Certain

It was a large software conference and over 10,000 attendees had flown in from around the globe. The CEO of the hosting company took great pride in embracing technology and being accessible to his contingency. He insisted that social media be a highlight of the conference and utilized, not only for communication amongst participants, but also as the medium of choice for any and all to be a “part of the conversation.”

 

Well, there was conversation alright. A very vocal attendee was lactose intolerant and had made his special dietary request during the registration process. He received his lactose-free salad box lunch but somehow, unbeknownst to the planner, catering had included a dressing which contained parmesan cheese. I think you know where this is going. 

 

Since the CEO had invited all of the participants to contact him directly through social media, that attendee went on to claim that “Catering tried to kill me by giving me a salad dressing with milk product when I am lactose intolerant!”  The CEO became involved in “The Dairy Case” and everyone participating in the event conversation via social media was aware of his near-death experience from the evil caterers who served him parmesan cheese. For the remainder of the conference, this particular attendee continued his diatribe and required more maintenance than a visiting dignitary.

 

As an event professional, I am sure you have dealt with your fair share of event snafus and unhappy attendees. Our jobs are difficult not simply for the sheer quantity of work expected in minimal time, but also for the impeccable attention to detail that is assumed to come naturally to those of us who devote our lives to planning events. We have to remember the most minute details and will likely be held accountable for them – especially in this age of instant, real-time communication. 

 

While this facet of your job may be the least interesting, it is important to carry out with due diligence. To do that well, it takes more than just good planning. It takes collaboration at every step of the event execution process. If that planner had been collaborating with the catering managers ahead of time, they could have had a real-time accounting of all dietary requirements as registration took place, and then uploaded menus with ingredients and nutritional information long before anyone got a lunch box. The entire embarrassing situation might have been alleviated.

 

The lesson learned here: Uphold your reputation by collecting accurate data from your attendees and actioning that data well in advance with an event management platform that lets all of the vendors in your ecosystem share the latest information – and the burden – of getting it right. After all, no one should let the likes of parmesan cheese sentence the rest of their life to the proverbial doghouse.

 

 

Customers, prospects, employees and industry colleagues have asked me for my thoughts about Active Network's acquisition of Starcite.  My take:  Net, net, it's good for the events industry at large; for their respective customers, it's a case-by-case situation.   

The good? It's another milestone signaling the maturation of the events industry, and amplifies a recognition that, like other enterprise software market needs, large customers require a broader array of products which seamlessly integrate with each other and with the existing enterprise technology infrastructure.  

Certain, like Active Network, recognizes that the enterprise market (which Active Network characterizes as a $10B untapped market) is the largest source of revenue for the meetings and events industry.  Corporations are the sponsors, exhibitors, and meeting and trade show organizers of the vast majority of event industry related activities which drive revenue, including event technology software vendor revenues.

We get it.  Certain's team is comprised of professionals with extensive experience in multi-billion dollar software companies who are specialists in the needs of the enterprise and the software ecosystem.  Our executive team is equipped with Cognos (IBM), Oracle, Siebel, Microsoft, and Nuance experience (to name a few), and yet also have strong backgrounds in fast-growing Silicon Valley companies that are nimble and agile.  This collective experience, coupled with our deep industry knowledge, has brought us to a pretty focused conclusion: 

The untapped business opportunity in the events industry lies in the strategic  business value from events and meetings. Period.

One source of business value is, of course, managing meeting spend. SMMP has been an important initiative to control meeting related expenses.   Unfortunately, the challenges in making a reality the promises of Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP) have taken its toll on the sponsoring vendors and early pioneers of that initiative.    The slow SMMP adoption rate for enterprise-wide meetings management makes it difficult for vendors to maintain their independence.   Capital is readily available for rapidly deployable SaaS events applications that can drive revenues, but less so for “big iron” software.  While the concept is intriguing and attractive on paper, real world implementation for all but the most sophisticated enterprises has been difficult.  

The overwhelming focus on spend management has left a gaping hole in the other side of the business value equation for enterprises; revenue generation and market share increase.  Of course enterprises have to implement policies, processes and systems to manage spend.  (I endorse this.  My career began at GE where Jack Welch drove massive expenses out of the business by aggressive consolidation and elimination of duplicate processes.)   



However, effective meetings spend management needs to be balanced by at least equal investment in those same events to drive revenue performance and market expansion.  The complexity of SMMP and the challenges of applying associated technologies have created a confusing and expensive situation not dissimilar from the early days of ERP where enterprises invested hundreds of millions of dollars making implementation work.  The consequences of failure can be very high.   

The reason meetings and events exist is to sell something.  It may be an idea, a product, a service or knowledge.  The advances of mobile, social and virtual technologies are providing incredible opportunities for marketers to take meeting-related revenue, channel and partner growth and market-share expansion to new levels. 

This is the conversation that should be taking place on the trade show floor.  SMMP is certainly strategic, but should be an acronym for Sales and Marketing Meeting Programs.

New technologies are creating freedom for event stakeholders to get what they need from meetings investments.  When Certain became the first vendor to integrate mobile into its event management platform we did it not because it helped enhance meetings procurement but because it was the first step in a social business journey of connecting the attendee with the event stakeholders, including those in marketing and sales. This is the time to celebrate the role the meeting professional plays in enabling businesses to sell and market more effectively.   

Certain, like Active Network has an acquisitive past.  Our company grew globally to thousands of customers and millions of attendees by adding acquisitions to our organic growth.  We now are focused exclusively on pure PCI Level 1 SaaS and are fortunate to have experienced over 50% growth in 2011.  Fortune 500® companies, strategic event producers and large-scale world events (World Rugby Cup, Commonwealth Games, Olympics) have helped us understand how to create scalable, high-performance event technology solutions that deliver revenue.  

The Active Network and Starcite deal will take a long time to absorb as products, cultures and technologies work themselves out.  Customers will be impacted and the results will vary on a case-by-case basis.  We know.  We have been through it ourselves and know the toll it takes on customers and employees.  

Clearly, Active Network and Certain recognize that there is a substantial, expanding opportunity in business solutions for the meetings and events industry.  Where we differ is in the emphasis Certain places on creating market demand through meetings versus the Active Network/Starcite emphasis on spend management .

Social, mobile and virtual are making 2012 and beyond an exciting adventure for the events industry.  Imagine the impact you can have by  increasing business not just controlling expenses.  

I hope you join me and the Certain team on this exciting journey.      


