The Social Media Landscape

November 9, 2009

I get a lot of enjoyment following trends and developments in social media and social networks – it’s an exciting time, with things moving so quickly.  Keeping up with the pace of change is part of the fun.  I’ve written a blog posting over on the InXpo blog – where I cover some recent developments in social media:

  1. Twitter Lists
  2. Social Search
  3. Inter-connectedness
  4. Mobile

blogposting_img

The blog posting is titled, “Making Sense Of The Ever-Changing Social Media Landscape“.

Leave a Comment » | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Leverage Twitter Lists For Your Physical Or Virtual Event

November 7, 2009

twitterList_img

Robert Scoble's tech-event-organizers Twitter List

What’s a very simple yet effective way to integrate the new Twitter Lists feature into your event?  Here’s what you can do:

  1. Define your event hash tag (a “must do” for any event!)
  2. Create a Twitter List for your event
  3. If your company or event already has a Twitter ID (“brand”), connect it to that ID (e.g. twitter.com/<your-brand>/<your-event-list>)
  4. On your registration page, ask registrants to supply their Twitter ID
  5. Manually or automatically populate your Twitter List directly from registration!

As part of the Twitter API, there are methods in place to interact with Twitter Lists (look in the documentation for List Methods, List Members Methods, List Subscribers Methods).  As such, you could automate this process by having your registration page utilize the Twitter List API to auto-populate your list directly from registration.

In addition, you could use the Twitter API to inform registrants which of their Twitter friends or followers are (a) also registered and (b) already a member of the Twitter List.  Here are benefits of leveraging a Twitter List for you event:

Registrants promote the event on your behalf

It’s the crowdsourcing method for generating awareness – allow the participants to spread the word on their own.  After all, the combined reach of your registrants is far greater than your own.  By referencing your Twitter list on your registration page, users who supply their Twitter ID will likely go straight from registration completion to the Twitter list to (a) confirm that they’re now a member of the list and (b) skim through the pre-existing messages.

The concept is similar to a pre-event bulletin board or forum – the beauty of using Twitter, however, is that unlike a forum (which needs a critical mass of initial postings before it really takes off), a Twitter list is “pre-seeded” from the natural activity of the list members’ tweets.  You can be sure that as users register for your event, they’ll first tweet that they “just registered” – and then, continue to tweet about the event (especially as the event date draws near).  You’ll want to encourage all registrants to include your event hash tag when they tweet.

Facilitates pre-event networking among registrants

Whether physical or virtual, a key reason people attend events is the networking aspect – being able to meet, connect and interact with others, to discuss common business challenges – and to extend their social graphs.  Too often, however, one arrives at an event with no idea whom else is attending.  A Twitter List changes the game – you’ll not only know the identity of folks who are attending, but you’ll feel like you know them very well.

Consider friends or family members that you follow on Twitter or Facebook – do you find that you come to learn and understand them more via status updates than interacting with them day-to-day (or over the years)?  It’s remarkable how social network connections can generate a more complete picture of an individual.  With pre-registrants to an event, you may find that you’re really getting to know individuals, based on their intra-day status updates and industry thoughts.

This will lead to events whereby attendees will have pre-arranged meet-ups and appointments (with other attendees) in advance, making their event experience more rewarding.  Perhaps someone will build an integration from Twitter List pages to LinkedIn, so that event registrants can also extend their LinkedIn connections directly from the event’s Twitter List.

Allows exhibitors to get to know registrants/attendees

This will need to be managed/handled properly, as registrants surely wouldn’t welcome unsolicited pitches from exhibitors before they’ve even attended the event – but, imagine the potential for exhibitors.  You get to know the users who are attending the event.  Perhaps you create booth content or special offers that are tailored to what you’ve learned about your upcoming booth visitors.  Did they talk about pricing challenges in your market?  Well, how about an event-exclusive price break on your product, which you announce at the event?

If users commented about technical challenges using your product, bring the right specialists into your booth so that you directly address this pre-event feedback.  Lastly, exhibitors can seed some “must meet” lists based on the registrants who are tweeting within the list – build a profile of interesting users and ask your booth reps to be on alert if those individuals visit your booth.

Can you believe it?  Something as simple as a Twitter List can go a long way to making everyone happy: registrants/attendees, exhibitors and … YOU.

