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Disruptive technologies have impacted the way we communicate and work for years.
The relationship among event organizers, presenters and audiences is undergoing a fundamental change. Attendee 2.0 has embraced social media platforms and frequently engages in the backchannel discussing the event before, during and after the meeting. Attendee 2.0 has no problem reviewing the conference or expo, whether negative or positive and posting online for all to read. Many believe that the interaction that occurs in this new communication method is a threat to traditional conferences and will bring conference presentations to the brink of failure and negative public drama. And indeed that has happened in some instances.
The naysayers, those that try to control Attendee 2.0 and those that want to maintain the status quo, are not new. History has heard their hostile voices before and moved beyond them. Their rancorous rants could not stop many societal shifts. Consider the following.
- People said the first writing wasn’t needed and would distract people from being able to farm, produce and work. It didn’t. It helped merchants keep track of their goods and led to the written alphabet and words.
- The royals and elite said that the printing press would lead to the demise of talking. It didn’t. It led to an increase in adult literacy and the democratization of knowledge. People still talk today.
- The general populace thought the telephone would only be used for social, non-business affairs. It wasn’t. It became one of the primary tools of business as we know it.
- Society cried foul with the advent of the talking box saying it would end productive, quality lives and active communication. It didn’t. Television is one of the key communication tools today.
- The public screamed that the Internet was the work of the devil and would lead to the demise of community, family and intelligence. It didn’t. It has become as common as electricity and water in most people’s homes leading to more access to information and communication than ever.
- People said the birth of mobile phones and texting would speed the downfall of society and lead to family destruction, and the lack of basic social and communication skills. It didn’t. It’s led to a more connected society and the ability to communicate in new ways.
- Today misanthropists bellow that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will lead to the destruction of society, less productivity and that people will no longer know how to have face-to-face conversations. It hasn’t and it won’t.
In each of these cases, when there has been a shift in common communication practices, several things happen:
- Our communication capability expands.
- We increase the distance and speed of our communication reach.
- The new way we interact affects the way we organize, shifts the balance of power and influences how we get things done.
Currently, conference and tradeshow organizers are feeling the impact of new media. Web 2.0 disruptive technologies, like the backchannel, have caused a new way for attendees to organize and shifted the balance of power from the organization to the attendee.
Despite the cynics and old school pessimists, the potential for positive outcomes from disruptive technologies like the backchannel are equally attention-worthy as we all deal with shifting presentation tectonic plates. There have been other disruptive technologies that have transformed presentations in a positive way including the introduction of blackboards and whiteboards, microphones, overhead projectors, image magnification, LCD projectors, video and presentation software like PowerPoint.
Today, one thing is sure, the backchannel is rewriting the job description of everyone involved with presentations, including the conference organizers, audiences and speakers.
- Conference organizers have to rethink how they bring audiences and presenters together both face-to-face and virtually.
- Audiences find themselves with the power in their hands and can bring down a presenter in a blink of an eye or help spread the speaker’s messages to the masses.
- Presenters’ jobs are changing the most because their view from the stage is rapidly changing.
As an event professional, you may think “This isn’t going to happen at my meetings. We have doctors, (dentists, executives, construction workers, plumbers…substitute your audience here) who will never use social media like Twitter to communicate with a backchannel.” Yet, the genie is not going back in the bottle and the situation can change as quickly as a click of the mouse.
Ready or not, you may have a backchannel waiting on you at your next conference, event, tradeshow or presentation. All of this raises some great fundamental questions to consider:
- What do audiences, including Attendee 2.0, expect from conferences, events, tradeshows and presentations today?
- What are the ground rules, if any, regarding backchannels and social media platforms at events?
- Who is accountable, the conference organizers, attendees, exhibitors or speakers?
- How can conference and tradeshow organizers seek and integrate real-time attendee feedback?
What do you think? What’s your experience? Share your thoughts.
Traditional conferences versus social conferences. Which will you plan this year?
Not sure about the “Social Conference?” Read this post on “Screw Your Event Resolutions. Do You Conference Social?”
Here are six things to consider when planning the Social Conference so you don’t get caught with your social pants down.
1. In this new information landscape, your conference is not for a passive audience but an engaged community.
No conference attendees in history have been more thoroughly prepared for the industrial revolution than today’s participants. This is a major fail whale. They need to be prepared for the service and creative revolution. (Read more about the creative and service sectors.)
