Welcome | View My Profile | Sign Out
MediaPost Home About MediaPost Privacy/Terms Media Kit Sitemap
Publications Home News
Online Media Daily Media Daily News Marketing Daily Mobile Marketing Daily Search Marketing Daily
Daily Feed> Email Daily Feed> Video Daily Feed> Social
Online Blogs
Online Spin Email Insider Search Insider Behavioral Insider Online Publishing Insider Mobile Insider Video Insider Gaming Insider Performance Insider Metrics Insider Social Media Insider Just An Online Minute Daily Online Examiner Raw Blog
Media Blogs
Research Brief Diane Mermigas:On Media TV Watch TV Board Magazine Rack Media Creativity Notes From the Digital Frontier Digital Outsider Mad Blog Red White and Blog
Marketing Blogs
Engage:Hispanics Engage:Kids 6-11 Engage:Moms Engage:Boomers Engage:Gen Y Engage:Teens Marketing:Green Marketing:Sports
Magazines
OMMA Magazine Media Magazine
Subscribe
Feedback Loop RSS Feeds Archives Subscribe
Dec 2 Search Insider Summit (Utah) Dec 6 Email Insider Summit (Utah) Jan 11 OMMA Agency of the Year (NYC) Jan 12 MEDIA Agency of the Year (NYC) Jan 26 OMMA Social (San Francisco) Jan 27 OMMA Performance (SF) Feb 24 OMMA Metrics Measurement (NYC) Feb 25 OMMA Behavioral (NYC) Mar 15 OMMA Global (San Francisco) Apr 14 Search Insider Summit (FL) Apr 18 Email Insider Summit (FL)
Recently Concluded Events
Nov 3 OMMA Adnets (NYC) Oct 30 OMMA Video (LA) Oct 29 OMMA Mobile (LA) Oct 29 OMMA Mobile & Video (LA) Sep 23 Creative Media Awards (NYC) Sep 23 The Future Of Media (NYC) Sep 22 Online All Stars (NYC) Sep 21 OMMA Awards (NYC) Sep 21 MediaPost Live at Advertising Week All-Access (NYC) Sep 21 OMMA Global New York (NYC)
All MediaPost/OMMA Events Event Blogging Past Event Videos
Industry Events Calendar
2010 OMMA Agency of the Year 2010 MEDIA Agency of the Year
2009 Creative Media Awards 2009 OMMA Awards 2009 Digital Out-of-Home Awards 2009 Media Agency of the Year 2009 OMMA Agency of the Year
All Awards
Employment Situations Wanted Services Offered Post a Job
Briefs Reports Online
MediaPost Directories
Mobile Insiders Group
People Finder Edit My Profile View My Profile My Contacts My Calendar
HOME • MANAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS • MEDIA KIT
Six Ways To Improve Conferences
by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 2:30 PM

SHARE

TOOLS

RELATED ARTICLES
TAGS:  Conferences, Commentary, Social Media

MOST READ

In May and June, I participated in 13 events as a moderator (six), panelist (four), and featured or keynote presenter (three). They weren't evenly dispersed; May brought a stretch of four events in two and a half days, while June had a span of three events in three cities within 48 hours. It was both thrilling and tiring, and I'm glad I get to return to the day job for a while.

Along the way, I came up with a few thoughts on what can make events even better for all participants going forward. Some organizers have a real knack for this; Jeff Pulver in particular deserves a lot of credit for his thoughtful considerations that he incorporated into his 140 Characters Conference. Ultimately, participating in so many events spanning a range of topics mostly around social media topics gives me a way to cross-pollinate some of the best of what I've seen. Here's what can be done:

  • Mix it up. A number of events suffer from panel syndrome. When you have a large number of panels one after the other, they all start to sound alike. Get some solo speakers, even for short presentations as interludes. When you have a panel, also request speakers sit in the order they're listed in on the screen. If someone's a minute late to a session or distracted with an email during introductions, it's impossible to tell who's who without that arrangement. It's even harder for panels with four or five white males. As one of them, I can tell you from the back of the room, we all do look alike, especially with the social media uniform of the blazer, button-down, dark jeans, and loafers (sometimes we wear khakis).