Related links

  1. 10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists (Mashable)
  2. Five Essential Twitter Lists For Every Event (CrowdVine)

2 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

From Web 2.0 to Webinar 2.0

September 28, 2009

Source: flickr (User: Werkplay)

Source: flickr (User: Werkplay)

In this age of social sharing, participation, “users as publishers”, Facebook updates and Twitter tweets, the webinar is a seeming anachronism.  In your typical 60 minute webinar, the presenters speak for 45-50 minutes – and the only “participation” from the audience occurs when the presenter selects your question to be answered.  Users are not able to see questions submitted by other viewers – in fact, they rarely know how many other users are also viewing the webinar.

At the Feeding the SAP Ecosystem blog, there’s an interesting posting titled “SAP Virtual Events: A Work in Progress“.  Here’s a great quote about webinars:

Or the presenters drone on too long, overloading the audience with slides and not coming up for air until there is a few minutes left and the participants are too burned out to even attempt a last minute question. Webinars that incorporate reader chat and questions throughout the broadcast, rather than exiling them to a shrinking time slot at the end, are much more effective.

I agree wholeheartedly with this observation.  I believe that webinars can be much more engaging if they adopted an unconference model.  According to Wikipedia, “an unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose”.  As a webinar presenter (or sponsor), you’ll still want to define the topic and prepare a set of slides to reinforce your speaking points and presentation objectives.

But, what if you were to hand over some control back to the audience?  It requires a leap of faith, I know.  But when the audience is directly involved, I think you create a more rewarding user experience – and, you stand to benefit as well.  User involvement should directly result in engagement, retention and satisfaction.

Here are some simple ideas from Web 2.0 that can be applied to create Webinar 2.0:

  1. Audience drives the content selection – the presenter flips through two potential slides to the audience and then pushes out a survey to the audience.  The survey prompts the audience to select which slide they’d like to see covered.  The presenter then publishes the survey results and advances to the slide that won the vote.  This addresses one issue I’ve had with webinars – I attended the live webinar because the topic intrigued me; however, the content didn’t quite hit the mark.  If presenters gave more control and input to the audience, they’d have a better chance of giving viewers what they want.
  2. Audience members render their own slides – akin to a virtual meeting (e.g. WebEx, GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect), where the meeting host passes control to another participant, who then shares his/her desktop.  For webinar platforms that support this, imagine how powerful this could be.  Viewers would need to know to come prepared with slide content – but imagine the presenter asking for real-world case studies of a given technology and allowing a viewer to render a slide about his real-world implementation experience.  Again, this is a leap of faith and a “risk factor” in surrendering control of the content.  However, isn’t that what Web 2.0 is all about?
  3. Better balance between PowerPoint content and Q&A – a typical webinar has an 80/20 split (or more) between the PowerPoint presentation and Q&A.  I think it should be more like 50/50.  Scheduling frequent pauses (to answer questions) provides a lot of value to viewers – it means that they don’t have to wait until the 50 minute mark to have questions answered – and it signals to the audience that the presenters are “listening” to them.  Along these same lines, the webinar platform should allow all viewers to see all questions submitted by attendees.  And to cap it all off, follow up after the webinar by publishing an FAQ – list commonly asked questions along with their answers.
  4. Answer questions coming from the statusphere – define a Twitter hashtag for your webinar and have staff available to monitor the tweets – then, have presenters address and answer interesting questions that were posed via Twitter (and other social tools).  This allows you to extend the audience of your webinar – and engage with users who might not be able to attend.  Additionally, have staff members tweet back (with the answers), so that users monitoring the tweet stream know that you’re not only listening, but participating back.

I’m sure we’ve just gotten started – what tactics do you have to recommend for bringing Web 2.0 to Webinar 2.0?

5 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

How To Create A Vibrant (And Virtual) Business Community

September 25, 2009

Source: flickr (User: Samuele Storari)

Source: flickr (User: Samuele Storari)

The virtual events industry got its start in replications of a physical trade show or conference – the very first virtual events were virtual tradeshows, whereby platform providers re-created the look and feel of a physical trade show within a web-based environment.  These sorts of virtual events continue to gain traction and I expect to see continued growth as additional corporations (and entire industries) enter the mix this year and into 2010.

Due to the flexible nature of virtual event platforms, however, we’re seeing parallel growth occurring via many other virtual applications that ride atop the same shared infrastructure and platform.  As I wrote in a blog posting titled “Virtual Events: Available In Many Flavors“, we’re seeing virtual job fairs, virtual sales kickoffs and virtual partner summits running on vendors’ virtual event platforms.

