I'll add my 2 cents:
- 10 Reasons Why Your Event and Social Media Don’t Mix

- The Credit Crunch of Events

Great post!

Excellent list of resources and a fantastic challenge! I think we got stuck in the old model because ot the industrial revolution and top-down heirarchial structures.

Yes, give the control back to the attendee. (They really had it in the pastbut didn't know it.) Power To The Attendee!

Thanks for a great article!

I guess we are also paying the toll of large corporations paying for huge delegates fees. That brought down the amount of creativity of event pros to zero.

Reality is large corporations are not paying anymore and we need to be more creative than ever starting today.

@julius - Excellent! Thanks for adding those resources!

On the creativity front - I think that you are right. I am seeing more people looking for new ways to connect and engage with attendees. They are trying to figure out how to do more with less.

@jeff - Thanks for your comment and compliment! I agree that the industrial revolution hampered education. Though, I don't think that explains why events mostly follow the same model around the world. I could be wrong here...

Also, I think that we are in a unique place in time. The knowledge & information gap between experts and attendees is shrinking. The regular person has access to much more information today than he did 20 years ago. The world education level is overall much higher today than it was (more college degrees and masters degrees) 20 years ago. If you add the new technology tools and collaboration concepts to the mix - I think it makes for a unique opportunity and further arguments for change.

Way back in 2007 I started beseeching meeting planners to make meeting more meaningful via the helpful use of social media - or be vulnerable to losing members http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2007/10/how-an-online-s.html

Well done Kare it was few of us 2007, things have not changed that much though, sad to say!

I agree with you 100% Samuel. It's time to flip the events model in both the real and the virtual world. My bias has always been that this also applies to sales rallies, conferences, training seminars and meetings. To borrow a phrase from Dave Meier at the Centre for Accelerated Learning. "Pour and bore" should never be the order of the day.If we're seeing a lot of lecture based events in the virtual world, it's because many organizations are still stuck in that paradigm in the real world.I agree. The time for a paradigm shift is long overdue.

Virtual meetings and events don't have to consist of a talking head yakking at avatars seated in rows in an auditorium. Just about any meeting or even scenario that exists in the real world, can be created in the virtual world. One can have meetings around a boardroom table, round table discussions, cracker barrel sessions, and plenary sessions followed by breakout sessions in small rooms. These formats could be applied to training seminars and any other type of meetins and events:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/03/training_games/index_01.htm

If the participants are situated at various locations in the real world, it's possible to combine a face-to-face meeting with a virtual one with delegates coming together virtually for the sessions that involve the whole group and meeting face-to-face for the facilitated exercises of breakout sessions. So, add to your list:

11. Forum role-plays.
12. Participant Generated Skits
13. Write Your Own Role-plays
14. Write Your Own Case Study (in small groups)
14. Crackerbarrel, table top discussions or round tables.
15. Game shows.
16. Card Games
17. Board Games

As always Samuel, insightful. As you and I have discussed, a focus on ROI is when a new era of events will begin.

Rather than a discussion of 'virtual or not' (I agree with Jeff Hurt's recent post encouraging the events industry to get over it), or where is the content going to be generated, or which new technology is going to be used to converse in real-time, or so many of the conversations that are simply a distraction to what really matters, the ROI-switch has got to be turned on - and FAST!

ROI?

- I'm talking about activated (not simply engaged) attendees.
- Qualified leads (not just a list of spam targets).
- Speakers that participate in an ongoing conversation before, during and after the event and
- Revenues created and shared where they can make a difference and matter most.
- And what about venues? There's a reason WiFi costs $500 per day, electricity costs $1000 per booth and a bottle of water costs $2.50.

When talking about ROI, it's not purely about the economics; to think so is to miss the point.

As Jeff said about "Vive le Attendee" and I'd add to that "让我们去...投资回报率".

@Kare - Awesome! Thanks for sharing the link to your post. I would be interested in learning more about your successes and challenges since 2007.

@Anne - Thanks for your comment and suggestions. I love games, competition and the spirit of sport. I know that there is emerging research on the use of digital games for learning. Though, I don’t know too much about it right now. I think it will be an interesting place to learn more.

@BusyEvent - I think you have me confused with someone else. I don’t recall ever having met you or talked to you on the phone. If we had met or talked - I wouldn’t have said that a focus on ROI is when the new era of events will begin.

To me the new era of events begins, when we start tapping into the collective ideas, knowledge and insights of our attendees.

In my opinion, Event ROI is the standard measuring stick to measure the event. You are spot on that ROI needs to be more than economics. I like your suggestions for non-financial ROI measurements. The Event ROI model proposed by the ROI institute suggests measuring event ROI in several different ways. The first four levels are non-financial.

Thanks for your contribution. Maybe one day we will meet and can talk further.

@ALL
If you want more information on Event ROI - here are some links:
US: http://www.roiinstitute.net/meetingsandevents/
Europe: http://www.eventroi.org/

Hi Samuel: Just sent you an email referencing our conversations this past week.

Thanks for sharing the links to the ROI Institute, it IS what I was referring to.

First of all, the title of this posting makes me laugh...I just left a post on Jeff's blog about how lately I've been turning our projection screens 180 degrees and prying our clients' fingers off of the tightly-held idea that a room must have mirrored 9x12 screens. It's remarkable what happens when attendees walk in and see an asymmetrical room set. Can you remember the first time you saw a 60" Plasma turned lengthwise? Did you take a second look because you couldn't figure out what you were looking at? Or what about when an LCD panel is embedded in a desktop? It seems so futuristic, no? We forget that displays no longer have to be upright, static "squares"...
And I can tangibly support your idea to start small. Without being told to or charging for the service, I've been bringing in extra flat-panel displays and casually demonstrating what visual tweets can do for a room. 9 times out of 10 we create the hugest stir as attendees, desperate to interact with others in the room, become active participants in conversation and commentary. As a meeting organizer witnesses what social media and co-creation can do for an event, they begin asking more questions about what else we might be able to do to augment the interactivity of their events.
So, you're right Samuel, simply taking one small step at a time can spark the transformation of the way an organization views the structure of their event. There is no need to be overwhelmed with these fascinating concepts and theories. But you must be sure you're analyzing what your attendees have expressed as their greatest desires for (and challenges of) being at your event. Otherwise it will all be a gimmick.

I also recommend reading "Seating Matters." I found the theory fascinating - although considerably lacking in practical application.

Midori Connolly, Chief AVGirl
Pulse Staging and Events, Inc.

@ChiefAVGirl

Those are two great ideas! And - why on earth do we have to all sit facing the same direction? Is that one of those secret handshake rules that I don't know about?

Thanks for the advice on Seating Matters. I will go check it out!

- Sam

Thanks for the mentions of Unconference.net - I built it as a resource for conference planners to get good information.

There is a balance between starting "small" and leaping in. You can't 1/2 do open space really, paralleling participant driven content and pre-programmed content doesn't work" - so it is better to "LEAP" and do it fully. You can serialize open space with pre-programmed content planning a morning of speakers and then use open space for an afternoon. Having pre-planned content before participant driven content is also important. If you put pre-planned content after participant driven content means you can have very unhappy fidgety audience when they are back in their seats listening after having "opened up" having conversations and learning from each other.