Source: flickr (User: sassycrafter)

Back in August, I jumped the gun a bit and wrote a “year in review” posting about virtual events.  Now that we’re in December,  I think it’s high time to peer into the Magic 8 Ball and speculate on what’s in store for the virtual events industry in 2010.  Away we go…

Widescale adoption and integration of video conferencing

Virtual events have incorporated a lot of on-demand and live video – however, to date, the majority of attendee interaction has been via text (e.g. private text chat, group text chat, etc.).  Many platforms have enabled the use of attendee webcams (a la Skype) and that was a nice start.  In 2010, I believe that the virtual event platforms will integrate with third party video conferencing technologies in a big way – stirred largely by client demand for it.

Think about it – multinational corporations have adopted high-end video conferencing to encourage collaboration and save on travel costs.  They have the budget to invest in Cisco Telepresence or HP Halo.  As those same corporations look to adopt virtual events (e.g. for an annual virtual sales meeting), it’s only natural that they incorporate the video conferencing technology that they already have running.

To capture mid-market and small business interest, virtual event platforms will look to integrate with mid-tier video conferencing systems, such as Tandberg (whose acquisition by Cisco is pending) and Polycom.

Another interesting player is LifeSize Communications, an Austin-based provider of “mainstream telepresence” that was acquired by Logitech in November.  LifeSize recently launched an offering called Passport, which they term “a portable telepresence-quality system” that fits in the palm of your hand.

I see continued use of consumer-grade webcam technology in 2010 virtual events  – however, the game changer will be the incorporation of multi-party, HD video conferencing.

Emergence of global players

We’ve already seen the emergence in Europe of virtual event platforms – IMASTE in Spain and Ubivent in Germany.  I expect to see another European-based platform emerge in 2010, along with one or more in Asia Pac.  In addition, we’ll see services companies launch to capitalize on the demand (for virtual events) from publishers, corporations and event marketers.  The companies will provide both strategic and logistical services around virtual events.  You’ll see some start-up companies and you’ll also see physical event marketers spawn service offerings around virtual (or more logically, hybrid) events.

Industry consolidation

We’ll see the merging or acquiring of virtual event platform companies.  Some providers will look to acquire/merge out of platform capability gaps – while stronger players will look to complementary/synergistic technologies offered by the competition.  As the economic environment comes back around, companies (and their investors) will be more apt to combine forces to fuel the next phase of growth.  Lastly, larger and more established players in the “collaboration space” may look to acquire virtual event platform companies, to add a complementary piece to their product portfolio.

Decrease in “relative response rates”

Virtual events had a great run in 2009, but we’re now past the novelty, “wow, this is cool” phase.  In the B2B market, we now have plenty of users who have attended two or more virtual events.  If virtual event show hosts continue to use the same graphical templates, organize the same presentation agenda and re-create an identical experience to their last event, then “relative response rates” will drop – meaning, it will become harder and harder to recruit users to register and attend.

Decreased response rates are natural as any new “content type” grows beyond infancy – and the supply/demand ratio begins to tilt towards having more supply than demand (e.g. lots of virtual events).  Virtual event show hosts will need to consider the incorporation of gaming, the creation of affinity programs and more.  The solution to decreased response rates will be fun to watch – innovators will step to the table to find creative ways to engage and attract virtual event attendees.

Platforms take first step towards immersiveness

While virtual event attendees may not “require” the immersiveness of Second Life and other 3D virtual worlds – immersive capabilities provide real value in a B2B setting.  The most obvious use case is an immersive rendering of a complex product – consider the high-end video conferencing system, the high-end router, the latest luxury car model.  Instead of a 2D PowerPoint slide that highlights the capabilities of the video conferencing system, how about an immersive experience where attendees (aka prospects) get to experience the system and interact with it?

Client interest and demand will drive some platforms to add immersive capabilities in 2010.  I don’t expect a software download, however – it would serve platforms well to support the immersive experience within their existing framework (e.g. Flash, JavaFX, Silverlight).

Those are my 2010 predictions for virtual events.  I’d love to hear your’s!

In May, SAP’s annual SAPPHIRE conference (SAPPHIRE 09) floored physically in Orlando, Florida, with a concurrent virtual event online.  This week, Cisco’s annual Cisco Live conference followed suit, with a physical event in San Francisco, California and a concurrent virtual event online.

Full disclosure: My company (InXpo) was the virtual event platform provider for both the SAPPHIRE and Cisco Live virtual events – and, I worked on the Cisco Live virtual event.

During a presentation at the Virtual Edge Summit in May, a presenter from SAP noted that considerations were made concerning the potential of cannibalization – whereby physical attendees may stay at home to attend virtually instead.  However, he noted that in reality, a combination of physical and virtual event extended the overall reach – and the virtual component served to augment the overall attendance count.  When combined (physical+virtual), this year’s attendee count for SAPPHIRE was the largest ever.

This week, I attended Cisco Live on-site, but spent most of my time online to support the virtual event.  However, in experiencing all the touch points of the event, it quickly occurred to me that the entire notion of physical vs. virtual is blurring – they’re coming together to form an aggregate attendee experience.

Some participants are not able to travel to the event’s venue – and as such, their only choice is to participate in a virtual component.  For those on-site, they can choose the attendee path that suits their preferences.  Perhaps that means attending the John Chambers keynote in person, grabbing a cup of coffee, visiting the World of Solutions (exhibit floor) and then returning to the hotel room to login to the virtual event, to follow up with a few exhibitors in their virtual booth.  Later, that same attendee may visit the customer apprecation event in Second Life, and then attend a tweetup at a nightclub (in person).  Here’s an image of my Second Life avatar at the Tuesday evening Second Life dance party:

The author's avatar with right hand raised

To make this convergence really work, I believe the following should be done:

1. Create a unique value proposition for each venue – virtual event, virtual world, physical event – do not simply re-purpose one into the other.  Dannette Veale explains it quite well in a Cisco Virtual Worlds blog entry, The Value of Virtual Events.
2. Tie the venues together in a logical fashion – link the venues together where it makes sense.  Convergence should happen for a good reason – and not for the sake of convergence.
3. Give the attendees freedom to choose – allow attendees to choose their own attendee path, without forcing them down any one direction.  Leave the hooks in place and each attendee will follow their own path.  Some physical event attendees may opt out of any convergence and focus 100% on the physical event.  Others may actively engage in the virtual event while on-site physically.  Either path is fine.
4. Integrate social media across the spectrum – whether it’s Visible  Tweets displayed on a physical monitor or Facebook integration with the virtual event – integrating social media increases engagement within the attendee experience and also extends the reach of the event to networks of social networks.  Here’s an interesting example of user generated, social media at the physical event – a physical whiteboard that asked attendees to write about where they were in 1989:

In Cisco Live Virtual, elements of the physical event were streamed into the virtual event.  By doing so, virtual event attendees (who could not travel to San Francisco) were still able to get a taste of the physical event experience.  For instance, webcams were deployed throughout the physical event to stream in live feeds from the show floor – and to host personalized webcam chats with Cisco executives.  One of the webcams was pointed at this Solutions Theater – from which virtual event attendees had a continous live stream of presentations given throughout the day:

Here are some of the ways I experienced physical/virtual event convergence:

1. Watching John Chambers’ keynote presentation online, via a Live Webcast streamed into the virtual event (by On24).
2. Viewing a Cisco Live Second Life session (LIVE!) from a booth in the virtual event – the session was broadcast by treet.tv in Quicktime – so users needed the Quicktime player but not the Second Life client application.
3. Watching a live (physical) demo of Telepresence, which was broadcast via a Live Video Webcast, which was carried within the virtual event (many layers of convergence there).
4. Participating in live chat sessions that Cisco executives (Carlos Dominguez and Padmasree Warrior [separately]) attended via webcam.  Attendees typed their questions (via text) and the executives answered via webcam / audio.  The executives answered just about every question posed, so it felt like a personal meet and greet with the executives.
5. Walking past the NetQoS physical booth – and noticing one of their demo workstations displaying their booth in the virtual event.  Quite a good idea – host visitors to your physical booth and remind them of your presence in the virtual event.  That prospect can’t return to your physical booth next week (when the event is over), but they sure can visit your booth in the virtual event [at any time] to find the needed information.
6. Reading one user’s in-show blog, where he asked physical attendees to name the “one [physical] booth that should not be missed”.  This particular user was not able to attend physically – but, he may be able to visit the virtual booths of the vendors recommended by his peers.

Moving forward, I expect to see many more events follow this model – whereby physical events will leverage virtual event and virtual worlds technologies to accomplish the following:

1. Deliver additional value to the physical event
2. Extend the reach of the event to a global audience
3. Blend physical and virtual components to create a more compelling experience
4. Drive stronger event revenue and ROI!

I hope to see you at a future event – I haven’t decided whether I’ll be there physically, virtually or both.

Amanda Van Nuys, Linden Labs’ Director of Enterprise Marketing (and known in-world as Amanda Linden) has an interesting blog posting titled “Working in the Virtual World“.  Amanda describes her use of Second Life for work-related meetings and collaboration.  A neat physical/virtual tie-in was done with a conference room:

The physical conference room—Isabel—has a virtual counterpart that is an exact replica—Virtual Isabel. A camera in Isabel captures what’s happening in the room and displays it in the virtual space. Simultaneously, the participants in Virtual Isabel are projected on the wall of physical Isabel. The result is a seamless experience—two conference spaces, one real and one virtual, merge into one.

As for Amanda’s use of Second Life for meetings, she describes it as such:

These days, I’m spending at least 2-3 hours a day in Second Life, meeting with my colleagues distributed all over the world—collaborating, brainstorming, learning, and decorating my new office space in LindenWorld.

For companies with a highly distributed workforce, virtual worlds and their associated virtual meeting places can be a win-win scenario. I once met an employee of a Fortune 500 company who noted that he’d never met his manager, nor had he met any member of his entire team — except that he’ “met” them online, in web meetings, conference calls, Skype sessions, etc.

I’m a remote worker – I’m in the Bay Area, while the majority of my company is in the Chicago area.  Fortunately for me, my company provides an internal virtual office platform that serves as an interactive intranet plus meeting and collaboration space.  The virtual office is simply an application that rides on top of same platform that services virtual tradeshows, virtual career fairs and virtual sales meetings.

To be set up for a virtual meeting on our platform, here’s what I do:

1. Login to the virtual office platform (via the web) – my co-workers and I do this as our first task once the computer boots up
2. Activate my webcam
3. Put on earbuds (so that the folks you’re speaking with don’t hear their voices reflect back into their sessions)
4. Request a meeting with a co-worker within the platform

It’s as simple as that.  I tend to have a few meetings per week in the virtual office, mixed with the more conventional meeting via telephony conference call.  Here are the efficiencies I’ve seen with virtual office meetings:

1. Lower overhead to start a meeting – since the virtual office provides presence indication, I know when a colleague is logged in.  I can initiate a webcam session with a colleague in the same manner that I’d start up an Instant Messaging session.  Compare this to the typical meeting “set-up”, where emails and Outlook invitations are sent and the meeting organizer awaits replies.
2. Facilitates ad hoc, spur of the moment collaboration – similar to the gathering at the water cooler – or, the spontaneous brainstorming session around the whiteboard.  But in the virtual office, the spontaneity occurs while you’re still at your desk.  Additionally, requesting a virtual meeting session is very convenient – compare it to walking over to a colleague and tapping her on the shoulder.  Here, your colleague accepts/declines the session with the click of a mouse.  If she’s busy, she goes right back to what she was doing.  It’s like IM’ing a colleague rather than calling her on the phone.
3. Material related to the meeting is at your fingertips (or a mouse-click away) – my virtual office session is simply a tab in my Firefox browser.  Information I need for a meeting is likely in another browser tab – or, in an application like Excel or Word.  It’s highly convenient to toggle between these apps and have the information I need at my fingertips.
4. Immediacy - ever attend a face-to-face meeting and  take on an action item to send out a URL to all the meeting participants (when you get back to your desk)? In a virtual meeting, you can find that URL and copy/paste it into your messaging session. Now, your colleague(s) can review the URL in real-time and you can resolve issues (or obtain the necessary feedback) sooner.
5. True facial expressions – in an avatar-based virtual space, I can emote via gestures or text comments. In a webcam-based virtual meeting, however, my colleagues can read my true facial expression.  The virtual office platform that I use supports multi-user webcam chats (of up to 9 participants), so we can all see one another, as if we all piled into the same conference room.

I haven’t even mentioned the savings in carbon emissions and cost (i.e. the use of IP technologies and the bypass of the telephony network).  I’ll always want to connect with colleagues in person – but, today’s technologies help remote workers get the job done – while increasing efficiency and productivity.  A long day in the (virtual) office never felt so good!

Source: Flickr (neverland_rose)

While channel surfing during the holidays, I came across a re-run of House, the excellent medical drama on FOX.  In this particular episode, Dr. Gregory House was performing some patient triage over a webcam.  I thought to myself, “that’s a really neat application of video calling technology”.  Today, I read an article in the New York Times by Claire Cain Miller, “Doctors Will Make Web Calls in Hawaii”.  The company enabling this service is American Well, a Boston-based start-up who is pioneering the “New Healthcare Marketplace”.  The web call service in Hawaii works like this:

Patients use the service by logging on to participating health plans’ Web sites. Doctors hold 10-minute appointments, which can be extended for a fee, and can file prescriptions and view patients’ medical histories through the system. American Well is working with HealthVault, Microsoft’s electronic medical records service, and ActiveHealth Management, a subsidiary of Aetna, which scans patients’ medical history for gaps in their previous care and alerts doctors during their American Well appointment.

