Event Industry Thoughts

Keep Your Data Secure at Events or be WikiLeaked

Welcome 2011, I am here to say that this will probably be a bigger year for WikiLeaks than 2010, especially since Mr Julian Assange is about to get into the Corporate Stupidity Game rather than sticking to the Governmental Stupidity Game.

Love him or hate him, he is one bad mother $#&*$#*& for a geek.

I was over at the Post reading an article about how Bank of America has now deployed their counterintelligence team to combat what will be a 5GB mountain of hell aimed at all of their evil-doing....By the way, if your bank has a counterintelligence unit, that should give you pause..

This article got me thinking about how our loose lipped little geek actually gets his information and I think that I may have an answer that is easier than all of the cloak and dagger shit being formulated.

Someone may have just walked off with it.

Events, conferences and meetings have some of the worst security known to man and a lot of data simply walks away. Even when an event has security, it is usually to keep out people that are not registered. The registered are already in and may be the culprit.

Case in point. I was working with a Pharma Client a few year's back and directly after the day's sessions they had networking event that involved drinks. Some of the Pharma client's middle managers got a few in them and at the end of the event, two managers got up from the table and left.... they left..... they left without grabbing their laptop bags from under the table. Anyone could have picked them up. Luckily it was me that recovered them, knew the individuals and called their cell phones to get them back to the scene of the almost crime. Hello WikiLeaks...

A person who was registered for this event and ready to do bad stuff would have had all the opportunity needed to grab those laptops and simply walk out.

Another example is the computers that you have at registration desks and other public areas. Many organizations use computers that staff use daily in the course of their regular duties trying to save a dime. This is a BAD idea. First, many different people will have access to the data on these computers, especially if you have temps helping to man the reg desks. Reg desks also tend to be  high traffic areas that are ripe for picking when people are not or cannot pay 100% attention.

Another potential data source for would be WikiLeaker's are flash drives. Those 4 and 8GB models sure do hold a ton of stuff and it is amazing how many morons (including me) tend to forget them and leave them laying any old place like in a computer for a presentation, on a table or you loan it to someone who needs a helping hand. 

I just finished producing an event here in Chicago we recovered 20................20 Flash Drives! Many of them were so packed with data that we will never know who to get them back too and I am not sure that I want that burden (they are destroyed). In this case, it pays to have a few unused units laying around for loading presentations and loaning to forgeters.

The moral of the story is this, protect your shit if you do not want to be on the 11 o'clock news, in a court room or in a legal battle with WikiLeaks.

Password protection is great, but there are people out there that can crack any nut so that does not always work.

It is far easier to dedicate a few, cheap laptops that carry as little data as possible so that when they do get lifted, lost or crash at your next event, you can simply replace them with an "oh well"  smile on your face rather than a look of terror, humiliation or "oops, Bob is going to jail" induced WikiPanic.

Meeting and Event Planners Should Always Remember

Here is something that all meeting and event planners should remember, I use the term planner because that is who I am addressing, not the generic, often used Meeting and Event Professional that lumps everyone in the industry into a giant soup bowl.

Always do your best. Period. 

Do your best, because your best matters to one very important group. The attendees.

These are folks that have made a commitment to attend whatever it is you have planned. Whether it is a business conference, a seminar, a Gala Dinner or a product launch, they have given the most valuable thing in the world, something that they can never, ever get back....

Their Time.

If you do your best to make attendees happy and ensure that their time is well spent, all of the other stakeholders in your event will also be happy, without fail. It is a simple process that we often overlook because someone in the event chain is always screaming about something, diverting our attention from the people that matter most.

Just thinkin.

A Tale of Music for Your Conference Video

OK, the conference is over, it was an overwhelming success, you had the best turnout in years and the attendee surveys could not be better if you had slipped the voters a sawbuck with their form.

Gladis down in marketing gets the idea to create a post conference video, a really slick piece that will be posted to the conference blog, on the association home page and will be sent out to thousands via the post event wrap up email.

