whatever? We went to an online beer tasting the week before.Lee: Yeah, beer features a lot here.Mads Kjer: Sorry, yeah.Lee: Carry on. Sorry.Mads Kjer: But we went to this online beer tasting, and that was first of the kind in COVID, and we were like, That was such an amazing experience. Seriously, we found a napkin, wrote down a business model for this platform with making online events for event organisers eight days after we launched.Lee: I'll give you a fist bump for that. It's amazing.Mads Kjer: That was just the team getting together. We had the registration platform, we had the network within the organisers, we had the tech experience. We haven't done any logistics before, but we learned that. You're working out. Nobody knew about it, but we learned very quickly together with our organisers and partners and stuff like that, but eight days we launched that product. We couldn't have done that if we had to invest. Then we have board meetings and voting and everything. We've been very resilient, both about this, again, this mindset like we need to provide values, otherwise we can't earn money and grow, as well as having the IT consultancy has also been giving us some resilience.Lee: I think the IT consultancy as well is good because you guys, you've not got your eggs in the ticketing basket, as it were. You have other sources of revenue that you can lean on during the rougher times. Similar to us back in the day, we had different products or different services that we could offer. I was also an IT specialist, so I was able to offer corporate-level IT consultancy to keep my lights on whilst also moonshining—another word I've learned—with the business to try and build it as we were trying to attract clients to our new software, etc. Definitely something that's helpful. Have you continued with the IT consultancy on the side as well?Mads Kjer: We still have it. It's very, very few customers over there, but they're good customers. I have a few colleagues over there working with these customers. They're happy, everybody's happy. Right now it's like, why not keep going? Because it's good. It's extra resources. Everybody's happy. For those colleagues working on those projects, it's good. There's some problems and challenges that they wouldn't face otherwise in terms of tech challenges. It's good challenges. Right now, why not?Lee: I guess as well, you've got your own IT consultancy on tap whenever you need. That sounds phenomenal.Mads Kjer: They.Lee: Can look after you.Mads Kjer: Yeah, it started, and that's the case. It's a recommendation for other bootstrap companies or just people who want to test out the startup world or whatever doing some consultancy in the beginning, that's good earning good money in the beginning while you're building a product. Building a product is shit money. Now we know that's a French word as well. Shit money in the beginning, consultancy is good money in the beginning, but at some point it will tip over. We tipped over that long ago, but still having that safety net without taking too much focus if you're bootstrap, that can be a strategy, but it totally takes focus in the beginning. It does. You cannot avoid it. If we didn't do the consultancy and had funding instead, I'm sure we will be way bigger today. But for me, it's also about the culture, building a good business, building a culture where everybody's happy about what they're doing, making sure customers are happy, not just looking at them as numbers, but looking at them as humans and customers, making sure their events are a success. That's super important for me, having that integrity. I'm not saying you don't have integrity if you have funding.Mads Kjer: But just when we can follow the scaling we've done, but still having those core elements and values in place, I enjoy that. That's really good. It's also a personal enjoyment. But at some point, we might get some funding to grow.Lee: I feel like you may not. I feel like you'll naturally grow. I think you found a vibe and a way of building a business that you clearly enjoy, you clearly thrive off, and you are clearly very versatile as a result. I am fairly sure that you may even get to the dotted line and then just not sign. I get the impression that you'll probably. Just as we come into Land then, if there's any young Event Tech startup, they've been moonshining, maybe they have their MSP, maybe they've managed to attract a few clients, but they just feel overwhelmed at generally marketing their business and getting their name out there. Would you have any advice for them on how they might be able to reach a wider audience with their product?Mads Kjer: Yeah, definitely networking in the beginning. Just go with networking. Yeah, how to do that. Find relevant people that can match you up with relevant people. There's a lot of good startup events out there, but try to go as focused as possible in your own industry. It's good talking with experienced people from whatever business, but trying to be as focused on your niche as possible. For example, if you're doing an EventTech startup, you should go to Event Tech Live.Lee: Here we go. Yeah.Mads Kjer: To get in touch with people that can help you finding your next customer. I would definitely recommend that because you cannot win with Facebook ads and stuff like that at the beginning without knowing who you're targeting. So getting the knowledge for knowing who you're targeting to actually get the correct and the right network you need, being more clear about what you're looking for. You might not know in the beginning, but that's what you need to explore. But you can explore it through and listening to people who work in the same industry. Yeah. I'm networking with the correct people in the beginning, as niche as possible. I think that will be a good recommendation in the beginning.Lee: No, I totally agree. It's how we've grown. One of the things that we weren't expecting was actually that developing relationships with other suppliers in the industry has actually been way more effective than trying to find networking groups where our target client is, if that makes sense. Because we are now forming partnerships in an event such as Event Tech Live, where people know what we do, we know what they do. And as we find new customers, we're essentially able to pass opportunities and leads around. And there's an awful lot of goodwill in this industry and people are able to pass things on. For example, we don't necessarily do apps. We do web builds, but we don't do apps. And we've just today had a great chat with Canopy next to us who do event apps. Great, we've continued to develop that relationship. We might be able to either partner with them at some point or pass business on, etc, Just a very small example of the things you can do when you're super niche. Mate, this has been a wonderful conversation. Really nice to do in person. Before we go, for the folks who didn't get to see the last episode of which they can watch, could you just show us, for the benefit of the camera in person, because last time there was a bit of recording issues, your tickets.Lee: Would they plantable tickets?Mads Kjer: Oh, yeah, sure. Like on the camera here? Yeah. Folks, if.Lee: You're listening to the podcast, come on to YouTube and you can see these plantable tickets.Mads Kjer: On the front side, for those who can't see it, this is actually my business card today, but it's the same thing that goes for the name badge on the front here. It's my name, it's my phone number and everything, but that will be the front side of a name badge. This is printed with a label from our mobile small printer that prints the label here. You put it on here. On the back side, you will see a description and some small icons on how to plant your name badge. In this name badge, those are camomile seeds, so you can plant your name badge. Instead of using plastic name badge or whatever, you can give your attendees a memory to bring home. If you've been on conferences away from your family, stuff like that, it's awesome to go home and plant a caramel flour or a tomato or whatever and see it grow. You have fun with it with your family at home. See, here's the one with tomato seeds. That's absolute our best seller and I love it. I'm proud of that product because it's helping event organisers being creative. We help them being creative on their behalf and they get all the shine.Lee: It's another way for you in a very crowded market to stand out. It's something that not many tickets... I'm not actually aware of any others right now that are doing something like that, so it's great. I'm totally going to steal a couple if you don't mind.Mads Kjer: Go on, man.Lee: Take them home for my son and we can plant one.Mads Kjer: That would be lovely. Go on. I should have brought the floppy discs.Lee: Well, we've got the pictures. I'll make sure we put a picture on. Now, picture. Picture.Mads Kjer: I only got 19,500 left, so you better be fast.Lee: I've got loads of floppy discs at home as well. They're all from my Amiga. I still have an Amiga.Mads Kjer: But I don't want to know what's on them.Lee: Well, I've got lots and lots of games. Okay, that's all right. I'm in business software as well. I'm into business software. I'm a big nerd. It's a whole other podcast I want to start all about the business software that people used to use 20, 30 years ago and then comparing it to what we do today. That would be fun. I know it'd be great. I mean, it wouldn't make any money whatsoever, but it would be totally nerd tactic for me to do. Maybe one day I might have another podcast about that. You never know. Mate, thank you so much for hanging out with me. It's been so good to do it in person. Pleasure. Loved our digital one, but this is 10 times better because I can see you in the flesh. Let's do it again. Thank you so much. Give us a fist bump. Thanks, man. Nice one. Take care. I'll see you soon.Mads Kjer: Cheers.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:7 Niche website to global event]]></title><description><![CDATA[ <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-7-niche-website-to-global-event-adam-parry" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-7-niche-website-to-global-event-adam-parry" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Event Tech Live</a> has grown from niche website to global industry phenom in just over a decade. So how’d they do it?This week I talk with Adam Parry. He pulls back the curtain on Event Tech Live's origin story and growth. From kickstarting with an]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/niche-website-to-gobal-event/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65c0b33bf06ed3000179a674</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:00:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/47--2-.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-7-niche-website-to-global-event-adam-parry" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-7-niche-website-to-global-event-adam-parry" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/47--2-.png" alt="4:7 Niche website to global event"><a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Event Tech Live</a> has grown from niche website to global industry phenom in just over a decade. So how’d they do it?This week I talk with Adam Parry. He pulls back the curtain on Event Tech Live's origin story and growth. From kickstarting with an awards program to the first leap into organising... Adam keeps it real about their against-the-odds journey to heavy-hitter status.Along the way, he drops serious knowledge for fellow event organisers looking to step up their game. Like why getting creative on your exhibition stand trumps waiting for serendipity. How to leverage content to drive sustainable growth. And the key factors that gave his team the confidence to bring their formula to Las Vegas!<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast online as part of our collaboration for <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/9-OZlH9nH8M?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9-OZlH9nH8M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:7 Niche website to global event - Adam Parry"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>Adam shares so many golden nuggets. Here are the ones that jumped out at me:For Event Organisers<ul><li>Leverage content stages and captured event content to add value for attendees and extend your reach through the year</li><li>For sustainable event growth, consider strategic co-location with complementary events to consolidate travel and maximise value</li><li>Maintain close relationships with long-time event customers and partners to provide confidence in expansion or taking calculated risks</li><li>When expanding internationally, consider ease of logistics/travel to reduce barriers for attendees</li></ul>For exhibitors<ul><li>Get creative with your exhibition stand to actively attract attendees rather than passively relying on foot traffic</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2>You can connect with the legend himself via:<ul><li><a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamparry/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today's show, we have the one, the only. It's Adam Parry. So how are you today?Adam Parry: I am very well. Thank you very much for asking. And yourself?Lee: I am tip top and champion, as they say. So given your accent, mate, could you let us know whereabouts in the UK you're from?Adam Parry: The beautiful north.Lee: The beautiful north.Adam Parry: Originally, born and bred Sheffield lad, Sheffield Steelers. And then met my wife, 18 years ago, in a dark dingy club on Deansgate in Manchester, and never left.Lee: So you've been stuck in... Well, not originally, but I lived in Didsbury for many years.Adam Parry: Well, I'm Gatley. So just the other side of the M6. Is it the M6? The M6 Circular? Yeah, Manchester Circular.Lee: I hate the M6. It's the worst place. But Didsbury is now posh. It wasn't posh when I was young.Adam Parry: Very posh, actually. A very It's a inspirational place to live in Manchester.Lee: Absolutely. So you are one of the cofounders behind the Event Tech Live. Could you give us a little bit of a potted history of how the event got started?Adam Parry: Yeah, sure. So never organised an event before Event Tech Live, not even a birthday party. So as most people did, just wanted to do something cool and bring people together. What it actually was born out of Lee is we saw a lot of people gravitate towards content on event industry news, the the implication that we run around technology. So we knew there was interest there. And we decided to launch an awards programme because, well, for multifaceted reasons. One, it was really hard to find out what companies were developing and innovating in. It was really hard to find out what the planner, organiser, agency, end user was doing with that technology. And selfishly, we wanted to learn a lot more about it. And a great way to do that is provide an awards programme. So you get lots of people sending lots of information, sensitive information in some cases, and you can glean a lot from that and then reach out to them for the content. What was also apparent to us, though, at the same time was that if there was a category in another rewards programme, respective of event technology, it was a catch all category.Adam Parry: So you could have everything from registration solutions to drones, to the latest in AI, to I'll be careful to say boring and mundane technology there, but technologies that didn't have pizazz and wow, right? And we felt that was very unfair because it was always those entries that were the glitz and glam that seemed to get the accolades. And we felt that was not a great indicator for those actually looking at award programmes, which many, many buyers do. They look towards the award programmes to say, Who are the recognised companies? Who should we be speaking to in the category of registration? We launched the Event Technology Awards. And being from the north and being tight, we had the venue for the entire day. We wanted to maximise the value out of that. So on a win, we decided to launch, originally it was called the Event Technology Awards conference because we were like, we spend lots of time thinking about the names.Lee: Quite a mouthful, though, isn't it?Adam Parry: Yeah, it was. It didn't roll off the tongue at all. And what was, again, what was really interesting about that event, we had about 150 attendees, all really high level from organisations like George P. Johnson and UBM, Trade Show Organiser, and we had Adidas in the room and we were like, Hold on a second. You don't generally go to an industry event where all of these different types of planner, organiser, or supplier interact with each other. You tend to have the trade show events and the agency events and the end user events and stuff. We knew we were onto something because that was a great a way to bring lots of people together under this banner event technology. But when we did feedback, the biggest barrier that our industry or our attendee said was the sign off or the justification to spend 150, 200 quid to go to an event for a day for education. And coming from Event Industry News, which ultimately that is funded through the opportunity for companies to market themselves to that audience, we decided we knew that better than trying to showcase the value of a ticket. So the next year, we rebranded it under EventTech Live, and we went out there and started talking to event technology providers about would they be interested in coming and having a presence at a trade show.Adam Parry: Well, it wasn't a trade show, actually, initially. The idea was we're going to do slightly more content, do two streams of content, and maybe we'll get 15, 20 companies involved. Year one of EventTech Live under that brand was 60 event technology companies, three stages of content, and about a thousand attendees.Lee: Where was that? Was that the one at Truman?Adam Parry: Yeah. So the Truman Brewery, the most amazing It's a great venue to help individuals like us get started. It's a great venue. It's quirky. It's got lots of different rooms. You can do lots of different things with it. The team there are fantastic, very cost-effective on the grand scheme of things when it comes to hosting events in London. It is a blank box, so anybody that's thinking they can roll in there and it's going to be brilliant, no, you have to do a lot of work to pull everything together. It was a fantastic venue for nearly a decade. We had our exhibition there in one-day formats, two-day formats, and expanded in the venue up until the first year back of the pandemic. So that was what, 2021? Yeah. And it was a fantastic venue for us. Unfortunately, just for two main reasons, logistically, as the event grew, it became a nightmare to work in for our team. We were rolling down into London on the Saturday before the event started and opened on the Wednesday, and team members weren't leaving until the following Sunday in terms of logistics and build and things like that. It also restricted our exhibitors in terms of what they wanted to do.Adam Parry: They couldn't do certain scale of activation. They couldn't bring things in. We were having real challenges with some of the hardware providers that we wanted to bring into the show. Actually, what also happened, because the event ended up being split over essentially four rooms on a single floor, every year we had companies who felt they weren't in the mix of the main action. They felt like they were the second-tier exhibitor, shall we say. That wasn't the case because we use technology We're to track people around the show and we did things to push people around the show as well, like content stages and things like that. But just human nature was like, there is a big main room over there and we're not in there, so therefore we're not part of the action. So that was another reason for us to move.Lee: That makes sense. And you moved to the Excel. What was the thought process around that?Adam Parry: Excel, for a number of reasons, believe it or not, an event of our scale, there's not a number of venues to move to. There are some fantastic venues that we did look at, like magazine in London. We looked at the print works when that was open to host events. We looked at the BDC, but that was just a little too small for us in terms of overall square metres, so was magazine. Olympia, which is another option, it was going and is still going through its redevelopment. On top of that, what also attracted us to Excel, not only a great relationship that I built up with Caroline Gaule, one of the team there, but it was well connected. They were just about to finish the Elizabeth Line by the first time we were going in there as a show, so that made it a lot easier for individuals from across London to get to. It's got City Airport and obviously through the Elizabeth Line connected well into Heathrow, isn't it? So part of our growth strategy for the event is to start to look to European countries to bring in buyers from those countries. And that's even going...Adam Parry: That strategy is now filtering down into how we translate content on site and actually translate it post-event from an on-demand perspective. It's got good infrastructure around in terms of hotels. It's got lots of parking, so if people want to get there, it's very easy to get into and build. It's got our main contractors offices there, GES. And in addition And in addition to that, it's sustainability credentials. It does a huge amount and continues to invest in sustainability, which by proxy helps us to be more sustainable as an organiser. So they've got a bio recycling plant, which has got little live creatures in that eat all the stuff up and turn that into energy. There's so much on Excel. The list is endless, but they do a lot. So that was another because we felt that by choosing a sustainable venue, that allowed us and helped us on our own sustainability journey as well.Lee: Just from my own experience of being there just this last year, I keep saying this year, but we're in another year already. Life is just flying by way too fast. But the venue was a really great experience for us because like you said, there was no feeling of being out of the action, as it were. No matter where you were, you felt like you were a part of the event. You had your stages everywhere. You actually had two events events going on at the same time. It was like a two for one ticket. It was amazing. I got to go to Sustainability Live and Event Tech Live. Actually, I walked around regularly, had some amazing conversations with some of these stands in both of those events and also listened to some fantastic content. What was the thought process about doing them both at the same time? When did Sustainability Live join in your portfolio of events?Adam Parry: Yeah, sure. When it comes to our events, we've always focused on niching in on a particular topic. Events at Live is what it says on the tin, you are coming to learn about technology, software, hardware, innovation, digitization, the latest AI, this, the AI, that. And that's done as well because a number of things, it's very clear to the attendee what they're going to get. So the value proposition is there. Either you want to come and learn or you don't. You don't waste your time coming to an event and it's not what it says. And That also makes it very good for our exhibitors and sponsors because they know that everybody is there for the reason that it says, and they're not there just to be there, or they're not looking at venues, or they're not looking at catering, they're not looking at all of those other things that could go into an event. So they know there's a good chance that everybody walking past their stand is a potential conversation. It also creates another ecosystem, which we'll talk about, which is the opportunity in the partnership and networking that comes between the supply chain. There's a lot of business done at EventTech Live between the suppliers and a lot of partnerships formed.Adam Parry: And Event Sustainability Live was born out of that same ideology and framework. But actually in 2019, we launched the sustainable breakfast briefing, which was our first test into what does this look like? Is there an appetite for this from an audience perspective? And in 2019, that was a really huge success. Then we went into the pandemic, but we continued to publish and talk about sustainability. And then post-pandemic, we brought that brand back and straight away people had a huge appetite for it. And it will actually take place, depending on when this podcast episode goes out, it will have either taken place or will be taking place on March sixth, again. So we still got that event as a part of our event portfolio. But again, we only have a short amount of time with those attendees, and it's a small number. So this year, we're probably in the region of about 150, and we'll only have time with those attendees to focus in on one topic around sustainability. So what event sustainability live allowed us to do was, again, expand on that content. We had three stages of content across the two days, as well as other formats of meeting parts for people, round tables for workshops, that stuff.Adam Parry: But again, the idea was that to give the industry, and I say this in the broadest sense, We had people from the festival market, from live music, from trade shows, from agencies, from corporates, from brands, all coming in and discussing how they were approaching sustainability. Because our belief is there's lots of opportunities to learn from each other and take that away and implement that. And having that event co-located with EventTech Live, one, obviously made it a more sustainable event delivery for us because we use the same venue, it was the same amount of logistics, we used the same suppliers for attendees. It was only one set of travel rather than two sets of travel and impact and things. And actually what it also did was give a bigger opportunity for both of those sides in terms of the exhibitor portfolio, because for Event Sustainability Live, which had 1400 attendees to it this first year, they already had a potential two and a half thousand from Event Tech Live as a potential crossover. And therefore for the Event Tech Live exhibitors, what that also presented is another 1400 new attendees that they could potentially tap into in terms of business.Adam Parry: And from an audience growth strategy, that's a lot easier than trying to find another 1400 in one year for just one event and stuff. So that worked really well. We didn't track people across the event, so we didn't scan them backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, because I personally find that