Another application/venue that’s gained traction in 2009 is the virtual business community.  Rather than a discrete and fixed event that occurs over a live date (or a series of live dates), the virtual business community is a 365 day/year service that users leverage for explicit business benefits.  In my opinion, the Intranet of 2001-2008 will be moving towards virtual business communities, powered by the same platforms that service virtual tradeshows.

For me, the concept of intranet does not inspire much excitement or enthusiasm.  I’ve used intranets to find information (specifications, pricing, a phone number, etc.), but have never yearned to log into the intranet while bringing up my morning email.  “It’s just there” was the mentality I used to have.  I believe that virtual event platforms can create a vibrant and virtual business community, significantly moving the intranet concept up the value chain.  In fact, the business community becomes a virtual office, tearing down physical walls (and cubicles) to turn a globally distributed workforce into a close-knit and collaborative team.

Here are key tactics in building a vibrant business community:

Get users to keep coming back

You want your user base to login to the business community each morning before they even fire up their email client.  In fact, a truly successful business community may support email-like communications within the platform, making users less dependent on email.  To get your users to return over and over, you need:

  1. Content – it needs to be timely, relevant and useful.  Business-critical content should be housed here – the type of information that users need to get their job done – pricing sheets, internal contact information, customer contact information, product documentation, competitive analysis, etc.  Don’t lose sight of the timely angle – have your executives post company updates/news and make them available via videocasts or video webcam.
  2. Network effect – a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here – but, you need to get a critical mass of engaged and sought-after employees interacting in the business community.  Once you have that critical mass, you’ll see the community grow, as the “draw” will be access to and interactions with key colleagues.  This is the same network effect that AOL Instant Messenger, Facebook and Twitter enjoyed – users sign up because their friends, family or colleagues were already there.
  3. Enable social and interactive tools – today’s intranet needs to be empowered with the capabilities of AIM, Skype, Twitter and Facebook.  This way, I not only find documents to download, but I interact with key people who have the answers I need.  If I’m a product manager and need an answer from a lead software developer, he might not answer my phone call or return my email right away, but if I connect with him via text or video chat, perhaps he will.  After all, I’m finding him in an (online) environment that he’s most comfortable operating in.

Enterprise-enable your Business Community

Today’s most successful social networking sites/services are used in a consumer setting (i.e. friends and family) – ask yourself what makes them successful and determine how those features can be adopted in a 100% (internal) business social network.  I could see parallels of the following services made available internally within the business community platform:

  1. flickr
  2. Yahoo Answers
  3. Skype
  4. Facebook
  5. Twitter
  6. StumbleUpon
  7. del.icio.us
  8. Google
  9. digg

The key, I believe, is not just to enable social tools for the sake of being social – it’s to enable social tools while simultaneously connecting those tools to your business applications and business processes.  Possible ideas:

  1. Integration with your HR / Human Capital Database – if you have a rich profile on each employee (birth date, interests, job function, etc.), expose shareable information within your social tools and auto-fill that information to make it convenient for all users.  So if I’m sending out an internal tweet, my user ID is hyperlinked to a rich profile that describes all shareable information about me and my job role.
  2. Integration with CRM Database – are users posting links to industry news and analysis?  How about doing a keyword search by company and matching those up to sales opportunities in your CRM database?  If an article was posted about Acme Corporation’s latest product launch, let Acme’s sales rep know, so that she can contact them about applicable services that you offer.
  3. Integration with ERP systems – perhaps a crazy idea, but what if you could tweet about your latest business trip and have the expense management system parse your (internal) tweet and auto-generate a row in your online expense report?

All told, the possibilities are endless and quite exciting.  I foresee the virtual business community (powered by a virtual event platform) to be a significant trend in the coming year.  I believe this to be the future of the intranet for 2010 and beyond.

2 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Virtual And Social Technologies: A Perfect Fit

August 12, 2009

virtual_social

Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting posting on his Web Strategy blog titled “Web Strategy: How To Integrate Social Technologies with Virtual Events“.  Jeremiah notes that the integration of social technologies should apply to both virtual and physical events – by way of these principles:

Three Principles Of Modern Events
To be successful, virtual –and real world– event planners must abide by the following principles:
1. Events should integrate with existing communities and social networks where they exist.
2. Events should have a strategy that includes the before and after –not just during.
3. The audience can assert control over the event, so encourage audience participation and know when to get out of the way.