Gladys and Bob work and slave together in a dark room for days creating, what should be, an emmy nominated piece with laughter, tears, photo montages and stunning testimonials from attendees, speakers and you, the planner.

What an achievement. Gladys even thought to throw in a soundtrack that included Boom Boom Pow from the Black Eyed Peas...... STUNNING, amazing, you have never seen such a work of art, it was so good that you stood back and cried, you cried tears of joy because what you have just witnessed will forever change the way that you see the world.

Excited and with a sense of urgency, you distribute as fast as you can, you post to twitter, facebook, the blog, the web and you even shout it from the rooftops! This sucker goes viral the way that nothing that has ever come before it, can you believe 500,000 hits on the first day!!!!!!!

 
That is when, without warning, the lawyers descend on you like the monkey army from the Wizard of Oz,  carrying you off to where ever they take evil doers like you and Gladys and of course, Bob.

What was your crime you scream as they beat, flog and water-board you! What have you done!

Well you idiot, you used Boom Boom Pow in the video, you stole an artists work and you did not pay for it and now you are being whisked away to an undisclosed location to feel the wrath of the Fergie and Will I Am... and I gotta say, rightfully so. You should have known better than to do this, you would not like it if someone stole that really cool idea for a final night gala would you?

So, what is a meeting and event professional to do?

Well, you could go through all of the mumbo jumbo and pain that it would take to license a song like Boom Boom Pow which many ad agencies do. You could pay the hundreds, thousands or in some cases millions of dollars it would take to use that song that is burning up iTunes or Amazon........or, you could go out and get a song that is just as good but less well known than the songs you hear on the radio every day.

How do you get music that you, a mere mortal can license and use in your videos? That my friends is the easy part, there are plenty of places and plenty of budding young artists out there that want you to use their music, some free, others for low cost.

Now that our little story has ended, here are some sites where you can get music for your conference or event video that can see the light of day so that, perhaps, you can take home an emmy after that public broadcast station airs your video at three in the morning cause they got 2 minutes of time to fill!

 Jamendo.com

Danosongs.com

Freeplaymusic.com

RoyaltyFreeMusic.com

Pond5.com

StockMusic.net

IStockPhoto.com

MusicBakery.com

ShockWave-Sound.com

PartnersInRhyme.com

StockMusicStore.com

RevoStock.com

MasterSource.com

GettyImages.com

SmartSound

 

 

 

 

Why Failure is Good for Meeting and Event Planners

I Fail all of the time and I use a capital F in fail because some of the failures that I have had have been some amazing doozies worthy of a spot in the Guinness Book of world records.

What makes me different than many is that I am actually proud of many of my failures and have no problem sharing the fact that I am far from perfect..........

The difference between me and the masses when it comes to failure is that I do not make excuses for the things that go wrong, I try and learn from the failure so that the next time I approach a problem, I do it with a little more knowledge than I had the day before.

This is what can make failure a good thing, important and and necessary. Without failure, you cannot have success. If you do not try, you cannot fail, if you cannot fail, than you cannot possibly succeed. Success comes from your ability to look at your failures and figure out why they turned into heeping piles and crap instead of amazing triumphs. 

Think about this, you took a lot of time to plan and implement something that turned into an epic failure, you did not go into it thinking that it was going to collapse, so it is on you to figure out why it toppled over and then create a plan to keep it standing or clear away the debris for the next time.

If you are always trying new sessions, new styles, new speakers or perhaps trading the boring rubber chicken for Indian or Mexican food, not all attendees are going to like what you do and that is the point. You are challenging people to have a little passion, a different view and an opinion. Sometimes you will fail, sometimes you will succeed, sometimes you will have to go back to the drawing board and think about it, but understanding why something soars or crashes makes it possible to recreate, reinvent or scrap.

Here is an example of how failure can actually be turned into a success.

A few years ago before Pecha Kucha was a rage, we convinced a client that they should try something different. We all sat around and decided that all of the speakers on the second afternoon would only have 10 minutes.. no more, that was it, stick a fork in them, we were turning off the sound if they went over their alotted time. They would not have any PowerPoints but could have one picture that we would put up on the screen... a background if you will.