hella annoying. The only metric that we did look at other than individual registrations for those particular events was who turned into a lead, who turned into a scan lead for an exhibitor on the other side. And across the board, it was about 10% or so. So we managed to deliver a lot more value there. But event Sustainability Live is its own event, it's its own brand, it's got its own agenda, on set of speakers, on delivery. But the benefit there is that you're not having to make a separate or another journey to London to come to another event at a separate moment in time.Lee: Absolutely. And I can assure you I was one of the people who kept going over there, simply because if the coffee place was an Event Tech Life, it was an equally good one over event sustainability life. So I was over there grabbing my sandwiches. Now, you arranged for us, in fact, and you are a part of this season, in fact, arrange for us to have some incredible speakers come on our show. And as of recording of this episode, we've already released four or five of those episodes that we recorded live and some great feedback already. Content, therefore, is super important to you. That's been a part of your journey right from the very beginning, with the news platform that you started off with, which then became the Awards, which then became a conference, which then became an exhibition, which has also now sparked event sustainability live as well. Everything's all gone from there. I noticed that during the events, not only just this time around, but also when you were at Truman, you really did focus on putting on those content stages. I guess this is a twofold question. Does that help add more value to a conference?Lee: Because I've been to... Sorry, add more value to an exhibition. I've been to many exhibitions that won't do that. It just stands everywhere. Secondly, what do you do post-event with all of that content?Adam Parry: You are right that there are two very distinct ways that trade show organisers tend to put their events on. Like you said, there are those that are just about the exhibitors and the stands. In all, honestly, I believe they tend to be more membership-led, association-led. There's a driver there for those things to come through. Or maybe they've just not got anybody that can speak very well on a topic. I don't know. Maybe there's this not there. But it is a huge investment for a show organiser like us to put that content on. We are not only reducing the number of square metres we have available to sell to a company, then there is the logistics, the infrastructure. To give round figures, you could be looking at easily north of 50K per stage in terms of build and time and crewing and things like that. That's before you even get started on live streaming any of that content like we do or capturing that content for per show. But we believe in content. It's obviously in our lifeblood. That's what we've come through. We've built an audience up on event industry news on LinkedIn. We've got 85,000 followers there or something like that.Adam Parry: And we believe that's a really good strategy from an audience acquisition perspective. So we believe in the power of content on giving people that want to learn and educate themselves. But it also does, when curated in the right way, it provides those that are helping to fund and support the event an opportunity to engage in thought leadership content. So whether that's them speaking themselves, they go through a call for papers, they get approved by our team based on their submission session, or maybe they host a panel session, or maybe they are part of a panel session. And I think companies generally really value that opportunity to engage and help and also generate awareness about what they're doing in the industry. So there's value there. There's value as well, I think, from the attendee perspective. So we often get the attendees, the buyers, also involved in content because they get the opportunity to share how they approach, let's say, technology or sustainability. And then in terms of another reason for us to do it is, and back to your second question is, we record everything. So we partnered this year with Interprify to actually translate using AI into German, Spanish, and French.Adam Parry: Again, back to our original, back to our earlier point of wanting to attract a bigger European audience, just to make it a little bit more comfortable and a little bit more natural to hear things in their first language. But by collecting that content, what that gives us is a content plan, first event. And you'll see that content, just like you're doing with the podcast now, that content is going out on a regular basis there for people on our newsletter, for past attendees, hopefully for future attendees to try and capture their attention. As a lifeblood to those companies that I've supported as well and giving them extra exposure. And that's worked. I think that's worked consistently in maintaining the event tech live brand in front of the industry in a relevant way that's not just like, don't forget about the dates, don't forget about next year's dates, don't forget about next year's dates. So we do that. Sometimes that also generates sponsorship revenue and income because companies want to put their name against that and and also have that exposure. So there's a business case for it as well. But like I said, lots of companies don't do it because it's not a small undertaking.Adam Parry: Capturing needs one, then you've got to edit it, then you've got to put it into a content plan, then the marketing team have got to get it out there, then you've got to track it. So it's not one thing to do lightly, but I would absolutely recommend it. If I could just... The thought that I had when we were talking about you and and Event Engine and the podcast and the way that you came in. Not everybody's got a podcast, but there's more than that as an opportunity. I love it when a company can think slightly left of them just standing on a stand waiting for people to come to their stand and talk to them about what they do. Actually, software is really hard. Even services that go around that are really It's really hard to showcase from a stand because what do you show, right? Unless you're going to get a massive LED screen and have a fancy video that's on roll and showcases what you do. And you're still trying to capture people's attention. And I don't think companies really utilise that space effectively when doing that. I think doing something at the show, which is capturing content, that could be a podcast, that could be a video interview, that could just be a selfie, I don't know, selfie or something that's attracting people to the stand is a great way of maximising value from the show.Adam Parry: You're not just relying on the conversations of the people that are going past, you get an additional value. And the strategy we did, Lee, wasn't it? It was to go, right, who would make for a great guest for you? What does that client look like? We went out, we worked together, we attracted some of those to the podcast. We also targeted some industry influences and people with big reach and big brands and things like that. So I think, I don't know where I'm going with this, but that's my advice to anybody that's thinking about going to a trade show. It's like, how can you eke more value out of it? What can you do? And ask the organiser, right? Ask the organiser, we want to do interviews from our stand. I'm trying to encourage some of our exhibitors to just think about their as a micro-stage that they can host content from themselves and with other people. We can put that in the agenda. We can market that out as content to the attendees. That's a huge opportunity to attract people to your stand, to your brand, to your team, whatever it might be. And if I'm honest, I don't think 95 % of companies think about that.Lee: Well, for us, in our experience, you connected us with some phenomenal people. And one of my favourite conversations was actually with Dax because he was We were having a conversation that went against the green. People assume that you need to build a community alongside an event, and I'm one of those people. I'm like, yeah, yeah. And I used to have a massive Facebook community of 4,000 people in there and bled myself and burnt myself out trying to continue to run that alongside my event. He actually just threw in to the mix that actually deliver an epic event that people will remember and focus on what you're good at, which is the event organising rather rather than draining yourself all year round to try and eke some online community out all year. That hit home. But that was a really good example of, A, the people and conversations that you can have at these events. For us, though, having a stand where we were just stood awkwardly hoping people would walk past and that awkward conversation of, Hello. Yes, this is what we do on the wall behind us. We had none of that. Instead, we had people like, What's this podcast all about?Lee: What are you guys up to right now? Can I be on it? So we ended up actually having three extra guests because people just wanted to be on the show. I was like, Well, great. That's fantastic. So you connected us with about six or seven epic people. And then we also had another three who just joined us. In fact, speaking on the Europe thing, it definitely worked because a couple of contacts for us who are suppliers based in Denmark, et cetera, just decided last minute to jump on a plane same day, were able to go to the airport, get straight to the venue, spent the day looking around, et cetera, then just jumped back on the train and flew home and were back in the evening in their homes all the same day. They came over on day two. So that was phenomenal. So that's some good feedback for you, mate. Now, you're not just looking at Europe, though. You're looking at global domination. And you guys, I think, are in your second or third year out in Vegas. What sparked that?Adam Parry: This will be our second year.Lee: Second year. Was it just a trip to America?Adam Parry: Yeah, just I just wanted to redeem my obvious miles, mate. That's all it was. So technology, the events industry is global, but it's also quite small and niche. So it's not that big in terms of the network and the community around it. And what we found was a request for it in twofold. One was from the reach and the readership and things that we have across North America, about 30% of our audience on event industry news is based in America on a month to month basis. And consistently getting asked, when are you going to do something like EventTech Live? There's nothing in the US like EventTech Live. There's nothing supporting event technology like EventTech Live. That was on both sides. That was both from the user-buyer end and also from the supply chain. We got customers who, see Ventures as an example, have exhibited with us for a decade. They exhibit lots of events all over the country. But the one thing they say about our show is it's the focus and it's the community and it's the technology and everything around it that makes it valuable to them in terms of making sure that they're part of it.Adam Parry: But that doesn't exist in North America. So we decided to take the brand there. Ultimately, it's unrealistic to think that we can attract a two and a half, 3,000 person event to fly over from the US. As much as I'd love to pay for everybody to fly over, the commercials just don't make sense on that. And you've also got some companies who the North America market is big enough for them, right? So they don't need to come to London to grow their business. They've got enough to go out in America and Canada, but still loved what we did, still wanted to support the event and things like that. So the make-up of the event formats look very similar in terms of the experience when you get on site. There are some quirks and features about EventTech Live that are different to London. We bring in food trucks to the front of the venue because we've got access outside so people can go and...Lee: You didn't mention this. I may have to revisit my plans and come over.Adam Parry: It's not too late, mate. It's not too late. Do a podcast again. We took the brand over because it made much more sense to generate over there. The most challenging thing about geo-cloning event is building that momentum with audience. America is a big place, Canada is a big place, and it takes time to build up that audience in terms of new visitors to the show, people just realising it's there, people getting the dates in the diary, realising it's mid-year and getting that. And ultimately, what's easier about London is there is a lot of event community based in and around London. So it's a short hop on a train, a commute on a two or whatever, where it's a two-hour train from London to come in or a little bit further in Europe. To go from New York to Las Vegas, it's the best part of four and a half, five hours on a plane. We would be in what? Italy? That still blows my mind. Croatia. So there's a little bit more challenge there in terms of getting people over to it. I think a very special, not very special, but a tactic that will yield us dividends going forward is we are one of the few industry events that are free to attend.Adam Parry: Without naming any other names, there are well Unestablished industry trade shows, conferences, and things like that. They range anything from $2,000 to $4,000 a place to go. I mean, some shows charge attendees just to walk the show flow, never mind access the education. Our belief has been always that that should be free to access unless it's a conference model or it's an additional track of education or something like that, something very specific, then that's fair, that might need a ticket to it. But That in addition to also travel and things like that, some attendees are probably facing three, four, five thousand dollar bills to go to an event. So we're going to keep EventTech Live free to attend for as long as we see for it, forever, hopefully. And I think that will pay us dividends, because then I think people will realise that if they want to use technology to enhance their events, to level up when it comes to their businesses, to understand more about their attendees and the customer journey and things like that, then why not come to Vegas and stop in the Golden Nugget, 50 dollars a night, and hang out with us for two days?Lee: Is it really 50 dollars a night?Adam Parry: It's 35 quid a night at the moment.Lee: You really are selling it to me.Adam Parry: And we have an amazing... I'm doing the sales pitch now.Lee: Who doesn't want to stay at a place called the Golden Nugget? Is that really what it's called?Adam Parry: Golden Nugget. Yeah, the Golden Nugget. Don't get me wrong, it's not the fanciest of places, not Caesar Palace or anything like that. It's a great name, right? It's decent. And Saker across the road, that's a very, very nice hotel. I think that's sub-a hundred dollars a night at the moment. So you can get some nice hotels down there. And we also do something in the evening called the Royal Crawl, which is a bar Crawl. That's not even going to be something like that. All downtown down Las Vegas.Lee: The word Crawl gave it away.Adam Parry: Yeah. And we even do that. So that's 35 dollars for the event and five drinks across five bars on three properties on Fremont Street. The average drink on Fremont Street is $10 to $15 a piece. So we even try and do things like that where we're trying to negotiate good rates on that night time networking activities. And the best thing about that event is if you don't drink, you don't buy the ticket, but you can still come along.Lee: Yeah, even better. So I currently am not drinking.Adam Parry: Yeah. So you could...Lee: I'm on day 81 of not doing it. That's it.Adam Parry: I mean, I've been to events where you're in charge for a ticket. It's like, well, all the booze you can drink. I'm like, well, I'm not a foster, but I still want to come.Lee: I'm also a terrible drinker. I'm a little bit tipsy. And I can't stand it. I'm just getting too old. So, I mean, with regards to, you said you're in the second year. I mean, it's pretty scary putting on an event in the UK, there's a lot of cost, there's a lot of risk. How did you basically get the bravery, I guess is the question, to actually bite the bullet? Because there's a lot of money to invest. You're not there. Try to organise an event remotely is a lot of work. How did you de-risk? How did you bite the bullet, as it were, and go for it? What pushed you to do something so significantly, to me, at least scary? I assume it was scary for you, at least the first year.Adam Parry: It's still scary, really. We don't rest on our laurels when it comes to Event Tech Live London. Events are very transient. There is no commitment to them. It's not like you're not a commercial business where you've got a history of orders and you can see it bubbling along there. And if one month dips a little bit, it's fine. You can pull it back, maybe do some paid ads or something like that, whatever. Events are fine. I think what gave me the confidence... Well, confidence comes after taking action as far as I'm concerned. You don't get confidence before you've done something. We had delivered 10 nine fairly successful years. I think the other thing as well that helps give me that confidence is I'm quite close to a lot of my customers and the community around EventTech Live. And while EventTech Live Las Vegas might not be for them, we still use those as a sounding board. Got a very good team. There are four of us on the commercial side that look at those relationships with the supply chain and the companies that exhibit and stuff like that. They're all experienced, they're all very good. And then we've also got a very good operations team.Adam Parry: Paul, my co founder, leads as the event directs around the event. And then we've got James Dixon, who is his second in command on that stuff. And then Kizy, who deals with a lot of the event from the design look, feel, theming, that stuff. So we had all the building blocks for it, right? But don't get me wrong, It has and it still is very challenging building that event up. We used to come out of the... We used to come out of Event Tech Live and we had a fair amount of breathing space to reassess things, look at what we were changing for next year, re-engage with people and built back up to November. One event is hard, but it's fairly straightforward. Kind of like kids, right? One event is challenging. Two events is like having four events. We come out of EventTech Live, you blink, it's the new year and you're X number of months away from delivering the event in May. So it's a lot of work. You need to be very, very efficient or try to be as very efficient around the time invested in the event and the managing and the project management and the sales cycle and things like that to make it work.Lee: Well, for everyone out there, especially our USA audience, please consider popping down to Vegas for the Food Carts, to stay in the Golden Nugget, to meet the one and only Adam Parry, and to network as well. The networking opportunities, mate, that we had in EventTech Live in London, I know will also be available there. It's not just about the people who come and show up. It is very much about being with those other suppliers because that's where some long lasting friendships are formed, but equally, some epic partnerships and business can be passed around. So I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what happens, mate, watching it live. If I can get over last minute, I will. I know we've currently got plans, but hey, things can change and I might jump in a plane. I just want to stay in the best name ever.Adam Parry: Bring the mic in the suitcase, mate, and we'll find you somewhere.Lee: I will. I've got it down here as well. That's the desk I had. It's on my desk here, so I will do. Well, as we come into land, mate, as you are a wise sage, could you give us a prediction? Just going to throw this in now on where you think AI is going in the events industry, mate, because everyone's talking about AI. I think I'm actually sick to the back teeth of it, to be honest. But I'd love to know if you have any predictions about AI and the events industry.Adam Parry: Okay.Lee: Also, it helps the algorithm by mentioning AI several times in this episode. Ai, AI, AI. There you Perfect.Adam Parry: I think at the moment we're probably, and this is the events industry when it comes to technology, we're at the fascination stage, and I think there's slight overhype on it. When we're still not massively adopting the technology that's out there, then I don't know how much difference AI is going to make. If you've got a piece of event technology, it's got AI in it, but you're still not adopting that, then it's irrelevant, isn't it? My honest advice to the events industry is if you want to really harness the power of AI in your event business, look outside of event tech. Event tech company is not going to love me for that because they want to use event tech. But I'm currently using a number of tools with AI built into them that are helping me as an event organiser. So these are things like Tango, Textblades, Dripify. These are all little tools out there that on a on a day to day basis, just make my job that little bit easier and that little bit more streamlined. Grain, I've just started to look at Grain as a version. It's similar to Otter AI and things like that.Adam Parry: I think that's where the events industry has got the biggest opportunity to leverage AI, we are one of the most stressful industries because of impending deadlines, immoveable deadlines, things cannot move, projects need to be delivered on a day or the event doesn't happen. We also tend to be one of the most global industries, so we're dealing with people on other borders, other time zones, and things like that. I think ultimately, AI can help streamline and automate some processes to really make time efficient. That's the biggest prediction, prediction if you want to call it. But I think the industry will get the most out of AI from an operational and logistics perspective.Lee: Rather than necessarily the gimmick stuff that I'm thrown at with YouTube videos, etc, we're talking about it being practical and helpful to the day to day streamlining communications, streamlining organisations, removing some of that stress from... And perhaps if AI had have existed a few years ago, I wouldn't have lost all my hair.Adam Parry: We'll all have AI headpieces, mate.Lee: AI is moving your camera.What's going on there?Adam Parry: There we go. It doesn't like it. The overloads are coming for There we go.Lee: He's doing it himself.Lee: Well, if you're not watching us, if you're not watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the audio podcast right now, the AI has just taken over his camera and moving it all around. Well, on that, thank you so much for your time with me. It's been wonderful. Thank you for being so honest, for being so vulnerable, for sharing what goes on behind the scenes, sharing those numbers as well. Absolutely fascinating. Folks, if you are thinking of going to Vegas, sign up, get involved. To reach out to Adam. It looks extremely exciting. If you want to stay in the golden nugget, so do I. Don't blame you. Adam, what's the best way for people to connect with you? And then we shall say goodbye.Adam Parry: If you're on LinkedIn, Adam.Parry, I think it is, and on Twitter, Punch down Parry.Lee: Nice. Well, we'll make sure we put those in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, mate. Have a good one.Adam Parry: Thank youLee: Take care. Cheerio..</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:6 The science behind human connections]]></title><description><![CDATA[Has science really proved that in-person is better than video interactions?]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/science-behind-human-connections/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65bb6318f06ed3000179a641</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2024 09:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/45-Vn01-.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-6-the-science-behind-human-connections-lisa-schulteis" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-6-the-science-behind-human-connections-lisa-schulteis" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/02/45-Vn01-.png" alt="4:6 The science behind human connections">Face to face or screen to screen? Which leaves you feeling more connected? In this episode Lisa and I discuss recent research showing that in-person interactions trigger increased neural activity compared to virtual interactions.We explore a study analysing the differences in brain activity and eye contact when people interacted live versus through video chat. The results indicate our minds are wired to be more engaged with physical proximity - but why is that so? Lisa and I unpack the limitations of current virtual platforms, including how camera angles and lack of body language cues play a role.If a picture speaks a thousand words, being in the same room conveys infinitely more. But could webcam capabilities ever replicate the nuances of sharing physical space?With insights from neuroscience and psychology, we get to the heart of what builds bonds between humans.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/S83o9XrPI2o?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S83o9XrPI2o?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:6 The science behind human connections - Lisa Schulteis"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>From this conversation, here are the key elements that stood out to me:<ul><li>Our brains are hardwired for in-person interactions - neural activity is higher when we are physically present with someone compared to video chat. Eye contact also plays a big role.</li><li>Limitations exist with current virtual platforms around replicating body language and the nuances of sharing physical space. Camera placement impacts ability to interpret those all important visual cues.</li><li>Steps can be taken to improve virtual event experiences, like using facilitators and polls to increase engagement in networking rooms. Also broadcasting virtual attendees on big screens at live events helps interaction for speakers and attendees.</li><li>Personality plays a part in how comfortable people feel networking virtually - introverts tend to find it more challenging than extroverts.</li><li>While virtual fatigue sets in quicker than being live, video chat has advantages over phone calls alone by enabling some visual interpretation. A layered approach using different modes of communication is best.