The EventProfs Virtual Attendee Wish List

I’m here in Chicago gearing up for Event Camp. Tomorrow, I’ll be your virtual host for Event Camp and moderating a session called Thinking of Your Virtual Audience: An Open Discussion. With the input of many folks in the #eventprofs community, I put together a wish list of elements that make for a successful virtual/hybrid event. Below is the culmination of that input. I invite you to join us virtually for Event Camp tomorrow and Sunday and contribute to the discussion. You can register for free at bit.ly/ecncvirtual.

1. The virtual audience wishes to be able to participate and interact in real time with the face-to-face audience and one another, to extend our learning and build camaraderie within our community. We want to join and leave conversations as on-site attendees do, to be able to have “side conversations” with several virtual and face-to-face attendees outside of the general chat stream.

2. The virtual audience wishes for a virtual host and tech moderator, someone who is a touch point for the virtual attendees. We wish for a person that is on-site, reaching out to us, encouraging and sustaining our participation with direct interaction, someone to ask questions and give comments to the presenter on our behalf (giving a voice to our tweets). This person will engage us when there is an on-site activity that we cannot participate in. They will give us custom content specifically designed for the virtual audience, including interviews and a “behind the scenes” look at the room to show us what we are missing (show us, don’t tell us).

3. The virtual audience wishes for great content and transparent technology (audio is clear, video is clean, and the presentation visuals can be seen). Don’t give us a reason to check our email.

4. The virtual (and face-to-face) audience wishes to have speakers that can deliver their content effectively to keep us from falling asleep in our chairs. Please stop punishing us with painful panel discussions that we can’t engage with (a Q&A at the end doesn’t cut it).

5. The virtual audience wishes to have a virtual environment or platform that is easy to understand and navigate, where we can find the content we need, listen to the speaker deliver his/her presentation, and interact with other attendees.

6. The virtual audience wishes to have the availability of a dedicated Twitter stream (hashtag) and a real person moderating it.

7. The virtual audience wishes to have clear start and break times for our virtual attendance (virtual agenda). We don’t want to miss out on participating in something that was setup and broadcast just for us.

These are our wishes… But realize there will be more.

What are your wishes as a virtual attendee of a conference or webinar?

Special thanks to Lara McCulloch (@ready2spark), Mike McCurry (@michaelmccurry), Mike McAllen (@mmcallen), Greg Ruby (@GregRuby), Adrian Segar (@ASegar), Christina Stallings (@MsStallings), Vanessa LaClair, Heidi Thorne (@heidithorne), Tahira Endean (@TahiraCreates), Christina Coster (@MizCity), Joan Eisenstodt (@JoanEisenstodt), Deb Roth (@PinkDeb), Midori Connolly (@GreenA_V), and Jeff Hurt (@JeffHurt) for contributing to this wish list. You guys ROCK!!!

Known as the “Voice of Meetings & Events”, Glenn Thayer is a host for live and televised events. He specializes in hybrid meetings, conference moderation and strategic content delivery. He can be contacted at glennthayer.com or @glennthayer on Twitter.

The Event Camp Experience Part I

I’m here in Chicago and excited for the opening reception here at Event Camp. The next two days are going to be filled with excitement, energy, and a whole lot of learning. Most of the Eventprofs community will be here (those that aren’t will be missed). The great part, is that you can still attend virtually for free at bit.ly/ecncvirtual.

The view from my room at the Hotel Allegro

I get to interview all of our speakers here at Event Camp, so if there is anything you want me to ask them, send me a tweet (@glennthayer) and I’ll share your questions and comments. I’m also moderating a session on “Thinking About Your Virtual Audience.” Your input would be great (before and during the session)!

I hope you can join us at Event Camp!

Cheers,

Glenn

Using Voice Talent For Meetings & Events

If you’ve ever been to a meeting or event, you’ve heard the voice talent. A voice talent can add a tremendous amount of professionalism and excitement to your meeting or event. Not sure what that is? Take a listen.

Glenn’s Corporate Meeting Voice Over
GlennThayer_2009_corporate.mp3

So what is a voice talent?

A voice talent is the person you hear, but don’t see. They could be the movie trailer voice, the voice of the loading zone at the airport, video game voices, radio voices, television voices, trade show kiosk voices and more.

We’ve all heard the voice talent say “Ladies and Gentlemen, please be seated” and the infamous “Please welcome your CEO…” at many meetings and events, but what can it do for you?

A professional voice talent can:

Keep your production at a professional level
Be a great substitute when you don’t have a budget for a professional master of ceremonies
Narrate your videos
Brand your event (before, during, and after)

I’ve posted some generic “please be seated” voice overs below for you to use. Download them here and use them in your production today! They are in WAV format and can be transferred into your playback system of choice (Instant Replay, iTunes, CD). Need something customized for your conference or event? Contact me and I will be happy to help you out.