This started out being a cool idea and ended up being a disaster on the planning end. The speakers were not used to this, some of them went over time, some of them could not speak without 80 slides and some talked like chipmunks on crack trying to get mountains of information crammed into the 10 minute limit. It was like a 3 ring circus with no ringmaster and 50 lions.

From our perspective, it was a nightmare.... a pure and epic failure.

The client said... We are never doing that again.

But viewed from a different angle, from an attendee perspective, it was unique, it was new and it was happening. The surveys came back and our little experiment in terror was the highest rated portion of the conference. What we perceived as a failure was the thing that all of the conference attendees loved the most. They liked the style, they liked the spontaneity and most of all they liked the no powerpoint rule. The attendees were actually having fun, laughing and thinking.

That is when we went back to the drawing board and figured out that it was not the idea that failed, it was the implementation. We worked to get the speakers on board early the next conference, we let them know what was expected and we made sure that their was an understanding.............BAM, the next time around it went like clockwork. Now, the speakers were ready, presenting one point (not 100) and knowing that they had to move off because the next speaker was coming right behind them.

Most would have abandoned the idea and gone back to the old way. What we learned was that our idea was 100% great, it was us that was the problem and we worked to fix that issue, thus saving an amazing idea.

So, I guess the moral of the story is go out on a limb and try something new. If you fail, so what, you can now cross that off the list and know that it will not work, you may be surprised that a failure is nothing more successfully understanding how to not do something.

How Meeting Planners Waste a Gathering Opportunity

Humans are a lot like herd animals, we all looooove to gather in groups, graze and moo at one another. This is a simple fact, you bring 20 people to my house this Saturday and I can almost guarantee that they are all going to end up in the kitchen eating my food, sitting around my table  and talking some nonsense until all hours of the night or until I kick them out, whichever comes first.... and I would love it because we are all the same.

It is for this reason that I will never understand the meeting, event or conference planner that does not set aside a percentage of their event real estate to help people do what they do naturally. I was actually at an industry event in Chicago earlier this year and in this huge common area they had set up a coffee station and not one seat or even bean bag.  The space was empty and no one was drinking the coffee because there was no opportunity to interact.

The next time you sit down and look at the common areas of your upcoming conference or meeting, think about filling those areas with stools, tables, chairs, couches and snacks. Go overboard, attendees want this, really they do.

If you look at the empty space on your floor plan as an asset rather than a liability, you will be rewarded with a substantial return on investment. That ROI is happy attendees who create connections by doing what humans do best...... and happy attendees talk and will share their experience with others and isn't that what this is all about.

Wedding Planning is not for the faint of heart

I never thought that I would actually talk about wedding planning in this blog, I really didn't. 

Weddings are something that I will never plan, never, never, never, never. I am a corporate guy and love corporate events. So let me be clear on the wedding thing... never, never, never, never, never.

This does not mean that I do not have TONS of respect for wedding planners, I truly do and some of my best friends are on that side of the event planning aisle. I have nothing but admiration for someone that can handle  all of the issues that pop up that seem crazy to corporate planners.

From being screamed at by overzealous Mom's and and pampering diva brides to counseling cold-feet grooms and grabbing smelling salts for fainting dads they handle a ton of "personal", all on top of the typical event planning issues that crop up like A/V malfunctions, screwed up BEOs and late limos.

Weddings seem to involve too much emotion, a simple screw up can cost someone the most important day of their lives. That is a lot of pressure. I like my pressure on a professional level, not a personal level. I would rather deal with the stress of having the secret service at my event or dealing with diva speakers, it is a business relationship, not a personal one. That's it! Weddings are too personal. 

I get a ton of requests for wedding planning services every year, a ton. Since I will never leave anyone who contacts me high and dry, I always try and pair them with the wedding planner that I think will do the best job. It is important to me to pass along quality information. 

If you are planning a wedding here in Chicago, my friend Kevin Sullivan is your man. He has a way with the Brides and Brides Moms that is simply amazing. The wedding chapel could be a blazing ruin and he would say "Listen Dear, you wanted your wedding night to be hot" and everyone would be spliting their pants with laughter; He is that genuine and that funny without trying. He is also that good, he is one of the best, if not the best here in Chicago. 