I left the following comment for Jeremiah:

blog_comment

I’m a big fan of social networks – today, my primary networks are Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  That being said, I’ve considered today’s social networks to be a Version 1.0 of Web 2.0.  Now that social networks have built a critical mass of audience/community, I think that some key technologies can advance us to Version 2.0 of Web 2.0.  Some examples:

  1. Presence Indication – While Jeremiah blogs that email was the first social network, I think of instant messaging as the dawn of social networking.  So all the way back in the mid 90’s, we had a technology to allow us to connect with friends, family and colleagues – and, provide presence indication.  I knew if my mom, colleague or best friend was online – and if they were online, they could indicate to me whether they were available or “Away from my desk”.  While some social network sites include in-page presence indication (including Facebook, with its Facebook Chat), I’m surprised that presence indication (and chat) have not been more tightly integrated into the core service of social networks.  If I’m running a social network site, but my users are using AOL IM or Skype for presence indication and text/webcam chat, then I’d want to build better presence/chat tools into my core platform.  Or, integrate existing technology, so that my users launch their IM client within my service.
  2. Personalized Spaces – Facebook has done a great job in allowing me to post pictures, videos, links, status updates, etc.  What about blending the existing technologies/applications within Facebook with virtual world technologies to create a virtual room (for personal use) or a virtual office (for b-to-b use).  Vivaty is thinking along these lines, as they’ve integrated their 3D virtal world technology into Facebook.  So within Facebook, I can build a personalized room with Vivaty and invite my friends (or colleagues) to visit and interact with the objects I’ve placed in that room (e.g. perhaps a link to a movie review).
  3. Profile Matchmaking to Extend Your Network – Virtual Event technologies have their roots in b-to-b use, in which virtual event show hosts tend to collect a deep registration profile on attendees.  This provides data points that allow the virtual event platform to recommend  like-minded attendees (who have similar profiles).  For personal use of social networks, matchmaking may not be relevant – you know whom your friends and family are and you’re probably not inclined to go find new friends (with the exception of a social site for online dating).  In a b-to-b setting, however (e.g. Linkedin), profile matching can be very powerful, as it allows you the potential to extend your network.  B-to-b networking sites that combine presence with matchmaking can create a powerful combination – imagine that I find like-minded people.  Instead of pressuring them to accept me as a connection, I can chat with them (based on presence indication) and introduce myself.  Later, both parties may be comfortable enough to become connections within that social network.

I’d be interested in your thoughts – what related technologies should social network sites look to build or integrate?

4 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Coming To A Physical Event Web Site Near You: Video, Blogs, Social Networks

July 23, 2009

Source: BtoB Media Business

Source: BtoB Media Business

In the current issue of BtoB Media Business, Charlotte Woodward published a cleverly named article, “Face to Facebook“, that highlights the incorporation (by physical event organizers) of digital technologies into the once-static event web site.  The inclusion of these technologies is helping show hosts extend the life of their events and support a 365 day/year experience – with a (hopefully) engaged online community to go along with it.

The article references the latest CEIR / GPJ research report:

Digital sponsorships contribute only about 7% of an event’s marketing budget, according to a recent report from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research and George P. Johnson. The study, “Digital+Exhibiting Marketing Insights 2009,” conducted online in April and May, surveyed 287 event managers and corporate brand exhibitors about the use of digital media.

As a result of the trends noted in the article, my belief is that in next year’s report, the percent of event marketing budget allocated  to digital will climb to 15-20%.  Why?  Because online/virtual will become a standard component of physical events.  The “new” event web sites of today – that include video, blogs, social networking, trackability, additional “impressions” for exhibitors, additional revenue for event organizers, etc. – could stand to benefit by leveraging a virtual event platform.  So rather than building your own event web site from scratch, you leverage virtual event/tradeshow technology to power the next generation “site”.

For the event organizer, the business model seems rather straightforward:

  1. Bundle sponsorship of the online community with the physical event sponsorship – upsell those low/mid-level sponsorship packages into a premium package, which includes a presence in the virtual component (e.g. full-blown virtual booth, signage within the environment, etc.).  You can create a “presence” for all of your physical event sponsors, but only those who have signed on for the full bundle will have real content behind the virtual booth storefront.  Those who opt not to purchase the bundle will have only their logo in the environment – a great way to incent the non-believers to enter the fray.
  2. Create value to attract online attendees – the online venue cannot solely be an area to appease exhibitors/sponsors.  In the same way you attract attendees to your physical event, you need to make it valuable for online attendees to visit your virtual community.  For me, this means a combination of compelling content (e.g. videos, articles, external links, etc.) and effective social/sharing tools (e.g. blogs, message boards, chat, etc.).