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2>Lisa is awesome! You can connect with her via:<ul><li><a href="https://electralime.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamschulteis/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, I am joined here at Event Tech Live by the one and only Lisa Schulteis, how are you?Lisa Schulteis: I'm excellent. Thanks for having me.Lee: I am honoured to have you. We've already had some great conversations whilst we've been here, which has been phenomenal, and I'm definitely looking forward to this one. But before we give too much away, could you give us a little mini bio as to who you are, where you're from, what you do?Lisa Schulteis: Absolutely. I currently live in Phoenix, Arizona, in the States, and I actually own two companies and run a third. Oh, wow. So sleep is overrated. But I own Electralime Marketing, which is an event planning, management, and production company. I also own Your Event Marketplace, which is a global online directory for the events industry. And then I'm the Executive Director of the Northwest Event show in Seattle.Lee: Holy Moly, that is quite a lot. And Sleep is factored in?Lisa Schulteis: Occasionally.Lee: That's wonderful. Now, you shared with me before this event actually an interesting article about online interactions versus Zoom interactions. Could you give us a synopsis of the article in general?Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, so they did some research recently, came out a couple of weeks ago, and this is not new research, this is built upon some previous, where they did some testing of people who were having live interactions versus people that were having Zoom-like interactions, is what they call it, and really measuring neural activity in the brain, as well as monitoring what was going on with their eyes. Not a big surprise if you look at the summary article, the neural activity in the brain was much higher than it was in the zoom-like interactions. But there's a lot behind that to unpack.Lee: Absolutely. I mean, it was a no-brainer reading it, because right now we're doing this interaction here. I do podcasts basically for a living. We've got maybe 500 or 600 behind me. Most of them are not in person. They are on a Zoom-like platform. Correct. And I don't necessarily pick up on social cues. I'm not looking into their eyes like we are. We're engaged right now. I don't know anything about the neuroscience thing, but I assume specific social neurons are firing right now. We're bonding. We're having a good conversation. Versus if we were doing it on Zoom, I know I don't feel as engaged. I find it harder to concentrate on what the person is saying, etc, so it's definitely a no-brainer, I think, at least in that level.Lisa Schulteis: Correct.Lee: With regards to the article, it does go further in saying things such like, I wrote it down here that Zoom is an impoverished social platform. Would you agree? No. Good. Speak into that.Lisa Schulteis: Let me give you a little background on what the actual test was. Because what's interesting is a lot of the summary articles have the synopsis, but they don't actually say what the test was. They were measuring multiple things during the test. I won't get into the crazy test names other than EEG was one of them. But they were measuring that neural activity. They were measuring pupil dilation, eye tracking, things like that. But when you look in here, what they did is they actually seated two people across from each other, and they did one of two things, and it was the same people. They either had a piece of glass in between them that was smart glass, so it could go opaque or transparent, and then for the other portion of the test, they put a monitor in between them so that they would see the person's face. They would do these short tests, and I think the total run time was about three minutes. They would do for three seconds. They would have people look through the transparent glass at the other person. They didn't talk. They didn't do anything. They just gazed at each other.Lisa Schulteis: Slightly. And then they would make it opaque. Give them a 15-second rest period, do it again. And then when they had the monitors, it was the same thing. They would gaze at the other person. And so that's one of the things that I think makes it unique, because really what they were testing in this is we all have that innate ability that we like to look at faces. It's no different than a baby looking at a human face and lighting up when they see it. We have that innate built into us socially, and that's really what they were testing. There was no verbal interaction based on what I'm reading in the research paper to actually show that. Yes, awkward, right? Just to stare at some stranger that you don't know for three seconds and turn it off. They rotated through those two live interactions and virtual interactions. But the research is important. The research is very, very valid. But when you're comparing that to an actual Zoom interaction, there's a big component missing.Lee: It's not Apple-Spot-Apple-Sy, is it?Lisa Schulteis: You're not talking. One of the other things that they made a point of in the research article is when you're looking through this glass and you're looking at each other, we're pretty much eye level, and we can see each other.Lisa Schulteis: I'm looking straight into your eyes while you're talking, you're looking straight into mine. When we're on a video camera on most computers, it's up higher. When we're talking, if I'm looking at the screen, you're actually looking at more of my eyelid than when we're face to face. If I'm looking up at the camera so that I get my eyes open more, it's still a different… I'm no longer looking at you.Lee: Yeah, you're looking at a circle.Lisa Schulteis: Now I'm looking at the camera.Lee: YeahLisa Schulteis: You can see my eyes straight on, but I can no longer see your entire face. Part of the point that they made in this research article, too, is when we're looking at these virtual capabilities, that camera angle has a lot of effect on it as well, which has nothing to do with Zoom or Teams or… I mean, inadvertently it does, but it's actually the webcam that's actually more of the issue.Lee: The end-user's technology is unfortunately causing the problem, not necessarily the Zoom-like platform that you may be using via Zoom or Skype or whichever. Correct. Of course. I remember, in fact, I had a Dell years ago, and it had the webcam at the bottom for some reason, which was terrible because it also meant that I was looking over the person because their camera, they were down there, their screen was there. And also whenever I typed, my hands looked like this huge tarantula going across the screen.Lisa Schulteis: And as we know, as we get older cameras from the bottom up, is never a good idea.Lee: No, I didn't like that either. But also, the one good thing, though, it did do, was it forced me to concentrate a little bit more because I will confess that when I'm doing podcast interviews or I'm having a Zoom meeting, I will often use the excuse that they don't know where I'm necessarily looking to also be looking at an email maybe, or to maybe just be replying to a message from someone saying, I'm just on a call, I'll call you back, and stuff like that.Lisa Schulteis: We never multitask. I don't know what you're talking about.Lee: Well, that's really honourable that you've never done that in a call, but I definitely have. I do suspect you have. Maybe, yeah. The only good thing about that was it forced me not to do that, so I felt a little bit more engaged. But still, there is something about looking at a screen. I do feel detached from it a little bit. I feel detached from that person, and I give myself more leeway to think about other things, even if it's what the upcoming question is. Their voice almost becomes a little bit of the Charlie Brown teacher. Do you remember Charlie Brown? Oh, yeah. I'm staring, slightly not focused at them, the dazed expression, thinking, What's the next question to follow this up? Et cetera. I still think that now. This is not really planned interview. We want to see naturally where this goes. I am still thinking, but I'm also looking at you and listening intently because this is, I mean, it's a conversation, which is completely different, obviously, to what they were doing. And also it's in-person. I can't start doing this because it looks impersonal. For people listening on the podcast, I just looked at my notes.Lee: But yes, that would be very in-personal. We've established in our company, because we're global, something called Kettle. We say put the kettle on and we do it twice a week at two o'clock on a Monday and on a Thursday. In our experience, Zoom, it's actually on Google chat, same thing though. We all jump on camera and we share what's going on. We don't really talk about work that much. Maybe someone's been on holiday, they'll share some of their pictures of the holiday that they just went on, or maybe someone's found a new tool that they want to show off. Look, I found this software. This is really cool. What do you think of this? Et cetera. We have for half an hour, sometimes up to an hour of just chatting about anything. Through that, that's allowed us to build friendships. I do really feel genuinely close to my team, many of whom I've never met ever. Some of them I've talked to on camera for 12 years. How do you think that compares to what they're talking about? What do you think that we're doing that is improving those communications?Lisa Schulteis: Well, and I think that's a really good point because obviously, live is always better. We all prefer live. We're at a live event right now. I'm a hugger. I always forewarn people. I promise I won't stalk you or scare you, but I am a hugger. When I come to events and I see somebody I haven't seen for a long time, I love it. I give them a big bear hug. It's great. It's my preference. The pandemic was awful on me. I couldn't hug anybody for two years. Other people were probably very happy about that. So life is always better. But there are very specific situations that either we have to do virtual or virtual is sometimes better or hybrid is sometimes better. I think it's looking at it from a level standpoint. In live, I can see everything that's going on with you right now. I'm not only looking at your face, I can see your body actions. I can see whether you talk with your hands like I do, which you don't, I'm constantly moving. But I can see your entire body reactions when we're having a conversation. In virtual, we get it from the neck up.Lisa Schulteis: I can see what's going on there. If the camera is on, I can still see your reactions. I can still see if you smile. I can still see if you don't. I can see if you make a face at me when I say something that maybe you don't like and you don't realise that you've made a face at me, right? I think I do that all the time. I know. Then we go the next level where people turn their cameras off, which is the equivalent of a phone call. We have these different levels of interaction, and I think what you all are doing as a team is great because you are actually taking the time to build your team. Whether that's in-person or virtually, you're taking the time to build your team. You're taking your time to actually show your members of your team that you care. There that you give down. A lot of companies don't do that even in person. I think what you're doing is a great way to facilitate that, especially in a situation where you are all over the place. I have people that I've worked with for years that I finally meet in person and somebody will say, Wait, you said you've known them for seven years.Lisa Schulteis: I'm like, Yeah, I have. But this is the first time I've seen them in person. Any type of video interaction, it's giving us a capability and giving us something that we don't have for the in-person. Is it a perfect replacement? No. No? But is it better than a phone call? Yes. Absolutely. Because on the phone call, you can't... Well, most of the time you can't interpret. I have one client that he'll say something and he's like, I just heard you roll your eyes at me. I'm like, Okay, you know me way too well at this point. So it is providing us that ability. I think it's reevaluating how we use it. Are we eventually going to have the technology that we can look at the middle of the screen and look at you on my screen and the camera is picking that up in the right place because the camera again has moved? Or is there better camera placement? It's like the people that have their camera on the stand and they have it to the side of the computer, so I don't only ever see the side of their face.Lee: The favourite side.Lisa Schulteis: It drives me crazy because they're looking over here and having this conversation over here to my left, and you're over here on my right and I can't see you. That's a totally different dynamic. We might as well turn off the camera.Lee: Yeah, exactly. So do you think that this article may be being very unfair?Lisa Schulteis: I don't think it's being unfair because what they were measuring was really neural activity based on the gaze. What I think has happened is I'm listening to all these people in the event industry because the summary articles are talking about live interaction versus Zoom interaction. The summary articles are putting it at the 50,000 foot view and people are stopping there and saying, Oh, well, this is proof that Zoom is awful or Teams is awful, or any video is awful. And it's not. It is proof that we need to do better at making sure that when we're interacting, whether we're live or on a video, that we're doing face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, and having as much communication as we can. Because again, we innately have it built into us that we like looking at faces. It's part of the way that we communicate.Lee: I'm thinking of our journey because I feel like it may not be reciprocated, but I definitely feel like we like each other. We get on well. There's a vibe where I feel like we could have a laugh and a joke. That started from our initial messaging each other, where I texted you said I was excited, you sent me a friendly response. In text, I got a understanding of, Yeah, I think we're going to vibe. You weren't super corporate. You were excited to be in London. I welcomed you to London, stuff like that. I already felt. Then you took the time yesterday, in person obviously, to come over and we had a lovely chat and we shot the breeze for about 20 minutes talking about all sorts of things, etc. So again, there was that magic there, I think, about the in-person interactions, the social cues, of which I have no idea what they are. I think that's all subconscious, isn't it? There's probably experts that know what they are. But I'm unconsciously picking up on things, body language, like you said, etc. I do agree, nothing beats in person, but like you said, I do have those friends.Lee: We vibed via text. I've had friends that I have literally text chatted to on Facebook for, I don't know. I've been there for eight years and then met them one day at an event. And other than the first initial, Hey, hug, I'm a hugger like you. We then carried on chatting like there was nothing. Is there something to be said that, yes, video is also great, but is it the quality of conversation as well? Because I did feel like we were already vibing and did you feel the same vibe back when we were text chatting?Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, and I think it's a personality issue, right? Because there are other people that I will write an email to. I think it's the best written email in the whole wide world, and it clearly communicates what I'm trying to say, including tone. They get it, and for some reason, they're offended. I'm like, Wait, what did I say? It's like with my husband. I'm like, That is not what I meant.Lee: What happens when I text my mum and she texts me back shouting at me, Why did you say that for?Lisa Schulteis: My poor husband. Communicating is hard anyway. Communicating via text or email is difficult. Video makes it easier, and life makes it that much better. Again, I think it's different steps that we're taking, and we have to utilise what we're able to utilise. I've been known with the whole ChatGPT, I've been known in the last few months to take an email, put it in there and say, This is who I'm writing to, especially if I'm writing to somebody in a different country. I will ask it, Is there anything in here that could potentially be offensive for this particular audience? Because I want to be considerate of that. But from a video and an in-person perspective, I spoke twice yesterday on stages, I've got another one this afternoon. I love speaking live because I can watch the audience and I know when they are responding to something that I've said and they really get it and they understand or agree, and I can watch them and know exactly when I lose them, or maybe I need to now break them down something a little bit more. We have those visual cues that are available to us live.Lisa Schulteis: We also have them when we are on video just a little bit less because again, we're looking from basically neck up, so I can't see what else they're doing and the rest of their body language. I think the biggest lesson from this research is that, yes, innately, we are going to have much more neural activity, even when we're not talking, just looking at each other. And the Alive! Interaction obviously is going to be much preferred over a virtual. However, that doesn't mean that we stop doing virtual events. It doesn't mean we stop doing hybrid events. It doesn't mean we stop doing virtual meetings with our team. There's a time and a place for everything, and we have to make the right judgement call based On that.Lee: Absolutely. With regards to virtual events, for example, as I've walked around here in Event Tech Live, there's probably about six or seven companies, probably more right now, that are offering virtual events. We've supported companies as well in the past with virtual events. And one of the things, I guess a couple of the things we found is for the participants, they very often shy away from the networking areas where they can go into the Zoom-like areas to go and meet other people. Some people don't want to do that. But in a physical room, they would just naturally just go and randomly walk over to the coffee shop over there and say hi to someone. I've done it most of the times here, but I personally would be a bit nervous about going into that created room for me to suddenly appear on camera with a whole load of other strangers. That feels weird. The other thing, which you mentioned is the speaker being able to see who they're talking to as well. Very often on these virtual events, the speaker is speaking to a camera with no visual on the people. They're a text chat maybe on the right-hand side as people are, Oh, yeah, great point, blah, blah, blah.Lee: And it's very hard to try and read that off to the right-hand side, so you can't get that vibe. How do you think virtual events could be improved?Lisa Schulteis: Significantly. So networking is one of the hard things. I tell people all the time, nobody ever believes me. I'm actually an introvert. I am an extroverted introvert. I can fake it all day long. Me too. Then I get to the end of the day and I'm like, Don't look at me. Don't talk to me. Just leave me alone.Lee: I'm laughing because this is relatable.Lisa Schulteis: I went walking around downtown London yesterday last night all by myself. It was lovely. It was a great opportunity for me to decompress. So for me to go into a virtual room can be very, very difficult because it's just that much more energy that I have to expend. With that said, a lot of times it's just simply because it's just not handled well. So if you have different virtual rooms that it's like the topic tables at lunch that we used to all do. If you have those set up, one, you have to have a facilitator in there who actually is a good facilitator, who's welcoming people, who is saying, Okay, let's start this conversation. Let's talk about this. What are your thoughts on this? Have some interaction in there, not only verbally, but whether they're bringing in polls or quizzes or entertainment or whatever it is that they're bringing in. You have to work five times as hard to have that interaction. So you have to bring that in. So that's part of it. And even for live network, if I go to an event and there's forced networking where you have to come in and they're doing this little crazy bingo game or whatever, I'm like, Yeah, I'm out.Lisa Schulteis: See you. I'm going to go to dinner. That's part of it in terms of how we can improve is really looking at what are we doing in those types of rooms. From a speaker standpoint, there's ways to do things with production in a virtual world that are much better. They just cost a lot more money. We've done events where hybrid or virtual, where we have the virtual attendees. Let's say we're doing a hybrid event, where we actually have the big screens up on stage and we're actually broadcasting the virtual attendees on stage. As a speaker, I can talk to the people in the audience, but I can turn around and see my audience here and watch their cues as well. Then if we're doing live Q and A, and again, it's a technology thing, but if we're doing live Q and A, where I can sit there and say, Great, I'm going to pop you up on screen because you have a question. You're able to ask the question, the people in the live audience are able to see you on the screen asking the question. It's a virtual feed-in. I'm able to look as a speaker at this person and face the screen and answer them back, where now we're having this interaction back and forth.Lisa Schulteis: Just bringing that piece on can completely change a hybrid or virtual event. But there's a lot more technology that's involved with that, and so therefore there's cost that's involved with that, and a lot of people don't want to pay that money. But that piece can dramatically change your interaction levels within your event.Lee: That's good. I often find as well as an attendee of these virtual events that I, again, because I'm not in person because I can't see a lot of the people, et cetera, it's easier for to mentally switch off. As opposed to here, I've visited some of the stands, but I've also visited the talks, I've listened in, I've gotten a few Nuggets of wisdom, et cetera, which I think is a lot more helpful, again, because I am in person. I'm very conscious, even just sat over there in one of the seminar areas not to be on my phone whilst they're talking, except when I'm online, it's very easy for me to be sending my wife Instagram reels whilst the virtual talk is going on. But I think that technology you described might help reduce that because I would be on screen as an audience member messing around.Lee: What's been your biggest takeaway as we wrap up from this event so far for yourself, maybe from conversations you've had or through the panels you've been on, et cetera?Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, one, I love that this is the big first year for Event Sustainability Live. I love that they brought in the second event to have it co-hosted, co-branded. It's something that we have to start focusing on in the event world. We're really good at making a really big carbon footprint with our events, so it's something that we have to start focusing on and actually do things about. That's been great having some of those conversations. For me, it's always, like I mentioned, it's a big family reunion, so I get to see people, especially living in the States. There's so many people that I know over here in the UK, and I just don't get to see them in person that often. For me, just being able to reconnect with those people, have those conversations, being able to connect with people in person, I'm going to call him out. It's funny, Will Curran With..Lee: Event Profs Community?Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. Event Profs Community, and he's working with Click. He lives in Phoenix. We live 30 minutes apart. We met in person for the first time two nights ago in London. He's here. He's here.Lee: I need to go and see him as well then, because I'm friends with him. I didn't realise he was.Lisa Schulteis: Physically here. He's over in the Bahammas.Lee: I'm ashamed of myself.Lisa Schulteis: But it's funny. We live 30 minutes apart. We have been connected online for I don't know how long. We met for the first time in London, and I looked at him the other day. I'm like, What is wrong with us? This is ridiculous. But it gives me the opportunity to really come in and connect with people that I haven't been able to connect with, regardless of where they live, have some of those conversations. It's nice just having to chat with people to see what's going on with them, what difficulties they might be facing where we can sit there and go, Oh, yeah, us too. Or, Oh, we solved for that. Or, Wait, you solved for that? Share it. Let me know. So it's just being able to be here with everybody is always just the best part of it.Lee: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. Before we wrap up, what's the best way for people to connect with you?Lisa Schulteis: Probably on LinkedIn. I'm on their multiple times during the day, so probably within LinkedIn, we can probably put that in the show notes and put the link there. Absolutely, I'll put the link in the show notes. That or my email, but yeah, definitely on LinkedIn.Lee: Yeah. All right, folks, you've had it here, Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for your time. It's been very eye-opening, and I look forward to chatting to you online at some point and us trying to do another interview and comparing how we felt.Lisa Schulteis: I know, right? That'll actually be a good comparison.Lee: There you go. That would be a good study, wouldn't it?Lisa Schulteis: There you go. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.Lee: Thank you so much.Lisa Schulteis: All right. Thank you very much.Lee: Take care.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:5 Finding the best event tech solutions]]></title><description><![CDATA[How do you communicate your needs, and understand supplier offerings when finding event partners?]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/finding-event-tech-solutions/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65b8b059eaebf6000102d5ed</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 01 Feb 2024 09:00:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/45-Vn01.