CEO Corner

Ask any Australian what is significant about the first Tuesday in November and without exception they will say “the Melbourne Cup”.  This Australian institution goes from strength to strength and rightfully now holds its place as the World Championship for thoroughbred horses that are stayers (long distance racers).  Now in its 151st year, the race has recently been won by international horses from Japan, France and Ireland.

Whilst there is no denying the momentum of this event on the world stage, it is the reaction of all Australians from Broome to the back of Burke that makes this event unique. They don’t call this “the race that stops a nation” for nothing.  At 3pm on the first Tuesday in November, all Australians, no matter where they are or what they are doing, stop to watch (or listen) to the race. For 3 minutes or so, the entire country is captivated by “their” race. I can recall as a young boy pushing my way to the front of a large crowd gathered in front of a television shop to watch the race on the multiple TV’s on display. Of course nowadays ubiquitous mobile technology has made following the race easier than ever. But still-- families, friends and work colleagues gather in groups around the country to celebrate the race.

Certain Software’s Australia-based staff were no exception. Dressed in their racing finery, fit for the “Fashions on the Field” competition, the team enjoyed a few minutes of camaraderie whilst cheering on their hope. To gain the entire company’s interest across the globe, the Australia team assigned each employee one horse and created a pool for the winners! Whilst there can only be one winner in the race (although this year’s race was excruciatingly close to a dead heat), the real win is the connections and the memories that events like this generate.  The world needs more Melbourne Cups!

We have a couple of aces up our sleeve and I want to make sure you have them too. 

At Certain, we focus on developing software solutions for meeting professionals.  Our clients, though, often have event needs that go beyond what Certain provides.  Naturally, because of our central, enabling role, they look to us for assistance in registration services, badges, call centers and a variety of other important services that help to deliver successful events.

That’s when we reach up our sleeve and pull out a couple of aces to win the hand.  Those aces for Certain are two of our incredible business partners who take the worry out of delivering great events and make us look good along the way! 

Let me tell you a little about Attendee Management, Inc. and metroConnections.

Attendee Management, Inc. is an Austin, TX based company committed to the total equation of meetings support.  They take their expertise and  tailor it on highly personalized basis to meet your event needs.  Jeff Rasco, President, is focused like a laser on world class meetings services delivered with a smile.  Jeff listens closely to your needs and his team immediately goes into action to ensure your success time after time.  His staff live and breathe the meetings experience and sweat the small stuff so you don’t have to.
If you get down to their offices in Austin, make sure Jeff takes you out to the Salt Lick for some real barbecue!

 

metroConnections  delivers great conferences and events through design, planning and implementation that can meet the needs of the most demanding companies in North America and beyond.  Conference services, event production, production services and transportation can be leveraged to deliver great events and great business value.  Tom McCulloch, their VP of Sales & Marketing, understands the impact events can have on your business goals and has a rich background in meetings services and technology to help guide your choices. 

We are honored to have both of these partners in the value chain we introduce to customers.  Technology is important but is only a piece of the events puzzle.  With AMI or metroConnections at your side, you’ll find your chances of delivering a winning hand of business value to be overwhelmingly in your favor. 


CEO Corner

After countless hours of planning and seamless execution you have created the perfect event.  The speaker panel is powerful, the appetizers are legendary, and you are still unsure how you snagged that venue—but imagine if no one was there to eat those crab cakes?
All successful event professionals understand that an effective marketing strategy is vital in order to drive attendance.  However, among the draining hours of coordinating other crucial elements of planning, marketing can sometimes take a backseat.  Here are three easy tips that can seriously improve your marketing strategy and overall attendee turnout:

1. Use Social Media Campaigns
Most people today are using at least one social media platform to check in with friends or relatives and even to connect with businesses. Using social media to promote your event is not only free, but the most effective way to reach various target audiences.
If you create an event invitation on Facebook, you provide a central location for people to see updates and information about how to get involved and learn more about the event and your company. Once you invite people, they can share your event information through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. This way, you don’t have to bombard attendees with a flood of emails every time you need to send them an update.

2. Take Advantage of Newsletters
You can also use your company’s newsletter to promote your event. People who signed up to receive it are already engaged with your company and may appreciate the opportunity to network and learn at your event. Be sure to build out a plan of action for your email marketing campaign. Determine how many targeted emails you want to send and the messaging that goes along with it. You can also contact other companies to see if you can advertise to their list in order to expand your reach.

3. Content Content!
Lastly, another easy way to promote your event is by offering digital whitepapers or eBooks that will drive traffic to your website and engage potential attendees in topics relating to you event.  Don’t forget to include an opt-in landing page for your larger content pieces so that you can capture new leads and nurture them!

Are you keeping up with the times?  Juggling a laptop, iPad and iPhone?  Logging in to five social networks daily?  The Arab spring, daily deals, protests in US major cities, Twitter, Skype, Amazon tablets, Facebook, mobile boarding passes, Google+,  iPhone 5 (or is it iPhone 4S?), social, virtual meetings….whew!

Bob Dylan (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/the+times+they+are+a+changin_20021240.html)  had it right forty years ago, but couldn’t possibly have anticipated the pace of change today.

Certain’s headquarters in San Francisco is at the epicenter of the changes driving our society, industry and daily lives.   Yammer, salesforce.com, Twitter, Open Table, Zynga, and StumbleUpon are just a few of the leading technology and internet service companies that are located within a few blocks of our building.  Drive thirty minutes down the road and Facebook, Google, Apple and countless others dot the Silicon Valley landscape.  Oh, and how about all the venture capital firms that fund innovation and change?  We love being at the crossroads of innovation and take full advantage of our location to hang out with our colleagues exploring and sharing new ideas.

The truth is all the lunches, tweets, news feeds, meet-ups and connections in San Francisco and Silicon Valley can’t compensate for the pace of change we are experiencing.  Why?

The reason is illustrated very well by the futurist and author Daniel Burrus in “Flash Foresight”, a book he wrote about seizing opportunities created by the pace of technological change.  Have you heard about Moore’s Law?   This axiom, by one of the founders of Intel,states that computing power doubles roughly every eighteen months.

So, what does that mean to each of us?

Well, back in the days when IBM was rolling out its mainframes, doubling computer power meant your airline ticket was processed significantly faster but didn’t alter the way you purchased a ticket.  In reality it wasn’t life changing.   Thirty years later, computing power has doubled multiple times and as a result we find ourselves with society, business and yes, your business planning meetings and events, being turned upside down. 

