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.

BeInspired

Editor's Note: This article is a shortened post of the January 2010 Design Column in Event Solutions Magazine, pages 48-49.

N-E-W-Y-E-A-R spells Relief! Or so go the hopes and exaltation of many event designers and producers this year. I don’t know about you, but 2009 needed to be done. At best, the year was a mixed bag. And at worst a lot of twiddling of thumbs as clients remained unsure and indecisive. Or my new favorite: the reinforcement of the increasingly bad behavior of contracting and delivering projects with days or less notice. But all that (hopefully) is remains in 2009.

With a new year off and running, its time again to be inspired. But where can you find inspiration for your new project or an old one in desperate need of rejuvenation? Here are a few tricks which get my creative juices going.

Go Shopping: for everything except what is on the store shelves that is. Retailers spend mucho dollars each year, forecasting trends and implementing colors and styles that will trickle down in 1-3 years to the event world. But beyond the commercial goods, look closely at the way retailers display their goods. Creating places for customers to pause or various focal points to draw customers through large spaces is what retail store designers are good at. And they employ many of the same strategies event designers can to accomplish the same goal. So look close next time you walk into Target or Crate & Barrel or your favorite store. The next great trend in buffet displays may turn out to be little more than an innovation on a sweater rack.

Don’t want to leave your house? Turn on the TV ...and watch the commercials. Same thing goes – watch closely and you will see trend colors, styles, motifs, and patterns emerge before your very eyes. Television programs can contribute to, particularly those which tap into the current cultural emotion. There is a reason the television show Mad Men is so popular. In our uncertain economic climate, the emotional trend is towards authentic experiences that remind us and re-inspire us about the simple good things in life. Classic, formal style has returned, but with a modern twist.

Go Swatching! Now I know clients give me a funny look every time I suggest we hit the hardware store, but truth be told, the paint section of your local hardware giant or hometown store is one of the best places to play with color. Grab a handful of those over-sized color chips in colors that strike you or your clients as favorites or inspirational. Having the big color chips makes it easy to mix and match and find a palette that suits your needs. Use this to build a style or color board incorporating favorite element and decorative items and before you know it your design will start to emerge.
Read more about using color from the impeccable Sasha Souza.

Branch Out: One of my favorite new inspiration ideas is that of branching. It is a version of brainstorming where you take an object and describe every detail of it, eventually using those details as the base of your design. So lets say you have a client who loves watermelon. You can use the watermelon as your inspiration. First list all of its qualities: red, green, white, seeds, black, round, oval, heavy, large, wet, sweet, etc. Perhaps consider the things that come to mind when you think of watermelon: summer, sun, outdoors, grilled foods, holiday, etc. Use those ideas and elements to create your event: your color palette may include variegated shades of greens and melon red. Flowers may be large, heavy and round in shape but with a sweet summery scent. Perhaps oval dishware. This is not about literally doing an event that has watermelons as centerpieces and looks like a watermelon! It is about being inspired by the essence of the watermelon to create your design.
Learn more about branching from The Wedding Guys Blog.

Now it's your turn. Where do you find Inspiration??

Let's go 3-D!

So it's New Years weekend and like millions of other individuals I headed to the theater to catch the new Avatar movie. Blowing (too much money) on tickets and (way too much money) on snacks, I looked down at my ticket and noticed we were watching the flick in...3-D!

"Oh great" I joked with my fellow movie goer. "I can't wait to put on my silly paper glasses of red and blue" Boy was I wrong.

The glasses we received were not of the cheese I remember, but thick black plastic with "plain" lenses. And once the movie began, the screen literally came to life. To see creatures and images leap forward off the screen to me in my seat was a revelation. And I said to myself what any self-respecting event designer would: When can I do this.

Imagine it: 3-D would bring wonders to event design. Attend an event, don some funky glasses and experience video projected images come to dimensional reality right in front of your eyes. It adds completely new layers to conceptual design. Not only are their real props, but 3-D video props and environmental features popping off the screen This would be the personalization of experience. Integrate augmented reality and interactive 3-D video and you the guests would choose your own experience.

Now who is to say this would be functional? The level of sophistication and planning to craft an experience that was not Disney-fied as a "walk-through" expereince but could exist over-time would be extensive. Still I love the thought of the challenge. So techies tell me: how soon before I can play with the third dimension?

(The movie was a visual splendor by the way. Not my favorite script of the year, and for the reason though I am sure it will be offered the Oscar, I can think of better choices, but COMPLETELY worth seeing for the visuals. This is the stuff of a chocolate factory: pure imagination. It also tells me hyper-color is on its way back in. See the movie and then tell me if you don't agree.)

We need your VOTE!

We have some exciting news! BeEvents' creative producer, Ryan Hanson has been selected a finalist for the 2010 Event Solutions Spotlight Award for Designer of the Year... It is a true honor and we are up against some great competition (as well as colleagues and friend)... But now it is in your hands (and all the hands of the people you know...and they know... and they know!)

We need you to take 2 minutes and VOTE by January 31, 2010. You can vote once from any email address (and they only collect your email address to verify that you vote only once.)

Go to: http://www.event-solutions.com/spotlight/vote/ Enter your email address and VOTE for Ryan Hanson, BeEvents for Designer of the Year. You can vote just for us or you can explore and vote in the other categories as well.

But WE NEED YOUR VOTE(S)!!!! (And then pass along to your colleagues and friends)