Thanks for the thorough and different perspective. I agree that often associations use conferences as an important source of non-dues revenue and can understand their fear that offering live streaming free might cannibalize their face-to-face attendance. I also think associations need to be more transparent about why they are holding the meeting and their objectives. If the goal is a non-dues revenue stream, state that. If the goal is to educate as many members as possible, state that. I agree with you that meeting and event planners as well as board members need to think about these issues as part of their strategic discussions before events are planned.

Thanks for bringing up meeting objectives too. I would argue that one of MPI’s WEC OGS meeting objectives was to educate and help people embrace the message “Meetings Change The World.” Was that message only for the people there at the event or was the message for a larger audience? MPI missed an opportunity for that message to be spread virally both inside and outside the hospitality industry by not offering free live streaming. That’s unfortunate.

Might I offer this perspective?

The comparison is much like oranges and strawberries. Both provide nourishment. But that’s where the comparison stops. One is high in sugar, one needs to be peeled, one comes from a tree, one is usually red in color, etc.

Both meetings provide mental nourishment. But that’s where the comparison stops.

The meeting objectives are quite different. The audiences are quite different. They are attending for different reasons.

For Buzz2009… Social Media for Association Executives is the very reason for attending. For the WEC, one might be there as a supplier, or a senior corporate planner looking for Strategic Meeting Management, or a young professional attending the 101 type session on contract negotiation, etc. etc.

My understanding is that MPI is offering VAP as an alternative for those not able to attend. And to that I say, kudos. Maybe by supporting these interested professionals in this way, this people might attend in person in the future. Who knows?

Their cost model for each of these meetings is just that, THEIR cost model. Base on their business model. Might it need tweaking? Maybe. That is where their analysis of evaluation data comes in to play.

But this is a snapshot in time. Things change, technologies change and, as we all know, the economy changes. But all associations will be dealing with these questions to some extent in the future. They have to look at their members, their business model and their value proposition.

With meetings typically being the greatest source of non-dues revenue for an association, these are more than philosophical discussions of “free or fee”… but discussions about the future financial viability of an association.

Thanks for keeping this topic going. Given that fact that this touches the Knowledge, IT, Finance, Membership and Meetings departments of an association, I think this exercise illustrates that association boards need to make this part of their strategic discussions.

This is a starting point. It will evolve as each association evaluates their members’ needs. Ultimately, users will determine what route to take.

Jamie
Knowledge Architect
FusionProductions.com

Wake up MPI, this is a “new now”

I’ve discussed your final two points at length on this blog. Here’s a quick overview and my arguments about those two points

According to you, MPI said:
We’re in the business of creating and delivering great content. Great content costs something to produce, so someone has to pay for it at some point in the process.

My POV:
MPI does not pay speakers at their conferences. Either speakers present pro bono or bureaus underwrite any fees. Look at any of MPI’s call for speaker proposals and you’ll see a statement that they do not offer compensation to speakers. They may cover a couple nights lodging and conference registration but that’s it. Therefore, MPI’s costs to produce content are minimal at best. What costs are they incurring to cover development of content?

We do know that MPI does incur costs because of some of the extravagant productions for onsite attendees. They can’t claim that it costs them to produce some experience and out of the same mouth say most of their expenses are in-kind donations or greatly discounted.

I also argue that I already pay them $375 in membership fees. Use that money to provide content to me. The real root of the problem: MPI uses WEC and MeetDifferent as revenue generating sources.

According to you MPI said:
We don’t want to develop a “subsidization model” whereby people who pay to attend are subsidizing an equivalent online experience for people who pay nothing.

My POV:
That is ludicrous and shows that MPI places more value on people who can afford to attend than their entire membership. UStream.TV is being used across the globe for free live streaming videos, hosting and recording. As I’ve already written in this blog, people are paying for the face-to-face experience, not content. The online experience could never be equivalent to the face-to-face experience and whoever said that on MPI’s staff does not understand the value of the face-to-face meeting. That’s very unnerving.

In case anyone else is even reading these, take a look at these free videos from WordCamp Unconferences captured through UStream.TV. http://wordpress.tv/
Quality, excellent. Sound, excellent. Streaming great. People paid (very low fees) to attend face-to-face and no one complained that the content was live streamed free.

Agree entirely with this, and personally felt the OGS should be free, at least to members, probably to everyone. This was part of the MPI experiment, and I certainly hope they take a different approach with their next big event.

I went to a “Candid Conversation with MPI” session at WEC and asked how the conversation about free v. not-free had gone within MPI. It sounds like the internal conversation was more robust than it appears from the outside. I didn’t get any details, unfortunately, but a “we’re looking at all of the options”. I would be very interested to know what those options are and how they’re evaluating these decisions.

In this session, a couple of criteria were mentioned:
1) We’re in the business of creating and delivering great content. Great content costs something to produce, so someone has to pay for it at some point in the process.
2) We don’t want to develop a “subsidization model” whereby people who pay to attend are subsidizing an equivalent online experience for people who pay nothing.

I think Dave Lutz, among others, has proposed some very interesting pricing models on this blog that address both of these concerns. I just hope that there are more decision criteria at work than just these two, because neither of these appear to support a SM business model.

At both MD OGS & WEC OGS,MPI asked people to tweet about the OGS and the Twitter hashtags were shared before and during the events. MPI heavily promoted Twitter use for both events so it is equal in my minds. At MD OGS, questions from the audience were texted in via Twitter or a second SMS strategy. It was not Twitter only. Most questions from the audience were via the other method, not Twitter.

