event disruption – Powers of Marketing

As I head into one of the most fun, most inspiring, most-learning-filled conferences (and weeks) of the year, it’s caused some reflection about Social Media Marketing World (SMMW), and what makes a conference great.

I also attended an amazing UN-Conference not too long ago, so I thought I’d write about what this un-conference is all about… and what the KEY things are that make #SMMW18 great.

This is my 5th year attending SMMW, and as someone who has worked in the meetings and events industry, I think I’ve attended upwards of 75 conferences in my career. I know what makes one great. Here I’m offering four ways this one does it right.

THE SMMW Conference

CONNECTIONS
SO helpful. Of the utmost importance for this show is helping every single attendee make the connections they’re looking for while they’re there. This effort starts in earnest before anyone gets to the convention center… WAY before. There’s a LinkedIn group for those who are registered, there’s a Facebook event where any attendee or prospect can engage with each other and the team. There are dozens of Slack channels. There are people managing the hashtag via Twitter and Instagram. There’s a dine-around sign-up to give folks an opportunity to connect with others in their space before even arriving at the conference. There’s an army of people dedicated to making sure everyone knows what they need to know, that they feel included, and feel welcome before they even arrive. They also have networking tables during lunch where everyone can chat with each other about their area of interest.

RESOURCES
In abundance. The company that puts on the show is Social Media Examiner (SME). SME does have a staff, but they also have a HUGE army of volunteers who engage with the community via all the different channels. Different staffers oversee the volunteers, and it all seems to work like a symphony. The volunteers are involved in managing the different channels in advance of the show, but they’re also the “boots on the ground” getting you registered, acting as human signage, overseeing each breakout room, etc. Needless to say, SME is also incredibly engaging via every single social media channel and Slack. It’s what they do, so it should go without saying, but so many conferences get this wrong (still)!

CONTENT
High quality. This actually goes hand-in-hand with resources, but it’s worth its own place in the list. Listen, this social media business is all so new, and EVER-changing. No one person can claim they know it all. We’re (in large part) at the mercy of the platform owners like Facebook, Twitter, and SnapChat, to name a few. Social Media Examiner’s business is to stay on top of it, and they do throughout the year with staffers like Erik Fisher and Jeff Sieh hopping on Facebook Live sometimes several times per week to break the news… and discuss what the implications are for all of us. They then parlay that into VERY carefully curating which speakers will provide the content at SMMW. You can’t really apply to speak–they ask those they see making a difference out there in the industry. Like with the most recent “Facebook apocalypse,” for example–they determined Brian Fanzo was the one who should speak on this in recent weeks, but it wasn’t on the original schedule. Being able to pivot like that is crucial in this business, and they do!

FEEDBACK
Taken seriously. I met the Event Director Phil Mershon a few years ago at the Corporate Event Marketing Association (CEMA) Summit. I shared with him I had attended the previous year, and he asked me for my feedback on the event… he has continued to ask for feedback from me and others, and I regularly see our suggestions implemented. They also survey all attendees, and I know they take it all to heart. This is only the 6th year SMMW has been held, and it’s improved incrementally every year because they care what the attendees think. As someone who has attended SO MANY conferences, this is unusual, and is probably the key reason it continues to be so good.

Haute Dokimazo

At the other end of the spectrum of a conference like SMMW is Haute Dokimazo (HD). Sounds like a Japanese meal, right? This is what some will refer to as an “un-conference,” which was created to throw all ways of planning a conference out the window. Equally awesome! And let me tell you why.

UNIQUE
Inspired founders. The three founders of this event are all event industry veterans. As one of them–Liz Lathan–said about it, “It occurred to us one day that the best part of conferences is the coffee breaks.” In other words, the moments you get speaking to people between the content often times is where there’s the most value. So they set out to create a unique event that’s all “coffee break”! They also decided to keep it to just 100 people, with the goal of having an even split between “brand” people and “suppliers.”

INNOVATIVE
Curated content. We were all given the chance to write topics that we were interested in exploring on giant post-its, in addition to offering to facilitate anything we are interested in/informed on. There were a few sessions pre-arranged, which were held while the event organizers mined through all of the post-its to determine our sessions for the following day. All of the content was exactly what we all wanted to explore. Brilliant!

