Bubbles on the Surface

My conceptual mind is a tinkering away today. The analogy is not yet right, but the question is firm and good:

Will the "Community" surpass the "Event" as the thing? So that events are simply bubbles on the surface of things?

I was re-reading an article this by @samueljsmith in the e-book Social Media for Events by @ready2spark and two specific points leaped off the page at me:

"Attendees will expect to connect with other delegates before, during, and after the event." & "New Events will emerge from online communities."

I am a strong believer in both of these statements (as well as the other 8 great points Samuel makes in the article) and have for a while been articulating the change in the event atmosphere and the understanding of event design and event education. But today a new thought happened! Forever, I have thought about events as "the event" - it is that which we prepare for, which attendees get excited about. The Event has always been the thing. And communities occurred as a result of the event; that is to say that people would meet at a conference or event and then stay in touch as new contacts in a Rolodex-version-of-community. But with a changing understanding of how adult learning occurs, more and more focus has been placed on conversation before, during and after the event. The explosive growth of Social Media continues to demonstrate that the power of the community to shape dialogue and make change is vast.

So what if the Community is really the thing, and not the event? What happens if we re-envision events as momentarily emergences from the conversations within a community that occur over the course of time. What if we consider first the community and its dialogues as the primary experience and like the warming lava inside lamp, at given periods of time portions of the population become excited and bubble up into gatherings on a certain topic, around a specific discussion, or for a special need of the community. As the accomplish their task, they fall back into the community and the conversation continues.

Perhaps a lava-lamp is not the best visual image here, but it gets at the point. Or maybe it is more like that plasma light I used to love to play with as a kid - lots of particles (=people) flying around inside a defined space (=community) in and amongst low pressure gases which makes them excited and visibly functional (=brand, organization, conversation, interest) and act on the sphere by touching your finger to the outside (=action of putting on an event) you cause some of those electrons to get hyper excited and come together to form potent streams of lights.

ReClaiming (and ReDefining) my job as a Designer

I hate the response:

"What do you do"
"I'm an event designer"
"Oh, so you make parties pretty."

No. I am a Designer. I am not a decorator. Yes, I do create, design and provide decor for events, but that is only one small component of the responsibilities our clients task and trust us with as the designer of their meeting or event.

And yet as an industry and community, we do not necessarily celebrate the role or work of the designer the way we celebrate the decor at an event. So many times we offer awards and print in magazines beautiful pictures of stunning events without ever thinking about or asking how that event came to be; without examining the design process which did (or did not) make that beautiful event successful. And yet it is in the process of the art of design, not in the product of that design that the reality of our contributions lives.

Now note! In NO WAY is this a value judgment about the role of a designer or the work of event decorators. There is not a value judgement to be made. Both are required, but one is much better understood (and exposed) and the other is not. So I am making it my job to change that.

I have been reading the fine blog, The Business of Being Creative by @seanlow for the last eight months and his graceful words have motivated me to put a stake in the ground. Sean discusses the art of the creative business as being something each artist must define for themselves and stick to, as their art, their contribution is their value. And how true. The gift we bring is an understanding of the process of creating an event. We understand the role of strategy and the important need for everyone to conceptualize the purpose of their projects, identify their audience and articulate the message of their brand or organization or of the individual celebrating. Only after this significant thoughtful energy has been spent can one really create a successful event which actually functions to serve a purpose.

It is these purpose-driven events which by design grow brands, change behavior, commemorate the past, the present or the future and create cause for celebration through the articulation of a defined set of values shared in a live, virtual or hybrid experience. It is not that these events are not "pretty" - but they are first purposeful. They are beautiful creations because they know why they exist, not because we put a bunch of beautiful things together. They are events which tell great stories - because that is our art, as true storytellers on the stage of the lived experience.

There will always be pretty events. But we don't make these. Because we are designers. And it is through our design that we make events matter.

A New Event Mantra

I am contemplating a change to the language of my website. My current motivation is as follows:

The nature of events is changing. Amid changing values and demographics the ideas of community and interaction are increasingly valuable. Organizations around the world are realizing experience of ‘the Brand’ no longer exists as a term of reverence, but is increasingly being devised in terms of user relationships with products. In a world in which everyone has an opinion and technology has given a platform to each voice, smart companies are listening. Events continue to emerge from the marketing mix as an ever-better way to generate user experiences and build brand loyalty.

The question is how to most effectively use meetings and events to do this. The answer lies in strategic event design. Great companies build identity and brand affinity through authentic experiences, one person at a time. Further, these event experiences have to be rooted in the strategic messages of the company – be it a launch of a new product or the communication of core values – and created to drive the dialogue of an audience, as a vehicle specifically tailored to their needs.

Building these purpose-driven event products is what BeEvents does.

Who agrees?

You bet crowdsourcing has a place at your next event.

Social media is all about community building. But what do you do when you have a problem and want to get input from that community? Well, you crowdsource!

Crowdsource! What is that? Crowdsourcing is taking a problem which you would normally solve within your company or your team and pushing it out, or outsourcing it, to a large community of unknown or known people seeking their solutions and contributions to accomplish the task or solve the problem.

What does this have to do with events? Well maybe everything. Many of the daily tasks or challenges - Say "Where are we going to have this year's conference?" can be outsourced to a knowledgeable community of event professionals or destinations who can offer input and provide solutions.