Here’s the illustration Burrus uses in his book.   Let’s say you take a penny on the first day of a thirty one day month and then double it every day for the entire month.  At the end of seven days, you will have sixty-four cents.  Big deal.   At the end of another seven days you will have eighty-one dollars and ninety-two cents.  Quite a jump.   How much do you think you will you have at the end of the month?   Let me guess…maybe three thousand dollars?   Tens of thousands?  Hundreds of thousands?



Most people are astonished that the answer is over TEN MILLION DOLLARS!!! Yes, it’s true (and fun to prove on a spreadsheet).   Add one more day and you have over twenty million dollars.   The point Burres is making is that we as a society are now at the “end of the month” in cumulative and exponential computing power.   The curve is very steep and we only have to pick up the smartphone (a camera enabled computer) to get a hint of the magnitude of change.   But what will happen on the “first day of the next month”?   In reality, we can’t fully predict and that makes it both scary and exciting.    We are approaching an era in which whatever you conceive can be created through technology. 

We’re seeing the impact every day.   Less than a year ago, Certain was the first event planning software company to offer an integrated mobile application with an attendee management platform.   Today, mobile solutions are taken for granted and your attendees expect to put their smart phone or tablet to good use at an event.   In lockstep with mobile advancement is deeper event-related social networking and more and more virtual events in hybrid or stand-alone mode.

Never mind the Arab Spring.   We’re talking about the Attendee Spring and it’s on the meeting professional’s plate to figure it all out (we’re happy to help of course).  

The good news is that rapid technology change driving connections and engagement can unlock the business value of meetings and events.   This is an opportunity for meeting professionals to establish a new, deeper level of business partnership with their clients.




CEO Corner

I had a chance to reflect on Steve Jobs’ death last week as I drove up the California coast to Mendocino with my wife.   The weather was spectacular and it was hard to keep my eyes on the road as every turn led to a more glorious view of the ocean crashing on rocks.   We pulled over a few times along the way to walk out to the cliff’s edge and observe the beauty that eons of erosion have created. 

Against this backdrop of timeless nature, I thought about Steve Jobs passing and the mark he left on the world.   Many of us have heard the now famous commencement speech he gave at Stanford in 2005 and how he encouraged people to pursue their passions.   Steve Jobs pursued his passion from a young age and created a wave of digitization that touches every aspect of our daily lives.  

Isn’t changing the world enough of an incentive for everyone to follow their passion? 

 Many people pursue their passion only to discover that while the activity of writing or making music or being involved in sports may be enriching spiritually, it isn’t always so financially.  Steve’s passion, which fueled his maniacal focus, was hugely financially rewarding for him and his stakeholders.   However, those who would have the courage to follow their passion (assuming it’s not what they already do day- to- day), have to ask themselves, do they possess not only his level of passion but his standard of excellence?  Do they possess a set of interwoven personality traits, talents and level of intelligence that can support their passion and ultimately allow their passion to support them?  Will their passion allow them to change the world?

Most of us have talent.  Most of us have successful personality traits.  Most of us possess enough intelligence.  Most of us also have some sense of passion for an activity.  But, while most of us have all the necessary ingredients to succeed, most of us don’t have those elements combined in the perfectly unique concoction that approaches the extraordinary singular human being that was Steve Jobs.  

Steve Jobs occupied a unique place in history.   He was a rare example of the pinnacle of human achievement.   He was to the world of consumer information technology what Beethoven or Miles Davis is to music or what an Einstein is to science.   The iPad, as just one example, is a work of art that evokes much more than the sense of productivity it enables.  It delivers information in a tactile, pleasurable way.  Who else has achieved that?

Against the standard of a Steve Jobs achievement, most of us mere mortals could be excused from attempting to follow our dreams and passions.  But that would be a mistake.   Changing the world (whatever world you’re passionate about) usually starts with impacting one other human being.   Putting a mark on the world comes from impacting many human beings and influencing the way they think.  Changing the world comes about when most human beings begin to listen and follow you. 

You don’t have to be Einstein or Steve Jobs to make your mark on the world.   If you are reading this, you are capable of influencing a fellow human being.   If your passion, whatever it is, benefits you, it will probably benefit someone else, and, if that is true, then it just might benefit many others.   You could be well on your way to making your mark and ultimately changing the world.   Take your passion, add in a measure of excellence and intensity and see where it takes you and the rest of us.  At some point in Steve Jobs youth, that’s what he did, and look to where it led.  

CEO Corner

Event planning can often times be a stressful process. You have to make sure every detail is managed, and it requires a thorough eye and excellent organizational skills. Whether you are planning a small or large event, keeping track of all your tasks can sometimes be overwhelming. With the following tips, you can streamline your event planning process and save time, energy, and resources while ensuring that nothing is overlooked. 

1. Develop a Framework

Making sure you market your event effectively will ensure that you attract an increasing number of attendees. In the 1960’s, the Four P Classification was coined to in order to help those in the marketing industry implement enhanced strategies, providing marketers the proper framework for planning. The Four P’s and how they relate to event planning are:

• Product – Define what experience you want your attendees to have
• Price – Determine registration price and data collection
• Place – Location of your event and does it accommodate your Product
• Promotion – Your marketing strategy and unique selling points

After you compose a clear outline that encompasses all these components, it will be easier to decide what other aspects are necessary to consider as well. 

2. Do You Need Technology?

The use of technology is helpful for planning any event. Event planning programs can help you stay on top of tasks and make sure everything gets taken care of prior to their deadlines. If planning multiple or large scale events, it may be beneficial to use event planning software so that spreadsheets don’t get misplaced and everything you need is in one central location.

3. Take Advantage of Social Media

Using social media can help boost event attendance if managed correctly. If your company has a strong social media presence, you can send invitations out over Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Social media invitations help you reach your target audience because people that are connected to your company online are more engaged leads. These platforms are free and can increase the visibility of your event due to the viral nature of each.

4. Stay Organized!

Staying organized and paying attention to details will lead to a successful and well-rounded event. Making sure you have a framework in place as well as an effective marketing plan will guarantee that you meet your targets. By taking advantage of technology to help you stay organized and using social media for promotion, you will be well on your way to becoming a planning professional.

As a marketer who uses events as a component of integrated programs, I am well versed in the challenges facing event professionals today, and am familiar with the Excel spreadsheets and 20-lb binder you have to lug around. I have woken up in a cold sweat the night before my event and gone back through my checklist of items to confirm with the team to make sure not even the tiniest detail was overlooked. Do you want the good news or the bad news about our predicament? The good news: Technology can significantly reduce the amount of time and sweat you invest in delivering a seamless, successful event. The bad news: We are programmed to be worriers. We will always be perfectionists and no matter what tools we have at our disposal, we will always suffer from a last minute panic attack about the seating plan.