  • Include speakers' Twitter handles on screen during their sessions and in the programs if the events have anything to do with social media. I've been lobbying a few event producers to do this, and I'm hoping it will become standard practice soon. The people tweeting about events are providing pro bono exposure, often to hundreds or thousands of others. It's even more effective if those tweeters can refer directly to the speakers' handles. Speakers are especially likely to have handles, and it makes it easy for speakers to continue the dialogue with tweeters after the session.

  • Know how to pace a panel. The 140 Characters panel with Rick Sanchez and Ann Curry was remarkable for a number of reasons (Ann Curry may be the best panelist I've ever seen). One first I witnessed there was that Pulver let the conference go twice as long because the audience was so engaged (watch Part 1 and Part 2). Most people I spoke to felt that panel alone made the conference worth their while. Another event I attended was so off schedule that by the afternoon, they couldn't find speakers since no one had a clue when they were speaking. Delays need to either be accounted for (like with a shorter lunch) or clearly communicated. Organizers should be conscious of extending some sessions when people are hooked, even if it means cutting others short when they fall flat.

  • Rework name badges. I'm not the first to say this, and I do see thoughtfully designed badges more often, but the majority of events I go to force unnecessary squinting. Priorities should be given to first names and companies. If it's a really geeky event, Twitter handles merit the same prominence. The smallest amount of space should go to the event name -- everyone knows what event they're at, and if they don't, the organizers have bigger problems.

  • Treat bloggers like the press, or don't include them. If you want people blogging about the event, give them the same courtesy you would to credentialed journalists, ideally with reserved seating and easy access to panelists. I declined to attend one event as a blogger when they tried setting restrictions on how much I could blog, as they feared live blogging was conveying too much information. I emailed the organizer, "If people who aren't there think they can get their money's worth from an event by reading a transcript, perhaps you should cancel the events and sell the transcripts."

  • Follow up with shareable content. For social media events, participants are especially likely to be active across social channels. Let them promote your event for you. Post multimedia to services where photos and videos can be embedded, tagged, and downloaded. Aggregate links to others' multimedia and blog posts in a single area. Provide a convenient list of everyone who was tweeting about the event.

    Several of these suggestions include ways to extend the experience beyond the event itself. Here's one thing organizers don't need to do: create a new social network just for attendees of that one event. With rare exceptions, they're a waste of time, and participants would be better served with groups on existing networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

    Event organizers aren't the only ones who can keep providing more value to attendees. Speakers and moderators can also step it up, and they may be addressed in a future post. Share your other suggestions in the comments.

    85 people recommend this article. 
  • 7 comments on "Six Ways To Improve Conferences"

    1. Tony Stubblebine from CrowdVine
      commented on: July 10, 2009 at 5:18 PM
      Hi David, I found this post through Michelle Bruno's blog and wanted to respond to your assertion that events shouldn't create their own social network. I think this misconception is driven by experiences with the previous generation of event networking products (pre-2007). Those products did an awful job of getting adoption and, as we should all be figuring out about social software, you need people.

      The second wave of products, which include my company CrowdVine, are essentially simplified versions of the social networks everyone is familiar with (Facebook/MySpace). That cuts down the learning curve and helps get adoption up.

      We’ve personally worked with over 100 events (which is by far the most in this space, but also just a drop in the world of events), and we’ve only had two events which didn’t have at least 30% adoption. It looks like you used a CrowdVine at Web 2.0 Expo NYC. That one had 3200 attendees which represented over half of all attendees at the conference.

      We started with tech conferences like Web 2.0, but most of our conferences now are for mainstream companies like General Mills or mainstream professions like nurses or lawyers and see adoption rates between 30-70%. Engagement, measured by page views, discussions, and connections made, are also high, definitely much higher than what people have seen in LinkedIn or Facebook groups.

    2. Charity Hisle from Benson Media, Inc.
      commented on: July 01, 2009 at 1:31 PM
      Great post! Because name badges are so difficult, I put my Twitter handle on the sleeve of my shirt for the last conference I attended. It was a big hit! People could see who I was from across the room AND sideways.

    3. David Honig from Media6Degrees
      commented on: June 30, 2009 at 9:33 PM
      Agree on all points Dave! Also to add to the " mix it up " Category. Start bringing in new voices and let them be heard. There are many brilliant people out there that just do not get on stage and many conferences have the same names, the same faces..... dont get me wrong, I like everyone i see ( including you :) ) but it would be great to see some new young faces to hear their point of view.