For destination weddings I never really had someone that I could turn to, someone that I could recommend without hesitation. This was a place where I was lacking, but I am not anymore. A dear friend of mine is embarking on the change of a lifetime, she is starting her own destination wedding company. That friend does have a name, it is Teresa Nelson.

Now, Teresa is not some "I planned my sororitys annual wine and cheese party so I am qualified to run your 10 million dollar event" event planner. She is a seasoned incentive travel expert with YEARS of experience. We both sit on the board of Site's Chicago Chapter (Society of Incentive Travel Executives). She was also the meeting and event professional that used to plan for WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. She knows her shit, she is just directing her shit in a different direction.

This is why I know that she will be a SMASHING success. I must say that I am actually kind of jealous. It is a wonderful thing for someone to finally take that leap and do something that they really love and want to do. That is the essence of happiness.

So, I wish her nothing but luck and Godspeed, she is a friend so she always knows that she can call me up for anything she might need, including bail money.

Here is a press release that she sent out:

To Destination Wedd? …. or How to Destination Wedd?  …. That IS the Question!

At a total loss as to how to start planning your fantasy destination wedding?  Join the crowd… you are not alone.  But, help IS on the way!

Imagine That! Destination Weddings is changing how people go about finding their perfect spot for their destination wedding.  With over 25 years experience planning weddings and events, they have started something completely new for the bride and groom-to-be.  They are picking destination hot spots and planning fam (familiarization) trips for those interested in planning a destination wedding. 

Experience shows that Imagine That!’s brides and grooms face similar challenges as their own professional planners when considering a destination wedding.  What destination works best for them?  What vendors should they select?  What hotels do they consider?  And for the novice… how do they pick and choose without knowing a destination well enough, do they have to use an all-inclusive to get the best deal, what do and don’t they have to pay for for their guests? 

These savvy businesswomen have come up with a solution to everyone's problem -- go to the destination you are interested in by joining one of Imagine That!’s deeply discounted fam trips.  For approximately $500 participants spend 3-4 days experiencing the destination first hand, meeting the vendors they need in order to make their wedding a smashing success, and getting the answers from Imagine That! Destination Weddings professionals.

And what do they get for $500?

• hotel accommodations for 3 nights*
• ground transfers
• most meals
• tours of hotels
• tours of locations for the wedding ceremony
• tours of reception options
• tours of rehearsal dinner options
• excursions
• trade show with vendors
• one-on-one time with Imagine That! Planning Staff
• and much more!!!
• *airfare not included

Here are the destinations currently on Imagine That!’s agenda of upcoming fams: 

• Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
• St. Thomas, USVI
• Guanacaste, Costa Rica
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. 

Who is Imagine That! Destination Weddings?

Imagine That! Destination Weddings is full service destination company specializing in events and weddings worldwide.  With over 25 years experience, we are able to offer a full line of options and services.  We take the worry out of the planning.  By maintaining staff in various destinations you are guaranteed that local personnel will handle the initial ground work for your wedding and act as support to our U.S. based team.  Our U.S. experts remain accessible and focused on providing personal service and an increased level of comfort to you throughout your planning process.

Want more info on Imagine That! Destination Weddings?.... visit  our website or email or if you are a phone person - give them a call at 773.209.1770

What are people saying about Imagine That!?  Just ask some of our satisfied clients…

Imagine That! made our wedding dreams become a reality.  No one should plan a wedding without their help.  They took the stress away from us and we were able to enjoy the entire journey.
-- Nicole and Hanif Sidi, Windsor Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya

From the very beginning Imagine That! Destination Weddings creativity and meticulous attention to detail "wowed" us.  Teresa and her staff are pure perfection.
-- Jennifer and Bill Linder, Sheraton Hacienda del Mar, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

You worked complete magic for our wedding and we couldn't have done this without you.  You made the entire process so easy for us and always went  above and beyond.  Thank you for everything.
-- Elizabeth and Dave Kenneth, Private Villa, St. John US Virgin Island

Are you planning for disaster

I just received an email update from one of my event vendors, not a major thing on a typical day but for them, it is a very bad day. They are experiencing a major power outage at two of their facilities on the Western Suburbs of Chicago. Their phones are out, their email is down, they cannot process orders......the whole shebang.