With the assistance of technology, event planning has become easier than ever before. It can help you stay organized, keep track of details, and make sure no stone is left unturned. Technology can also help you plan, analyze and budget for an event accurately and effectively. Planning large events can be complicated and stressful, especially when managing multiple coordinators, but with event planning software, you can be decisive and execute much easier and more efficiently.

Event Management and Preparation

By using software to help you manage your event, you can ensure that it runs smoothly and that nothing is forgotten. You can set up reminders and timelines for projects, and make sure that everyone involved in the planning stages knows about deadlines. By using technology, you can strategize and collaborate with others in a single forum that’s been designed to be visible to everyone. Emails will no longer be lost, and logistical issues can be addressed and resolved right away.

Effective Time Management

Taking advantage of event planning technology will save you both time and money in the long run. When planning a large scale event, lots of time can be lost in making sure communication is clear, meetings are arranged and that key players are notified of any changes. Trying to manage these tasks manually takes a lot of time and energy, but with a little organizational help, you can use your time more efficiently.

Save Money

Staying below budget is an important concept to keep in mind when planning any event. You can save a lot of money by managing your budget with software programs that allow you to keep track of all your expenses in one central location. You can track the overall budget, as well as individual line items to ensure that you stay within your means. By increasing budget visibility, you can improve accountability and easily show sponsors where their money went by printing out a report. 

Registration Tracking

By using technology to manage attendee registration, you can track variables such as fees, food orders and send marketing emails to your list of attendees. As soon as someone registers, you can be notified immediately so you can be aware of how many people are planning to attend. If certain people still need to pay their registration fees, you can print out a single report that lists their names and contact information all in once place.

Staying Organized

Staying organized is probably the single most important aspect of planning a successful event, and the use of technology can alleviate a lot of stress from an organizational standpoint. The events your company puts on are a direct reflection its value, so you will want it to be the best that it can be. The more organized and influential your events are, the more likely people will be to trust your brand and recommend your work to others.

A well planned and executed event can leave dozens, hundreds or thousands of individuals with a positive experience they’ll associate with your brand. As any event planner will tell you, pulling this off takes a lot of work, dedication and money. But how do you ensure the continued success of your event and future ones?

Measuring your event is crucial to understanding what’s working, what isn’t and what needs to change so that you can set forth a plan of action for future events. Here are a few tips on how and what to measure to ensure that your events have high customer satisfaction rates and an increasing ROI.

Define your Win

Begin your measurement on day one of planning. What metrics will you use to evaluate your event? What is the purpose of your event and what are you aiming to accomplish? A lot of your pre-event planning can help define your benchmarks. For example, how many participants anticipated vs. how many registered or how long did it take for sponsors/speakers to return contracts?

Build out a list of questions to ask both during and after each event so that you can keep tabs on what’s working and how long certain planning aspects take.

Post Event Data

Once your event is over, use the data collected during the event planning to be a benchmark for the next one. This will help you plan a better event and will allow you to focus on areas of improvement as well as capitalize on any new opportunities that may be available.

Update your workflow with new best practices and lessons that you may have learned. Make note of any unforeseen hurdles as well as whether or not your suppliers were efficient. Look for gaps and opportunities and where you can reallocate spend.

Ask Your Customers

Encourage attendees to fill out a post-event survey so that you can see how people viewed the event. Social media buzz and press shout outs are also good to follow and can help others understand the value of your events.

Whatever goals you set for your event, be sure to capture key event data components that will help increase attendee satisfaction and help you plan for success.

We’ve all been there. Cram in a power lunch behind the computer and all of sudden it’s five and you haven’t gotten out of your chair in hours. You get up feeling like you just got off a trans-Atlantic flight and trudge to the coffee machine. Logging hours in front of the computer is an occupational hazard you can’t avoid, but an increasing amount of Certain employees have found the secret to working healthy and avoiding the mid-afternoon slump. The solution: Ditch your desk.

It’s no surprise Certain employees are at the vanguard of desk technology. As product manager and standing desk early adopter Rajesh Krishnan put it, “I’m an inveterate trendsetter.” Jokes aside, Rajesh also said, “It was mainly because I was tired of sitting around so many hours in a day and figured standing would be healthier, burn more calories, and be better for my posture.”

It turns out there’s some hard science to back up Rajesh’s hunch. The Wall Street Journal reported on the spread of standing desks at tech companies like Facebook and Google whose employees were prompted to make the shift after hearing about the potential dangers of prolonged periods of sitting. Major medical studies conducted by the American Cancer Society and the American College of Cardiology found significant jumps in premature deaths for those who remained seated more than six hours a day.

Besides the long-term health benefits gained from using a standing desk, users have reported increased energy and a welcome relief from an achy, painful back. If the idea of tossing your chair out the office for good seems a little intimidating, don’t despair. Most Certain employees opted for a dual desk with a combination of sitting and standing space. Of the nine employees at Certain using a standing desk, only one braves his day without a sitting options. However, there are plenty of opportunities to fill the daily sitting quota in meetings and conference rooms.

There are those out there who aren’t satisfied with merely standing.

Some are taking the standing desk to the next level with a treadmill desk, a fad that hasn’t quite hit Certain. Although typing code on the run may seem a little over the top, a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that a combination of sitting and walking at the workstation can melt away up to 60lbs over the course of a year.

We asked Rajesh where he thought the future of desks was headed at Certain, “I’m planning to skip straight to the swim desk, when it becomes available. I’m sure there are no safety issues at all from a multi-hundred gallon tank of water every few feet in the office.”

For now, we’ll settle for a few less chairs.

If you’ve recently walked past a bus stop, opened up a newspaper or driven past a billboard, you might have noticed these enigmatic icons that look like a barcode crossed with a psychiatrist’s Rorschach cards. Before you squint your eyes to try to make out the picture, you should know that these icons are a new type of barcodes called QR codes. QR codes can be scanned using a mobile phone, and can store a lot more information than the traditional barcode. They can hold content like website links, personal contact information, and also just plain old text.

So why should you care about QR codes? The short answer is: they’re a great tool to market your event and improve attendee experience.