      @DAVEHONIG

    4. April Broussard from Speakin' Up
      commented on: June 30, 2009 at 6:42 PM
      Great article David. I need to get it out to all my meeting planner friends! Another thing I would like to see at all the conferences (regardless of topic or industry) is a running stream showing all of the tweets that are going out with the assigned hashtag. Either have them projected up on screens or in the walkways on monitors. It helps to connect, both the events/topics being discussed and the people that are there.

    5. Jeff Hurt from NADP
      commented on: June 30, 2009 at 3:31 PM
      Yes, yes and yes! There are a group of event & meeting professionals that are embracing some of the principles that undergird the social space and integrating it with the event experience. We believe the focus is really on the attendee before conference logistics. This vibrant community uses the hashtag #eventprofs in Twitter to discuss many of the points you shared above.

      Bottom line it's about using the social web to extend the conference experience before, during and after the event and integrating the offline & online experiences for attendees. I do it for my work and ask our speakers to create 2 blog posts, 1 e-news letter article, 1 webinar, 1 radio interview and face-to-face event. It’s actually part of their contract. As the event organizer, I intentionally seek to extend the event experience.

    6. David Berkowitz from 360i
      commented on: June 30, 2009 at 3:29 PM
      Good call, Steve. That's another thing Pulver did well. I was at an event last week where I COULD NOT get my badge to face the right way. I would have needed to glue it on my shirt. Double-sided printing is less messy :)

      Granted, it doesn't work when you have meal tickets and stuff in your badge holder (or if you like carrying your business cards in it), but dangnabbit you can't have everything.

    7. Steve Sarner from Tagged
      commented on: June 30, 2009 at 3:27 PM
      Great input - and one more thing on name badges - print the name on BOTH sides...seems like 1/2 the people have their name badge flipped over - and I don't think it is on purpose (at least not always anyway)

      :)

    Leave a Comment

    You must be signed in to comment. Sign In

    Do you have strong opinions and inside knowledge about the topic of this article -- and do you want to share your insights, observations and points of view regularly with the readers of MediaPost? To be considered as a MediaPost contributing writer, please send pertinent info about your credentials, plus several column ideas and one example of your writing on the topic, to pfine@mediapost.com. Please see our editorial guidelines here first.

    DAVID BERKOWITZ


    AUTHORS

    ARCHIVES

    RECENT VIDEOS
    Recent Social Media Insider Articles
    Why the Fortune 100 Is The Land Of The Tepid Tweeters   
    Sorry to break it to you, Fortune 100, but when it comes to Twitter, most of...
    100 Ways To Measure Social Media   
    At most of the events I've been to lately, measurement continues to be a hot topic....
    Spitting & Twitting    
    It's tempting to say the best thing about the wine-tasting event Spit & Twit was the...
    Finding Method To The Social Media Madness: How Socialistas Sort Through The Clutter    
    You may remember that a few weeks back, the Social Media Insider was a victim of...
    With MSN Redesign, The Torch Passes Officially To Social Nets    
    The ways to access social content just increased by a factor of one -- a big...
    Make A Twitter List And Check It Twice   
    Twitter just introduced Twitter Lists, the biggest change to its service that ever came from the...
    Is the Promise of Social Media Enough? What About ROI?   
    I'm sitting at the 140 Conference in L.A. and have just finished listening to the CMO...
    The Search For Meaning -- And A Column Idea -- In The Social Media Universe   
    Here's something you don't see very often: the Social Media Insider staring at a blinking cursor,...
    With Bing, That Sound You Hear Is Facebook & Twitter Saying, 'Ka-Ching!'    
    Microsoft is expected to announce that tweets and Facebook status updates will be searchable via Bing,...
    Bacardi Rum, 80 Million Bucks & Facebook    
    Bacardi recently launched its latest campaign, called "Islands," which is poised to make a splash (pun...
    >> Social Media Insider Archives 
    ABOUT MEDIAPOST • MASTHEAD • MEDIA KIT • RSS FEEDS • PRIVACY/TERMS & CONDITIONS
    ©2009 MediaPost Communications. All rights reserved.
    1140 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001
    tel. 212-204-2000, fax 212-204-2038, feedback@mediapost.com