Essential Event Technologies

I thought I had posted this link a while ago, but apparently not! We were featured in the startup section of the Phoenix Business Journal last December after we covered the AZ Entrepreneurship Conference. Upon being published in the paper, the first email response we received was from an engraving company who offered us a deal on laminated the newspaper article. I wonder if that’s an automated feed for them!

Just a few corrections to the article:

1. Seth Markowitz - is the correct spelling of my name
2. The event that was recorded was the AZ Entrepreneurship Conference, not the Social Media Conference, although that’s positive thinking!

Actually, I bring up this article because yesterday we were invited down to the AZ Channel 3 offices for a story that the studio is putting together on local entrepreneurs. The people being interviewed all entered a contest sponsored by the Lucky Napkin, whose partners are all located in Phoenix. There were 5 business reviewed for tonights story, each took about 15-20 minutes to record and the segment that will air is supposed to only last 2 minutes. So I’m not sure how they will manage that.

We spoke to the other entrepreneurs in the lobby of the Channel 3 building, but most were fairly tight-lipped about their projects. Chance gushed on about crowdbox and connected with Michael LaPorte from VBN.tv who will most likely be featured in tonight’s segment.

Interestingly, they recorded the piece in the Channel 3 employee fitness center, and there were actually people working out while we were taping! We’ll see how it came out tonight and we hope that we’ll make an appearance.

I should have posted this a week ago, but as usual… too busy.

So on Feb 14th, www.managesmarter.com published my story: “The Right Solution for the Right Presentation”. It’s interesting to see the editorial process in action. Try reading both articles and see if you can tell what was cut out. The article that appears on this blog is the original.

It’s really exciting that they published the story, because I think it’s important that we get our message out. That many presentations in the conference space are being lost because current technologies are up to task for properly recording them.

Seth

Testimonial : Rachel Sacco : Scottsdale CVB President

When it comes to technology conferences, powerpoint is nice, but demos
are nicer. I’m about to present a software product that my company is
developing to a group of peers next week. My presentation will start
out with a few slides that highlight the product’s features, its
genesis, and why we built it. But I know that my audience will
quickly tire of bullet points and screenshots. They want the meat.
They want to see something in action.

The reality is, many people are using new tools for presenting
information. Power Point competitors are springing up all over the
place in this post-YouTube and Web 2.0 world. Online solutions like
Sliderocket and Google Presentations are going to give PowerPoint a
run for it’s money. Sexier animations, easy integration of video, and
web-based are just some of the features that are available out of the
box, and will probably get an “ooh” and an “ah” out of the right
audience.

From a conference host’s perspective, as presentations become more
sophisticated, so will the methods for recording and managing them.
There are many solutions out there that work wonderfully with
PowerPoint slides and static web pages. But what about all the demos?

When working with a vendor who is recording your conference
presentation it is important to understand a few key issues:

1. Do they require that the presenter have special software installed
in order to record their demo? If they do, then software licenses and
compatibility may be an issue. Also, you would need to ask the
presenter if they would be comfortable with loading a new piece of
software onto their own laptop.

2. What kind of distribution methods are available? Can these
presentations be published online? And if so, what kind of hosting
fees can I expect. Streaming video and audio can be quite costly,
especially if the vendor does not have their own video hosting
platform.

3. Can the viewers interact with the content online? In this world of
MySpace, Facebook, and Wikipedia, web savvy users want to be able to
interact with your content. A 40 minute presentation may be very
interesting, but wouldn’t it be great to share it with others and form
a converstation around it? See what kind of interactive, community
tools your vendor offers in conjunction with their web publishing
platform.

Remember that your conference content is an incredible asset. It
builds community, brand awareness, and phenominal marketing
opportunities. Make sure that it is captured correctly, because you
only get one chance on site!

This was the 2nd Annual AZ Entrepreneur conference and coordinators Francine Hardaway, Joan Koerber - Walkerand Steven Grovesdid a phenomenal job pulling together a memorable agenda of both topics and powerhouse presenters.  I WAS able to attend and the sessions I recorded were a nice balance of information, education and inspiration.  All of the sessions were excellent but several stood out…

In one of the livelier sessions, moderator Sean Tierney did an awesome job of inspiring some healthy debate in the Innovation breakout panel which featured Marie Wesslhoff of the AZ Center for Innovation, Innovation Consultant, Lon Safko and Jon Hall of Dreamspan. 

Steven Groves was razor sharp as the moderator for the Real Estate breakout panel.  I was even tempted to break my own rule about asking questions during sessions I’m recording.  As a person with a home on the market, I was both intrigued and a bit concerned about what I might hear going into this session.   I leave it to you to decide how rosey or bleak the outlook is…

What can you say about Marc Canter’s presentation?  It was the first time I have heard him speak and it was a presentation that was as colorful as the shirt he was wearing.  I mean, it’s not everyday you hear a keynote speaker drop the F-Bomb…several times.  But that’s obviously Marc’sway of telling his story and it’s clear when you listen to him that he’s as authentic as they come and brings some serious experience from the trenches.