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-5-finding-the-best-event-tech-solutions-max-mitchell" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-5-finding-the-best-event-tech-solutions-max-mitchell" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/45-Vn01.png" alt="4:5 Finding the best event tech solutions">As event organisers, finding partners we can trust is crucial yet daunting. Between flashy marketing and empty promises, how can we cut through the noise to assess what solutions will truly support our event vision?In this revealing episode, I roleplay an event organiser grilling a potential event technology supplier. My guest? Max from Canapii - an all-in-one event management platform.With a conversational approach, I put Max in the hot seat with questions we as organisers need answered before even considering a demo.<h2 id="the-video">The video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/8FxwrZKlNVg?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8FxwrZKlNVg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:5 Finding the best event tech solutions - Max Mitchell"></iframe></figure><h2 id="question-framework">Question framework</h2>When talking with potential suppliers, I try and cover the following:<ol><li>What core pain points or event struggles do you help organisers solve?</li><li>How specifically would your solution enhance the attendee experience for my event type?</li><li>What level of customisation and flexibility does your platform/service allow?</li><li>How do you make your technology intuitive and easy to adopt for event staff and attendees?</li><li>What education, training and support is included both pre-event and onsite?</li><li>Can you explain the end-to-end journey an attendee would have with your solution?</li><li>How do you help facilitate connections and engagement between event participants?</li><li>What complementary technologies and services can you recommend or connect me with?</li><li>What opportunities exist to provide value to attendees before, during and after the live event?</li><li>Could you summarise what sets your company apart in the event industry?</li></ol><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-mitchell-4547931a1/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Linkedin</a></li><li><a href="https://www.canapii.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today's show, we have the one and only, it's Max from Canapii. That rhyme. I didn't realise that was going to rhyme. How are you doing?Max: Very well, thank you. Thank you for having me.Lee: Well, thank you for being on the show. Max is here at Event Tech Live and is actually in the next stand to us. So we've developed a great relationship with the Canapii team. How convenient. Yes, over the last couple of days. How are you finding the event so far?Max: Good. Yeah, it's been a fun couple of days. It's been a long couple of days. We think, and from talking to people around the event, we think it's been good quality conversations, which is nice. Probably a little less footfall, but as long as we're having the conversations, booking the follow-up calls, that's been good.Lee: That's very, very important. Absolutely. For those that are not aware of what Canapii does, could you give us a high-level view of what is all about?Max: Of course. Yeah. So, Canapii is an all-in-one event management software solution. We do everything from start to finish to do your event. That includes registration, on-site checking, networking within a mobile app or a desktop version because we're a hybrid, and work on that end-to-end journey. As an organiser, our main goal is to make your life easier, less stressful, which obviously in events is very stressful. The platform as well is the goal there is to be intuitive, so everything talks to each other. You might make a change to a speaker profile during a live event that automatically can pull through to the desktop and the mobile apps. Everything talks to each other. We've been established four years now. As I mentioned, hybrid events, so in-person, virtual or hybrid.Lee: Four years old, that means that you will have had to weather the storm of the big C, COVID?Max: Yes.Lee: What was that like?Max: Well, it was interesting to say the least. As well as everyone, we started. It was like, okay, mobile app, on-site events. That was the event business. Pandemic happened and it was like, Oh, okay, we're now all virtual. We need to stream. We need to have live transcription and translation. I think it was a big adjustment. Good, though, because everyone else was in the same boat, so clients that we obviously worked with before stayed with us and everything just went to virtual, which made it easy. Then obviously then it was the same thing coming out the other side back to in-person. You're like, Oh, okay. Back to in-person.Lee: We're back to normal. I think it's great. I mean, being in the industry that we're in and both being suppliers of digital technology, it was great as well for us to be able to support our clients with in-person events, taking them online, because many people were in a position of, I can't do my physical event. What's going to happen? This lockdown looks like it's going to go on for years. No one knew, everyone was scared. We, as companies like Canapii were able to help those businesses continue to operate and facilitate people still meeting, even though it was digitally, still meeting, still networking, still building friendships, still fostering community. That's hats off to Canapii. Well done, guys, for continuing to do that. Likewise. I also have a podcast that's separate to the Event Engine podcast. It's the Trailblazer FM podcast. We've been going for eight years. We've got a huge community out there, which is wonderful. Every couple of years, I do my own event. I do a conference, two-day conference. I have a few exhibitors there as well. I sell tickets online, et cetera. Just in that hypothetical world, if you were going to have a conversation with me to find out about my event and then for what you could offer, could you ask me a few of those questions?Lee: Then perhaps you can share with me how Canapii might be able to help me with my next 2024 event?Max: Sure. With any sales call, I think it's really important to start getting to know the person. I think getting those basic needs, your feature requirements are key, obviously, to see if we can help. Then I think another great question is your struggles that you've had previously. So obviously, if you're looking for the 2024 event, I'm assuming if you're looking for tech, you're probably not happy with your current provider. Those are the questions that I would ask. Then once getting the pain points, the features you're looking for, the main overall requirements and also the experience you want to give to the attendees, then we can then filter it and give you the solution. In those examples, you could use Canapii for the registration. You'd have your RSVP, you can send that invite only the codes. We have a really dynamic ticketing system. You can have custom question flows, tier ticketing, allow group registration to send to companies, make it easier for them. Then we also have a built-in campaign tool. Keeping people up to date once they have registered, we're 10 weeks out, we just introduced this speaker, or we just put this in there, keep an eye out for this in the gamification.Max: Fantastic. Then when it comes to the actual platform itself, we have a genuine 24/7 customer support team. So around the clock, training, one-to-one calls, getting your events set up, technical rehearsals, obviously make sure that's key, and then take it from there. But our main goal is we want to create a long-lasting partnership, and it's also something that we want you to be self-sufficient on. After we help you for the first year, when it comes to year two, 2025, you'll go, Okay, great, we want to do the same thing, give you the software, and then we don't really have to be part of the team and go on that basis.Lee: So for the event next year, I'm considering making it hybrids. One of the issues with my event, not an issue, it's a great thing, is that people listen to the podcast from all around the world, but I can't reasonably do pop-up events all around the world. The UK is the best for me. It's good for sustainability with regards to there's a huge UK audience that can come to it, which is great. But a few people do fly a lot more can't actually get to the event because of the cost of flights, etc. I am considering doing a hybrid event, and I believe you guys do a lot more. Could you describe how you might be able to help me in that?Max: Yeah, exactly. So hybrid events can be quite tricky. That's why we have gone down the route of AI translation. You can translate the entire site into up to 72 languages. This is for live transcription and captioning. For your attendees who can't make the flight, like you said, they're global all around the world, they can tune in, they can understand what's going on. We also have live streaming built in, and you can use an RTMP Stream key. You can stream that straight to the platform from your AV company. The virtual attendees can still take part in live Q&A, in live polling. They can still connect with speakers and attendees in person as well. And so you connect.Lee: The bridge. And how would that happen then? Especially that the in-person, so the people who are at the event and the people who are digital, how could you make that happen? Because that's a big disconnect that I.Max: Can't work out how to solve. Yeah, of course. So the people in person, obviously, through the mobile app, they'll take part in the Q&A and the polling there. And then outside of sessions, we have built-in networking and matchmaking. You can force pairs together. Based on what you gave in registration, we recommend you reach out to this person. When it comes to actual meetings, you can actually have a video link. The person there in person can be on FaceTime on the phone, connect with someone virtually, and all of that's logged into the platform. The video link, the transcription, the translation. If you send someone a message, say, I'm sending someone a message and they're Japanese, then it will come through automatically translated if they've set their language there.Lee: So you're hooking into AI and.Max: Doing the -Yes. I think AI is a massive conversation as well with everything, isn't it? It's probably going to steal our jobs soon, let's be honest.Lee: Well, you'd think, wouldn't you?Max: I don't think an AI could do a podcast as well as you, to be honest.Lee: Well, now you're just flirting.Max: You've got to try it. I appreciate it. You've got to try on.Lee: Well, I mean, yes, I think you're right. Ai will take a lot, but nothing beats in-person, does it? Like you said earlier, you're having important conversations. Virtual is good, but it's often hard to have those real good heart-to-heart conversations virtually. Although it really sounds well thought out what you're doing here with the app. This is not an advertorial, folks. I didn't know anything about Canapii. I just want to learn. I'm interested secretly for my own event for next year. I'm a potential customer right now. We're just making this an interview. Oh, I know, I get it. But it's clearly well thought out because having that centralised app and meaning that people who aren't physically there still feel like they're there because they can still see everything that's going on. Because right now we're physically at EventTech Live. We all have the same app. We can scan each other's badges. That's visitors and exhibitors, etc. We can also message each other on the app. We all feel like we're all part of the same event physically, and we feel like that via the app itself, which I believe we'll have access to for a little while after the event as well.Lee: That gives the people what you guys are offering, that gives people the feeling of even if they are sat at their office in Chicago or wherever they are, they still feel like they're a part of the event because they can interact with other people, network, do their facetime calls, etc.Max: And engagements is everything. I mean, virtual events aren't ideal, but they are needed for that exact example. I think having stuff like a community gallery so everyone can share photos and videos and like and comment them, having a social or we see hashtags, gamification, where you can earn points for doing activities, the meetings that we just discussed.Lee: Could you describe some of that gamification? Because how do you do it and how do you blend the two?Max: Of course, yeah. So gamification are our platform. So basically anything you can do on the platform, whether that's a click, whether that's viewing a profile, viewing a session, scanning a QR code, reaching out to someone, you can gain points. You can also create custom fields. Quite a common one is they'll hide a QR code in a venue, say the first person to find the hidden QR code gets 1,000 points, something like that. You can do it with the community gallery. The best selfie gets 100 points. You as the organiser can set a prize. You can have it on a big screen and a live leaderboard. You can have a team leaderboard, which is quite fun as well as... I mean, our company, especially, it's very competitive. You have single, you have teams, you can filter it down to attendee types. You might have a separate scoring for partners or vendors. No, that's really good.Lee: Again, that encourages people, doesn't it? To interact, to have conversations, etc. It's funny, isn't it? What we'll do for a few points. I know. What do points make?Max: I know.Lee: Prizes. Do they make prizes? They do.Max: They make prizes. They make prizes. They do the prizes. The new prizes, yeah. So as an example-By.Lee: The way, you are probably... You feel like just then you were too young for that reference.Max: Which instantly makes you feel old. Hopefully the camera.Lee: Didn't pick it up. There's a few people will know what I'm talking about, but let's move on and.Max: I'll sweep internally. Yeah, quickly getting back to it. The event we've just done, we've done in Barcelona. You can see the prizes, what's there. They then announced them on the stage, got a nice photo, posted it to the community gallery.Lee: Do you guys, for me, one of the issues as well is just getting staff to... Finding the right people to help me at the event, especially with regards to the ticketing. I'll admit, especially on my first ever event, just to save a bit of money, I ended up getting my wife and a colleague at the door with just a bunch of man yards all spread out across the table and people just said their names and it was a bit of a mess and there was a bit of a queue. Do you guys handle anything like that and support of it?Max: I think we're part of our support packages is we offer onsite support. You can have onsite support whether it's remote, whether it's in person. But we also work with quite a lot of partners that can help out with that thing, like brand ambassadors on site. When you are going international, whether it's in Barcelona or Bangkok or Palm Springs, you have the same response there. These are people that they know Canapii, they know how it works, and we can put you in touch with them.Lee: All right, but I mean, staffing on site as well.Max: Staffing on site as well. Yeah, we do.Lee: That as well. People who can... Like we've got here, there's a company there, just off camera, obviously, for the folks on YouTube. But just over there, we're out pointing. There are some ticketing booze and there are staff on that. You would provide that.Max: Those sorts of thing? If needed, yes.Lee: Although like you said, a lot of.Max: It's very intuitive anyway. Our check-in process is you don't necessarily need people except to hand out lanyards. You would get to the venue, you would scan a QR code, and this is all done through the app. The QR codes, every attendee has their own QR code, so they talk to each other. You scan a QR code, it knows that, okay, Max has just checked in. I get a confirmation message on my app, starts to automatically print off my badge, and that's connected via USB.Lee: Then do you send the printer out to folks for their event?Max: That's a great question. Canapii doesn't provide hardware, but again, we work with partners that do.Lee: That do? I assume you support multiple printers?Max: Yeah, of course. The ones we've just used, Xenox, I think we've used HP printers before. But as well as part of the Custom Success support, we give you recommendations on what we've used, printer paper, lanyards. We give you all the tools.Lee: That's helpful then. Again, you've got partners. I could come to you as... I'm not a newb, when it comes nowadays to organising an event, but I certainly am when it comes to all of the different suppliers and the technology that I could use. I literally, for several events, had to just, like I said, get them all printed out and laid.Max: Out on a table, which was a nightmare. Yeah, nightmare. Check-in list.Lee: Especially because everyone all seems to arrive at the same time as well.Max: They got a big long list of people.Lee: Putting in, Oh, that's my name there. I can see me, and grabbing. It was a bit of a free-for-all. Well, mate, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Just for giving us a bit of an insight into the company. We'll have to have a call.Max: Afterwards and talk about the 2024 event. Absolutely, yeah, please do. Thank you for having me.Lee: Mate, what's the best way.Max: For people to get in touch with you? Drop me a message on LinkedIn. And that's probably the easiest place and we can go from there and hopefully speak to some of you very, very soon. Brilliant.Lee: Mate, thanks very much for that.Max: Take care. Thanks.Lee: Cheers.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:4 Are year-round communities overrated?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Can year-round community building waste time and hurt events? Is Dax onto something?]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/year-round-communities-overrated/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65ae7ec2aab99d000158da81</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 25 Jan 2024 10:40:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/1-Vn01.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-4-are-year-round-communities-overrated-dax-callner" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-4-are-year-round-communities-overrated-dax-callner" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/1-Vn01.png" alt="4:4 Are year-round communities overrated?">What if trying to build an engaged, year-round event community was actually detrimental to your event's success?Event organisers are aften advised to create 365 communities around their events, nurturing relationships long after an event wraps. But event strategy expert Dax Callner argues most organisers lack the skills and bandwidth for ongoing community management.In this episode, Dax asserts that overextending resources to force year-round conversations does a disservice to both organizers and attendees. Rather than community, he believes events should prioritise delivering incredible experiences, which lead attendees to naturally return, year after year.Join Dax and host Lee as they challenge enduring community-building advice. You’ll reconsider assumptions about the best ways to invest time and energy to make your events thrive for the long haul. Rethink what matters most.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/xkwBJsJ21OA?si=ffi2ES2ibsI7kIsz&ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkwBJsJ21OA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:4 Are year-round communities overrated? Dax Callner"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>Our chat really challenged me as a community builder! Here's some things that jumped out at me:<ul><li>Forcing year-round community engagement puts an overwhelming and unrealistic burden on most event organisers when their skills lie in executing exceptional in-person events.</li><li>Attendees have many other communities and interests; asking them to be highly engaged with an event year-round is often unwanted and ineffective.</li><li>The most important success factor is delivering incredible value and experiences at the live event itself, which will organically lead people to return.</li><li>Keep communications between yearly installments simple: announce new details leading up to the event when excitement and registrations naturally build.</li><li>Don't worry about trying to persuade every attendee to promote on social media - super users will, and others attend for value, not to document the experience.</li><li>Think carefully about whether year-round conversations are wanted, useful, sustainable, and the best use of limited time and resources.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daxcallner/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/dac-strategy/?ref=eventenginecast.com">DAC Strategy</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee, and on today's show, I am joined by the one, the only, it's Mr. Dax Callner. How are you today, mate? I'm very well, thanks. How are you finding Event Tech Live?Dax: It's all right. It's busy. Lots of buzz, lots of interesting suppliers. I've got a lot of companies I know and a few I don't.Lee: Oh, well, that's good. It's always good when you meet a few new people. Exactly. Absolutely. For the folks who don't know who you are, could you give us a little bit of a mini bio?Dax: Sure. Dax Callner, I have been working in event marketing for around 25 years. I've recently left my position as strategy director at Smyle on good terms. It just was time. I'm out doing my own thing. I've created my own business, and I'm a strategic consultant to clients who are looking to optimise whatever they're doing when it comes to events or campaigns or content. I help them figure shit out, basically, and then we roll from there. The idea for strategy is that if you have a solid strategy, it reduces churn, you get better results. That's why strategy is necessary, and that's what I do.Lee: Absolutely. Today we're going to have a conversation about community. Very often you'll hear, or we've heard for years now, about building a community around you, event 365 all year long, so that you can continue to promote the following event, etc, and from what I understand from our introduction that you are perhaps not fully sold into that idea. Could you share your thoughts on it?Dax: Well, first let me ask you what a community is.Lee: Sure. Well, I would say for me, a group of people with a shared interest or goals in the context of, say, event building, I guess that's enabling them to creating forums for them to communicate probably throughout the IE online or mini micro events as well as the big event.Dax: Do you think, for example, we're at this event, Event Tech Live, do you want to be in touch with everyone here all year round?Lee: Yeah. So I'm hoping we'll stay friends. We're on LinkedIn.Dax: We will stay friends. But I don't necessarily Want to talk to you.Lee: Matt's carer is coming and we're going to hang out. We've only ever met online. I'm looking forward to that as well. He's coming tomorrow. Right.Dax: I think... Oh, amazing. Thank you.Lee: Excuse me. Thanks, Tim. For those listening in, you can go on YouTube and just enjoy an advert for Water.Dax: Yes. When I think of a community, it's a group with... It actually has a number of definitions. It could be a group of people who have shared values, and there are people in those communities who have a value set. It could be political, it could be based on their ethnicity, whatever it might be. They have shared values and they congregate based around those shared values. Then you have communities of people with shared interests. It's a little bit different. Community could be people who love to go skiing. Then you have communities of people who are more regional in nature, like your neighbourhood as a community. All fine. When I think of an event, I think it is potentially like the apex of a community of people with shared interests coming together. Honestly, I think people are very busy and they have their other communities. We're all intersectional. We have the communities of shared interest and shared values. I'm not inclined to say to people, You should be part of the Event Tech Live community year round. I just don't see that as a viable platform for ongoing dialogue related to a topic of shared interest. Most people who come to this show, for example, at least from a buyer standpoint, they're in a shopping mindset.Dax: They come here to see products, to talk to people who are selling them products. They don't want people selling them year-round. They're not in that shopper mindset. They're in a delivery mindset unless they have a specific need. But people come here expecting to be sold to. All good. Sell to me. Don't freaking sell to me all year round. I mean, you mentioned LinkedIn. We're both on LinkedIn. If I get a sales message on LinkedIn, even if it's something that I may have been interested in, if someone hasn't done a little bit of like, Let me get to know you and talk to me and who You are.Lee: Done the dance a little bit.Dax: Do the dance. Exactly. This is a relationship. I don't want to be sold to you on LinkedIn, so I just don't respond. And I get at least two or three of those a day, I just ignore. And sometimes they're very persistent and they will say, Did you get my message? Did you get my message? Finally, I'll say, I'm sorry, I just don't respond to raw solicitations. If they had taken one minute to say, Hey, here's why I'm reaching out to you. I saw this. I'm interested in this. Tell me about this. All good. Anyway, I've gone off the rails here. No, this is fine. But I think the point is that there's lots of places for people to have communities. I think it's very challenging to ask them because they've come to an event to then give their time to that event year round. And then the second reason I'm against this, essentially, is because most event people are not digital community managers. That's not what they know. And it is a very difficult job to do to do ongoing curation of online or digital or even physical community all year round. Event people spend three to six months intensely, intensely, intensely working on an event.Dax: When that event is done, they're exhausted. They're exhausted. Let them be. Let them move on. What happens to that community? Is it the event team that continues to nurture and manage it? Does it get transitioned to someone else? These are all big, challenging questions. In my view, let the event be an event. Let people come together, give them lots of opportunities to have conversation.Lee: I guess a good example then is I run the Trailblazer community. I've