But I like crowdsourcing for another reason: it offers the possibility of empowering your attendees to help define and design their experience at your event. Imagine it: you can crowd source various elements of the event to your attendees and let them vote or have input or even make suggestions for what they want to experience. What entertainment do you want to see? Ask the audience. What food will you serve for the gala's main course? Ask the audience. Do you want to take a boat tour or head to a karaoke bar? Ask the audience.

All of these suggestions and a hundred others which might be asked or polled amongst an audience of attendees put the event planner in a unique position. By soliciting input from your guests you excite them, energize them prior to the event. You enable the opportunity to open dialogue prior to the event and at the event ABOUT THE EVENT which is becoming increasingly critical as brands and organizations compete for valuable time of their guests. Giving up ownerships increases the likelihood of success because you have gotten direct, measurable input for those who matter most, the attendees.

But lets take it one step further. For the embattled incentive trip, crowdsourcing solutions that allow the audience to help choose the destination and define the experience creates a whole new motivator for sales teams. If they are able to define the experience of their dreams which they will receive upon the successful completion of goals or sales would only increase their drive to meet those goals. Crowdsourcing could be your corporation's best incentive in driving success, motivating behavioral change and redefining the incentive rewards program to help meet your business objectives.

Inspiration: Target Golden Globes Commercial

Alright! Who caught the new Target Commercials tonight during the Golden Globes! They were fantastic works of art created by Catalyst Studios and showcasing the talent of Moses Pendelton's MOMIX Dancers.

My inspiration: Origami is back. The fantastic use of shape combined with the natural product like paper will make for great Event Decor for some upcoming projects!

I am going to kill the General Session!

BeEvents was selected by @ready2spark expert Lara McCulloch-Carter to participate in an e-book featuring seven Social Media experts sharing their thoughts on how Social Media will effect the future of meetings and events.

Included here is an expert from our chapter. The book is available for free from Ready2Spark's website.

I am on a mission to single-handedly destroy the ‘General Session’.

Ok, ok so I will not exactly be able to eradicate General Sessions from meetings all on my own. And, yes, General Session will still go on at meetings for years and decades to come. Just as breakout sessions and auxiliary events will continue to happen, because regardless of the immense growth and wealth of resources technology continues to churn out to help us meet better, accomplish more (or at least be busier), human beings are fundamentally social creatures and will always seek out opportunities to get together. The “live” event will never die. It is just going to change.

At BeEvents, we believe whole-heartedly in the notion that the purpose of event design is to facilitate the conversation. The growth in our industry is a reversal of the planning the process from task-driven planning to strategy-driven planning. It is not about finding the right color linen, booking the right entertainment, or figuring out the perfect way to process registrations and distribute gifts. And at the same time is it exactly about picking the right color linen, great entertainment and facilitating a smooth registration process. But the difference lies in knowing and understanding why you are doing it.

Far to often the planning process is thought of as:

Step 1: We’re Having a Meeting
Step 2: Need to pick a Location and Theme
Step 3: Complete all the to-do lists, checklists, master task sheets, forms, contracts,
vendors, obligations, negotiations, arbitrations, and many other …tions, until we collapse
post event with a stack of evaluations that really tell us nothing, hopefully a cold meal
which was left in the warmer, maybe a pat on the back from our boss or the corporate
executive and tomorrow we get up and do it all again.

But how often is Step 1 preempted with the question of “Why are we meeting in the first place?“ It is a question of great functional importance as budgets and staff have been cut and new technologies and virtual solutions present themselves as “cost-saving” measures. We need to question why in order to best understand what it is we are trying to accomplish (and, by default, what it is we are therefore seeking to measure to evaluate the event, its success and ROI). It is not that the logistical duties of effectively planning and producing a meeting and event are not relevant – they are critical. But first we must understand what the purpose of the project is in order to do those tasks effectively.

This is why strategy matters. The ability of an organization or an event team to effectively articulate its value proposition alongside it brand and goals and objectives, with without doubt simply produce better meetings and events. It is this organization that understands how to mix the virtual experience with the live experience in order to create learning and behavioral change (is that not the function of the meeting or incentive program, to educate and change behavior). It is this group who understands that the best spend of an event budget is on the items that most directly will create the experience necessary to meet the learning objectives. This group knows that the color of the carpet or the linens does not matter in and of itself because it is pretty or because it is ugly. They matter instead because they are contributors to effect-iveness of the audience’s experience.

The meaning is in the message and the message is communicated in the experience. The lesson of Social Media is that it creates offers environment in which communities of people can engage in conversation. Meetings and events are intended to do the same, with a bit of shaping, of course. And when all the elements are working together, the ability of the audience to engage in dialogue and create thoughts, ideas, and learnings multiplies. In this environment you tap into the natural expertise of everyone in the room – their experiences and their networks - expertise and ideas that hopefully track back to the office post event. That is why we have to get rid of the expert speaker and get rid of the stage and start the conversation among those in the room.

Thought for Today

People are Value Seekers. Overtime, value has come to mean very different things. While we live in a society in which “Value” seems to have been redefined as “best price” there is change in the ‘Social’ air. Amongst the new commodity of information readily available on the web…Value will re-emerge in terms of Expertise. And those who provide valuable expertise will be the ones who are listened to.