@Jay
You can print out the transcripts of tweets from both MPI’s WEC 09 (#wec09) and Buzz2009 (#buzz2009) at wthashtag.com. Then you can analyze them all you want any way you want.

I personally don’t think it matters if the tweets are questions, repeating what speakers are saying, or sharing links. What matters is that people are conversing about the topic. Do we really analyze what is being said in the hallways of conferences trying to figure out if there are more questions, statements, repeats of speakers’ content, etc.?

As I said to Jim, both organizations marketed and asked people to tweet about their sessions at their conferences. AND, MPI had set a precedent encouraging people to tweet at MeetDifferent 2009 in February and CLC2009 in June. So MPI’s members already know about this. Buzz2009 was the first time this group met and did not have a precedent. We can say all we want, “well there were more women than men, more Gen Y than Gen X, more people with red hair than black and think those variables caused more tweets. I believe we are splitting hairs.

My point is a free live streaming got more eyeballs, went viral more quickly and the messages were spread farther and for a longer time. Twitter was a tool for both groups to spread their messages and content. MPI missed the boat with WEC’s 2009 OGS and Twitter. If they really felt WEC’s OGS 09 message were important to meeting professionals and the hospitality industry, they would have live streamed it for free in addition to encouraging people to tweet about it.

Did you dig up the MeetDifferent tweet numbers? That WOULD be interesting!

I think you’re absolutely right that more people engaged in the Buzz streaming session because it was free. I have no idea what the VAP’s usage was during the WEC OGS, but I would be willing to bet it was nothing near 5000. But I think that several other factors contributed to the tweetscrepancy between the two events. [Boy, you can really fit "tweet" into ANYTHING! ]

To riff off your points above…
2) I was mistaken about Buzz2009 being a virtual event. In your stats, you mentioned that there were 70 people onsite and 5000 watching the live stream — so most of the participants experienced the event virtually. I misspoke and used the term “virtual event” inappropriately.

I would be very interested to better understand how Twitter was being used in both the WEC and Buzz2009 events. Are most of the tweets coming from the F2F attendees or from the virtual attendees? What is the nature of the tweets — quoting the speakers (which seemed to be a lot of the WEC tweets), or discussing the content?

I’m making a big assumption here, but I imagine that if more people are attending virtually than in-person, then more people will want to discuss the content virtually as well — hence, more tweets. If most of the attendees are in-person, then much of the discussion of content will take place in person as well, in the hallways, etc.

1&3) I’m using my writing to think, which can be dangerous. Let me attempt to refine what I was trying to say. I think that the topic of the Buzz2009 streaming session was social media — therefore the people who want to watch this content are predisposed to want to use social media as well. The topic of the WEC OGS was “When we meet, we change the world” — a much broader topic that will attract an audience with widely divergent interests, not just those interested in social media. Therefore, my logic goes, a lower percentage of the WEC audience will be Tweeters.

Now that argument just goes for a comparison to Buzz2009. If the numbers for MeetDifferent resemble Buzz2009 more than WEC2009, then I would happily withdraw this argument. (Although one might argue that a conference about “meeting different” might also attract an audience predisposed to SM.)

Thanks for this discussion, Jeff! I’m learning a ton!

BTW, MPI was two days late responding to the virtual attendees about their concerns accessing Pathable and the problems with sound, which was more than having speakers repeat questions. You saw tweets from today although they started asking for help on Sunday.

Sunday was the 12th, the tweets I saw were from MPI was on the 13th. That is one day, not two.

I believe that MPI’s February MeetDifferent OGS had more tweets Twitter than MPI’s WEC’s OGS. Same room layout, same setup, same type of motivational speakers, same amount of time. The biggest difference was MeetDifferent OGS was live streamed free and the virtual audience was engaged in Twitter.

I cannot speak for WEC09, but MeetDifferent OGS had two panels where they answered questions from the audience that were posted through twitter. So there for there would be more tweets at MD vs. if this was not done at WEC. If the format for WEC09 was not the same (which I do not think so from what I heard and read), then your comparison is moot.

Of course you are going to have more tweets when they as for attendee input. I tweeted during the MD09 General session a couple of questions. WEC seemed like it was more of straight speeches than having question and answer sessions. If I am wrong let me know. But I did not see that in the review of the hashtag responses.

First, you’re trying to put caveats on why we can’t compare the two, and I totally disagree with you. Content, expertise and meeting design are not valid reasons in these situations.

I believe that MPI’s February MeetDifferent OGS had more tweets Twitter than MPI’s WEC’s OGS. Same room layout, same setup, same type of motivational speakers, same amount of time. The biggest difference was MeetDifferent OGS was live streamed free and the virtual audience was engaged in Twitter.

1) If the content is engaging, people want to talk about it whether in Twitter, Facebook or onsite in the hallways. It doesn’t matter if the content is motivational or not. You’re saying that WEC09 OGS had less tweets because the speakers had nothing of value to say or it was only of value to those in the room.

2) Buzz2009 was not a virtual event. One 90-minute session was live streamed. The majority of the conference was onsite only. Same structure as WEC.

3) I don’t think we can adequately say MPI’s WEC09 audience was less experienced with social media than Buzz2009’s audience was. That is simply not true. Buzz 2009 was for association professionals to help them learn more about social media. Their focus was strategic in nature and from your perspective, MPI’s social media sessions were tactical.