Author Archive
A little over four years ago, I left the C-suite to begin the next chapter in my life. During my first few months, I had the opportunity to do some serious soul searching and self discovery. Like many of you, I have a passion for learning. I initially focused much of my reading around increasing my knowledge of what makes a great vs. mediocre leader. You know, things like humility, drive, vision, character, servant’s heart and excellent communicator.
Not too long into it, I had an ah hah moment. While I thought I had strong communication skills, it occurred to me that if I wanted to take things to another level there was one major area that I needed to improve. I learned about the incredible power of storytelling and how using stories was a part of the secret sauce for the best of the best.
I’m still not great at storytelling, but am getting better. The more I tell my clients how they can incorporate and benefit from it, the more I tend to use it.
Last week, Jeff and I received a copy of a storytelling whitepaper entitled Bold Brands Drive Revenue with Storytelling. It was written by NCM Fathom who helps major brands convey their messages through events at their national network of movie cinemas . The storytelling topic always catches my eye and this is one of the better short reads I’ve come across on the topic.
Here’s an excerpt taken from whitepaper that jumped off the page for me:
Good Stories Compel People to Change
- The way we feel. Stories demand an emotional investment.
- The way we think. Stories pique and hold interest.
- The way we act. Stories bring energy to the message.
- The way we behave. Stories cause us to take action.
DNA of a Great Story
Things around us are changing at a rapid pace and storytelling is a great tool to help accelerate and enable change.
A great story will include these elements:
- Real people like your members, attendees or exhibitors.
Don’t just look for those in leadership positions. - A difficult problem or challenge.
What are the top three issues impacting your attendees’ business success? What are the real reasons members don’t register or exhibitors decline to show their wares? Are the challenges different for each of your primary segments? Consider stories for each. - How did participating in your events help them solve their problem?
Details are important. Err on the side of brevity. - A powerful emotional connection.
This is what really makes your story have an impact or even go viral. Work hard to find that emotional hook. Stories that have a strong emotional ending are usually the ones that have the greatest impact.
Putting the four elements of a great story into practice.
Associations that adopt storytelling will have a process and culture for collecting and sharing the best stories.
- They’ll make sure that their staff, board and committees antennas are always up looking for that “killer story.” (Seeking real people.)
- They will ask open ended questions searching for a deeper understanding of attendance benefits. (Understanding a difficult problem or challenge.)
- They might seek out attendees or exhibitors that were on the fence, attended anyway, and are ecstatic they did. (How participating in your event helped the attendee solve their problem.)
- Their culture will encourage the use of Flip or digital cameras to capture the emotion. (Providing the emotional connection.)
Much like target marketing, you want your stories to be as relevant as possible. Segmenting your audience and doing your push distribution to only those that it aligns with is critical. If it’s a great story, those that connect with it most, will spread it for you.
Has storytelling had a positive impact on your organization or your life? When you think about the best leaders and their traits, is storytelling one of the skills that made them special? Got any cool stories or storytelling ideas to share?
When used properly, high-tech networking can increase the quantity and quality of professional connections. But to accomplish this, you’ll need an ‘Extreme Networking’ technology strategy — which starts weeks before and culminates in the face-to-face event.
Helping grow a participant’s professional network is a sure-fire way to increase loyalty. Last month, we explored how to do this with low-tech networking strategies. Here, we look at a tech-based “Extreme Networking” strategy. Note that this will necessarily vary from group to group, depending on where your members live their online lives.
Rather than try to do everything, it’s best to choose a few of the following 11 high-tech options and spend the bulk of your time building adoption and engagement – if you do, pretty soon you’ll attain the enlightened state of Extreme Networking.
1. Collect IDs
Use optional fields in event-registration and membership-renewal forms to ask attendees for their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter URLs. Explain the benefits of providing this information, and share your privacy policy.
2. Create event pages
Encourage attendees to RSVP via LinkedIn and Facebook event pages; updates and posts to these then will display in each person’s network stream. Provide fresh content that will encourage people to participate.
3. Use crowdsourcing
Online polling is a great way to engage your audience before the meeting. It also establishes a conduit for valuable input and a forum for attendees to meet one another.
4. Compare to connect
Some event-specific solutions allow attendees to compare their existing social networks against your registration list – and reaching out in advance to people you already know is an Extreme Networking best practice. Solutions that allow you to send a LinkedIn message, write on a person’s Facebook wall, or Direct Message Twitter followers are also very powerful.
5. Host Webinars and interviews
Schedule Webinars by conference speakers or locals from the event city who can give tips on restaurants and attractions. A pre-event Blogtalkradio series for speakers and Disney-lovers was a big hit for one association, whose attendees connected via Internet radio and text-messaging during the show.
6. Play matchmaker
Some solutions allow attendees to complete professional profiles and personal itineraries. Participants then use keywords and demographics to search for those with similar interests and schedule a time to meet. Some systems take this further and provide customized recommendations of people, sessions, or products.
7. Deploy PURLs
Powerful new solutions on the high-tech scene are personal Web pages (or PURLs) that aggregate links to session handouts, archives, exhibits visited, and attendees connected with. Oftentimes a proprietary device is used, although lead-retrieval and mobile-based solutions are quickly being adopted.
8. Monitor the hashtag
Some of the best connections come from watching others ask intelligent questions or provide insight on Twitter. Pick a unique hashtag (say, #pcma10), and ask attendees to use this when tweeting about the meeting.