Consider all of the ways you can use QR codes at your next event:

1. Promote the event – Encode your event site URL or event registration link with a QR code and add it to any print material you distribute.
2. Provide a link to the mobile agenda – Use a QR code for the link to your event mobile site and print it on the back of attendees’ badges.
3. Facilitate networking and lead collection – Encode your attendees’ contact information and add it to their badge.
4. Get session feedback – Put a QR code with a link to the survey form on the welcome sign right outside of the room.
5. Provide sponsor information – Add a QR code with your event sponsors’ and exhibitors’ website and direct your attendees to interactive content online. This one makes everyone happy.

To generate QR codes, go to qrcode.kaywa.com or download a free app like QR Droid (for Androids) or Qrafter (for Iphones). Remember, your attendees would also need a QR code reader on their phone. There are plenty of free ones out there for iPhones, Androids, and Blackberries.

Tips:

1. Make sure that when you print QR codes, they are of a size that can be easily scanned by the camera on a mobile phone. For example, a code that goes on a sponsor banner would obviously need to be much larger than one that goes on the back of a badge.
2. Do ensure that whatever link you encode, the site that it directs to is mobile friendly.
3. Provide sufficient context when you are promoting a QR code, so that attendees know what to expect.

As the Product Manager for Certain Virtual, I get involved with numerous conversations with companies exploring ways to do Virtual Events.  Here are some of the unexpected and creative uses we've heard around here for Virtual Events.

1. Attendee communications with anonymity - Give attendees a way to contact each other via messaging and chat. It doesn't share email addresses, just user IDs

2. Detect issues earlier - Open up your virtual venue and ask attendees what they are expecting for the live event

3. Up the value of the sponsor package - By providing virtual booths for exhibitors and sponsors on the web site they can interact directly with attendees

4. Spread the love worldwide - One of virtual events' benefits is reducing hotel and travel costs; that's proving to be a bigger deal outside the US, particularly in Australia and New Zealand

5. Encourage events around your event - A event directory that spans both live and virtual helps people to create their own events that enhance yours, such as Birds of a Feather sessions

6. Automate attendance - everyone who attends a virtual event is logged, so you know who was really there

7 . Eliminate post-event document sharing - all the events are in the virtual version of your live event, and can be put there by you or the document authors (with the right permissions)

8. Coordinate the event team - set up a private virtual chat room just for your team

9. Spread out the work - give different access rights to different areas to different people.  Virtual event creation takes as much thought and care as a live event.

10.Get better data - See how attendees really are spending their time, not just did they show up for the webinar or not. It's also great information to prove how beneficial your event was.  There's proof of what engaged attendees and what didn't, measured in minutes and seconds.

And no one mentions this one, but it's true: It expands your job skills - Event professionals who can handle live, hybrid, and virtual events have a leg up on specialists in only one area.  It's an essential part of the resume of the future. I hope to see many of you on our July 28th Engagement Unleashed event, that I will be moderating.  Info at http://www.certain.com/CertainVirtualCenter.

Think about it. For every participant present at your event, there may be several who are interested but unable to attend due to budget, distance or schedule. That’s why many organizations are incorporating virtual events into their meetings program as it expands an event’s reach beyond a single location, allowing people that cannot make it to a physical event to participate.

What’s a Virtual Event?
Simply stated, virtual events provide an online venue where conference attendees can participate and interact from the convenience of their web-enabled computer or tablet. Whether used in conjunction with a physical conference or as a stand-alone virtual meeting, a comprehensive virtual event solution should include the following components that can be utilized in many variations:

• Separate areas that attendees can visit (Exhibit Hall, Speakers Pavilion, Virtual Lounge, etc.) 
• Live streaming video for speaking sessions and keynotes
• Recorded webcasts for exhibitor demos and returning visitors
• 1-to-1 communication options, including audience-to-speaker or attendee-to-attendee interaction
• Ability to upload and access company collateral and other resources for use in an exhibitor’s area and available to returning visitors
• Complete tracking and reporting on visitor behavior to understand how attendees spent their time

Physical vs. Virtual
You can use virtual events in a many ways and companies are still experimenting on how to best use them. The two main approaches for leveraging virtual events today are:

• Hybrid – A combination of a physical meeting with a virtual event offered to attendees.
• Virtual – A complete online event with no physical component.

A virtual event works very well when used in conjunction with a physical event, even when the meetings take place on different dates. For example, a Spring virtual event can build on the audience from an annual conference that happened in the Fall. When creating a completely virtual event, organizations use streaming or recorded video, as well as other methods discussed above to keep participants engaged. These virtual events can usually have areas that stay open long after the event is over.

Creating an Online Community
Even though virtual events involve using impersonal technology - as with physical events - it’s the attendee’s experience that matters most. It helps to approach your virtual event as if you are building an online community; one that allows your audience to connect before, during and after the conference. Companies can provide attendees a communal area – such as a visitor’s lounge – where participants can find people with similar interests even before the meeting starts, make connections and network during the event and stay in touch long after the conference has closed.

The Costs
When comparing to a physical meeting of equivalent size, you should expect a successful virtual event to have similar costs for meeting space (i.e., the virtual event software), production, and pre & post-event management. Virtual events, however, will not have travel, housing, or food & beverage costs; a plus for your attendees. Also, meeting professionals and participants alike save the time spent traveling to a physical event. Consequently, virtual events may have lower registration fees, sponsorships, and exhibition fees than their physical counterparts.

On the flip side, there are other costs associated with virtual events that aren’t always considered with traditional meetings. You will need a great deal of content for virtual events that must meet the highest standards and there is a heavy reliance on live and recorded video. Care should be taken to ensure high-quality production values are used for all content, especially audio which can make or break a presentation. Some companies offer – and charge for – full services on site, while others provide the technology and look to you to provide onsite services.

You should also be prepared for attendees at a virtual event to come at you from every direction – email, chat, Twitter, and every other communication type this side of the aldis lamp.  Make sure you have enough event staff available and ready to help attendees with their needs, particularly at the beginning.

Considering Virtual Events?
When choosing a virtual events solution, your criteria should be the same as with any software package:

• Flexibility: The ability to mold the software to the way that suits your requirements
• Reliability: The platform must be available when you need it. Consider a cloud-based solution that enables 24/7 access from anywhere
• Scalability: The ability to service just a few attendees or scale up to tens of thousands simultaneous users
• Ease of Use: The easier it is to setup and use the virtual solution, the better. A meeting organizer’s burden can be greatly reduced if content providers and exhibitors can manage their own setup with some simple instructions.

As virtual events evolve, ensuring your selected solution can change with industry trends and practices is essential. When you are ready to incorporate virtual events into your program, consider Certain Virtual. Certain Virtual is a comprehensive, scalable software solution that can help you and your organization easily manage your next virtual event.