EQUALLING
No pretense. Part of the magic about HD is that we’re all wearing name tags that have just our first name on them. There’s no distinction between who’s a “buyer” and who’s a “seller.” As Annette Gregg stated, it was nice to be in an environment where there were no “sharks and minnows.” We all spoke to everyone and interacted because we were all after the same thing–simply making connections and learning from each other. I’ve never felt such a warm and inviting environment at a conference prior to this.

INSPIRATIONAL
Genuine joy. The event started with lunch… And rather than waiting in a line to get our badges for the conference, we put our first name on a “Hello my name is” tag, and were guided to a table where our host introduced us to everyone at the table. Instantly we got to know those at our table before we eventually made our way to the Children’s Museum–an incredibly fun and inspirational venue for a “conference.” At the end of the second day we then had the opportunity to share with everyone all of the positives and negatives of the event. It was incredible to give feedback in real-time vs. filling out a survey! We all left this event better people and professionals than when we arrived.

You can also listen to the Making a Marketer podcast to hear two of the founders of HD talk about its origin, and what it’s all about.

These two events are so VERY different, and equally amazing in their own ways. If you have the opportunity to go to either — or both — I highly recommend it! You’ll leave both events with new contacts and new friends. I guarantee it.

When I get asked what I’m about professionally I say I’m passionate about events and marketing, and particularly how communication manifests itself between the two. I’ve worked in sales and marketing since 1998 (prior to that I was a technical writer), and through the work I did from 2006-2012 I grew the most personally and professionally because of my work in live events… I grew primarily because of the people in the industry with whom I built relationships, and because of all the work that went into the events that I planned and sold — not to mention the thrill of seeing an event come to life after SO MUCH work being put into the planning (more on that later!).

I’ve been working as a marketing consultant for the past two years. What does that mean? I help companies with any facet of marketing they need help with. I’ve developed sponsorship packages for an association, developed social media strategies for startups, provided technical advisement & Website development for an event planning company, managed community for three restaurants (all social communication and reputation management), executed marketing strategies, and developed blogs. If it involves marketing, I’m in!

Okay, so I’m not always in. I’ve learned the power of saying no. Saying no to taking on too much work… And to individuals or companies I had an inkling might not be a good fit. It was terrifying and empowering at the same time.

When I met my client Tommy Melancon to chat about his new venture EventCollab, I knew right away that I wanted to get involved. Planning events is an incredibly involved process. Events have planners, venues, producers, graphic designers, social media marketers, sponsors, exhibitors, audio-visual equipment providers (sales people, account managers, project managers), event producers (sometimes also the AV co.), freelancers, volunteers… and on. Making sure all of these people are collaborating efficiently is something we’ve all been trying to do forever. EventCollab excited me because it was a solution to a problem I knew existed–a problem I have experienced first-hand. There had to be a better way.

How many times do you have difficulty following an email trail that’s been going around-and-around? Keeping track of what the latest schedule is, and who still has what to do for the event? It’s exhausting. Most of the event management apps that are out there (more than 100) are attendee-facing apps dealing with registration, scheduling, speaker management, etc., but there are very few providing the ability to have logistics and planning pieces under one roof. The solution under the EventCollab roof is fantastic! I sincerely wish I had a program like this when I was working in event production. The opportunity to collaborate with my clients in this way leading up to a show would have been a dream.

I have the choice in who I work with, and I’m truly excited to be working with EventCollab. Working with a start-up being funded by someone who is still running his event production co. (EventCollab was created out of necessity because nothing else existed like it when they began development) is a challenge. And marketing a product that’s not really in competition yet with another product (there are few that exist, and they are very different) is also a challenge — we’re basically competing with “the same old way” everyone has been doing things… So we’re tasked with challenging the events industry to perhaps step outside of their comfort zone.

Getting out of our comfort zones can be hard at first, but in this case the payoff will be more collaborative and efficient teams, which will save money in the long run, and make planning repeat events more seamless. The potential excites me!

I hope the work you’re doing excites you also. Doing what you enjoy, with people you like, in a way that satisfies you will feed your soul. I’ve been told that I’ve never seemed happier, which is a direct result of following my gut, and only working with people and products that I believe in.

If you’re an #eventprof, you need to give EventCollab a whirl – challenge yourself to do it better. For real.

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