The incorporation (blending) of physical and virtual events creates very exciting possibilities.  Let’s consider what b-to-b publisher Hanley Wood is doing:

Additional improvements also integrate all the customer data Hanley Wood has collected, demonstrating to exhibitors and attendees who register that Hanley Wood remembers them and allowing the company to make recommendations based on a customer’s profile and history of participation at its events.

“We can put together some cross-show marketing, as well as up-sell the events that these people participate in,” Buraglio said.

The aggregation of attendee data from physical + virtual creates value:

  1. Attendees – by better understanding all of the touch points by an attendee (across physical + virtual), event organizers can more effectively package and target content that’s uniquely tailored to that attendee.  Give attendees precisely what they want (or need) and you create a more satisfied user, who will be more likely to stay engaged and return to the site frequently.
  2. Exhibitors/Advertisers – by building a complete picture of physical + virtual engagement from attendees, you can more intelligently plan and execute your lead follow-up paths.  If a user had her badge scanned at your physical booth, then entered your virtual booth to download 3 separate documents, she’s probably an advanced lead / “A” lead.

Related links

  1. Blog posting: The ABC’s Of Lead Follow-Up For Virtual Events
  2. Blog posting: The Convergence Of Physical Events And Virtual Events

Leave a Comment » | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

The Convergence Of Physical Events And Virtual Events

July 1, 2009

convergence

In May, SAP’s annual SAPPHIRE conference (SAPPHIRE 09) floored physically in Orlando, Florida, with a concurrent virtual event online.  This week, Cisco’s annual Cisco Live conference followed suit, with a physical event in San Francisco, California and a concurrent virtual event online.

Full disclosure: My company (InXpo) was the virtual event platform provider for both the SAPPHIRE and Cisco Live virtual events – and, I worked on the Cisco Live virtual event.

During a presentation at the Virtual Edge Summit in May, a presenter from SAP noted that considerations were made concerning the potential of cannibalization – whereby physical attendees may stay at home to attend virtually instead.  However, he noted that in reality, a combination of physical and virtual event extended the overall reach – and the virtual component served to augment the overall attendance count.  When combined (physical+virtual), this year’s attendee count for SAPPHIRE was the largest ever.

This week, I attended Cisco Live on-site, but spent most of my time online to support the virtual event.  However, in experiencing all the touch points of the event, it quickly occurred to me that the entire notion of physical vs. virtual is blurring – they’re coming together to form an aggregate attendee experience.

Some participants are not able to travel to the event’s venue – and as such, their only choice is to participate in a virtual component.  For those on-site, they can choose the attendee path that suits their preferences.  Perhaps that means attending the John Chambers keynote in person, grabbing a cup of coffee, visiting the World of Solutions (exhibit floor) and then returning to the hotel room to login to the virtual event, to follow up with a few exhibitors in their virtual booth.  Later, that same attendee may visit the customer apprecation event in Second Life, and then attend a tweetup at a nightclub (in person).  Here’s an image of my Second Life avatar at the Tuesday evening Second Life dance party:

The author's avatar with right hand raised

The author's avatar with right hand raised

To make this convergence really work, I believe the following should be done:

  1. Create a unique value proposition for each venue – virtual event, virtual world, physical event – do not simply re-purpose one into the other.  Dannette Veale explains it quite well in a Cisco Virtual Worlds blog entry, The Value of Virtual Events.
  2. Tie the venues together in a logical fashion – link the venues together where it makes sense.  Convergence should happen for a good reason – and not for the sake of convergence.
  3. Give the attendees freedom to choose – allow attendees to choose their own attendee path, without forcing them down any one direction.  Leave the hooks in place and each attendee will follow their own path.  Some physical event attendees may opt out of any convergence and focus 100% on the physical event.  Others may actively engage in the virtual event while on-site physically.  Either path is fine.
  4. Integrate social media across the spectrum – whether it’s Visible  Tweets displayed on a physical monitor or Facebook integration with the virtual event – integrating social media increases engagement within the attendee experience and also extends the reach of the event to networks of social networks.  Here’s an interesting example of user generated, social media at the physical event – a physical whiteboard that asked attendees to write about where they were in 1989:

whiteboard

In Cisco Live Virtual, elements of the physical event were streamed into the virtual event.  By doing so, virtual event attendees (who could not travel to San Francisco) were still able to get a taste of the physical event experience.  For instance, webcams were deployed throughout the physical event to stream in live feeds from the show floor – and to host personalized webcam chats with Cisco executives.  One of the webcams was pointed at this Solutions Theater – from which virtual event attendees had a continous live stream of presentations given throughout the day:

solutionstheater

Here are some of the ways I experienced physical/virtual event convergence:

  1. Watching John Chambers’ keynote presentation online, via a Live Webcast streamed into the virtual event (by On24).
  2. Viewing a Cisco Live Second Life session (LIVE!) from a booth in the virtual event – the session was broadcast by treet.tv in Quicktime – so users needed the Quicktime player but not the Second Life client application.
  3. Watching a live (physical) demo of Telepresence, which was broadcast via a Live Video Webcast, which was carried within the virtual event (many layers of convergence there).
  4. Participating in live chat sessions that Cisco executives (Carlos Dominguez and Padmasree Warrior [separately]) attended via webcam.  Attendees typed their questions (via text) and the executives answered via webcam / audio.  The executives answered just about every question posed, so it felt like a personal meet and greet with the executives.
  5. Walking past the NetQoS physical booth – and noticing one of their demo workstations displaying their booth in the virtual event.  Quite a good idea – host visitors to your physical booth and remind them of your presence in the virtual event.  That prospect can’t return to your physical booth next week (when the event is over), but they sure can visit your booth in the virtual event [at any time] to find the needed information.
  6. Reading one user’s in-show blog, where he asked physical attendees to name the “one [physical] booth that should not be missed”.  This particular user was not able to attend physically – but, he may be able to visit the virtual booths of the vendors recommended by his peers.

Moving forward, I expect to see many more events follow this model – whereby physical events will leverage virtual event and virtual worlds technologies to accomplish the following:

  1. Deliver additional value to the physical event
  2. Extend the reach of the event to a global audience
  3. Blend physical and virtual components to create a more compelling experience
  4. Drive stronger event revenue and ROI!

I hope to see you at a future event – I haven’t decided whether I’ll be there physically, virtually or both.

5 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Four Ways To Make Virtual Conferences Better

June 9, 2009

Nick Morgan, on the Conversation Starter blog at Harvard Business Publishing, wrote a recent posting titled “Three Ways To Make Conferences Better“.  To summarize, Nick’s suggestions are:

  1. Tell a unique story
  2. Make attendees active participants, rather than onlookers
  3. Leverage the gathered group to give something back to the community in which the conference is held

Nick’s blog posting served as inspiration for me – I’d like to cover ways to make virtual conferences better.  Virtual conferences (along with virtual tradeshows, virtual job fairs, etc.) do allow attendees to participate – in fact, some of the more interesting “content” in a virtual conference is the free form text chat that occurs in areas like the Networking Lounge.

And by its nature, a virtual conference gives back to the community in the form of carbon emission avoidance, time savings, convenience and productivity gains.  As for telling a unique story – that’s something I have not seen virtual conferences achieve.  But at the same time, I don’t think physical conferences do a good job of  this, either.

Without further ado, here’s my list:

  1. Leverage a Requests For Proposal (RFP) Tool for attendees – in a b-to-b virtual conference, you often find that the exhibitors offer a common set of products and services (they’re direct competitors).  As an attendee, the virtual conference affords me with a convenient and efficient means for comparison shopping.  So if I’m in the market for blade servers, I might want to spend time visiting numerous booths, downloading product collateral and chatting with some booth reps.  Instead, what if I could fill out an online form (within the virtual conference) and tell prospective vendors what I’m looking for?  Perhaps I need 1U blade servers with redundant power supplies and are remotely manageable.  I fill out my RFP form, check off the exhibitors that I’d like to receive my request and click “Submit”.  I then receive responses within the virtual conference environment from exhibitors – and start to create my short list, based on those responses.  As one can imagine, such a tool could greatly benefit attendees and exhibitors.
  2. Play some games – making games available within the virtual conference creates a sense of fun, which increases attendee satisfaction – this, in turn, increases retention and session time (attendees remain in the environment longer).  And of course, you’re not hosting the game solely for the sake of fun – you’re forcing participants to perform desired activities (e.g. visit a booth, view a Webcast, etc.) in order to advance within the game.  Again, win-win scenario – attendees and exhibitors benefit.
  3. Incorporate social media – attendees at physical conferences generate lots of Twitter, Facebook, etc. updates  from their PDAs.  In a virtual conference, it’s all too easy to remain well-connected with your social networks.  That being said, don’t force attendees to leave the virtual environment – instead, provide interfaces for them to post a status update directly from the virtual conference platform!  They should be able to tweet directly from the virtual conference, update their Facebook wall, etc.  This provides a convenience to the attendee and generates no-cost “PR” of the virtual conference across social networks.
  4. Embark with an Aardvark – a new service that describes itself this way —  “just send Aardvark a message through IM, like you do when talking to a friend.  Aardvark figures out who might be able to answer, and asks on your behalf — Aardvark is the hub.”  While it might be interesting to consider an integration directly from the virtual conference to the Aardvark service, it’s the concept that most interests me.  And that is, tapping into the collective wisdom assembled at a virtual conference in order to help attendees answer questions.  After all, most b-to-b virtual conference audiences login to the event with a common set of business or technical challenges.
Source: Aardvark (vark.com)