The email details their situation, what they are doing and the fact that they are still on the ball even though they are not at 100% capacity. The email goes on to detail all of the cell phone numbers for anyone that you may need to contact.

This is the power of thinking ahead. This email was not on a whim, someone put forethought into it and had it ready to go in case there was a situation like this.

What are you doing to reach out to attendees in the event of a major power outage, storm or other disaster. Are you prepared, at a moments notice to send the emails or text messages that inform them to not head to the convention center. Do you have a plan in case their needs to be an evacuation. Are you ready for the storm on the horizon.

What if they need to reach someone, will they know how to get them or will they be making calls that go unanswered or sending emails that bounce back or sit in limbo while they fester and get angry that they are not getting a response.

Will they be confused about what to do, or will they have a leader to show them the way. Will they be scared or will they have someone with confidence and a call to action.

Knowledge is comfort, if attendees are kept up to date and informed about any situation it will help them get through it, it will help them understand. They may not like what you have to say, but they may need you to say it. You may even save a life.

Plan for success, prepare for failure, it may be the smartest thing you do.

Forced to use Social Media

As a meeting and event planner how would you change if you were forced to share unfiltered social media? How would this change the way you prepare content, treat the attendees and what you serve for lunch? How would it affect the session topics, the transportation options, signage and speaker selection.

What if you were forced to present your twitter feed on main screen before the general session for all to see, how about large LCD screens at registration or what if a people were tasked with simply reading tweets and blog posts about the event out loud in between sessions.

Would your events stay exactly the same or would you keep tweaking the program so that it was always improving, always growing, always getting better so that you could be confident about what was being said?

Event Ownership

Who owns your event? I am not talking about the legal form of ownership, I am talking about who owns it, who are the people that make it happen. Do you give them a sense of ownership or are you like some dictator that owns it all and takes credit for everything.

A feeling of ownership is important for everyone with a stake in your meetings and events. Attendees, staff, volunteers, sponsors, exhibitors and even vendors. They all need to have that sense of ownership so that they feel empowered to do the job and not just a good job, a great job.

Your event's success depends on everyone involved, not just you. Give everyone involved the tools that they need to fulfill their role to the best of their ability and you will find that your job becomes easier while the event becomes better and stronger. 

Just a thought.

Your Attendees – Industrial or Organic

Industrial farming is what we do now. We pack cows, chickens and other livestock into ever dirtier, ever smaller, ever darker spaces. We make it impossible for them to move, and simply push food at them, fattening them up for the slaughter that will eventually bring them to market. The food we give them is unhealthy; we pump them full of antibiotics and make them sick. Over time, that sickness gets into the food chain. We are polluting the whole system.  We have spent so much time and effort trying to perfect the system that we are destroying it and bringing it down around itself.

And then there was a movement. Small at first, but gaining steam everyday. Some farmers started to see a different way to do things. They opened the cages and let the livestock out. They let them roam free; eat nutritious meals that were meant for them; They live a healthy life without the use of antibiotics. The change is dramatic. Healthier food entering the food chain making this system stronger.  This system goes by many names like organic and free range.

This sounds a lot like the current state of the meeting, event and conference industry and you must ask, are your attendees industrial or free range? Don’t know the difference....