The Club E keynotes rounded out the afternoon starting with an introduction and overview of who and what Club E is by founding Club E President and local young entrepreneur celebrity dynamo, Corey Kossack.  Corey also introduced Ingrid Vanderveldt, host of CNBC’s series ‘American Made’ and the driving force behind the Club E Network endeavor.  Ingrid was on-point in her discussion about the passion and persistence required to succeed as an entrepreneur.  I was especially taken by the point she made around her 3 month personal goal of creating a million dollars.  Check out her presentation to see what you think…I was impressed with her candor and the fact that she came so from the heart when she could just as well have smiled and filled the room with whatever happy gas the audience wanted to hear…and I think we’d have all believed her.  I mean come on…it’s Ingrid!…she could tell me there were alien spacecraft in the parking lot and I’d have at least peaked out the door.  But she was honest and her wisdom and sincerity were abundantly evident.

 And then there was the grand finale of Michael Gerber.  Michael has quite a following with this audience and he also could have chosen to serve up a big heaping helping of feel good if he wanted.  But he instead delivered a very moving conversation about serving the greater good in the age of the new entrepreneur and he did it by using the metaphor of his ‘little Jewish hat’ as he called it.  His story about ordering eggs benedict was hilarious.  In the end, he received a standing ovation and moved at least one of the attendees, whom I interviewed at the reception, to tears.  I’m guessing he wasn’t alone.  Great stuff.

To echo what Seth said earlier, this really is the stuff that excites and drives us - when we’re able to create an engaging vehicle for those who couldn’t attend the live event to have access to this type of content.  It would have faded into the memories of the 250 or so that were in the room otherwise, right?  Well, to be fair it would have existed as audio podcasts thanks to Sean Tierney and Grid7but without that, it would have perished altogether.  And, no offense to the value of podcasting, but I have to say there’s a difference between the experience of listening to Michael Gerber present and seeing him present…

This is really what we believe to be the future of both education and marketing.  We don’t believe it will be a question of ‘should we capture and deliver this content to the broader audience of non-attendees?’ but ‘how do we…’ 

So yes, it is about giving those people who were motivated and able to attend the live event an opportunity to review sessions.  And it’s about giving those people who were in the ‘Green Business’ breakout an opportunity to see what they missed in the ‘Real Estate’ breakout.  But more to the point, it’s about reaching that GLOBAL audience of people who wanted to attend but just couldn’t make it and, perhaps even more importantly, those people who didn’t know about this event and now they do…people who have never heard of Michael Gerber and now they have and perhaps…maybe…they’re motivated into a level of action in their business and personal lives that they were unable to reach before.  To be sure, that’s a MUCH larger audience than was in the room.  I’d guess by a factor of 100 at the very least…perhaps more depending upon how many people YOU chose to share this link with…

The AZ Entrepreneurship Conference 2007 is now online! The excitement of putting all the event presentations online using our workflow and technology really made me proud of the things we’re accomplishing at Essential Event Technologies. The event was held on Nov 8th in Phoenix, AZ and attracted a few hundred attendees. I, unfortunately, was unable to attend. But EET generously offered to sponsor the online conference archives for the event. And that has made all the difference. That is exactly why I love doing this work. I now have not only the ability, but the convenience of watching a high-quality reproduction of the presentations that were given. I had a great seat at my workstation, where I could see Marc Canter’s entertaining talk about being a visionary in the tech world, Michael Gerber’s motivating stories about getting out there a making your dreams happen. I don’t think there are many other services or companies out there using the technology the way we are to bring conferences and events directly and conveniently to the people who aren’t able to attend them.

Well Seth, I can’t disagree entirely with you on several of the points you raised regarding yesterday’s event however I wasn’t left as ‘wanting’ as you I don’t think.

While I do think we’re all responsible for our own success at connecting with as many people as we’d like to, I will agree that at next year’s event there is plenty that can be done by the organizers to facilitate connections.  However given that this was a first time event, I think some slack can be cut the organizers.  Also, I don’t think this was really so much a Club Entrepreneur event as an Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference (perhaps they partnered in some form) so I’m not sure the responsibility for the issues you raised were entirely CE’s.  Having spent many years in the hospitality industry as a corporate AV and event producer, I do understand how challenging an event like that can be to coordinate, especially with volunteers, and I have to have empathy there.  Sheesh Seth, have you NO compassion!