Source: Aardvark (vark.com)

Related Links

  1. Blog posting: Three Ways To Make Conferences Better
  2. Blog posting: Virtual Events And The Power Of Social Media (authored by me on my company’s blog)
  3. Blog posting: Cisco has integrated Twitter into their Cisco Live Virtual event
  4. About Us page: Aardvark

1 Comment | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Reflections Of A Virtual Events Blogger

May 27, 2009

In the 6+ months that I’ve been blogging about virtual events, virtual tradeshows and virtual worlds, I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve learned from the research that I’ve done in this arena, I’ve learned from insightful comments left here by readers and I’ve learned a bit about blogging.  I decided to skim through the nifty historical charting provided by WordPress and thought I’d share some insights into what’s worked well here.  Let’s start with the most obvious one – the top 5 blog postings (by page views – listed by top post first):

  1. Review: Lenovo’s eLounge Virtual World – what I learned here is to create timely blog content that associates with major events.  Lenovo unveiled their eLounge virtual world (powered by Nortel’s web.alive) at CES 2009.  I decided to download it, try it out and review it.  Because my posting was a relative first (in terms of eLounge reviews), it got the lion’s share of search engine traffic.  I saw this both in referral data and by tracking relative rankings on the search engines themselves.  Additionally, a large amount of traffic was sourced from a popular blog about Nortel (allaboutnortel.com).
  2. Interview With Nic Sauriol, Venture Lead on Nortel’s web.alive Platform – if you strike a chord with an interesting posting, ride the momentum and generate follow-on postings that provide more information (or additional insight).  Nic Sauriol provided me with a virtual tour of eLounge (for my original blog posting), so I followed up later with an interview, asking Nic to provide new information on web.alive since the eLounge launch.
  3. Insights And Experiences From Virtual World Experts – here, I summarized a panel discussion for which I was an audience member.  It featured top notch virtual worlds experts – and as a result, this blog posting received a great deal of referral traffic from related blogs (e.g. Wagner James Au’s New World Notes).
  4. How To Use Social Media To Stay Current On Virtual Events And Virtual Worlds – this posting had the benefit of being posted on StumbleUpon, which generated a nice spike in traffic.  Hard to say whether the traffic surge resulted in new, regular readers – or whether they were one-time, curious Joe’s.  Regardless, I learned how powerful a single referrer (e.g. StumbleUpon, digg, etc.) can be.
  5. Hey Kids! I’ve Got a Virtual World For You – much of the traffic for this posting is due to SEO – it contains terms that are popular in search (e.g. My Little Pony, Webkinz, Club Penguin, etc.) – while I did not write this with the intent to generate search engine traffic, it does demonstrate the importance of writing content with SEO in mind (if your goal is to generate traffic from SEO).