got a Trailblazer podcast which is all focused on WordPress agencies. It's outside of the events industry. I started that podcast about eight years ago, and I pretty much show up every week interviewing someone from the industry who brings value, maybe shares a lesson, something they did wrong, whatever that was. From that, I've then been able to build an event, which is a different name. It's an event in its own right that happens once every couple of years. People from around the world come to it. They enjoy it, but they just know that that's a once-in-a-couple-of-year thing. They go to it. I don't do anything else with that event itself, so I'm not pitching people at event necessarily. What I am doing is I'm still continuing to build my separate community, as it were, over here, which is the Trailblazer Podcast community.Dax: I think that's totally fair. If you are passionate about a community and you've built a community and are continuing to nurture and build that community, and at some point you're like, We should have an event.Lee: Let's have a hangout every two years. Love it.Dax: The event coming out of community makes sense. The community coming out of the event, I'm not so sure. It's a big ask of people.Lee: Well, when we were chatting before this... I've got a question, folks on YouTube, you can see the bottom one's crossed out. We were having a chat before this and I said, Playing Devil's advocate. What would you say to those events that have built a great community off the back of it? You said, Well, give me an example.Dax: Name one.Lee: I actually can't find one.Dax: I can't either.Lee: I can only think of examples where, for example, I have built community or friends have built community and then an event has Come from them.Dax: I mean, I will say I worked on a project with IMAX, and IMAX is an industry association many people know. During the pandemic, when they had to, out of necessity, cancel the IMAX shows, we did do an online community campaign for them that had a series of digital events, but had an ongoing thing throughout the year, essentially, of lockdown of pandemic. It was effective, but it was out of necessity. And also IMAX, I love them. They have built a community feeling with that event. It feels very family when you go to IMAX. And so it was a natural extension of that family to say, We can't meet in person. Let's do something that feels right for this group. And it was effective. I wouldn't say it was as successful as their shows. Their shows are massive, but it was effective at keeping a conversation going with that community.Lee: And is that something they've carried on or is that something that is.Dax: It isn't actually. I talked to Carina, who's the CEO, and I said maybe we should think about something that is year round. But to be honest, again, their teams are so focused on making that a really high impact event for their sponsors and their delegates that I think it's to add on a community year round to that is too much.Lee: Well, for me, for my continued community building and what we're doing here as well in Event Engine is we're providing content. We're doing weekly podcasts, which is an awful lot of work. We're writing blogs, we're producing content like that, etc. We're trying to find other guests. There's tonnes and tonnes of work, and it's very exhausting. We also have a business to run, etc. I can understand that that for a typical event organiser is really overwhelming. How do I continue to build a community where I can offer value rather than, like you said earlier, sell to them all year round because nobody wants to be sold to all year round. I'm coming here because I know I'm going to get sold to. But for the rest of the year, maybe provide me something that's of value to my business, like some advice or something that I can do. Doing that is a lot of work. What strategies would you recommend event organisers do employ to at least keep past attendees warm throughout the year, if you even recommend that?Dax: I do think yes. If you're doing an annual event, then keeping people warm totally makes sense because you need to continue to attract them year-over-year to your event. I think it sounds slightly counterint, based on the question, but make sure the event is freaking amazing. Start there. Is the event delivering incredible value to all attendees? By the way, these days, as we think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, that all attendees is really important. Are we providing equitable value to everyone? Everyone who is on the neurodiversity spectrum, introverts, extroverts, physically disabled. I really think it's incumbent on us to think about that. Again, slight tangent. But what is the value equation? And are we delivering equitable value to all attendees? If we're delivering an incredible event, they're going to come back next year. Absolutely. Yes, you can keep them warm. I think maybe a monthly communication or you could, especially leading up to the event, we know that from an attendance marketing standpoint, the key is to deliver new news, a lifecycle or cadence of communications where you're announcing things as you're getting closer to the event. And most event registration is like someone told me this once, a hockey stick.Dax: So a hockey stick is like slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, and then the event comes as you get closer to the event, that's when people are like, I better register. I think it's fine to keep people warm, but I don't think you're going to change those inherent registration patterns because people tend to wait until a month before, six weeks before, before making that decision commitment to come to the event. I think that's fine. It's just planning your comms strategy around that and looking at your timings and saying, All right, when does the hockey stick begin to curve up? And that's when we need to hit them with the stuff that really is compelling reasons to attend. Otherwise, I think invite them to follow your social media profiles and do social content on an ongoing basis. And your real fans will follow you on socials, LinkedIn, even Instagram if you want, even TikTok if you want to go there. And use those, not X, and use those to maintain some degree of ongoing updates or communication to the audience.Lee: And then do you have any in-event advice as well? So if I'm putting on a stellar event, it's incredible. Any in-event advice to encourage attendees to be promoting what's happening as it's going on?Dax: I don't think they need to. If you take, for example, it is tricky because I think if you're saying promoting as in sharing on social media.Lee: Well, sharing what they're up to behind the scenes, say, selfies at such and such Event or holy moly.Dax: I think it's relevant to a niche percentage of the audience that curates their story of their life on social media. I think, for example, I maintain a LinkedIn presence for B2B, and I publish content on LinkedIn regularly. I'm unlikely to publish something out of this event because I don't know that I've seen or done anything that's worth my storyline, my feed. I am very thoughtful about what I put on my feed. Other people are like, They overshare. They put anything.Lee: I know many people in my family that are like that.Dax: Well, exactly. And that's fine. And then there are other people who don't do anything. And I don't know that we're going to persuade the people like me or the don't-do's to start sharing on social media. I think the people that overshare or share a lot will do it regardless. So what are we trying to do? What actually are we trying to change how they operate in social media?Lee: No.Dax: I don't.Think it's going to work. I think for that small, let's say 15 % or 20 % of your attendees, yes, give them interesting things to take photos of, videos of, pictures of people. I think, by the way, pictures of people is the number one thing out of events that I think is effective from a social sharing standpoint. If you say to me at the end of this, and maybe you should, Let's snap a selfie. We'll both put it on our LinkedIn.Lee: I think maybe I should.Dax: I would do it. If you said to me, Let's both share it on our LinkedIn, you've now given me a clear reason. You've asked me to do it. So I'm like, All right, I'll just do it.Lee: As we're being recorded, make Sure you share the selfie.Dax: Now I'm stuck because now people are going to check my LinkedIn profile and see, Did he actually share? But seriously, you have a nice backdrop here. Let's take a selfie. But if you hadn't said that to me, I wouldn't even have told people I've done this until you publish it. And then maybe I'll share it because it's like, Oh, I did this podcast at Event Tech Live, and here it is. Which I will share because I'm a self-promoter like anybody else. But aside from that, I'm unlikely to snap photos around the show.Lee: Oh, sorry, Carry on.Dax: Good. I was just going to just put a point on it. I think asking people to share on social is not the way. No. It's not the way. There are certain people that will, there are certain people that won't. Give people that will stuff to share and don't worry about the rest.Lee: Well, I think your key point here as well is put on an incredible event for the attendee. What is it that they need out of this event? Give them an incredible experience. And those people in the middle that you've shared there, the people that are thoughtful or the people that share everything anyway, they're going to share because of Those experiences.Dax: The value equation. If we go back to that conversation about equitable value, equitable value or equity does not mean everyone has the same experience or that everyone perceives value in the same way. If I walk around and I see something and I'm like, Oh, that's a good idea. I file it away. I've received value. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to share it on social, but it's coming back later. So I receive value from it. Or if I meet someone and we have an incredible conversation and I'm like, Okay, this person could be a friend, I've received value. Or if I see something entertaining that just gives me a good time, that could be value. The point being, the problem for event marketers is that people's perception of value is different and it's based on the individual. We have to provide all of that stuff and let people take value out of it and then evaluate whether or not we deliver that value. For some people, it is, I'm curating my social story, my feed. That is value for me. It's not value for everybody.Lee: Yeah, exactly. So full circling back onto community then. Here we are at Event Tech Live, and I do feel very connected in a, I guess, a community sense, i.e, a shared interest sense, etc, with an awful lot of people that come regularly to this event year on year and are on the event industry news and are on the publications and we see each other at all sorts of different events. I guess community is good, but not in regards to the 365 community. This is more a community of other industry suppliers who are making friends, supporting each other, because you are a part of that community, but that's not a community where you're being sold to by the team all year round and they're not necessarily curating that. It's a community that's formed naturally because we all have a good time and we all keep in touch. For example, I'm in touch with Mads as a result of these sorts of meet-ups, these sorts of conversations, et cetera. We've now all naturally formed friendships that isn't... What's the word? Fostered or controlled by Event Tech Live, but is as a result of it itself.Dax: I think it goes back to, again, that definition of community. I think there's a human need to feel connected to others. No question about it. Totally. Though the connexion, however, when we say community can be the implication, I think, is that it's a large group of people. However, I know you had an interview with Felicia from Cvent prior to this. We now know each other, having spoken on stage together, seen each other at events, chatted on the phone. And it was great to see her. I ran into her. I felt like, Oh, I know somebody here, and I'm a natural introvert, so I'm not going to walk around and introduce myself to everyone at this show. It's not happening. So I don't need a large group of people to feel connected. I need to feel connected. A few key conversations, a few people I know that shake my hand and say, Hello, I'm Golden Man. I don't need a large community. I do need to connect in a human way. Human connexions should be year-round, 100 %. Whether that is a big community of people with shared interest, that's where I have a challenge.Lee: I guess my only... Sorry, my only community that I'm a part of where we have a shared interest is my church, which we go to every week.Dax: That's about it. That's a perfect example of a community. There's the religious part of going to church. But I think for many people, it is the feeling of connection, seeing people that you see on an ongoing basis. You're part of a group, you feel connected to others. Amazing, right? I think that is a big reason people do go to church or temple or mosque. I think the religious is part of it. I'm not religious at all, but I am tempted to go to my local church. I live next door to a vicar to go to church.Lee: You're totally going to get invited out for a food.Dax: Well, exactly. And why not? Why Why not? That's why I'm there.Lee: That's wonderful. Well, Dax, thank you so much for your time. This has been really eye-opening. My biggest takeaway is completely to just make an incredible memorable event, create a great experience to people. They're going to come again next year.Dax: And-they'll come back. Of course they will come back.Lee: They're not going to forget it, just like we're having a great time here. Thank you so much. What's the best way for people to connect.Dax: With you? You can just say goodbye? Linkedin is a good way, Dax Callner. Yeah, I think because I'm in flux and a little bit with my career, that's the best way to reach me.Lee: All right, and then I'm just going to dip into my pocket. And whilst we're on the podcast, let's do that selfie, mate.Dax: You caught me.Lee: Say cheers. Awesome. All right. I'll share that on LinkedIn.Dax: All right.Lee: See you. Take care. Have a good one.Dax: Cheers.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:3 Creating year-round community]]></title><description><![CDATA[Want to engage attendees beyond your event? Building community could be the answer.]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/year-round-community/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">65a1033d19896b0001dee9dd</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 18 Jan 2024 14:17:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/43---Vn01.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-3-creating-year-round-community-neil-thompson" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-3-creating-year-round-community-neil-thompson" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/43---Vn01.png" alt="4:3 Creating year-round community">Would building a year-round community around your event allow you to offer more value? In this episode, I interview Neil Thompson from <a href="https://thedelegatewranglers.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Delegate Wranglers</a>. He shares his journey growing a Facebook community that exceeded any expectations.We learn how he grew and monetised his platform, starting with just a simple newsletter and expanding to customised campaigns working with global brands. Neil also shares the amazing value he could add during the tough times of the pandemic, quickly pivoting to online content and community support.As you listen, consider what a thriving year-round gathering place could do for your attendees, community, industry and bottom line. Neil shares how he cultivated an engaged, supportive culture that became the foundation of Delegate Wranglers' runaway success. Neil's story illustrates how listening to your community and continually evolving to meet needs can help transform a simple idea into a thriving member ecosystem.If you’re looking for inspiration and a model to emulate, this in-depth chat with a true community leader is a must listen.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/stpJE1OPU64?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/stpJE1OPU64?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:3 Creating year-round community - Neil Thompson"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>I had a wonderful time chatting with Neil. Here are some of my key insights from our conversation:<ul><li>Tap into online communities to generate valuable connections and conversations year-round. Neil started simply trying to connect with fellow freelancers.</li><li>Let your community guide the offerings. Neil created new initiatives like newsletters and partnerships based directly on member needs.</li><li>Build a positive culture first. Neil stresses the importance of rules, being inclusive and "vibe tribes" in creating a welcoming environment.</li><li>Listen and evolve. Neil discusses continually taking feedback from members and letting that drive ongoing improvements.</li><li>Add value in times of crisis. When COVID hit, Neil rapidly created online content and support to give members purpose.</li><li>Don't underestimate an engaged niche. Though focused on event professionals, Neil's highly targeted group exploded in size and revenue potential.</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://thedelegatewranglers.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-thompson-dw/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, we have the one, the only the slightly voice-tired because he's been talking all morning. It's Neil Thompson from Delegate Wranglers. How are.Neil Thompson: You, mate? Hello, Lee. I am really good, thank you. Tip-top champion. Yeah, delighted to be here.Lee: I'm delighted to have you on, mate. I'd really love to just explore the world of Delegate Wranglers, which is a great example of community. You started back in 2019, I think, from memory and have 21,000 members?Neil Thompson: Earlier than that. We started in 2014. We are 10 next year.Lee: 10 years old. Why did I think 2019? Actually, your Facebook group was it?Neil Thompson: The Facebook group started in 2014. But I know don't look old enough to be... I have a company 10 Years old.Lee: Happy birthday, 10 years old. Well, I'd like to explore it because we've been interviewing people here in the event about building community, say, off the back of events. You guys have created a wonderful community of at least 21,000 event professionals, I believe nowadays. Could you just take us well back into that time machine back 10 years ago as to how and why you started Delegate Wranglers?Neil Thompson: Okay, yeah. First of all, I'm an event organiser myself, so I've been in the industry since about 1999. Don't look old enough, but yeah, I know you can come again. I was a freelance event manager doing a lot of pharmaceutical events. That meant a lot of travelling all over the world, different types, big, small, you name it, I did it. I did that for 15, 20 years. So in 2014, in the middle of all that, in 2014, I started the Facebook group because I thought Facebook groups had just launched and I thought, well, this would be a good way to connect with other people like the other freelancers and people I work with regularly to share information. And if we had a difficult brief, we could ask each other, we could give each other work, all the things, rather than a phone, ringing somebody up or sending them a text, we could just have this place. And it started like that. I invited half a dozen people and then we grew and grew, and then the number of questions on there grew and grew. But at that time, it was still, I think until we got to about 500, we were only event managers, so no suppliers at all.Neil Thompson: Then suppliers started to get tagged in and they were like, Can we join... This group. It sounds amazing.They sound amazing. An amazing opportunity. We then started to let suppliers in. But then we've always been really careful about who we let in. They have to be in the industry. They're not just in there to mine information from people or to spam them or anything like that. Yeah, so we're really... I mean, to the point of now, we're now nearly 22,000. We could be 40,000 because we've rejected a lot of people who haven't hit the criteria. And I think it's that quality which has made the group what it is. And then just to explain to anybody who doesn't know what the Delegate Wranglers is, it's a community for the event industry where you'll either learn something, you'll get some business or you'll make a connexion. One of them, three things will happen every single day. Event managers will put on their inquiries and it can range from anything like, I'm looking for a venue for 500 people for an event, or down to, I'm looking for a singer, it's for tomorrow, somebody's let me down.Neil Thompson: Then the community will spring into action. You'll get some people, some events organisers will say, Oh, I've worked with Dave, speak to him at the Hilton. He'll help you out. It's brilliant. It's a bonus ID recommendation. Or you'll get the actual venues themselves or the suppliers themselves saying, We could do it. We could do it. Here's all our information. What we do is we connect people into getting solutions and getting business. We have millions of pounds of business every month is traded on there, on the group. Amazing. We've just grown and grown, but we've always made it a really inclusive, friendly, warm place to be. There's no negative on there, no negative posts. We get to vet all the posts so there's no negativity on there. We don't allow it. It's self policing. I know that sounds like a big task, but now everybody knows the vibe. If anybody... Well, first of all, they won't get to post something up because we'll get to it first. But if somebody replies, other people will step in and say, Hang on a minute, that's not the vibe. Or they'll report it. You hardly get any because that's the vibe.Neil Thompson: If that's not your vibe, don't join. There's been some people who that's not the vibe and that's fine. That's life, isn't it? But 99.9% of the people who join really enjoy the experience, really find it useful. There's no such thing as a stupid question on there. You could ask for a hotel in London for 10 people. If you want a recommendation or somewhere hot or somewhere new, there's no such thing. Yeah, it's become a beast that's spread out into many other things, and I know we're going to talk about some of.Lee: Those things in a bit. Well, let's talk about that. At what point did this become way bigger than you ever expected?Neil Thompson: I'd say about 2017, we then got to about 8,000 members. It's like putting a snowball up a mountain, I think. It's like you're pushing and it's really difficult and you're working on it and you're working on it. And suddenly when you get to the top of that mountain, it goes over the other side and it just builds up momentum and the snowball just got bigger and bigger. And then it became almost like, not what is the Delegate Wranglers, but are you in the Delegate Wranglers? That's how people would say it to people. So suddenly it became a thing that everybody had to be in because it filled a void that people needed. Everything on our group, on our community is because of a need, a requirement from the industry and from what people tell us. We're all ears. We're really open. We listen to everything that people say. Then obviously we became, I think around that time as well, 2019, I went to a meeting with Facebook. I got invited to a community social event. And then suddenly, I had a chat, I had a conversation with them. There wasn't a picture or anything. I was just talking with them, telling them about it.Neil Thompson: And then I got a call out the blue to say, Will you become one of our community partners? We're an official Facebook community partner. We go into their offices about once a month, go and see them. We do lots of trials for them. I've been on boards for them. That's amazing. I've been on conferences where Mark Zuckerberg's spoken. Honestly, I've been on with the VP of Europe on a panel with her. It's like crazy.Lee: From starting a Facebook group.Neil Thompson: Yeah, and even for other people. One of my most proud things is one of the things they... They introduced this test about archiving a group. You could have a group and you could archive it for a bit and then come back to it. Even to the point of when you were on holiday, you could just park it for two weeks and then come back. One of the suggestions I made is actually on the community now. One of the suggestions or feedback that I said, Why don't you change the wording of that to that? And now that's on there now and I'm like, Yes, my little bit of Facebook.Lee: That's amazing. Like you said, this 2017-ish has just started to get bigger than you anticipated. Initially, this started off as a community for you to find other like-minded people. It wasn't anything you were ever really planning on monetizing or anything like that. How did things have to change? Because I presume as you got that many people involved, you were going to have to find a way to keep this going. Otherwise, you were going to be.Neil Thompson: Frazzled on your own. Yeah, great question, because I was trying to be an event manager as well and trying to do this as well, and then suddenly my passion was all for the Delegate Wranglers and less for my event, because I felt like I've done 20 odd years. I was quite burnt out by it as well. But I still love the industry. I always say that the Delegate Wranglers is... You know the film Field of Dreams, and the tagline is, if you build it, they.Lee: Will come. I'm going to Pretend to do.Neil Thompson: Yeah, but that's the tagline. If you build it, they will come. We're the other way around. We're reversed that. Everybody came to the Delegate Wranglers because it was such a useful tool, and then we built a business out of it because of a need for it. We started off with, honestly, just a news letter. We started off, Can I chart? That was the dilemma. Suddenly, I've done all this thing for free, and I'm a pleaser type person. I always want to give everything for nothing and help people out. Relatable. Yeah, you know how it is then. I was like, Oh, we can't charge them. But anyway, we started charging people for newsletters. Then all the suppliers and big brands in the industry wanted to work to us because we had this massive positive community of like-minded people that was right on the audience that they wanted to hit. So suddenly we're