To learn more about Certain, please visit www.certain.com.

When utilizing social networks for your meeting or event, Twitter should be managed and leveraged differently than LinkedIn and Facebook. There are no pages, but feeds - with a continuous list of messages that are posted to the service with the latest posts on top. Anyone who subscribes to your feed (i.e., anyone who is “following you”, in Twitter terminology) might see your messages (or “tweets”).

One issue with Twitter is that because feeds are continuously updated - if someone is following a lot of people and organizations - they may overlook some tweets as new ones are added. The tactics discussed below should help ensure your message stands out.

The @ Sign: Your Main Identity
The @ sign is the main way of identifying a Twitter profile. It is also used to call out profiles in Tweets, like this: Hello @Certain! When a username is preceded by the @ sign in someone’s tweet, it becomes a link to that profile. You can promote your event by asking followers to mention its profile with @your_event anywhere in the body of their Tweet. Users can also reply to your event tweets to help spread the word to their followers.

Retweets
You must use viral marketing tactics in order to get your event’s message picked up on Twitter. One common viral behavior on Twitter is to “retweet” what someone else has tweeted. This simply means that you repeat their message, preceding it with the letters “RT” (for retweet) and their Twitter name (e.g., @certain).

You can spread the word about your event on Twitter not only by tweeting it yourself, but by encouraging others to retweet your message - promoting it to all of their followers.  Some common methods for encouraging retweeting are:

• Ask your followers to retweet your message explicitly (e.g., “Registration open for EventCon 2012: http://bit.ly/oiweru (please RT)”
• Include Twitter-only specials or discounts in your messages
• Share breaking news or new and interesting developments (e.g., high profile speakers booked) on Twitter

Hint: Twitter restricts messages to 140 characters, which is the longest text message most mobile phones can handle. That means that if you want someone to be able to retweet your message, it must be less than 140 characters long even after they add “RT @your_twitter_name” to the beginning!

Twitter Hashtags
Hashtags in the body of a tweet are a popular way to associate tweets with a particular topic or category, such as an event. A hashtag is simply a word preceded by a hash mark, “#”. By including the hashtag, you designate that word as a key word that shows up in Twitter searches. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that topic. Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet and words that become very popular are often listed in the Trends section. Consider this example:

• “I use Certain Software” - is a nice message, but won’t be picked up in searches.
• “I use #certain software” - designates the word “Certain” as a special keyword, and makes it more likely to be referenced in feeds and searches.

Events typically have hashtags, as well. For example, the hashtag for South by SouthWest is #sxsw. Repeat events often append the year - #sxsw10 for the 2010 edition, for example.  The hashtag for International Confex is #confex (hashtags are not case sensitive). You should choose a hashtag that is unique and relatively short (ideally less than 8 characters), so that it won’t compete with your message when keeping under the 140 character limit. You should also limit the number of hashtags to three per message. 

Hint: to make sure your desired hashtag isn’t already in use, visit http://search.twitter.com/ and search for it. If it shows up in searches, someone has already claimed it for another purpose.

Some event management solutions have already incorporated Twitter and other social networking services into their technology, making it easier to leverage them when marketing or promoting events. Look for capabilities such as the ability to include Twitter widgets on event websites and registration pages. This will enable attendees to go directly to their Twitter accounts from your property, so they can tell their followers that they just registered or are interested in your event. Another important capability serves up suggested phrases to users when tweeting from your event’s feed, which ensures your message is more controlled even in this “word of mouth” activity.

Twitter really comes into play if your event has a Mobile application. Any comprehensive mobile application will deliver an event’s Twitter feed and send notification of the post to an attendee’s Smart phone or tablet - providing meeting professionals a direct, unobstructed channel of communication with participants before, during and after an event.

Twitter can be a valuable marketing and communication tool for any event, as long as you develop practices and incorporate technology to effectively manage the information stream on this unique social network that demands its own strategy.

Follow Certain on Twitter!

We were privileged yesterday at Certain Software to be at the launching point - literally - of what can only be described as an Epic Marketing Fail and a lesson for event organizers everywhere.  Our HQ is near the Moscone Center, home to the Game Developers Conference.  As chronicled excellently here, game developer THQ decided to attach postcards to red balloons to promote a new game and launch them simultaneously into the gray skies of the City by the Bay. The game is a futuristic game in which the United States is invaded by troops from North Korea. The balloon-drop took place at lunchtime following a mock rally against the game's simulation of North Korea's regime. Aside from conference members who chose to attend this mock rally, no one knew what the balloon drop was. But, the Twitterverse and MSM (mainstream media) started picking it up very quickly.

It was quite a captivating sight I have to say, and we also got to learn which Certain employees are too young to know the 1984 Nena classic "99 Red Balloons".  

You can guess where this is going.

Pictures started to fly around the Internet of balloons in the Bay, near waterfronts, and on streets.  People wondered about the environmental damage from all that latex near animals and in beautiful scenes that make this town so charming and attractive for so many conventions and visitors.  The court of public opinion had decided: this was a baaaad idea.

Later, the press picked up on some mitigating factoids: the biodegradable balloons, the clean-up crew, the appearance of thought beforehand.  Their publicity event was a major backfire, regardless of how things turn out.  If this game - whatever it's called - receives a spike in sales, there's no justice in the marketing world.

So what lessons are there for event organizers? I offer the following three lessons that apply very closely to our world of events and meetings.  As a bonus, here’s the 80s song that will help your remember the point:

1) Know your audience.  THQ’s customers were not the audience; San Franciscans were.  It’s great to have innovative, fun ideas peppered throughout your event, especially for incentive events, longer events, and association meetings.  When organizing events, keep the sensibilities of the attendees firmly in mind.  It doesn't take an aeronautical engineer to figure out that pollution and litter from corporate interests will be cast negatively in the City of San Francisco, a highly environmentally conscious part of the world.   THQ, located just north of Los Angeles, might have figured that out.  Song: "Do You Really want To Hurt Me?" by Culture Club.

2) Forget your narrative.  Every organization holding an event has a story into which the event fits.  Perhaps it’s innovation and new offerings for a corporate sales meeting, or portraying an aura of expertise and excellence for a private equity conference.  THQ’s narrative was that they offered cool new games that could attract and keep your attention and felt that the balloon launch supported that narrative.  But what seemed not to happen was a look at the narrative someone else would create.  Just step back and think about floating postcards on balloons in a city - and try to imagine the narrative someone else will create and spread.  In the office it took us 30 seconds to see the environmental angle.  So for event organizers, realize that the story you’re pushing may not be the story others are buying when adding content to your event.  Song: "Neverending Story" by Limahl.