2. Your conference community is hyper-connected.
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Mobile Applications. Your conference attendees are going to talk about your event in person and online whether you want them to or not. Be social and engage with them before, during and after the event. Don’t control them, join them.
3. Each of your conference attendees has a voice, a platform to amplify that voice and followers that listen.
They can find each other, share, collaborate and connect. They will write a review of how your group rates are higher than what they found online, your sessions, your AV, your food, your content, your venue, your parties, your speakers, your registration process. Good or bad, expect it. And they will be brutally honest with their reviews. Encourage it. Use it to improve the future event. Incentivize it. Be transparent and respond to it. Make real-time changes because of it. Don’t ignore it.
4. The conference interaction has moved from a monologue to dialogue to polylogue (many voices speaking at the same time.)
Stop trying to control the conversation. You can’t. But you can help steer it and ask invaluable questions to guide it. As Samuel J. Smith says, “The gap between the experts on stage and the attendees in the audience has never been smaller.” Include questions and opportunities for experienced attendees to share what they know as well.
5. Potential and registered conference attendees expect conference organizers to find them, in the social media platforms they use.
It used to be that conference organizers expected attendees to find the conference on the Web. That’s shifted. Potential and registered attendees want to connect with you on their terms in the social media platform of their choice. Let your attendees self-identify their own favorites by giving them all the choices. Consider customizing the message for each platform. Don’t just duplicate the same message and post in multiple places. (Don’t think this is for you? Think again. See how younger people expect news to come to them (not on CNN or daily papers) and how they are conduits for info-sharing.)
6. Create an atmosphere of belonging and acceptance while encouraging attendees to share their experiences with others.
Think about your recent gathering of family or friends. You had a great time. Lots of pictures were taken and you woke up to realize you hade been tagged in Facebook. Your whole network knows about it. Capture that type of experience and encourage it at your meetings and events.
Final Thoughts
This is sneaking up on most association, event and conference professionals. Don’t be caught with your social pants down, high jacked by your conference audience. Plan now for the new social conference revolution.
What tips do you have to help plan for and embrace this revolution?
Debra Askanase has an interesting post, Front Yard and Back Yard Conversations, about the progression of relationships in social media.
Go read it. I’ll be here waiting for you when you return.
She suggests that many social media platforms are like front yards and that relationships really develop in people’s back yards where the private conversations can continue.
I like her analogy. And, I’d like to offer a different twist on her analogy.
Social media platforms are like front porches and Greek porticos.
I live in an urban neighborhood, less than 2 minutes from downtown Dallas, TX. It’s a historic district with 1920’s style craftsman homes, big wrap around porches and large oak trees lining the streets.
It’s what I call a 21st century Norman Rockwell picturesque neighborhood as you see families of all ethnicities, religions, types and sizes, walking, bicycling, playing in yards, checking in on each other, sharing garden tips, going through life’s daily routine together. It’s hard to imagine that we are just seconds from blocks of skyscrapers, major highways and bumper-to-bumper traffic congestion.
It’s a culturally diverse and unique neighborhood. Our own urban oasis in a large metroplex of more than 6.5 million people.
Our front porches are the hub of activity. They are today’s version of the ancient Greeks porticos, the meeting places where conversations about life, politics, families, spirituality and the meaning of existence occur. Often, the kids play in our front and back yards simultaneously. If you’re walking in our neighborhood, you’re considered part of the community family and we wave from our front porch and greet you. Our porches with our porch swings and Adirondack chairs are the center of our lives. Gathering on each other’s porch is as common as buying groceries or talking on the phone.
I believe that many social media platforms have become today’s front porches and ancient Greek porticos. In social media, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook Fan pages often serve as our wave from the porch so to speak. Deciding whether you wave back is as easy as opting in or following someone. If you stop to talk to us, by sending us a reply or message in a social network, we may invite you to our porch to continue the discussion. Our porches are similar to blogs, Twitter Chats and eCommunities. They are places where we can have deeper discussions and continue the relationship.
But for that relationship to go deeper, we may invite you into our home. If we invite you into our house, you immediately gain “Refrigerator Rights.” Refrigerator Rights are special privileges to open our refrigerator door and help yourself. It’s similar to Creative Commons where we give you access to all that is ours.
The people on our porch and in our yard don’t necessarily have Refrigerator Rights unless they enter our home. And typically, we invite them in first.