doing campaigns for all the biggest companies in the world, like countries like France with the France tourist board and Great Britain tourist board, and you name it, we've done it and we're still doing it. We've got to...Neil Thompson: And then we grew and grew. I said to Diane, I'm going to have to stop being an event manager and do this. It was a big decision to take. But unless I could give it the full... Which is always that tipping point of when you start a business. That's a hobby. Suddenly you've got to say, Right, now it's going to be a business. We just went all in. We just went all in for it and we haven't looked back. We've just grown organically, slowly. The things we offered for suppliers are we always deliver on them. We always try to... Well, we do, we deliver on them all. We've just grown and grown and we've got a commercial team now who work for us and the social media team. We're just growing and growing.Lee: Really exciting. With such a big community, how do you guys manage to foster that feeling of belonging when there are so many people involved?Neil Thompson: Yeah, great question. I got asked this a few times. It's all about the vibe. What we say is three little, it's a bit punchy, but vibe, tribe, subscribe. If you create the vibe, you'll create the tribe, and then they'll subscribe to you, and then they'll really get what you're all about. We've created this really super safe space. I don't mean in that sense of it, over the top, but I mean a really inclusive place where it's really friendly and we're all about the vibe. We're completely about the vibe. We just don't do if... If you don't get the vibe, it's not for you and we're not for you.Lee: You're not for us. If you're Negative Nelly. You're not going to feel it anyway.Neil Thompson: We've got another word, but I don't swear it's for God. But it's not forever. It's for most people, but it's all about the vibe. So if you create a positive environment, and this is quite an important point, rules, you have to have rules. People enjoy rules. I know as long as they're with the reasonable rules, they enjoy them and they know where they are. There's nothing worse than when you don't... I'm going to say if you're at an airport, check it. If you're at an airport just about to board a plane and it's a free-for-all, it's shocking. But if there's a tensor barrier and you know that that's where you queue up, you're fine with that. In your head, you're not anxious, you're fine. But when it's just like whoever can get to the desk first, you get this big... We're great believers in. You set fairly robust rules out, stick by them. We are so fair, we stick by. We don't do any favours for friends or anything. We stick by them. We can just hide behind, Well, this is what- This is our policies. This is our policy. These are the policies. I'm so sorry.Neil Thompson: And it's hard sometimes. Sometimes we get dilemmas and like, Oh, should we let this up? And so we're really strict about it. But friendly and fair. We're not fun sponge.Lee: As my wife. No, I get you. And then again, with such a large community, how do you listen to them? Because there must be a lot of voices maybe... Are they tagging you in posts or your team? Or how do you listen and get a general feel for what people want so that you can respond to that?Neil Thompson: Yeah, again, that's a great question. Initially, when we were developing it, we would get a lot of suggestions, and I still do get people will come up to me and tap me on the shoulder and say, You know what you should do on the Delegate wranglers? I've always wondered why you haven't... We will always listen to them. We'll always listen to them. Everything that's on the group is born out of a need from a request or something we've thought of, something we've watched and think, Oh, we need to do this. We're still always evolving. But it used to happen a lot more. It's less now because people understand it. I think that comes with understanding. When it's developing, people don't quite understand it, but we're so well established that we know... It's like if you're going on Instagram, you know the rules of Instagram. You're not constantly send and think that you know how it is. I think that comes with time, but we still welcome people come... I'm going to regret saying this, aren't I? We still welcome people coming up to us with ideas and suggestions as well. Particularly, though, with clients, we love them when they come to us and say, Right, I've thought of a great idea.Neil Thompson: Somebody came to me and said, I thought of a great idea. I'd like you to come and do a thing on our destination, on the city. I wanted to be a bit like, you might not know this, I'm going to show my age here, challenge Anika, which used to be a team. I remember challenge Anika. Where we're going to have you doing things all around the city. I'm like, I'm like, reported on social media. We love things like that. It seems like good fun and a different way to... We're all about pushing the needle and trying to do different things rather than just the same old, same old. We're always looking for new ideas. We do welcome them, but the ideas about how to run the group are less so now. But we used to get them a lot.Lee: I can imagine. Then how do you get an understanding? Obviously, when COVID and everything happened, how did Delegate Wranglers? Well, how were you able to support the community during that time?Neil Thompson: Yeah, you know what? I'd say that's the time when we... I mean, we were absolutely cemented into the industry, I would say so. But that really solidified us because we were able to help the industry with communication about what was going on. One thing that Delegate Wrangler is, we're not a discussion forum. Everything on there is a post, a need for information about something. So although we never became that, even during COVID, we never just suddenly became a discussion forum. But we came a tool for getting access to a lot of this information from governments and from people who were far more informed than us, who would relay it to us, and then we could put it out to a large community of people who were asking these questions. But one thing it did for me was it allowed... We started a thing called the DW Live Show, which was on YouTube. It was on all the platforms, but we filmed it on YouTube and we would upskill, we'd give people the chance to upskill and learn, use the time that we all suddenly had. We would have a LinkedIn expert or a Canva expert or a marketing expert.Neil Thompson: We did about 70 of them on the run every week. Me and Dominic from a company called Stream. That was amazing for us because still now, nearly every event I go to, I'll get somebody coming up to me saying, Those DW Live shows really kept us going because we made them fun. We have a laugh. We'd have a laugh and talk about serious things as well. Do both. So they were really good for not only for everybody in the industry, but good for me as well because it gave me a purpose to get up for and do even though there wasn't... We went from having, I don't know, 40, 50 inquiries on there a day to like two a week on the group. So it went quiet in that front, but we were still managed to be able to engage with people and really be there for people as well. They come up to us and tell us that they felt like we really kept them going. We knew there were other people in the same boat and we were still there. We were the constant for them. So yeah, it was a tough time, but a really good time and time for us to prove our worth as well.Lee: But a good example there, isn't it, of how you have created a community. It's not just a place where people can post jobs and opportunities, find supplies, etc, but in that time, you showed as the leader and your team, you showed we are a community. You created content for them during that... It felt like a year, almost two years, it felt like. I can't even remember. On and off. On and off for two years.Neil Thompson: Wasn't it? 2022 is a blur to me now. I don't know what happened. '21, sorry. '21, I don't know why. 2019. Did they have?Lee: 2021, that was it. But as a community leader, you were able to establish something that has captured people, I think, there in their hearts. I've heard many people extolling the virtues of the Delegate Wrangler community. Now, this isn't an advertorial. It sounds like it.Neil Thompson: But other communities are available.Lee: Yeah, other communities are available. This is not a paid placement. But how could people get involved if they were interested?Neil Thompson: Sure, yeah. Just search on the Delegate Wranglers on any of the platforms. We normally ask people to go to our website first. You just search on the Delegate Wranglers. You'll find our website. You can just register there. We got options. You can join for free. You can be a free member or you can... We've got various paid memberships as well, which give you a bit more access and a bit more visibility as a supplier. But yeah, go to there and then it gives you all the information about how to join a Facebook group, etc, etc. But we welcome all aspects of the industry. We're ever growing. We've got a big waiting list already at the moment that we're working our way through. It's become a resource thing now. But we are getting there and we're really privileged to have our place in the industry and long may continue, long may we provide useful opportunities for people because that's what I'm all about. I want to sleep at night and when we're getting told these things like your company, the Delegate Wranglers saved our company because we got this piece of business or we met this new client or we found this new hire or whatever it is, that's what we go to bed for because that's really...Neil Thompson: That makes me sleep at night well rather than any business success. That being useful to a community is such an amazing and inspiring thing that you can see I walk around with a smile on my face because I love what I do and I love what we are to people as well. We're really privileged.Lee: Well, mate, thank you so much for your time. That's wonderful. Folks, you can check out the show notes. There will be a link to Delegate Wranglers and do get involved. Neil, mate, thank you so.Neil Thompson: Much for your time. Thanks, Lee. Great job.Lee: Take care, buddy.Neil Thompson: Thank you. Thank you.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:2 This event company keeps relevant at 50+]]></title><description><![CDATA[Worried you might fall behind in this ever changing event tech landscape? Hear how one company has stayed relevant for over 5 decades!]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/how-they-stay-relevant/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">659d359e19896b0001dee967</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 11 Jan 2024 10:01:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/42---Vn01.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-2-this-event-company-keeps-relevant-at-50-with-colja-dams" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-2-this-event-company-keeps-relevant-at-50-with-colja-dams" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/42---Vn01.png" alt="4:2 This event company keeps relevant at 50+">How do you create unforgettable events that spark meaningful connections and delight attendees year after year? One company has spent decades perfecting their recipe. Since the 1970s, VOK DAMS has pioneered corporate events that spark lasting buzz.In this episode, we trace how current CEO Colija Dams and his family built VOK DAMS' legacy across 50 years of event innovation. From analog to digital transformations, Colija shares insights spanning generations of leadership in creating unforgettable experiences.Join us as Colija peels back the story behind the scenes - how his family built an iconic event company spanning decades by keeping curious and interweaving innovation with heart.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/XWEFWelr968?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XWEFWelr968?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:2 This event company keeps relevant at 50+ with Colja Dams"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>Here's what jumped out at me during our conversation at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Event Tech Live London</a>.<ul><li>Question if an event, or the event format you are going for will acheive the outcomes you desire.</li><li>Be open to fresh ideas that could push events to better serve attendee needs and preferences.</li><li>Experiment with innovations based not on novelty but actual impact in driving value and event ROI.</li><li>Take decisions collectively as an event planning team to gain buy-in and diverse expertise</li><li>Create open channels for all team members to contribute ideas, giving equal voice</li><li>Encourage healthy constructive debate and critique of event decisions among team</li></ul><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2>You can connect with Colja via:<ul><li><a href="https://www.vokdams.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/colja-dams/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, we have the one, the only. It's Colija Dams from VOK DAMS. How are you, sir?Colija: Very good. Thank you very much for having me.Lee: Well, it's wonderful to have you. We're here at the Event Tech Live Conference Expo, whatever you would call it. How are you finding it so far here?Colija: Amazing. I do like the idea, combining Event Tech with sustainability, the two major topics right now. So very clever idea.Lee: Absolutely. Especially how technology can foster sustainability and support it as well. I believe you also did a talk here today. What was that on?Colija: I was speaking on AI and why AI will drive life events in the future.Lee: Well, we must circle back to that. What I really love is a little bit of a history lesson about your company because you have a very rich history. You're not a young Event Tech company. Could you tell us how you guys got started?Colija: Yeah, I was actually born into it. My father started the company in the '70s and starting actually out as a professional photographer, creating multivision slide shows because in the old days it was difficult to get big picture up on the screen. You could only do film. Then there was together with the company Kodak, that not many people know nowadays. I'm old.Lee: Enough, sorry. Kodak, I know who you mean.Colija: Actually, I'm not sure. In Germany, Kodak is now producing the brand for online printing machines for pictures. That used to be one of the major players in this world. We created together with them a system to soft-edged slides and have millions of slides on the walls or on the big screen. What we actually use projectors for now, and this is how we started, and then everyone came to us and asked, Can you do the rest? The content, not just the content, but the hotel venue, all the travel management. This is how we became a full events agency specialised in corporate events almost 50 years ago.Lee: How long was that trajectory? You started off with the photography, I believe it was.Colija: Your dad.Lee: It was my dad, yeah. At what point did he realise the events industry was the place to be?Colija: It actually came naturally because we were doing lots for pharmaceutical industries, automotive industries, and helping them blow up their pictures on stages. Then we ended up being the content provider for events. By early '80s, we became taking care of all the events.Lee: Then you go beyond, obviously you've gone beyond that blowing up pictures, obviously back in the '70s and '80s, what is it that you guys do now?Colija: We do events purely on the corporate end. Companies come to us like automotive, pharmaceutical, you name it, and they ask us if they have a defined target group, we will do their product launches, partner meetings, trade shows, whatever.Lee: You guys very much focus on the experience. Could you define what... And what that means? What's an event experience and who's it for?Colija: The event experience really starts with setting the goal for the event. When a client approaches us, the first thing we ask is, what are the people attending your event supposed to do differently after the event? Then the client either knows it already or comes to think about it, and then as a next step, decides, Okay, okay, when we have this answer, we ask him, so if you know what your guests are supposed to be doing after attending the event, we'll circle back with the second question asking, Why don't they do it right now? What keeps them from doing it? Then we really double-check. Is it really an event or this event that can help solving this issue? Sometimes we end up doing something totally different than an event. Okay.Lee: Do you have any examples of where one was an event and One wasn't?Colija: Just an example from a few weeks ago. A company approached us and wanted to do their anniversary because they turned 125 and wanted to celebrate this, inviting all their free sales agents from all over the world and inviting 5,000 of them to come to London and celebrate the company's anniversary. We asked this first question and the client was, Good question. We want them to pick our product over the competitors' products, which they also have in their portfolio, if they go to a client. Then we followed up with the second question. Why don't they do it today? The client said, I honestly don't know. Then we had our sister company, which is purely focusing on event consulting, come in and said, Okay, for three months they travelled the world and talked to their free sales agents, finding out what keeps them from promoting our clients product over the competitors product. It turns out the top issue was that there were no local language sales collateral available. Then the client, they were doing everything in English and Chinese, but that was the only language. But in Thailand, Vietnam, in Spain, everyone was either to use English or Chinese documentation.Colija: Then we the client, Okay, if you want them to sell more product, there is a far easier solution. Just translate all your collateral and we helped them do it with AI solutions and they're still doing the event with us, but they're extremely happy because this was what solved their issue. The event itself would have not solved the issue. No.Lee: And how are you doing the event differently as a result of asking those two questions?Colija: Very easy that we are focusing on AI translation into every single... I mean, we're down to 27 languages, but going very much into their local language because we felt this is key for everyone and giving more opportunities to really mingle and have serendipity moments. -Lee: yeah, absolutely.Colija: This really helps.Lee: It's clear to me that VOK DAMS is a company that is able to evolve with the times, starting 50 years ago with your dad, working with Kodak, etc, to do something that wasn't really possible at the time. To today, you're using AI, which is relatively new on the scene, especially when it comes to translation, etc, and you're using AI to clearly solve a problem. How does a company like yourselves manage to stay current and stay on top of changes in technology?Colija: A good question. You need to..Lee: I'm proud of that one.Colija: I think you need to stay curious. This is also what this trade show is about. I've been wandering around. I've done my keynote, but then wandering around and talking to people, finding out about what is the new cool stuff. I just found out about a technology that is AI-driven, helping you pick your picture out of the whole bunch of pictures taken at the event. Oh, of course. That's cool. what a great idea. that's super cool. You take a selfie of yourself and instantly you get from all the pictures taken of the event, you get pictures where you are in the picture and you can even add attributes like where you're smiling or where it's a good shot of yourself in the shot. It's amazing. I'm learning new stuff every single day.Lee: That's awesome. The importance is stay curious. I feel that's something then that you've learned from your dad and you've carried on as a tradition. How do you create a culture within the business as well? Because obviously you're the leader, but how have you created that culture with your team?Colija: I believe it's what we call... We created a concept of agile event management. Agile event management, merging the agile project management, which is known from all kinds of disciplines, especially the software development, and merging agile project management with agile with event management. This bring together, being on high level, talking, everyone is a member of a team, and everyone's opinion counts and we're taking decisions together. Therefore, we are probably a lot different than other companies because we take the decision together. It's not even if a client calls me up and say, Are you going to do this? Then I said, Well, I'll check with the team. Then it's a united decision taken, and this is extremely helpful. This gets everyone curious and everyone... We have internal channels where we then vote hot or not for the stuff. If there are more people thinking this is hot than not, then we look into it. This is how we come up with new trends all the time.Lee: That's a great and very refreshing way of hearing a company operate because in many circumstances, you'll have a small management team who lead, who make all of the decisions, and then for other people to be involved or to even be able to suggest things is a near impossibility. I think what you're describing here is, yes, you are the leader of the company along with probably a management team of sorts, but what you're doing is you're modelling the curiosity, you're modelling getting together, talking as a team, and you're creating safe spaces for everybody to be involved to say, From the new hire to somebody who's been there 20 years, everyone sounds like here has a voice, can contribute to an agile event management, and the best ideas will turn into something for your clients and that keeps everybody with that feeling of ownership. Would that be a good way of describing it.Colija: Absolutely. Perfectly summarised.Lee: Awesome. That's fantastic. As you are a curious person and as you've already looked around here at Event Tech Live today, what are your predictions for, say, the next couple of years in the events industry with regards to tech or with AI?Colija: I believe the two major topics are displayed here. It's sustainability and it's Event Tech, the transformation into a more digitalized world. I believe in both fields, there will be lots of development driving us. Starting out with sustainability, from the supply chain requirements we are feeling all over Europe and in the rest of the world, it's extremely important that the entire supply chain, especially in big, large scale corporate events, can be secured with ISO certifications and all kinds of stuff in these fields. We have been certified by the ISO 2121, that is the International Standard on live events and how to make them more sustainable. There are lots of products coming out, really hitting this market, seeing what are the opportunities in every single field of it. Then on the other hand, you do have the entire field of the digitalisation. I believe the future is data-driven event management. We are not making decisions based on what we as an agency like or someone on the client side likes. We've done this a long time. Everyone is like, Oh, let's go to Spain because we have been in Portugal last time. Let's do Spain this time, Italy next year.Colija: No, it makes sense to really base all decisions on data. This is going to be the future and AI is helping there. It gets extremely exciting if you bring both of them together. As an example, over 80% of the CO2 footprint of an event is travelled to and from the event. It's actually a no-brainer to think about just pay attention which destination you're choosing. We developed an API with a Google AI checking out if the client provides us these are the thousand people attending the event and we know where they live. We just run this Excel sheet through our AI processor and figure out what is the CO2 optimised point where we should meet in the world. I believe there are going to be millions of more of examples coming up in the next years.Lee: It has been an incredibly fascinating few years, especially with OpenAI releasing ChatGPT. I mean, AI has been around for quite a while and there have been models like this. But I think ChatGPT itself, obviously, has made it more mainstream. People are so much more aware, which is refreshing. It's been great being here at Even Tech Live, just seeing the amount of people who are infusing AI into the products and the services they're offering. I haven't yet seen the one, the example you gave. That was pretty darn awesome. But I think it's Gist, I think it's pronounced, they're offering AI-powered networking, so they're able to pair people up. In the old days, I might have paired people up based on, say, some categorization, AI can take that far further. I'm really fascinated to see how things… I, too, like you said, will stay curious, and I think that will be a great title for this episode. Colija, thank you so much for your time. What's the best way for people to connect with you? And then we shall bid you a due on Linkedin.Lee: Folks, we will make sure we put a link in the show notes, do add Colija on LinkedIn. Mate, thank you so much for your time. It's been wonderful.Colija: Thank you for having me.Lee: Take care.Colija: Thank you.Lee: All right.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4:1 Keys to year round engagement]]></title><description><![CDATA[Find out how to turn the energy of your yearly event into close-knit attendee communities that last all year long.]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/year-round-engagement/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6580736e0db4fb0001c7c90f</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 4]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jan 2024 10:00:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/41---Vn02.