3) Encourage dissent.  Good event organizing balances creativity and restraint.  I’ll be on creativity 9 times out of 10, but Balloongate can provide us with some lessons on encouraging both.  You can imagine how this went down in the planning sessions:  "OK, at the conference, we'll launch 10 zillion balloons with promos attached, and everyone will see them and wonder that it's about.  Let’s make them red to be seen further.  Eventually, people will get them and tell their friends about it.  It'll be great!!!".  Someone in that room was thinking "This is insane" and didn't speak up.  Or they weren't comfortable enough to voice an opinion.  Event organizing takes a team.  Early on, discourage groupthink and encourage ideas and multiple opinions.  The voice of dissent could just be the one that stops you from career suicide.  The later stage- execution- is when everyone should be on the same page making sure the event runs smoothly.  Song: "Listen like Thieves" by INXS.

Social networks have become a necessary communication tool for meeting planners worldwide. While people attend face-to-face events to network, social networks provide attendees a place to congregate and interact prior to the meeting and stay in touch long after the event is over. In addition and most importantly, social networks can help build attendance at events through viral marketing and word of mouth.

Viral Marketing

Social networks can help get the word out about your event at little or no cost beyond the hours invested. Marketing programs on social networks have some important advantages over traditional marketing:

Exponential Effect: Remember that old shampoo commercial, where a woman says she told two friends about Faberge, “and they told two friends, and they told two friends…”? That’s a classic example of the ability of viral marketing to amplify a message

Trusted Source: People are more likely to listen to and trust something they hear from a friend than from a paid advertisement. Viral marketing is “advertising you can’t buy”

Mobile Applications: These networks have mobile apps that deliver your event information immediately into the hands of your contacts and attendees, ensuring that your events are kept top of mind and stand out from the competition.

Viral marketing tactics on established properties such as Facebook and LinkedIn have become an important and necessary facet of event promotion. Here are some simple ways to start marketing your event or meeting on these social networks.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is considered the most “professional” of the social networks and provides several avenues for building a viral marketing campaign.

First, you can create a dedicated page on LinkedIn for your event where attend¬ees indicate they are “Attending”, “Interested” or “Not Attending”. If they choose “Attending”, a message will appear in each attendee’s Feed letting their contacts know. Attendees will also be able to leave messages for one another as “Com¬ments” on the page (which will also show up in their Feed).

Creating an Event page on LinkedIn is free: simply sign-in with your LinkedIn account, click Events from the left-hand navigation bar under Applications, then click the Add an Event tab that will appear at the top of the page.

A second way to leverage LinkedIn’s viral marketing potential is through LinkedIn Groups (http://learn.linkedin.com/groups). LinkedIn Groups are topic-based sub-communities within the larger LinkedIn community. When people join a LinkedIn Group, they generally consent to receive messages posted to that group as e-mail, so Groups can be an effective way of getting a message out to targeted, relevant people.

To get your message out to a LinkedIn Group:

• Sign in or create an account if you don’t already have one
• Find and join groups relevant to your event by visiting the LinkedIn Groups Directory: http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory. Also, view the Groups that people involved in your event belong to
• Click “Start a Discussion” and enter your message

Important: Many Groups have rules restricting advertising messages, so read any introductory messages and learn the etiquette before jumping in.

Even Groups that don’t explicitly disallow advertising won’t appreciate “spam”, and you don’t want to alienate potential attendees. Be sure that you only send your message to directly relevant Groups and that you phrase your message in terms of sharing information, rather than marketing your event.

Facebook

Like LinkedIn, Facebook (www.facebook.com) has “Events” pages that your attendees can join. When they do, Facebook adds a message to their News Feed letting all their friends know they are attending, a great viral marketing mechanism.

While Facebook generally is regarded as more “social” and “personal” to LinkedIn’s “professional” feel, Facebook has a more active membership and a better developed News Feed feature, meaning that even for professionally-oriented events, it can be a more effective way to spread your message.

To create an event on Facebook:

• Sign in to Facebook or create an account if you don’t already have one.
• Find the "Events" box on the right-hand column of your home page. Type your event information into the "What are you planning?" field, a form will open.
• Enter the event detail and then click “Create Event”.
• Once created, you can click “Edit Event” to change any of the event details or invite more guests.
• Don’t forget to “Select Guests” to inform and invite your contacts to the event.

Facebook and LinkedIn can function as additional online communities beyond the traditional event website and these social networks should be an important part of the marketing mix for every meeting. Event management solutions that are integrated with leading social networks provide meeting professional with automated tools that remove the burden of manually posting to these feeds, while ensuring better management of all viral marketing programs.

From a meeting professional's perspective, all meetings follow a very similar process before, during and after the event. While the tasks and processes may be the same from meeting to meeting, meeting professionals know that they must constantly evaluate and improve upon the way they plan, execute and manage events in order to stay competitive, improve productivity and increase the chances for success in the future. This is especially true for repeat events where many involved – planners, executives, suppliers, etc - can become complacent and inefficient if things are done the same way year after year.

After each meeting, key stakeholders in the event ecosystem should quickly review everything from overall strategy to vendor sourcing and event spend to data analysis and post-event reporting. Once the analysis is complete, planners should make the following changes before moving on to the next event:

• Update the workflow used with new “best practices” and lessons learned
• Make a copy of the old event web site and registration form, so you can set it up as a place holder for the next event. Use a simple “Get Ready” or “Save the Date” message with any information known about next year’s event
• Review the performance of each vendor used at an event and make any changes needed to your stable of preferred suppliers to ensure the most reliable ones are used at future meetings
• Analyze any consolidated event spend information to negotiate discounts and better rates with preferred vendors and suppliers

Certain Software can make the task of analyzing every facet of an event easier with automated post-event reports and easy access to supplier contracts and agreements in one convenient place. As your process for reviewing and controlling policies at events become more involved, you may want to consider implementing a formal Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) program. An SMM program in your organization can provide visibility across all events and will enforce process and vendor controls to reduce risk and impose company policies at every event and meeting.

Whether large or small, face-to-face meetings with a disparate audience have housing budgets that account for two-thirds of the total event’s cost. Experienced planners understand that the hotel contract represents the greatest risk to an event’s bottom-line and/or the biggest opportunity for controlling costs and establishing best practices that can be leveraged throughout an organization.