For me, Refrigerator Rights are social media’s equivalent to moving online conversations to offline via phone or a face-to-face. Refrigerator Rights are when we connect face-to-face at a MeetUp or conference or have a meal together. It’s when we take the relationship deeper, exposing our hidden secrets that avatars and 140 character texts don’t show. Refrigerator Rights are the relationships with others that you feel comfortable, cared for and relaxed. They know the real you behind the avatar.
In social media and relationships, if we connect through a wave (social media message), have a porch conversation (deeper communication in an eCommunity or blog), we may invite you into our home and give you Refrigerator Rights-agree to extended conversations on the phone or in person. The beauty of social media is that it’s given rise to global front porches and worldwide Refrigerator Rights.
So, what analogy would you use for social media and relationships that reflect your part of the world?
Today, StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening, is celebrating the National Day Of Listening.
In honor of the National Day Of Listening, consider how you listen to your conference attendees onsite, during the conference?
How do you listen to your customers, members and conference attendees?
We’ve all experienced it. The hallways of the conference are buzzing with chatter about the event. Attendees are discussing what’s working, what isn’t, why the organizers planned it this way, what they are happy about and what’s discouraging them.
As meeting and event planners, we often wish we could be a fly on the wall listening to everyone’s discussions all at once. With today’s social media tools, we can engage in discussions with our registrants before, during and after the big event. Now, we can capture those hallway conversations and respond in real time. So, where do you start?
1. Create and encourage a culture of listening.
Listening is something that every staff member can and should do, and the organization’s principals should lead by example. Staff should listen in the hallways, invite feedback on evaluations and encourage attendees to provide comments and concerns to any staff member both face to face and through the social media tools available. The event is all about attendee, not you the meeting professional.
2. Develop a system for capturing feedback and ways to respond.
a. Setup an event presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media tools.
In today’s web world, people go to several different sites to find information about an event. They no longer turn only to your organization or event website. They turn to their friends, colleagues and compadres. They also turn to the social media tools they use and you can help them by setting up “listening and chatting posts” within each social property. Twitter Tip: When using Twitter, identify one person to manage each event account and encourage them to list their name in the profile. For example Jeff4CVG09 meaning Jeff for CONVERGE 2009.
b. Decide who will be the champion for each account, keep the information updated and communicate to people within that network about the event.
Encourage the champions to provide outstanding customer service and do the right thing for the attendees when challenges arise. Let your team members know that you will back them with their decisions to provide outstanding customer service to the attendee.
Read the remander of my post, The Art Of Listening And The Science Of Responding on Event Manager blog.
Happy Listening!
I’m tired of well-intentioned adults slamming adults, teens and kids that text. Especially those that text each other while in the same room.
Is texting leading to the decline of relationships?
I’m sick of association and organization leaders knocking online communities, social networks and live chats as inferior to face-to-face experiences.
I’m also fed-up with event producers and face-to-face conference organizers bashing virtual experiences.
You know, you’ve heard and read these comments too. Here are a few examples.
- “I can’t believe my teen was texting his friend who was sitting next to him. Couldn’t they just talk to each other?” (Fess up if you’ve said that about your kids or grandkids!)
- “All this texting and online communication is leading to the decline of real human relationships.”
- “There is more power in live face-to-face events than in virtual experiences.”
- “Online and virtual experiences lead to isolation and people who engage in online experiences don’t know how to communicate in person.”
Why the harsh judgment against people who prefer to do something different from you? I don’t get it. It comes across as condescending, bullying and you just look like an outdated, moth-eaten, dust-covered prom dress stuck in the back of your closet. You show yourself as a crusty curmudgeon unwilling to face, or perhaps scared of, change and the unknown.
Then there’s corporate event producer Shelia Stack who has written three posts denouncing virtual meetings and experiences.
- Can Live Meetings Really Be Replaced By Virtual Meetings
- Virtual Vs. Live Meetings A Tale Of Two Trainings Part I
- Virtual Vs. Live Meetings A Tale Of Two Trainings Part II
Well, of course she disapproves of virtual experiences. She makes her money from producing face-to-face experiences. So, she’s denouncing her own competition.
And in case you think I’m picking on Ms. Stack and she’s a colleague of yours, then substitute the name of any event producer for her name. Or substitute the name of your boss, your parents, your grandparents or any person that denounces internet and mobile interactions. It’s not about Ms. Stack. It’s about the ubiquitous beliefs that she and others possess that online and mobile communications are leading to the decline of society. Ms. Stack is just willing to share them publicly on her blog.