Standard Industrial Style Event with Industrial Attendee:

Attendee X wakes up, trips over unopened direct mail pieces from show, must get to airport, get on plane, get taxi, get to hotel, get to conference, get in the queue, receive badge, get same swag bag,  get to seat, stay there, listen to the same old presentations, get up, go to lunch, eat unimaginative, unhealthy food while listening to sponsor give a sales pitch, no time to mingle must get back to seat, listen to more presentations, get up, no time to mingle, must go to the cocktail party with more unhealthy event food, listen to sponsor give sales pitch, talk to other attendees about how this year is just like last year, day over must get back to hotel room, open swag bag, throw away contents, same as last year, go to bed, get up next morning, get to continental breakfast, grab bagel, sit down, listen to speakers drone on, watch more PowerPoint, get up, go to the lunch, listen to sponsor give sales pitch, no time to mingle must get to tradeshow portion, same exhibitors, same 10x10 booths, more PowerPoint, stagger through show floor, must get to next booth, pick up brochure, next booth, pick up brochure, next booth, pick up brochure, next booth, pick up brochure, get back to hotel room, throw away all brochures, go to evening event, eat same unhealthy event  food, listen to same band, too loud to talk to other attendees, go back to hotel room, wonder why here, get up next morning, keynote, is this the same guy as last year, next speaker, next speaker, next speaker, go to lunch, same food, conference over, fill out response form and check all above average cause no one listens, no one cares, attendee X does not care, get back in queue, get to airport, get back to work, open email, receive marketing email for next event, make plans to attend next event, see above………terminal fatal loop.

Moving to a new way:

Then one morning, this attendee wakes up. Not a sleep wake but an awakening. She gets the marketing email for the event she has attended for years and she deletes it. She no longer sees the need to attend this event. Why she thinks, it is just going to be like last year. There must be something better. 

This attendee goes to her computer and she types in a few keywords. Perhaps, “Industry X networking event”……. Bam, one event pops up and catches her attention even through her foggy, glazed over eyes.

As she clicks the link, a strange thing happens as she reads. Her eyes become a little more focused. It seems that this event has social media links. The attendee joins and finds others like her, they start to connect. They are discussing topics that they would like to see. Attendee X is no stranger to social media, she knows FaceBook and has a personal twitter account. She starts to type. She starts to interact.

The program is a little different she is learning, interactive, crowd-sourced….. There is a smartphone app that she downloads. Without registering, she can get all of the speaker bios and handouts and read them at her will…..choices, even before she commits. She is choosing what sessions to attend, when and how. There are links to see videos of last year's events. The attendees seem to be laughing. She likes this format and she registers.…..

After she registers for this event, she realizes that all of the meal functions use locally grown food and center on the cuisine of the local community. For attendee X, this is just interesting, she is not a “greenie” but she likes that it is different. She also likes that there are no sponsor pitches during the lunches. This is cool, it seems that the lunches are reserved for round-tables or networking. The evening events are tweet-ups and happen at locations all over the city. She can learn something new or go to her comfort zone, which ever suits her mood. She is no longer locked in. She is making choices. She is thinking that she might be glad she registered.

Soon she learns that the show floor is different too. Because she downloaded the show app to her phone, she has all of the exhibitors contact information and marketing materials right at her finger tips, right now. She no longer has to carry all of those brochures just to throw them away. She is making appointments with the exhibitors that interest her and she is contacting them before the event so that they know her needs and can address them specifically, sometimes, before she arrives. By noon of this day, she has made appointments with nine exhibitors.

She is now interacting with the sponsors and following their show updates on Twitter and FaceBook and they are talking to her, not at her.Wow, this is different.

Attendee X then she does something that she has not done in years. Something that she does not even realize that she has not done in years and something she will probably never even realize that she did. Attendee X did something that every event planner and show producer hopes for………..and something that should scare the daylights out of the show she used to call home..........

Attendee X writes an email that simply says “You should attend this event, I am going to be there” and she sends it to twelve people in the office and 5 more outside of the office, she then posts a link to the reg page on her FaceBook page and shares the link on Twitter. She has opened her own cage, walked out and joined the community.

She is now a free range attendee.

There is more to this story, but it is still playing out. You see, this attendee, this show, these exhibitors and these sponsors are learning. They are learning how to make this work, they are learning to communicate and they are learning from each other. Something that they had never done before. They will make mistakes, they will fall and they will have triumphs and successes. Attendee X does not care about the failures or the successes for that matter. She cares that she is now a part of something.