Utilize the Hotel Rooming System (When Appropriate)
Smaller meetings and events may want to leverage the hotel’s group reservations website for housing, especially when attendees are directly paying for their rooms. When utilizing the hotel reservation system; event websites and registration forms should be completely integrated via hyperlinks and custom messaging, while planners should have report-level access to the hotel’s group res¬ervation system for efficient tracking of attendee activity and room reservations.

Manage Hotel Blocks Efficiently
If an organization has signed a contract committing to a large number of rooms, creating and managing the entire room reservation process may be the best way to control risk of attrition. Employ these best practices when housing is being offered at an event:
• Ensure housing reservations are part of the event registration process
• Offer a registration discount to attendees staying in contracted hotels
• Monitor hotel rates and re-negotiate rooming contracts when published rates are lower elsewhere
• During event check-in, ask attendees if they are staying at a local hotel and, if so, which one. Then, compare the survey results to your registration list.
• Ask hotels for their guest list and compare that to the event attendance list to see which attendees booked around the block.

Sharing Rooms without Creating a Mess
Placing two people in one room can save half of an organization’s housing costs, which could amount to saving a third of the overall budget for an event. Sharing rooms can also signifi¬cantly reduce the event’s carbon footprint. While sharing rooms isn’t appropriate for every audience, it can be a valuable part of many event experiences:
•    Under-18 audiences – place 2-4 children per room or 1 adult and two kids
•    Young adults – “New hire” orientation events may intentionally pair people from different offices or regions in order to encour¬age interaction among attendees and alignment throughout the organization
•    Employee-only events – When the company is paying the bill, then there is more justification to enforce room-sharing

While sharing rooms can save money, it can create logistical headaches if not managed efficiently. Here are some things to consider when setting up room sharing policies and procedures:
•    Roommate requests – can people request roommates by name, and what is the policy for the selected person to approve the request
•    Matching criteria – typically gender and smoking preference are used as matching criteria, but arrival/departure dates and demo¬graphic information may also be relevant
•    Handling exceptions – the roommate policy needs to be flexible, for example, with two married employees or those with special needs

Manage the Hotel Relationship Professionally
The event planner should maintain a friendly, but professional relationship with their hotel representative in order to ensure open communication and as a way to keep everything running smoothly from pre-registration to final check out. Here are some things to remember when managing the hotel relationship:
•    Deliver reports to the host and hotel on time, as stated in contracts
•    Encourage early registration (via discounts, reminder emails, con¬tests) in order to gauge your room pickup early enough to release rooms without penalty or add them as needed
•    Compare pre-registration to previous years’ events – if your au¬dience is similar, then their registration habits will typically follow patterns that indicate if the event will have more or fewer attend¬ees than in the past
•    Don’t take no for an answer from registration companies and hotels that are being paid for your business. Delays in delivering services, equipment, registration lists or booking reports can be costly and indicate larger problems. Determine any problems early and resolve them before the meeting, if possible.

Event housing can be managed efficiently by planners and offered to attendees seamlessly during the registration process with a comprehensive event and meeting management solution. Certain Software offers an innovative suite of software solutions for meeting and event professionals to help streamline housing processes and control hotel costs. Certain Software provides companies with total visibility into their event and meetings programs and helps organizations truly understand the business value of their event lifecycle. Click here to learn more about Certain’s Housing and Travel Management solutions.

To learn more about Certain Software, please visit us at www.certain.com.

Today was the last of three packed days at EIBTM in Barcelona. As usual, the exhibition was a great opportunity to catch up with customers, meet new prospects, network with existing and new partners, and connect with industry leaders from around the world.  Just as a reminder that physical meetings are always dependent on getting the right people to the right place, the weather played tricks on many attendees: with wintery conditions in all of Northern Europe, many had a tough time getting in, and a harder time getting out of sunny Barcelona. Since Certain was running all the appointments for the Hosted Buyer Program during the 3 days of the exhibition, it was great to see that software technology can help with rescheduling people's appointments when other technologies failed to clear the runways and get planes off the ground.

We made two announcements in Barcelona this week: the launch of a new Meeting Result Management service  to help planners and management measure the impact of their meetings and events, and an expanded commitment to our customers in Europe  with Safe Harbor certification for customers and a new data center in London.

I would like to share interesting trends announced at the conference.

First EIBTM released its EIBTM 2010 Industry Trends & Market Share Report.  You can download the full report at http://www.eibtm.com/files/4208_eibtm_industry_report_v6_notrim.pdf. Here is what I found most interesting about the report for 2010:

--    There is a resurgence in Corporate Meetings, especially in Europe, mostly reflected by the lifting of travel restrictions for staff in many companies. Planners have honed their negotiation skills and have successfully lowered the cost of venue and rooms for their events. Short lead time (30 to 45 days), however, remains the norm for planning meetings. It makes the efficient use of technology in meeting planning and execution even more important so that meetings can be planned, sourced, and executed perfectly, in less time.

--    US-based planners are expected to plan 21% more meetings in 2010, though meetings are taking place closer to home (80% domestic vs. 61% last year)

--    Europe-based planners are doing the opposite and organizing their events further afield (30% outside the country vs. 20% last year). However, most meetings happen within Europe (7 out of 10 meetings)

--    Australia is clearly on the right track having been the first major industrial economy to recover. Convention and conferences arrivals in Australia increase by 15% in 2010 compared to last year.

--    Technology focus has been on everything we like to see at Certain:

• More and better internet access at events
• Rapid growth of the use of social medias for marketing purpose
• Video conferencing is on the rise
• Corporate Social Responsibility is now a given

Second, the on-site market surveys are also interesting at EIBTM. Here are some key findings from this year, based on a survey of 289 professionals:

--    76% of companies are moderating a Facebook or LinkedIn page or group. Facebook is clearly the winner across the board with 46% of the respondents saying that Facebook is the most useful for events and meetings (followed by solutions within the event’s web site with 20%)

--   35% of companies have planned or participated in a virtual events (20% participated in one or the other, and 15% planned one or the other)

That means that social networks are a reality for most events today, either to promote participation or encourage connections around the event. As Facebook is so versatile and growing across demographics, it is not surprising to see the popular social network take the #1 spot.  At Certain, we made it trivial to promote events virally through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and emails. Looks like this will pay off for our customers!

Virtual events are slowly growing and becoming accepted as an efficient way to extend events and content.  At Certain, we have a great virtual event solution to help customers make their events hybrid, or run pure virtual events with all the benefits of an integrated solution. Looks like more and more customers will take advantage of that!

Thank you Reed for another great edition of EIBTM, and we are looking forward to AIME in a couple of months!