Personally, I really got a lot out of the presentation by Social Media Club founder, Chris Hauer.  He pointed out that the co-creation of value trumps the act of ’selling’ something which we share as a fundamental philosophy at EssentialET.  If we can’t find a way to work directly with our clients to create real value for them then we’re not likely to be successful. 

Some of the other nice tidbits I gleaned from Chris’ talk were ‘disruption = opportunity’, ‘if you ‘get it’ - share it’ (LOVE that), the intriguing conversation about how ‘humans don’t scale’ and one of my favorites of the day, ‘the brand with the best storytellers, WINS‘. 

I also enjoyed the ‘Launching Social Media Campaigns’ panel and will agree that I also got a kick out of Amanda Vega’s comments (although I do think that Janet was baiting the panel, for those who were there).  To clarify Seth’s reference, Amanda made a comment about the virtue of turning down a $750,000 a year job in order to stay a consultant in part because one had the freedom to choose to sleep in.  It was then that Ben Gordon made the comment that if you were to offer him a $750k a year job, he’d be there at ‘7 o’clock in the morning!’

I wish I could recall who shared a version of the Nikolai Lenin quote that turned out to be my favorite of the event (I think it may have been the moderator of the ‘Launching Social Media Campaigns’ panel Ty E. Young) which was ‘One fool can ask more questions in a minute than a twelve wise men can answer in an hour’.  So can one five year old, by the way. 

 I regretably missed the lion’s share of Robert Scoble’s presentation so I can’t comment on that unfortunately.  Overall, I did learn a lot about the impact of Social Media (well, here we are, right?) and I think the event accomplished what it set out to.  I’d think it would be worthwhile to review the changes that occur in this arena over the coming 12 months at next year’s event.

As for the technical challenges…well yes…EET will have to volunteer to assist with the AV next time around.  There were indeed some technical challenges that impacted the experience from an audio perspective but worse, impacted the flow of the presentations.  The good news is that these are all relatively easy to address for future events.  The bad news is that I’d be quite surprised if the podcast is listenable.  I would hope so, but if the audio quality is comparable to what it sounded like in the room then I’m doubtful…we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

What Essential Event Technologies could have brought to the party were it not for the late hour that we found out about the event is the ability to video and audio record the presenters (and thus, had a positive impact on the audio quality for the audience as well) and synchronize the computer output in a single user interface and then make that available online.  Here’s an example of that technology in action at a Sybase event.

In speaking briefly with event organizer Joan Koerber-Walker, C.E.O. of the Arizona Small Business Association, she told me that they had extended invitations to approximately 10,000 people for the event and had approximately 200-220 people in attendance, which in my opinion, is pretty darn good for a first annual event.  That said, in the future, the impact and reach of the event can be extended to the 9800+ non-attendees who were not able to be there.  This, I should think, would be of particular interest to the primary sponser.  For instance, I’d imagine our friends at Infusion Software - who brought a LOT to the party, BTW - would have liked an opportunity to have reached that larger audience by having their message, in the form of a banner of some sort, integrated into a player (or ‘viewer’, if you will) that was made available post-conference and included a specific call-to-action.  Ah, well, there will be many additional opportunities for all and we look forward to being there to support those efforts as they arise!

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put on the event.  As I said, I understand what it takes to pull off something like that and my hat is off to you all.  This is just the beginning of something powerful…just wait and see what develops

Today’s “Exploring the Impact of Social Media” left me wanting. As a first time attendee at a Club Entrepreneur Event, I was eager to meet as many people as possible. Yet the club seemed tightly knit and slow to greet. Hopefully future events will be better as my scarlet “S” for success begins to form. The best part of the event was Amanda Vega’s argument for why outsourcing is a great strategy and why traditional large corporations are better off outsourcing anyway, because chances are that the full-time they hire will only be mediocre at best — so if they’re not consulting, they’re mediocre. Even better was Ben Gordon’s callback to Amanda’s comments the virtue of being a consultant over taking a job for $750K (an offer that seems to have been passed on in the name of lifestyle maintenance).

Overall, the presentations gave an overview of Social Media both in definitition and in practice. The event, however, suffered from poor A/V setup and could have been a prime candidate for our services at EssentialET. The microphones crackled, hissed, and feedback moaned like a sinking carrier. The powerpoint controls were a disaster and were finally mastered by the 7th speaker, although they still had to aim the pointer towards the left of the stage to get the slides to change. Apparently a recording and a podcast will be available, but the mass audience will miss out on the slides and videos given at the event. Especially entertaining were the ColdStone Creamery associate videos where the best entry won a lifetime supply of ice cream shakes.

So let’s see if that podcast ever becomes available and what the quality will be. I wish that we were able to capture the event and really leverage the social impact and penetration that this event intended to have accross the breadth of AZ entrepreneurs.