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[  <div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/4-1-keys-to-year-round-engagement-felicia-asiedu" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/4-1-keys-to-year-round-engagement-felicia-asiedu" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>  <img src="https://eventenginecast.com/content/images/2024/01/41---Vn02.png" alt="4:1 Keys to year round engagement">Ever feel like once your event ends, so does your connection with attendees? Learn how to cultivate attendee loyalty that lasts in this eye-opening chat with Cvent’s Felicia Asiedu.Discover strategic ways to nurture post-event communities through thoughtful content plans, small meetups, and meaningful digital touchpoints. You’ll gain insights on the role marketers and event planners each play in driving ongoing engagement. Uncover the common mistakes companies make that fail to support community building. Whether you want to boost brand affinity, foster peer connections beyond events, or simply stay top of mind all year, this conversation provides a blueprint for converting one-and-done attendees into enthusiastic community members over the long-term. But how can you build these lasting connections?<h2 id="the-video">The video</h2>We recorded this podcast live at <a href="https://eventtechlive.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">Event Tech Live London</a>, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/h9mpw63P_uQ?ref=eventenginecast.com" rel="noreferrer">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h9mpw63P_uQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="4:1 Keys to year round engagement - Felicia Asiedu"></iframe></figure><h2 id="takeaways">Takeaways</h2>It was wonderful to intervew Felicia. Here are some of my key takeaways from our conversation:<ul><li>Plan a continuous journey before, during, and after your main event to engage attendees. Bring people together through meetups, content, and online conversations.</li><li>Event organizers and marketers should team up to connect with attendees and promote what’s next.</li><li>Understand what your attendees want and care about. Craft community around their interests.</li><li>Make diversity and inclusion core to your community and events from the outset.</li><li>Build goodwill over transactions. Focus on human connections to drive loyalty.</li><li>Fix issues like data sharing and poor follow up that can hurt ongoing communities.</li><li>With persistent nurturing over time, you can turn one-time attendees into enthusiastic community members.</li></ul><h2 id="the-keys">The keys</h2>Based on my conversation with Felicia, and the takeaways I've shared, I'd say the keys to year round engagement, and developing a strong community around your event and brand would be:<ol><li>Programming - Develop recurring touchpoints via small meetups, webinars, content, etc. to bring people together</li><li>Technology - Leverage engagement software/tools to nurture attendees pre, during and post-event</li><li>Strategy - Build a master plan for engaging attendees in an ongoing journey</li><li>Collaboration - Ensure marketers and event teams work together to drive the community</li><li>Audience - Understand who attendees are and what common interests connect them</li></ol><h2 id="connect">Connect</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.cvent.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Cvent</a></li><li><a href="https://www.diversespeakerbureau.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Diverse Speaker Bureau</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciaasiedu/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon" aria-label="Expand toggle to read content"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. I'm here today live at the EventTech Live conference with the one and only, Felicia Asiedu.Felicia: Yeah, you got it.Lee: Yes. I'm sorry. I instantly doubted myself. Felicia, not Alicia, is from Cvent. You've come today to talk about building community beyond the event. Before we do that, for the folks who don't know you, could you give us a little bit of a backstory about yourself and what you do at Cvent?Felicia: Absolutely. I am the Marketing Director for Europe at Cvent. That means I take care of all things, including events. We do a lot of events every year. I think sometimes people think we work in tech, so we just sit in our dark rooms with our computers, but actually, we're always out and about. I'm probably in charge of most of the events we have. Also digital marketing. We've gone back to old school and doing gifting now, all sorts. That's me. I also run the Diverse Speaker Bureau on the side. It's my side hustle. I learned recently that women call things side hustles, and we're supposed to say they're fully-fledged businesses, but I have a day job, so it remains my side hustle for now. But that's where we place diverse speakers into conferences, workplace talks, anything.Lee: That's fantastic. No, it's brilliant. This is my main business, but I still feel like it's a side hustle. Everything feels like a side hustle because we're all just doing what we can. Well, like I said, we're here to talk today about building community beyond the event. How do you see the role of a marketing director in nurturing community beyond the event itself?Felicia: So for marketers, I actually think we were ahead of the game with this. I think when we used to... I used to sit next to an event planner in my old role. And that event planner did seem, and I'm not going to dismiss any event planner here, but did seem like he was running from one event to another. So it was just like, Yeah, that one's finished, boom. And I was like, Oh, what happened with the leads? Not my problem. That's your problem. You're a marketer. I'm the event person. Can you just sort it out? I think for marketers, we've always been about the cookie crumbs and what did they do first, then what did they do next. But still a little bit transactional. I think as time has gone on, we've learned that that journey that people are on, they can journey together. Actually, if you build something where there's multiple people taking those actions together, they feel a little bit more like come alongside. And then they can talk about it and say, Oh, hey, did you see that thing? Oh, that was really cool. And are you going to that next thing?Felicia: Yeah, I'm going to be there. You'll be there. Oh, you'll go. And it just feels better for the attendees and the people on that journey.Lee: Well, I mean, I can often see within event companies, and I'm guilty of this with my own event, which was very often to essentially market to the list that we had, get the event done, and all breathe a sigh of relief afterwards. That was all done. You don't have to worry about it for a few months until next year and then start the whole process again. But you have to rewarm everyone up and it's not easy. Do you have any advice for people on how they might be able to engage with the community throughout the year?Felicia: Yeah. We call it as Cvent, a total event programme, and that is always giving someone the what's next and what's in it for me. So what's in it for me, what's next, and who's going to be there. It's almost like I equate this to when you're going to an event and it's your friends and you're like, Well, who's going? You want to know who's going to be there so you know what company you're going to be in. I think for the marketer and the event planner, if they work alongside each other closely, should be able to give people that schedule of like, Hey, come to this thing. But also after this thing, there's that next thing and these types of people will be there so that you guys can discuss this thing. It's not all about what I'm putting on necessarily, it's about what you as a community might discuss amongst yourself. Within that total event programme, obviously the webinar, podcast like this, some type of collateral. Even with that collateral, I work with a good partner, ICE. They're the in-house corporate event planner group, and they produce a report every year that then they get together and talk about.Felicia: And they talk about the report before it gets produced. They ask the people, What would you like to know about in the report? Oh, that's interesting. And then you share the report, then they talk about it, and then they have follow-up meetings. It's perfect.Lee: Well, like I said, keeps people warm. And what software are you using for those sorts of conversations? Is that the smaller events throughout the year? Or is this online software that provide, for example?Felicia: Yeah. I hate to tell you, we do it all.Lee: No, please tell Us all.Felicia: With Cvent, I think people think we're just for the big conferences, but actually smaller meetings, quite fine. We integrate with Zoom as well. We integrate with most things like HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, whatever anyone's using. Really, really easy to feed the data in to do that segmentation of lists to ensure you're getting the right people at the right types of events. But yeah, we can run webinars on Cvent. Now we have Cvent webinar as a platform. We have Cvent Studio, which helps you to produce nice-looking webinars as well and interactive, so you get the gamification, Q&A, polling, all happens in one place. Because that's one system of record, we can then know, we can look at all of our events in one place, whether it is a webinar, whether it is a small roundtable that we did in a hotel, or everything lives in one place. I can see all of that data together rather than disparate, What happened? We're not sure. Trying to put it back together. But that really helps to build a picture and a story for people.Lee: That's fantastic. That means me as the event organiser, I can use your products, I can run my own webinars, I can email my lists, I can arrange small mini meetings. I can do online roundtables. I can go out. Obviously, you do physical roundtables as well. Because I did buzz past your stand. Folks, if you're watching on YouTube, I will try and make sure to put a picture of the Cvent stand up because it's pretty impressive. We can actually see it from just over here. I did notice you have the wheel, the full circle end-to-end. This is not, of course, an advertorial for Cvent, but I was rather impressed.Felicia: I do like my wheel because I feel like it's really difficult.Lee: Are you the inventor of this wheel?Felicia: I'm not the inventor of this wheel, but I change it every now and again. I change the colours or I try and make it a little bit more accessible. What I have done, if anyone heads over to the website, they'll see the wheel now on the homepage. What I've done is I've got hover points so you can really try and understand what we do because we do so many things, so it's helpful for people to be able to navigate and say, Oh, right, if it's pre-event, it's this. If it's during, if it's post, here's what I should be Thinking about.Lee: Do you just go on there randomly now and again just to hover over and go, Look at this.Felicia: Look what we've done.Lee: Look at this legend. Nice one. So how do you balance the need for inclusivity and diversity when building these communities?Felicia: I don't feel like they should be mutually exclusive. I do feel like maybe a year, maybe 18 months ago, we were having very—and I still see it now—having very specific diversity roundtables. I did one myself. I drew a group of predominantly Black women together at a hotel. We were discussing all the issues of the industry and whatnot. One person in that group said something that I was like, Oh, my gosh. I've heard it since. Why are we talking to ourselves about our own problems? I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's so true. Because we're just going to be this echo chamber of like, Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Lovely community to build. But I think what was more important and what we've done since is ensure that that community lives in amongst the wider event community and people are there to help tackle those challenges together, whether it is accessibility or diversity in events. Actually, I've found that by having the like-minded people get with people that aren't necessarily like-minded, and I can see when eyes roll, trust me. People think I can't see. I can see when you brought a diversity topic up and someone's go, Oh, girl, here we go again.Lee: The internal eye roll. You can tell from someone's face.Felicia: I can see honestly.Lee: Just a slight relaxation of your face, you're like, I know what you're doing. That's exactly it.Felicia: I think it's good. Those two groups of people need to be brought together. I don't think it should be the right, let's build the diversity community, let's build the accessibility. It should just now be all one and the same. Everybody should have that interest. And those that aren't interested should just be along for the ride anyway and learn something new.Lee: And then what's the role of the Diverse Speaker Bureau? How do you work with speakers, etc, and event organisers?Felicia: So Diverse Speaker Bureau has two main goals: A, to ensure that people have access to diverse speakers, because I think one of the challenges that had come up is we don't know where to find them, we're not really sure what to do, and so we try to make it easier. So everybody on our books has a diversity. They're not necessarily... You can't necessarily see it. Sometimes it's neurodiversity, but you should just feel confident that if you work with Diverse Speaker Bureau, you can assure that someone is going to join your panel or your show that has some diversity, so you can feel relaxed in that sense. And then the second thing is to empower those that didn't think they could speak to speak. I've often wrangled people that have great personalities, and I've said, Hey, you should join our books, if they have some diversity, of course. They go, Me? I say, Yeah, because you're cool and you're fun and you've got something to say. And so it's to try and get a different generation of speakers out there that aren't the same and have something different to offer.Lee: Then quite often, I think people are in my own circumstance. I run an event and we were making sure that we had a diverse group of speakers. We were looking for men, we were looking for women, we were looking for everything we could possibly do. But I was worried that I was doing it for the wrong reasons and I felt a little bit guilty. Could you talk into that? Why would I feel that?Felicia: You feel that because it isn't a norm at the moment to fill your panel with diverse speakers and people are doing it intentionally. And that's okay for now. I think when we get to a point where it's just a standard, you won't feel that way anymore. You'll just be like, Oh, I've got speakers. They're all different. It just happens.Lee: Well, I'm thankfully really well connected, so it wasn't very hard, but there was just this part of me as well, was, Am I might just be choosing this personnel because that ticks another box, i. E, the tokenism side of things? I think that's what I was worried about.Felicia: If we're really honest, there will be an element of that. But like I said, I remember when the whole Black Lives Matter thing happened and every advert on television had either a couple of colour or a mixed family. It still persists now, but it was overwhelming. And I think even as a person of colour, I was like, Okay, a lot of boxes have been ticked in a lot of offices. But hey, maybe that's okay because as time has gone on, it's diminished a little bit and it's become a little bit more normalised. So now we've got a real diverse range of people on television, on Christmas ads, for example. I think because that push was done to change the mindset of like, Actually, this is okay, now we've mellowed and we're in the right space where it's a nice mix.Lee: I guess I'm old as well, but what it's doing is it's actually normalising, isn't it, for the next generation? My children are looking at the events that I put on and they are seeing a diverse mix of people, and that's normal for them, as opposed to when perhaps I was and it was just a whitewash.Felicia: 100%.Lee: Or just all blokes, etc, and now we can….Felicia: Well, and I wouldn't say it's old because I still find myself speaking back to that topic of communities. When I am in a mix of people, I feel like I'm in a community. I really do. At an event, if I see every different type of person, an event sometimes can feel like a small village, and it should do. It should feel like you've got the baker, the butcher. It should feel like you've got one of every kind, just to mix up and be normal. And I do still go to events now where I am the only woman. Sometimes only black women happens a lot more than you'd think. I wouldn't say I don't feel welcome because that's too far, but I don't feel like I'm at ease and I don't feel like I am in a community that would keep me. Because I'm outspoken, I have said to certain of these gentlemen that I've been amongst, I've been like, Are you going to remember me the next time you see me or are you just going to walk straight past me? Because that's happened too. I do make a point of it just to get them to snap out of it.Felicia: Stop talking to your mates. Talk to someone else.Lee: That's wonderful.Felicia: It's what it is.Lee: It is what it is. I can't put myself in that picture, so you sharing this story is actually very helpful because I would go into that room and I would think the thing of it. I'm just in amongst lots of other people. And so often I just forget I take for granted essentially how- It's easy. Yeah, easy it is, as opposed to for many other people who do struggle. Thank you very much for opening up there and sharing that experience as well. In your experience, can you recall a specific event or a moment that really highlighted the importance of building that community in an event context?Felicia: I think events that do it really well are events that have the best intentions of the attendees at heart. I'll be clear by saying things like I mentioned Fast Forward 15 a lot when I'm on stage because it is a very pure organisation. And what Fast Forward 15 does run by Fay Sharpe, is that they bring together mentors and mentees for a year-long programme of mentorship, but they have events dispersed. And one of the main challenges every year for the mentees is to run an event that is for charity on a shoestring. So it's almost like being on The Apprentice or something like that. You've got no money, but you've got to go run an event. And I think what they do, what they have done is they've built up over the years, a community of suppliers, vendors, a community of Well wishers, a community of mentors, a community of mentees. They're all in the events industry in some way, shape or form, and it's become very organic. So people just want to help them. People just want to go to the event. They're like, Buy a ticket. Okay, fine. Buy a raffle ticket. Great, I'll do it.Felicia: And it's that goodwill that has been built up over time. Now, they're not corporate, but corporates are learning how to do that, how to build goodwill. And if they have the best intentions of the attendees at heart, I think they win. Whereas if it's all about what I'm selling, what I'm doing, it doesn't. And again, I don't want to toot Cvent's horn, but when we.Lee: Toot away.Felicia: I'll toot a little bit. But when I put together Cvent Connect Europe, which we just had recently, I'm always thinking like, What's going to push the innovation of content? What's going to delight them for the opening? And this year we did Joyful Joyful from Sister Act as the opening, but we just changed the lyrics. And it's fun and people are just like, Do you know what? I felt really uplifted. I was like, Because it's for you. I didn't do that opening for me. We got a community choir. It's all in the name. How awesome. Because we could have spent a lot of money on that opening. But I was like, Why? What are we really doing here? We want to give something to community. We want to give something to our attendees.Felicia: Let's bring them together. Why not? And everyone was just smiling and the best time.Lee: I'll toot my own horn. I actually did a podcast recording maybe two or three years ago where she was all talking about outcome-driven events and what the attendees outcome above anything else. No matter what my outcomes are as the event organiser or as maybe sponsors or exhibitors, etc, the most important people are the attendees who are going to come year on year, who are going to be a part of your community, be it that you're emailing them, be it you've got them in a Facebook group, be that they're using this EventTech or anything like that. Really important that we put our attendees first. Felicia, thank you so much for your time. No worries. This has been wonderful. What's your impression so far of the event?Felicia: I'm so intrigued because I think our industry sometimes takes a bit of a kicking. I'm really glad to see that there are people that are just here and showcasing technology at its best. Event technology is only growing. I love the fact that Event Tech Live has grown. It's in Vegas and we went there as well. I think it's showing a strength of industry. I'm intrigued to see what people are doing. I'll be perusing over the next couple of days.Lee: Well, that is an epic sign back. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Enjoy the rest of the day.Felicia: You too.Lee: Cheerio.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[3:5 Decoding social media for event marketers]]></title><description><![CDATA[<div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/3-5-decoding-social-media-for-event-marketers-rachael-dines" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/3-5-decoding-social-media-for-event-marketers-rachael-dines" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div>Struggling to choose social platforms and create content that sells tickets for your event? In this practical episode, host I chat with marketing veteran <a href="https://www.shakeitupcreative.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Rachael Dines</a> to share social media marketing tactics to boost your next event.Learn how to select platforms strategically based on where your target audience spends]]></description><link>https://eventenginecast.com/social-media-for-event-marketers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">653126d0ae990a00016cee24</guid><category><![CDATA[Season 3]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lee Matthew Jackson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 20 Oct 2023 11:00:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1690883793939-f8cca2f28ee0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxfHxzb2NpYWwlMjBtZWRpYSUyMHh8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzIwMDUzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="podcastdotco-wrapper"><iframe data-target="eventmartechpodcast/3-5-decoding-social-media-for-event-marketers-rachael-dines" src="https://play.pod.co/eventmartechpodcast/3-5-decoding-social-media-for-event-marketers-rachael-dines" frameborder="0" width="100%" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;max-width:750px;height:160px;" class="podcastdotco-player podcastdotco-player--episode"></iframe><script src="https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js"></script></div><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1690883793939-f8cca2f28ee0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxfHxzb2NpYWwlMjBtZWRpYSUyMHh8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzIwMDUzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="3:5 Decoding social media for event marketers">Struggling to choose social platforms and create content that sells tickets for your event? In this practical episode, host I chat with marketing veteran <a href="https://www.shakeitupcreative.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Rachael Dines</a> to share social media marketing tactics to boost your next event.Learn how to select platforms strategically based on where your target audience spends time. Get tips on creating engaging content like speaker videos, event teasers, and more. Discover how to educate and collaborate with sponsors to mutually promote participation.Whether you are new to social media marketing or looking to improve your strategy, Rachael lays out tangible tips to help you focus your efforts for greater impact. Expect to come away with clarity on where to devote time and resources to drive real ticket sales.<h2 id="video">Video</h2>We recorded this podcast live, so if you'd prefer to watch you can do so on <a href="https://youtu.be/GEiUBvn2cjw?ref=eventenginecast.com">YouTube</a>.<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GEiUBvn2cjw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen title="3:5 Decoding social media for event marketers"></iframe></figure><h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways</h2>This episode is packed full of golden nuggets. Here are the ones that stood out the most!<ul><li>Choose social media platforms strategically based on where your target audience is, not just what's popular. </li><li>Focus on 1-2 platforms rather than spreading yourself thin.</li><li>Create engaging content like speaker videos, event teasers, past event moments, etc. In essence, go beyond just logistical event details.</li><li>Provide custom graphics, hashtags, and pre-written posts to make sharing incredibly easy for attendees. Consider contests for top posters as an incentive.</li><li>Educate sponsors on promoting their participation for mutual benefit. Give them custom assets to simplify the process.</li><li>Use both organic and paid social efforts. Paid ads can help fill seats closer to the event. </li><li>You could retarget past site visitors as part of a paid campaign as they have already had some brand exposure.</li><li>Separate social media accounts for separate events/industries allows more customisation. More work but worth it and less confusing for attendees.</li><li>Be cautious with early bird pricing and discounts. Don't devalue your event too early/heavily.</li></ul><h2 id="resource">Resource</h2>During the interview, I mention a tool that helps event organisers work with their data to create social media imagery for their partners. You can check it out over on <a href="https://www.gleanin.com/community-marketing-platform?ref=eventenginecast.com">Gleanin</a>.