Here’s a chart that demonstrates the power of referrals:

Source: WordPress Data for It's All Virtual

Source: WordPress Data for It's All Virtual

Here are this blog’s Top 5 Sources of Referral Traffic:

  1. allaboutnortel.com
  2. StumbleUpon
  3. Twitter – I promote new blog postings to my Twitter feed, which is kind of like RSS for all of my Twitter followers.  If they’re not subscribed via an RSS reader, the tweet helps nudge them to come back here 🙂
  4. WordPress Dashboard – very interesting – other WordPress bloggers are finding this blog by clicking on links promoted/suggested by WordPress in the blogger’s dashboard
  5. WordPress Tags – tells you the importance of properly tagging your blog content

Top 5 Search  Terms (that resulted in traffic to this blog)

  1. Miscellaneous terms related to Lenovo eLounge
  2. Virtual Calendar
  3. Virtual Events
  4. Virtual Worlds
  5. All virtual worlds (I guess it’s good to have your blog name closely match a search term)

And finally, the Top 5 clicked-upon links (within my blog content):

  1. Overview/download page for Lenovo eLounge
  2. My Twitter page – shows the importance of a permanent/prominent placement [top right of this blog]
  3. Facebook Group (Virtual Event Strategists) – shows the importance of a permanent/prominent placement [top right of this blog]
  4. Project Chainsaw web page (for Nortel’s web.alive)
  5. YouTube video on Project Chainsaw

What’s worked well for you and your blogs?  Leave a comment below to let us know.

5 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Virtual Event Adoption By The C-Suite (CIO, CMO, etc.)

May 8, 2009

In my former role as a b-to-b media industry product manager, I developed product packages that utilized audio podcasts for delivering IT-specific content to IT practitioners and IT managers.  The conventional wisdom at the time  (early on, at least) was, “CIO’s will not download and listen to podcasts”.  I wasn’t so sure about that – after all, podcasts made it easier for busy executives to consume content they wanted – when and where they wanted to consume it.  So why wouldn’t a busy executive leverage technology to make her day more efficient?

Lo and behold, a CIO speaker at an event I attended was asked about the different content types he leveraged to get his job done.  He mentioned that he takes a 30 minute ferry boat ride to and from work each day.  While most boat passengers are reading the daily newspaper, this CIO would listen to IT-specific podcasts on each ride – and, he insisted that each downloaded podcast be 30 minutes long (or less), so that he could listen its entirety on the ride.

With virtul events, I’ve heard from event organizers and event sponsors who wonder whether the CIO (and her companions in the C-Suite) will adopt virtual events and virtual tradeshows.  I think the answer is “yes”.  First, let’s characterize some of the C-Suite occupants:

  1. CEO – may be too busy to attend virtual events – but, will occasionally make the keynote appearance to kick off a virtual event.  Many CEO’s do not use a computer, but most carry PDAs.  This means that the path to CEO participation in virtual events may be via the PDA.
  2. CMO – they see the value of virtual events as a marketing and lead generation vehicle, so one of their key roles today is in funding and approving budget.  As for attendance, my feeling is that they’re interested in doing so.
  3. CIO – like with podcasts, virtual events enable and empower an executive.  The CIO can attend a virtual event to peer network with like-minded CIO’s and not miss a day in the office to do so.
  4. CTO – intimate with technology, the CTO is virtually a slam dunk to participate (pun intended).
  5. CFO – not so sure about CFO’s, but I will note that IBM Cognos produced a virtual event called Virtual Finance Forum 2009 that targeted finance executives.  Cognos produced the same event in 2008 as well.

B-to-B publishers have caught on to the notion that CIO’s will attend virtual events, as past virtual events have specifically targeted the CIO.  Two upcoming events are taking a similar approach:

  1. CIO Virtual Forum: Navigating Through Dynamic Times (May 19, 2009 – CIO.com and Cisco)
  2. CIO Summit:  Driving Business Value and Customer Value in the Global Economy (June 10, 2009 – InformationWeek)

In my experience with technology focused virtual events, I found that of all registrants, 7-9% had senior IT titles (CIO, CTO, VP of Technology, etc.).  So an event with 1,000 registrants would have 70-90 of them be CIO’s or CTO’s.  Why would the C-Suite attend a virtual event?  I think there are a few primary benefits:

  1. Conveniently network with like-minded peers – one of the draws of attending an event is the ability to network with other attendees.  With a virtual event, a busy executive can do so without losing a day outside the office.
  2. Efficiently connect with partners and customers – an online experience can’t re-create the dyamics of an in-person interaction, but it does allow a busy executive to connect with many more partners and customers than could have occurred in-person.
  3. Extend your social graph and social presence – some C-Suite execs have enthusiastically adopted Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.  Industry-specific virtual events allow the executive to further expand the social graph.  And of course, they’ll be tweeting about the event as soon as they login.

What has your experience been – has the C-Suite at your own company attended a virtual event?

2 Comments | Virtual Tradeshows (VTS) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »