The Importance Of The Virtual Event Debrief

Philosopher and essayist George Santayana was quoted as saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.  With virtual events, the “past” is fairly recent.  However, the spirit of Santayana’s quote holds true – we need to learn from our prior virtual event in order to make the next one better.

In the virtual events I’ve worked on, the conclusion of the virtual event is very much like crossing the finish line of a marathon – you’ve worked and trained hard and now it’s time to unwind, rest and relax.  The team that worked on a virtual event often has to move on to “the next project”, without much time to reflect on the event that just concluded.  As a virtual event show host, it’s your job to round up the team for a debrief meeting – you’ve all completed the marathon, but now it’s time for the half-mile cool-down jog to reflect back on the race.

The keys to a virtual event debrief:

1. Define, measure and review virtual event goals and metrics – the first step in the debrief has to occur prior to the start of the project.  During or before your kick-off meeting, you and your team need to define the goals of the virtual event – and the associated metrics that you’ll use to quantify those goals.  Whether it’s “maximize sponsorship revenue”, “maximize user engagement” or “generate leads for exhibitors”, you’ll want to define measurable and non-subjective data points to serve as the basis of your virtual event report card.  So the first segment of the debrief is to review the data (i.e. the measured metrics).
2. Review what worked – a combination of the metrics results – and, more subjective/anecdotal feedback regarding the overall event.  The key here is to understand why (or how) it worked and determine whether you want to repeat that success in your next event.  For the most part, what works in one virtual event should be carried over into the next.
3. Review what didn’t work – again, a combination of metrics plus anecdotal feedback.  This is one of the most important components of the debrief – be honest in your assessments of what didn’t work – so that you are not “condemned to repeat it”.  My experience has been that when things don’t work, the reasons are usually “not enough lead time” / “too rushed”, “communications mix-up”, “human error” and “mismatch in expectations”.  Another category is “technology issue”.  I believe that all of these are correctable, with technology being the most straightforward and human error / communication / lead time being a bit trickier to nail down.
4. Review and judge your constituents’ experiences – different event types will have difference constituents.  In a virtual tradeshow, the constituents include yourself (show host), attendees, exhibitors and presenters.  You may want to ask each constituent to complete a survey that’s specific to their experience.  Did attendees find the content useful?  How about the event experience – was it easy to navigate?  Did exhibitors have meaningful interactions with attendees?  For speakers, did they find the webcasting presenters’ interface intuitive?  Each constituent in a virtual event is important – if they were not 100% satisfied in this event, make it a goal to achieve 100% in the next event.

With the growth we’re seeing in this industry, chances are that when one virtual event concludes, you’re rushing off to your next one.  My recommendation is to stop and take a breath.  Take the time to gather the team and do a debrief.  Then, document the debrief and be sure to review it before you start planning the next event.

Virtual Events: Available In Many Flavors

Source: flickr (User: rkeohane)

In my Virtual Events Year In Review: 2009, I summarized key trends that I witnessed in the virtual events industry this year.  The trends for 2009 included global adoption, emergence of new industries (as virtual event show hosts), emergence of hybrid (virtual/physical) events, the shift to ongoing communities and the shift to multi-day events.  There was one trend I neglected to include – and it may be the number one trend for 2009: virtual events in many flavors (aka virtual events take on many shapes and sizes).

Virtual tradeshows still constitute the majority of virtual events in 2009 – however, new flavors emerged (or generated strong growth) in 2009.  Here’s how they’re different from virtual tradeshows:

1. Virtual Job Fairs - first off, virtual job fairs are quite similar to virtual tradeshows, especially in structure.  There are exhibitor booths, lounges, presentations (live Webcasts or live Video), prize giveaways, a document Resource Center, etc.  Here’s a big difference with the job fair, however – attendees pursue the exhibitors more than the exhibitors pursue the attendees.  The virtual job fair brings a rather engaged attendee, who’s more keen to visit booths and interact with exhibitors (hiring companies) than typical virtual tradeshows.  Hosts of virtual job fairs will want to work with their virtual event platform provider to create unique tools/applications within the show – for instance, a resume wizard (builder), resume submission tools, attendee<->exhibitor match-making (i.e. find the right job for you – find the right candidate for the hiring company), etc.
2. Virtual Sales Kickoff – that’s right, the annual sales meeting (for some companies) is moving 100% virtual.  Michael Doyle of Virtual Edge published an interesting article on Cisco’s Global Sales Experience.  For most companies, the goal of an annual sales meeting is to bring the entire salesforce together, reflect back on the past year (acknowledging and rewarding sales reps for their efforts) and talk about the year ahead (set priorities and goals).  Similar to a virtual tradeshow, education (e.g. live sessions) is a focus for this type of event.  Unlike a virtual tradeshow, however, there’s less pitching and selling (from exhibitors to attendees) and the need to network (e.g. find new contacts) is lessened.  It’s incumbent on show hosts to make the virtual sales meeting fun and engaging, as attendees are used to going out for dinner, drinks and parties after physical sales meetings.  Virtual cocktails don’t work too well, so be sure to make the virtual experience memorable and fun.
3. Virtual Partner Summits - a virtual event platform makes perfect sense for a b-to-b vendor’s partner / reseller network – gather the network of partners virtually, give them the training and tools on your products and services and allow them to network with one another.  You improve relations between you and your partners – and, you encourage resellers to partner together to create joint solutions for the market.  Cisco Virtual Partner Summit ran concurrently with a Boston-based physical Partner Summit (June 2009).  Oracle has similar plans for a virtual partner summit.  PartnerPoint has created a 24×7 virtual community “to help connect Microsoft Customers with qualified Microsoft  Partners from around the globe”.  While virtual tradeshows tend to be “lead focused”, virtual partner summits revolve around networking among exhibitors [peers] – they’re unique in that the exhibitors and attendees are one and the same.

My prediction for 2010 – these three flavors will gain further adoption.  Virtual tradeshows will still carry the majority – however, we’ll be seeing more and more off these flavors, in the following order:

1. Virtual Sales Kick-off
2. Virtual Partner Summit
3. Virtual Job Fair

Virtual Events: Year In Review 2009

Coming into this year, I considered 2009 a taking-off point for the virtual events industry.  Sure, virtual events and virtual tradeshows have been around for some time, but I felt 2009 would see enormous growth (in both event volume and in the breadth of industries entering the mix), as virtual event organizers (and virtual event platform providers) pushed the envelope with new technologies and new event models.

From my perspective, this has come to fruition – 2009 has had so much activity and excitement that I’ve decided to publish my year in review before the summer is out!  And maybe I should re-label this – I don’t intend to provide a review of the entire year – but rather, highlight the important trends that I’ve noticed in 2009:

1. Virtual events go global – since I reside in the United States, it’s not surprising that many virtual events I hear about are produced by U.S.-based show hosts  (e.g. b-to-b publishers, corporations, etc. based here).  In 2009, I saw a marked increase in virtual events outside of the U.S. – including those for a global audience and those targeting a specific geography.  I saw a few “24 hour consecutive” virtual events that sought to follow the sun.  I saw the launch of ExpoNZ (a global showcase for New Zealand) and virtual job fairs in Europe, powered by IMASTE.  I expect to see this trend continue into 2010.
2. Many new industries come on board – prior to 2009, b-to-b publishers and technology vendors took up the lion’s share of virtual events.  That’s no longer the case now.  In my Virtual Events Calendar, you’ll see events from the following industries: pharmaceutical, packaging, consumer goods, mortgage, travel, healthcare, retail, textile.  I’m sure there were other industries (not listed here) that saw their first virtual event in 2009 (e.g. auto, financial).  Expect this trend to continue as well – in 2010, additional industries will surely enter the mix.
3. The emergence of hybrid events – it’s only logical to complement your physical event with a virtual component.  In the technology space, SAP and Cisco ran virtual events concurrent with their annual customer conferences.  In the minds of the virtual events industry, this trend is quite clear, as more and more physical events will be expected to have a virtual component.  I haven’t yet seen a scenario whereby a physical event was produced to complement an existing virtual event – so perhaps that’s a trend to come in 2010.
4. The shift from event to ongoing community – the use of live show dates will continue with virtual events – but increasingly, show hosts are looking to take the audience generated for the event – and support post-event continuation, in the form of an ongoing community.  Virtual events are shifting from a single (or multi) day focus – to one of a 365 day/year community, sprinkled in with pre-scheduled live dates throughout the year.  Working hand-in-hand here is another important 2009 trend – the integration of social networks into virtual events.  Jeremiah Owyang had a very interesting blog posting on this topic.
5. The shift from single-day to multi-day events – prior to 2009, the typical virtual event ran during the business hours of the show host’s local timezone (e.g. 9AM to 6PM ET).  In 2009, we witnessed some 24-hour consecutive virtual events, along with an increasing number of events that ran for 2 consecutive days or more.  Part of the multi-day trend runs in parallel with the hybrid event trend – for physical events that run multi-day, it’s only natural that a virtual event also span more than one day.

And that wraps up my 2009 trend watch for the virtual event industry.  Let me know which trends I missed!

Virtual And Social Technologies: A Perfect Fit

Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting posting on his Web Strategy blog titled “Web Strategy: How To Integrate Social Technologies with Virtual Events“.  Jeremiah notes that the integration of social technologies should apply to both virtual and physical events – by way of these principles:

Three Principles Of Modern Events
To be successful, virtual –and real world– event planners must abide by the following principles:
1. Events should integrate with existing communities and social networks where they exist.
2. Events should have a strategy that includes the before and after –not just during.
3. The audience can assert control over the event, so encourage audience participation and know when to get out of the way.

I left the following comment for Jeremiah:

I’m a big fan of social networks – today, my primary networks are Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  That being said, I’ve considered today’s social networks to be a Version 1.0 of Web 2.0.  Now that social networks have built a critical mass of audience/community, I think that some key technologies can advance us to Version 2.0 of Web 2.0.  Some examples:

1. Presence Indication – While Jeremiah blogs that email was the first social network, I think of instant messaging as the dawn of social networking.  So all the way back in the mid 90’s, we had a technology to allow us to connect with friends, family and colleagues – and, provide presence indication.  I knew if my mom, colleague or best friend was online – and if they were online, they could indicate to me whether they were available or “Away from my desk”.  While some social network sites include in-page presence indication (including Facebook, with its Facebook Chat), I’m surprised that presence indication (and chat) have not been more tightly integrated into the core service of social networks.  If I’m running a social network site, but my users are using AOL IM or Skype for presence indication and text/webcam chat, then I’d want to build better presence/chat tools into my core platform.  Or, integrate existing technology, so that my users launch their IM client within my service.
2. Personalized Spaces – Facebook has done a great job in allowing me to post pictures, videos, links, status updates, etc.  What about blending the existing technologies/applications within Facebook with virtual world technologies to create a virtual room (for personal use) or a virtual office (for b-to-b use).  Vivaty is thinking along these lines, as they’ve integrated their 3D virtal world technology into Facebook.  So within Facebook, I can build a personalized room with Vivaty and invite my friends (or colleagues) to visit and interact with the objects I’ve placed in that room (e.g. perhaps a link to a movie review).
3. Profile Matchmaking to Extend Your Network – Virtual Event technologies have their roots in b-to-b use, in which virtual event show hosts tend to collect a deep registration profile on attendees.  This provides data points that allow the virtual event platform to recommend  like-minded attendees (who have similar profiles).  For personal use of social networks, matchmaking may not be relevant – you know whom your friends and family are and you’re probably not inclined to go find new friends (with the exception of a social site for online dating).  In a b-to-b setting, however (e.g. Linkedin), profile matching can be very powerful, as it allows you the potential to extend your network.  B-to-b networking sites that combine presence with matchmaking can create a powerful combination – imagine that I find like-minded people.  Instead of pressuring them to accept me as a connection, I can chat with them (based on presence indication) and introduce myself.  Later, both parties may be comfortable enough to become connections within that social network.