9. Organize a “Tweetup” for Twitter-using attendees.
10. Game on!
Location-based apps with gaming components, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, help increase networking and connections. Encourage your hotels and local attractions to play along, and consider giving out awards to top connectors.
11. Share photos
Sites like Flickr allow attendees to deepen their relationships by sharing digital snapshots – and memories. For real-time memory-making, create a “Twitterfountain” that displays tweets and pics from the event as it’s happening.
Adoption Is Key
Too often, new technology isn’t utilized by enough participants to deliver desired results. Communication, education, and community management are the three pillars of success of encouraging adoption. As such, consider hosting a networking best practices Webinar before your meeting to teach attendees how to maximize their use of Twitter and take advantage of the power of the second degree on LinkedIn.
Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2009 pcma.org
You don’t need a helmet, knee or elbow pads to be an Extreme Networker. Heck you don’t even need to be on Twitter or Facebook (but they’ve been known to help). You just need to jump in and work it baby. Work “Extreme Networking,” that is.
One of the huge differentiators that make live events far superior to virtual is the relationships that are developed and grown in person. That’s where the ultimate trust is realized. For example, I might be impressed with your thought leadership through your online actions or maybe even a phone call together. But if I was considering hiring you, I’m not making that final call until after I look you in the eyes and press some flesh.
Strong relationships forged by face-to-face give you a significant advantage no matter what side of the table you sit on unless you are buying or selling lower priced commodities.
Meeting organizers need to do everything they can to accelerate and increase the networking power of their live events. For most, it’s the greatest reason for attending and for coming back next year. To realize that competitive advantage, connecting your attendees and members needs to be part of your culture. You need to take a no-holds-barred approach to Extreme Networking.
With that in mind, Jeff and I wrote a couple of articles in PCMA’s Convene on tactics for taking your conference networking to new levels. In the January column, Is Your Networking Working? we discussed how conference design and low tech approaches can help spawn more networking. Here’s a recap of the 15 ways to provide more structured networking at your next meeting.
1. Secure volunteer greeters and connectors for each session.
2. Ask speakers to weave a networking activity into their sessions.
3. Take a page from Apple retail stores’ Genius Bars, and secure industry veterans or influencers and staff expert bars.
4. Designate special sections in the hotel’s restaurants for conference guests. Encourage the hotel to seat individual attendees with a group or another party of one from your conference.
5. Rope off special sections in meeting rooms for preferred seating.
6. Hold early-morning coffee klatches.
7. Design a Breakout Café.
8. Plan a table-storming session.
9. Schedule book clubs.
10. Program an “unmeeting” session. Attendees enter a room, put one issue they want to discuss on a sticky note, and post it on a board. Attendees separate into topic-based discussion groups.
11. Hold peer-to-peer roundtable discussions.
12. Create speed-networking sessions. Allot three-minute slots for attendees to meet one-on-one and exchange business cards.
13. Add a team-building or community-service project to your agenda.
14. Use name tents for each attendee at a table.
15. Use meeting room setups that help encourage networking.
What do you think of the recommendations listed? Are there others that you would add?
If you are a regular subscriber to PCMA’s Convene, the February issue should be hitting your desk in the next few days. In that issue we continue the networking theme, but made it all about using technology to help. Be on the lookout.
Parts of this post were reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2009 pcma.org
By Dave Lutz, Managing Director, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting
Last week Expo Magazine Insights newsletter linked to a Trade Show Exhibitor Association (TSEA) exhibitor housing survey.
The survey’s key findings are:
- 8% of exhibitors believe shows have fair convention housing practices.
- 69% of exhibitors book their hotel rooms through show convention housing bureaus.
- 89% of exhibitors feel that current deposits are not fair.
- 97% do not believe they receive the best rate possible when booking rooms for a convention in the housing block.
- 83% do not feel they have sufficient time to submit names of their company’s attendees for convention housing blocks.
- 31 % of respondents listed one or more specific shows that caused them concern.
After reading the TSEA’s survey results, I held my own unscientific informal survey of association and tradeshow planners…in my mind. Here are the results from my dreamed-up efforts.
- 100% of planners hate paying attrition and blame their exhibitors as the #1 threat to actualizing their contracted block. Many of the “unfair” housing policies that they implement are intended to change the behavior of exhibitors, not penalize them. Planners just want exhibitors to come through with the number of rooms that they say they need (each night). Many will actually ask exhibitors to sign contracts transferring the attrition liability.
- 3 out of 5 planners really don’t care if exhibitors circumvent the official housing process, as long as the hotel credits the group for those rooms (and the exhibitor doesn’t complain). In my opinion, exhibitors that stay in a non-conference hotel are nuts. Why pay big bucks to participate in a show and then stay where you can’t network with attendees and need to incur taxi charges?
- All planners are sick of dealing with rate issues at hotels. Nobody understands why buying 100’s of something doesn’t give you a better rate than buying only one. Perhaps hotels should go the way of the airlines and start offering groups Best Available Rate (BAR) with a 5% discount for being part of the group, no matter what distribution channel is used to make the reservation.
- 2 out of 5 planners are dealing with these problems wrong. In my opinion, penalties don’t work, incentives do. If the hotel requires a one night guarantee, don’t change your policy to two nights. Your exhibitors and attendees should be ticked.
In these times when show and conference organizers are scraping for attendance and hotels are battling for RevPar, what advice do you have for planners, hotels or exhibitors to improve this situation?
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