<h2 id="connect-with-rachael">Connect with Rachael</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.shakeitupcreative.com/?ref=eventenginecast.com">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaeldines/?ref=eventenginecast.com">LinkedIn</a></li></ul><div class="kg-card kg-toggle-card" data-kg-toggle-state="close"> <div class="kg-toggle-heading"> <h4 class="kg-toggle-heading-text">Transcript</h4> <button class="kg-toggle-card-icon"> <svg id="Regular" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <path class="cls-1" d="M23.25,7.311,12.53,18.03a.749.749,0,0,1-1.06,0L.75,7.311"/> </svg> </button> </div> <div class="kg-toggle-content">We harness AI and voice recognition to generate transcripts, which we subsequently review and edit. However, due to conversational nuances and technical jargon, absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Lee: Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today's show, we have the one and only, it's Rachael Dines from Shake It Up Creative Rachael. How are you today?Rachael: Hi..I am good. Thank you. I'm just going to see that we're almost matching today.Lee: We are as well. I believe you're all the way over in Sussex in England. How's the weather treating you? Because that's what we talk about here in the UK.Rachael: It is, isn't it? Well, we had some sun yesterday, which is a rare event. Today it's a bit cloudy.Lee: Well, Rachael from the cloudy land of Sussex, could you just give the folks who may not be aware of who you are a very quick mini bio of who you are and what it is that you do?Rachael: Sure. I'm a marketer. I'm a chartered marketer, and I've been in the game, I guess, for more than 20 years. I started in-house in a few different industries. Then I went freelance in the last recession. That wasn't planned. I wasn't planning to be my business owner, but I was actually pregnant with my first child at the time. So yeah, it was going to be a temporary stop. But then I loved it and I did it for five, six years. Then I met a business partner who went to business, formed the agency. She's now moved on and it's all mine. Yeah, I just I love the flexibility and working with all the different people I get to work with.Lee: That's fantastic. What a journey. Isn't it funny how businesses so often start when we were not planning it and when we least expect.Rachael: I know. Often I'm asked and then the story comes back to me from someone else in a very similar manner. It's less common than, sorry, more common than we think.Lee: No, exactly. Well, one of your key skills is marketing and social media. And to be honest, a lot of our clients come to us with questions that I am definitely not skilled to answer. I'm not a social media expert, but I have social media and I share pictures of what but I don't think that's really relevant to our wonderful event organizers. So I wonder if you mind if I hit you with a few questions that we get asked that maybe you can help us with. And the first one is, how do we select the right platform? Because if I go over to Shake It Up Creative, I noticed that you have a great presence across all of the platforms, and there are several. You've even updated your icon to X instead of Twitter, and you've added threads on there. The regular event organizer looks at all these different platforms and thinks, Where the hell do I start?Rachael: Yeah, there are a lot and there's new ones out there as well, which people may not have actually jumped into yet. But I think the thing is you've really got to look at where your audience is. I know that's probably said an awful lot and it does change over time. But really digging deep into the demographics of the platform and trying to work out whether the people that you want to attract are actually using those platforms and hanging out there. We're all aware that Facebook has now grown into an older audience set and the younger people are all on TikTok and Snapchat. It really does matter thinking about who you want to attract, who you want to engage with, but also about what you can do on those platforms. If you're planning to release a certain type of content in advance of your event, you need to be able to make sure that you can do that. If you want to build a community on that platform for the event, you need to make sure that it can handle that for you. So it's thinking about all of those practical aspects combined with who's spending their time on the platform.Lee: So you would advise against spray and pray, which is putting it out everywhere and actually finding a specific platform that A, is going to be where your potential audience is, and B, will allow you to do what it is you want to do. So if you're going to show up on TikTok wanting to do written posts, which I believe they're slowly starting to release, I read somewhere, but say back in the day where it was predominantly a video platform, it's going to be difficult, say, showing up in that place. Or again, if you're looking to attract an older audience, TikTok might not be the right place.Rachael: Yeah. I mean, if you are a very generalised event, say that you were a big Christmas event in London, you could attract any Christmas fan, as they were, then you might want a bit more of a, as you say, spray and play coverage because you want to attract all different types of people. But for most events, they've got that avatar of who they're trying to attract. You know this from your background, you're looking for agency owners and things. They're the ones you want to target, and they're the ones you need to focus on finding out where they're spending their time.Lee: Yeah. I must admit, there's always a temptation for me to just try and spread myself everywhere because I always think I'm going to miss out. But you're totally right, honing in on that one specific area. I am depressed that Facebook is now for older people.Rachael: Because- Oh, I know.Lee: It's great. My children are not on Facebook, sadly. Talking then of content, what content could an event organizer put out there in order to attract people to their event? Because very often clients don't really know what to talk about. They might maybe put a picture up of the venue and then not be sure what else to say, and then it'll be crickets for a few weeks. Are you any advice on what things an event organizer could talk about that would build an audience, obviously, but also attract people to actually come?Rachael: Yeah, it's really about digging down into the detail again. There's lots of things you can do. You can get videos from speakers in advance of the event and get them to talk about what they're going to be saying or what people can learn from them and put those out in video form content. You can do lots of real snippets of event information. Okay, we're going to have, I don't know, free donuts or it's going to be loads of swag or whatever it is that you think might just make people sit up and listen and go, Okay, maybe I should check that out. It's not just about the boring stuff, the where and the when and how are they going to be there and how you can get there. Yes, that's super important as well, but it's really about attracting people and getting them to engage with the event. We have to remember that with the laws of marketing, often somebody will see something maybe for the first time and not be sure you need to get in front of them again, and probably again and again until they're starting to think, Actually, I keep seeing this and people are talking about this, and maybe I should consider going to that.Lee: No, you're absolutely right. I think one of the things that will tend to put me over the line as well is, like you say, that what am I going to learn? What is the outcome of the event going to be? And when I see event organisers sharing testimonials and videos of the previous year, which really captures the energy and captures what other people have... Sorry, how other people have been impacted by that event, that's one of the things that really puts me over the line into, Okay, I need to be there. That looks phenomenal. I want to be in.Rachael: That environment. The reasons for attending events are different for different people. I think that what you're going to learn is very important. But for some people, they really want good networking and the social side and maybe putting out a video of the karaoke night that happens at the end of the event or whatever it is, just showing that really fun environment that might just get someone to click and buy. Especially for- It might scare other people off, of course, but you've got to mix it up.Lee: Oh, that's true. Yeah, well, it might scare other people off.Rachael: That's for sure.Lee: I mean, on that you mentioned that we need to be the rule of marketing. I don't know how many touch points it is, but somebody needs to keep seeing your thing, your event, your messaging, etc, multiple times before it is they're going to make a decision. So how far in advance do you think we should start marketing our actual event?Rachael: This is always really tough because with free events in particular, if you go out too early and you get people to sign up, a lot of people will just allow that commitment to be bumped and they will either just not show or they will give away their space to someone else at the last minute and it really affects your numbers. That's something to be very mindful of if it's particularly free. With a paid event, if it's a big ticket item, I think the earlier, the better. If it's an annual big conference or exhibition and you've got an audience sat in front of you, you want to make them an offer that they can't refuse whilst they're right there and engaged, and have just had an amazing time at your event to sign up for the next year in advance. Yeah, sure. Put things in like, okay, you can change your mind by this date, or we'll give you a free good bag if you sign up by this point or make it scarcity. We've only got 100 tickets at this reduced price to give away, but you've got that captive audience right there. If it is something that repeats and you want them to just keep coming again and again or just tell their friends, then definitely don't miss that opportunity.Rachael: But yeah, it does depend on the value of the event, the capacity of the event. There's no golden rule to it. But I think generally, the more expensive it is, the more of a commitment it is to people, the earlier you need to start planting that seed.Lee: Yeah, absolutely. Well, people are going to want to budget for it, aren't they? They're going to want to prepare. They want to get the most out of it if it is the more higher ticket event. I know personally for free events, when I register for them, I register them as a reminder in my head that I might go to that. And then very often, like you say, it's very easy to bump that in favour of something else that feels more urgent at the time when it comes to, do I really want to go down to London today or tomorrow to that specific event that I've got a free ticket for? As opposed to, I've paid a lot of money for this ticket, I am going there, come hell or high water.Rachael: Yeah, and if you've got to book accommodation and travel, if it's not local to you, that's also a big thing to consider. So you want to be planning at far in advance.Lee: Absolutely. I remember as well you mentioned about when you have the audience actually in front of you. That's something that Chris Ducker did, and he did it year on year at the Youpreneur Summit. And that was extremely effective, where you had 24 hours at the very end of the event on the last day. He said, Look, there's 24 hours here. There's a code. This is the website. If you want to book on and get guaranteed ticket for next year, then this is it. And the price was something extremely competitive versus what it was going to be the following year, etc. And that meant, I think I went three years in a row, worked for me every single time. Yes. All right.Rachael: But this is not just about advanced sales, money in the bank. It's also the fact that those people have already had a good time. You know it's easier to sell to people that you've already sold to rather than finding customers. That is just a rule of sales, but they will start shouting about it in their networks. I'm going or I had amazing time or consider going. You can also get back out to those people and give them a referral offer. You've got this pool of people that are just going to do magic things for you.Lee: I think that leads quite nicely then onto the next question. Do you have any strategies or ideas for getting attendees to talk about the events, I guess, in advance and also during the event to get some buzz out there?Rachael: Yeah, I think this is twofold. I think from an event organizer's point of view, you need to be providing things to make that a really, really easy task for people. So give them a graphic that says, I'm attending X event on this day. Will I see you there? And just send it out to them. All they have to do is share it. Give them the hashtags. Do half the job for them, because then it's more likely to happen. On the other side, if people are proud to be attending that event or there's something that they feel is amazing and of value to people in the network, they will share it and talk about it. You might need to incentivise that a little bit too, but they should be quite happy to say also come along and benefit. Because for them, the more people that are there, the bigger and better it is as well.Lee: So do most of the work you can for them, make it really, really easy. Give them the hashtags, even give them example tweets or whatever it is that they need, whatever platform they're on. They will, like you said, naturally share something if they've been really impacted by an event. And I guess then on the incentivisation that you mentioned as well, I remember again, going back to say, the Youpreneur Summit, there was always a competition during the event itself. And it would be if your picture was shown upon on the screen as one of your tweets on the specific hashtag that they were doing because they were trying to trend on Twitter for that particular event. I can't remember what the prizes are. Let's pretend it was an iPad. Don't quote me on that. But somebody then won that prize, etc. I remember trying to think of everything I could possibly do. I never won the prize, sadly. But I was trying to think of every possible picture and post that I could put up there on social media to share what was going on at the event.Rachael: I love that. I've seen to events too, where there's been a big prize for the most posting on the day. That content lives on out there once the people have gone home. So it is a brilliant idea.Lee: Absolutely. And all of that, too, is user-generated content that you can essentially repurpose, I guess, in the future as well. Hey, look, this was from last year. Didn't they have a great time? Et cetera. You can make tweet walls. I know I'm talking about Twitter right now, which I should be saying X, but it doesn't feel right. I'm focused here on Twitter because that's my experience of it. But obviously these are things that you could do in a wider level.Rachael: Yes, and it's really good to actually take people's content. If you're seeing that they've done reels or video clips on their own profiles, save those, build them into a new reel for yourself and use it. It's regurgitated, but super effective.Lee: That's true. Now on incentivisation, I know, have you any ideas on how we can get sponsors to talk about the event? I mean, they've invested either in sponsoring my conference or they're physically coming to my trade show and are going to have a booth there. But we do find clients are a little frustrated with their sponsors. Their sponsors have all of these already made communities already that they should be promoting the fact that they're either sponsoring or physically at an event. But sponsors tend not to. Have you any ideas on how we can either educate them or incentivise them about the same?Rachael: Yeah. I mean, from personal experience, I think a really good example here is Brighton SEO. Their sponsors seem to be really invested and engaged in the event. We will obviously, it's data access. If they've signed up for that, we will get emails from them in advance and you can book meetings and talk about the games and the prizes that you can win when you go there. They're doing all of that activity because they're proud to be associated with that event. They invest thousands and thousands in some of these stands with making it a very interactive place to come and visit once you're there. Why would they not want a busy stand? If they're putting that money into it, then they need to be talking about it and telling people, come along because we've got this. Come and see us because you can win these or sign up for a demo or whatever it is. But I think the way is to make it has got to be a two way relationship. You don't just want to be taking the sponsors money. You want to know, okay, what do you want to get out of this event?Rachael: How can we help you achieve that and making sure it happens?Lee: So making an event that they will be proud of and an event that is focused on not only the attendees and helping them get what they need, the outcomes that they're looking for, but equally, what are the sponsors or the people at your trade show? What is it that they want to get rid of of your event? And then educate and encourage them to share on social media, because again, it's going to be helpful for them, isn't it? If they are telling their existing audience, Hey, you know what? Existing clients, etc, you can come and meet us physically at this event. We're going to be showcasing our latest product or whatever that is. I guess there's just an element of sponsor/exhibitor education that you can provide without sounding condescending to them, of course.Rachael: No, no, no. And as I said before, make it easy for them as well. Give them graphics that say I'm sponsoring this event, or come and see us at, help them do the testing.Lee: Yes, absolutely. Tim, business partner over here at Event Engine, he said with me, I'll need to find it, so I'll try and make sure I put it in the tools, folks. But there's this tool that allows you to generate exactly what you just described there, which is a whole lot of images you can input, say, your exhibitor list, and it will put everybody's logos in the right place and their company name to generate all the images for them. And you can essentially send them a social media pack and say, use this. So I don't know who the company is, and it's not an affiliate or anything, but I'll make sure I share it because you were telling me about it the other day. Now, one of the things that we've been approached, and I again have no clue because I have wasted so much money on social media, paid social media, that is. I guess the question here then is, why should I choose paid or why should I choose organic? Because I know it's going to be a different answer for each event organizer. But I guess what are the reasons that people go either for paid or for organic?Rachael: I think personally, you probably need a combination. I don't think it's an either or situation. It depends. If you've got a big high sign-up and you think you're going to fill it quite early on, then you might not need to put budget into paid. But at the end of the day, if you need to put thumbs on seats and it's creeping up in date and you need more people to be aware, then you might need to put some budget behind it. But try and be really creative with that content. It's not just about... It's like PR. It's not just saying that something exists. It's telling a story behind it and making it attractive. All those things we've talked about in the past, take the same approach with your paid social as well and show what it's going to be like to be there or talk about the bots and the learnings and everything else and try and make it really attractive.Lee: No, it's true. I remember for the paid campaigns that we did, we were simply telling people the event existed and that was pretty much it. The date, the location. I think I spent 900 pounds eventually through Facebook advertising and we got absolute crickets. However, if I now look at the social media that I've engaged with that has attracted me and the events that I've then gone to, it's been a completely different story. Like you were saying, they've either shown a flavour of the previous year event, or they've told me specifically who the speakers are going to be or perhaps what someone's going to be talking about, or resonated with a particular problem that I have, and I've then gone ahead and done that. So hindsight is great, isn't it? But looking back, I'm embarrassed at the amount of money that we've thrown at paid ads and gotten nowhere. I also don't like LinkedIn, by.Rachael: The way. Don't be embarrassed. Everything's a journey. Everything's a learning journey.Lee: I messed up on LinkedIn. I think I put a digit in the wrong place. And instead of spending 30 quid, I spent 330 quid. That was just on one campaign. I was so gutted. So well. But I think what you're saying here, though, is that organic, if you've already got an audience, great. But regardless, paid is probably going to be helpful because on the flip side, we thankfully are saving grace for both our organic and all of that money that I spent on paid ads. We thankfully had our retargeting set up, which meant that we were then able to retarget all of those people who'd either landed naturally on our site through social media or had gone in through those campaigns. We built up those pixels, thankfully, through both LinkedIn and through specifically Facebook. I don't think we ever did it on Twitter. We were then able to put new messages to them, improve on that, and therefore actually get some bumps on seats. I guess there is a happy ending in the end.Rachael: Yeah, there is. Yeah, I know that retargeting is worth its weight in gold. Definitely try and incorporate that into your campaign list.Lee: Well, I guess the last question is just a tough question. I never know how to answer this. We've got event organisers who will do multiple events, and they might do events in, let's say, five different industries, and within each industry, they might have two or three events. They are now wondering, do they do their social media as the event organizer? Or would it be better for them to set up mini social medias, as it were, for each event or at least for each industry? They're never really sure which way to go because obviously they feel like they might be making a lot of work for themselves if they create multiple accounts, but at the same time, they worry that if they do it as the event organizer, it's going to be a messy message of all sorts of stuff for different industries going out.Rachael: Yeah. I would say it's definitely about making more specific. I know it's more work, but it's that time investment that will pay off. If you're targeting separate routes of people, you can't really do it from the same account, just the one general account. At the end of the day, without being rude to those who then organise these organisers, I don't think that people really care who's organising the event. It's about what the event delivers for that person. So it's the name of the event and the speaks of that event, and you need to get personal that way.Lee: Absolutely. I mean, if I'm going to list off any events that I've gone to and that I've attended and I've loved, including, say, Brighton SEO, then I don't know who the company is behind it, to be honest. I mean, they might actually be called Brighton SEO Limited, to be honest, because that's like a whole business in its own right. But literally- It's not. But I have no clue who organised that. I went to the Gadget show once. I don't know who organised. Actually, I do know who organised that. I think I went and researched it. But it wasn't obvious to me. It was that the brand is the event, isn't it? As opposed to the people behind it. I guess if we think that all of these events are going to have a small team handling the actual event organisation, then it's not unreasonable to give the responsibility to a couple of people within that team to look after that social account, as opposed to just laying it all on at the head office, which probably isn't the best idea anyway, because they're not involved in the day to day.Rachael: And there's temporary resource available. You can get marketing VAs, you can get bring on social media managers. There's no reason to not have that resource in some form or another.Lee: Amen. No, that is.Rachael: Very good. I'm really bossy there, don't I?Lee: No, I like it. I'm enjoying this very much. So as we come into Land, I just remember me advertising on social media for my event back in 2019, and I advertised my early bird rate. And I had to commit to A, a price, but B, a cutoff. And I was also worried about that cutoff. Because I thought if I cut off too soon, then I'd have to start selling it at more to other people and it might become this ever-increasing battle. So it was a real struggle for me when trying to work out what to price my event at, what to give away, what to offer, et cetera. Do you have any insights into that?Rachael: All I would say is a bit of a warning, I suppose, to event organisers that maybe are a bit less experienced. Be very careful with your pricing strategy. If you discount very heavily, very early on in great numbers, that does become the expectation. It's the same with products. You have people constantly searching for the codes and the discounts. I won't name them, but I used to work for a professional sports team, and we used to have three and a half thousand night person event capacity. We wanted it full because it was very dependent on the atmosphere. A lot of tickets were given away to schools and to other organisations, which is okay, but unfortunately, it went too far. A few years later, the business did fold. I'm not saying that was the reason, but I think it contributed heavily. There was too much giveaway, too much discount. People weren't paying to come. They were obtaining tickets from one route or another. Just be very careful how you want things to pan out long term, thinking about those discounts that you put in place.Lee: Rachael, thank you so much for all of your insights. This has been a fantastic episode. All that's left to say is first, thank you. And second, what's the best way for people to connect with you? And then we shall say goodbye.Rachael: Well, thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed our chats. And as you said, we're on all the socials, so you can find Shake It Up Creative on Instagram, and on X, and on Facebook, and LinkedIn, and all of those delightful places. Or you can check out our website, which is just shakeitupcreative.com.Lee: And folks, all of the links to all of those socials will be in the show notes along with the tool that I mentioned earlier as well. So be sure to check out the show notes. If you're over on YouTube, please leave us a comment with your biggest takeaway. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you're listening on your podcast, Player of Choice, then please do come over to the website. There is a link in the show notes. Let us know in the comments again what was your biggest takeaway from this episode. Rachael, thank you so much. You are a legend. Take care and have a wonderful day. Cheers, you all.Rachael: Bye.</div> </div>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>