I’d be interested in your thoughts – what related technologies should social network sites look to build or integrate?

Low Cost Options For Virtual Events And Communities

Source: flickr (User: businesspictures)

Can you run a virtual event with zero budget?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Let’s consider one use case – the B-to-B Editor or Editorial Director.  For the Editorial side of b-to-b publications, virtual events can be quite productive and rewarding.  They put you in direct contact with your readers, allowing you to engage via interactive tools (e.g. text or webcam chat) while both parties remain in the comfort of their office or home.

During the virtual event, attendees (who often come from across the globe, no matter what the time of day) can provide direct feedback to Editors regarding the event content, theme, speakers, presentations, etc.  Often, Editors will also receive input regarding the online content they’re publishing (on their web site) – and even find sources for upcoming articles.  I’ve spoken to a number of Editors who were thrilled about the attendee/reader interactions they experienced at a virtual event.

There’s an economic model to a virtual event, however – and that rests on the fact that the event needs to generate revenue – enough to cover the cost of the event, with room for a profit margin.  Thus, at a b-to-b publisher, it’s not the Editor that drives the virtual event, but rather the Publisher, VP Sales or Sales Director.  If there’s no forecasted revenue around a particular event topic, budget isn’t approved and the event has no funding to move forward.

I was recently contacted by an Editor, who was interested in pursuing virtual events (or virtual communities) – he wanted to facilitate interactions around new topics.  However, as with many new topics, they were not mature enough to achieve the right revenue model for the Publisher.  As such, the Editor asked me for available low cost (or no-cost) options.  Here were my initial responses:

1. OpenSim - according to the FAQ, “OpenSim is a platform for operating a virtual world, and supports multiple independent regions connecting to a single centralized grid. This is somewhat similar to the web, where anyone can run their own web server, tied together through the internet. It can also be used to create a private grid, analogous to a private intranet.”  I noted that OpenSim has no hard cost, but there’s soft cost (e.g. your time).
2. BlogTalkRadio - a web-based, free service that allows you to create your own Internet radio show.  Your host and your guests call into a standard telephone bridge and the audio is streamed over the web in real-time.  For the free model, you may have house ads served up around your content – there are premium service options available, however.

So my off-the-cuff response was based upon two concepts: (1) try out a no-cost, 3D virtual world environment and/or (2) generate a community discussion (via streaming audio) with no hard costs.  In thinking about my response further, however, I realized I could do better.  First, about OpenSim.  I think OpenSim is great, but it’s probably not the tool of choice in this particular scenario.

First, the build instructions and configuration instructions indicate to me that a fairly technical person  (e.g. SysAdmin) needs to build out your grid.  Second, end users (e.g. the Editor’s readers) need to install an OpenSim client in order to participate.  That might work in some industries (e.g. a gaming publication), but probably not for a b-to-b audience (as they rarely use an OpenSim / SecondLife client on their work computer).

BlogTalkRadio has a lot of potential – in fact, I think b-to-b publishers would be well served by hosting live broadcasts for their readership.  However, the nature of a call-in radio show (even if you have active callers participating) is fundamentally different from the private and group chat activity that occurs in a virtual event.

Source: Metaplace

Taking all of these considerations into account, I felt that Metaplace might be an interesting solution – it allows the creation of a customized 3D world (with avatars) that requires no software download (as it’s Flash based) and can be easily embedded in web pages or blogs.  That may fit nicely at a b-to-b site – in relevant blog postings or article pages, you cam embed the Metaplace world.  So you pair your created 3D world (it’s theme) with content you’re already developing  for your sites – and then use reader traffic to drive participation in the Metaplace world.  And then that community can grow on its own (hopefully).  Again, no software download and no hard cost.

After all that, I’m still not satisfied with my answer – what tools or technologies would YOU recommend to this Editor?