Traditional Teens Texting Each Other Story As Reason Virtual Experiences Flawed
Stack shares the traditional story of two teens texting each other while sitting next to each other in the same room. And of course, adults were present to scream foul at this absurd habit. (Perhaps, just perhaps, these teens were texting each other about the adults present!)
Regarding the two teens texting, she says:
“…As you ponder the question this presents, the concerns it raises about our decreasing ability to relate to each other face-to-face, the increasing predominance of technology into every facet of our lives…also ponder this: Are you considering holding your next corporate meeting in virtual space?”
Whoa, that’s death by association if you’ve ever seen it. Death to the corporate virtual experience because of our increased use of technology and decreased ability to relate in face-to-face.
I posted a comment on her blog but she never approved it. Guess it was too biting for her.
Haven’t we heard these stories before, like those from the music, newspaper and media industries? Sounds familiar, right? Perhaps Ms. Stack should look at the facts and think about restructuring her business to include and embrace virtual experiences as part of the face-to-face experience. (For the record, I’m not an “either, or” kind of guy. I’m a “both, and” person and I believe both virtual and face-to-face experiences have a place! I say, long live the hybrid meeting! I also am a firm believer in using the best strategy and tools to reach your goals.)
Technology Use Does Not Lead To Isolation Or Poor Relationships
People said the same thing about other disruptive innovations such as CBs, the phone, television and email as they say today about mobile devices, social networks and texting. People cried foul that it was the end of live experiences, real communication and relationships. These new tools would end life, as we know it. However…
According to a new, November 2009 study from Pew Internet and American Life Project, technology does not lead to social isolation. Researchers found that online participation and mobile phone leads to larger and more diverse discussion networks. (Did you get that naysayers?)
“And, when we examine people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks,” the report overview says.
That’s right, mobile phones and online communities led to more diverse networks. Not a decline of relationships.
Regarding Face-To-Face Meetings Being Better Than Virtual
Ms. Stack chose some interesting words to describe face-to-face meetings versus virtual. She says, “Without live interactions the relationship goes cold.”
Whoa. No she didn’t just write that, did she? She is saying that without face-to-face meetings, the relationships go cold.
Is she saying virtual experiences are not live? Is texting not a live human interaction with another human? Are virtual experiences part of non-life, the living dead? (Yes, if you’re a parent of a teen, you think of your texting child as zombie like. They seem to be in the text-zone!) Is she saying that the only type of communication that sustains a relationship is a face-to-face experience?
What about families that communicate virtually with their loved ones in the military across the seas? What about spouses that communicate via text, email and phone during a day? Is she saying those aren’t valid, that they are lifeless and dead?
It’s still live interaction whether it’s face-to-face or virtual. It’s still “in real life.” Stop saying it’s not.
From the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “Our findings also suggest that there is little to the argument that new information and communication technologies decrease participation in traditional, local social settings associated with having a diverse social network.”
Regarding Online Social Networks And Communities
I’ve developed some amazing rich relationships with like-minded professionals though virtual experiences. I actually have a vibrant community of people online in eCommunites, FaceBook, Linked and Twitter that I turn to for real life interaction, advice and insight.
I would have never met these people at a face-to-face event because of sheer limitations of time and space. Now I want to go to face-to-face events to continue those relationships and be within the other’s presence. That’s driving me to attend the face-to-face event more than the content, or the speaker, or the tradeshow. Interesting how virtual is pushing me to face-to-face. These people I’ve met and communicate with online have become my core discussion networks.
According the Pew Internet and American Life Project,
“…Contrary to the considerable concern that people’s use of the internet and cell phones could be tied to the trend towards smaller networks, we find that ownership of a mobile phone and participation in a variety of internet activities are associated with larger and more diverse core discussion networks.”
H-m-m-m, ownership of a mobile phone and participation in internet activies leads to larger and more diverse networks. (If you’re a teen reading this and don’t have a mobile phone, there’s the leverage you need with your parents!)
Regarding Online Learning and Face-To-Face Trainings
By the way, there’s been plenty of research that shows online learning in virtual experience trumps face-to-face learning. Just read here and here and here to see for yourself.
So let’s stop the faulty thinking that virtual does not sustain a relationship or that it is not live interaction with another human. Let’s stop denouncing virtual experiences, admit that it’s here to stay and move to discussing how to integrate them for the best for everyone.
Whether it’s virtual or face-to-face, it’s still valid for today with valid communication models. And both have their place in today’s world.
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