10 Minutes Before Show – (right-click to save)

5 Minutes Before Show - (right-click to save)

Show Is Beginning - (right-click to save)

Got questions? Give me a call at (719) 473-6848 and I would be happy to answer them!

Will Twitter Help Or Hurt Your Meeting?

A Look At MPI’s MeetDifferent 2010

I had the opportunity to chime in on a recent conversation on the MeCo (Meetings Community) list regarding using Twitter in meetings, specifically MeetDifferent 2010. There have been a couple versions of this conversation being passed around in meeting and conference association publications. I’ll repeat it here as an additional resource.

Below is a copy of my post from that discussion:

I should be able to shed some light on this from a couple of angles. I was the host for MPI’s MeetDifferent in Cancun and had to design the best way to integrate the Twitter feed into the general sessions. Since the sessions were broadcast live on the web, we needed to include the virtual audience during the Q & A.

Glenn interviewing Marty Neumeier at MeetDifferent 2010 - Photo by Reflections Photography and courtesy of Meeting Professionals International (MPI)

For the general session:
I believe it is a bad idea to have a live Twitter feed on the screens. It’s distracting for the audience and the speaker. Hence, no Twitter feed on screen for MD10. A member of MPI’s content team was backstage, monitoring the Twitter feed. Then, she would post comments and questions from the feed that were relevant to the conversation I was having with the keynote speaker, directly to the confidence monitors. I was able to acknowledge the virtual audience and respond to their questions in addition to those from the face-to-face attendees.

For the hybrid meeting breakout:
We still did not have a Twitter feed on screen. However, as the tech moderator, I monitored the feed and would chime in during the presentation with relevant comments or questions from our virtual and face-to-face audience (I had a microphone as well). Many in the face-to-face audience still used Twitter to comment and ask questions. I felt that Twitter enabled attendees to ask more questions because they didn’t need to speak into the microphone to ask them.

A couple of notes:
If the session is being broadcast live over the web, you will definitely want to have someone moderating the Twitter feed and sending pertinent comments and questions to the speaker via the confidence monitors. This is especially true if your speakers are having any type of interaction with the audience. It allows your virtual audience to be part of the action.

If the session is not being broadcast, and there is not going to be any interaction between the speaker and the audience, there’s no reason to have a feed. Just keep an eye out for comments about the session.

If you broadcast to your attendees that there is a hashtag for the event, you have signalled that the Twitter feeds will be monitored and interaction via Twitter is encouraged. Make sure your entire team (and executive leadership) is on board.

I do not recommend using Twitter in private corporate conferences. You wouldn’t want to have attendees losing their jobs because they are ‘accidentally’ tweeting about an upcoming product launch (beware of confidentiality and trade secrets).

That’s my $.02!

What experience have you had using Twitter in your meetings?

Is Social Media Right For Your Conference or Event?

Image by Matt Hamm

How often do we hear…

“You need to have a Facebook fan page for your event!”
“You need to have a Twitter hashtag for your conference!”
“If you’re not engaging your attendees with social media, you’re missing out!”

How often is that really the truth?

**Note: If you are having a corporate or non-public event, open social media channels may not be appropriate. You could be in breach of non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. We’ll discuss closed social networks in another post.

In my experience, it all comes down to how your audience accesses information online. Most of the time, this is a generational trait. If your audience is 15-25 years old, chances are they receive most of their information through social networks such as Facebook. If that is your target audience, you may want to have a Facebook fan page (hint, hint).

If your audience is over 40, are they using LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter? Do they have profiles setup on the social networks, but don’t access them for professional use? Are they the small (but growing percentage) of users that makes full use of their online experience?

For audiences between 25-40, you could have a combination of both types of attendees. I have a friend who is graphic designer in his 30′s, and is not connected to social media in any way. When asked how he wants his information delivered… He said, “Mail it to me. I enjoy reading when it’s not on my computer.”

The simple solution is to find out how your attendees want their information delivered, and how they want to interact with you before, during, and after the event.

On Twitter hashtags…
If you (the conference organizer) is publishing a hashtag for your meeting, your attendees will expect to be able to communicate with you through it. They will also want to be reassured that your staff will be monitoring the hashtag for questions, comments, and complaints. If you won’t have anyone monitoring the feed… Don’t publish a hashtag.

The Bottom Line
Are you really missing out if your not engaging your attendees on the social media level? The easy answer is to find out. With online registration it is easier than ever to get information on how your attendees operate in their social networks.

These are just some of the questions you will want to ask before fully engaging on the social media bandwagon.

In my opinion, you should always have a presence on the major social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube). The amount of marketing effort you will put into them is solely determined by your audience. Not every event is right for social media integration, so do your homework on your audience.

Social networks… They’re free, they’re easy to use, and your attendees are looking for you there.