For patients insured by Hawaii Medical Service Association (American Well’s customer), the cost is $10 to use the service.  How affordable.  Back when gas prices were sky high, one might spend this same amount just to make the drive to the doctor’s office!  And in Hawaii, as the article notes, the islands are remote, which means that getting to see one’s physician may truly be a journey.

There are concerns, however, with such an approach:

However, some critics of doctor visits via webcam worry that doctors will miss important symptoms if they do not see patients in person. Others doubt that the poor and uninsured will have the broadband connection and webcams to use the service. .

“It’s a tool to help doctors do better, the way a stethoscope is a tool,” said Robert Sussman, a family practice doctor on Oahu. “You still have to use your common sense, your medical knowledge.”

I agree with Dr. Sussman – this technology does not replace the house call or doctor’s visit, but it does create a convenient, cost effective and carbon friendly “tool” for receiving health care.

Perhaps some medical insurers will create a network of Telepresence centers, where residents in certain locations (e.g. who live far from their physician) can travel a shorter distance to receive a “web call” via a high-tech, high definition solution. Of course, the doctor would need to use a Telepresence station on her end as well (so, some details need to be worked out!).

Or some day, perhaps you’ll beam a 3D representation of yourself into a virtual world and ask Dr. House to meet you there (for your check-up).  The possibilities await!

Vizitant Founder James Corbett (on left)

Q&A with James Corbett, founder of the not-for-profit organization Vizitant.

1. Tell us a little bit about Vizitant? Sure. Vizitant is a project which aims to bring virtual presence services to socially marginalized groups of people like the elderly, carers, disabled and so on. By virtual presence I mean video-calling and other means of conveying the illusion that one is in the company of others.
2. How do you facilitate technology use by the elderly or disabled?  We find the most user-friendly devices (e.g. Asus AiGuru SV1 and Eee Top) and configure them to be as simple to use as possible. That can be as basic as setting Skype to auto-answer and auto-start video. Or as complex as making hardware and software modifications.
3. What would you like to see in video calling technologies that’s not yet available today? I think most of what we need is available today, but in the very high-end or corporate systems like Cisco Telepresence 3000. Which of course is totally beyond the budget of our target community. So what we need to see is the economies of scale in the marketplace that can push this quality of system, or something approaching it, into the consumer space. And of course that’s what Cisco is planning to do within the next couple of years. However, in the meantime, Skype and other low-end solutions are improving the level of experience dramatically for those with high quality webcams and dual core processors. Beyond that we need integrate more of the ‘virtual’ into the ‘presence’. While it’s great to feel like you’re in the same room as a remote relative imagine being able to feel like you’re both at a table together in a Parisian cafe. Or on a Caribbean beach. This is the kind of idea that might remind you of the ‘Holodeck’ on ‘Star Trek’ and that’s where, I believe, this technology can ultimately take us.
4. Any plans to support multi-party sessions, sort of like a “town hall” meeting? Yes, we are in early discussions with an Irish company called OnlineMeetingRooms.com about using their multi-seat videoconferencing solutions for “town halls”.
5. Do you envision applications of this technology for medical diagnosis and triage? Absolutely. There are trials ongoing at a hospital in Dublin, Ireland for a ‘robot doctor’, which is something like Skype Video on wheels, used in the early assessment and treatment of stroke victims.  Read more about it here: http://www.vizitant.com/2008/07/remote-presence.html.  And at the high-end there is HealthPresence – a specialized adaptation of Cisco’s high-end Telepresence system outfitted with medical diagnostic equipment and configured in a self-contained pod.  More info can be found here.
6. Prior to Vizitant, what sorts of projects or technologies did you work on?  I spent a number of years with American multinationals in Ireland, such as Apple, Motorola and Analog Devices. There I worked in Software Test and System Administration roles. So I had varied exposure to a range of operating systems, network systems and so on. Experience which has taught me to look for the correct solution to a problem and not just “what we’ve always used here”.
7. What’s it like running a business in Ireland?  In general it’s very good. Ireland made No. 2 in Forbes recent list of Best Countries for Business and that’s fairly well borne out in reality. However we are somewhat lacking in terms of Venture Capital and Angel funding options.

It’s a growing trend.  In 2009, you’ll be attending more and more meetings.  From your desk and desktop, that is.  In a Travel Procurement article titled “The Next Best Thing To Being There: Virtual Meetings Earn Their Rightful Place In Strategic Meetings Management”, surveyed travel buyers confirm that the trend is real:

Faced with an economic downturn and increased airfares, three-quarters of 230 U.S. travel buyers responding to a recent National Business Travel Association poll reported increased use of teleconferencing and Web-based meetings. Nearly 57 percent cited increased use of videoconferencing. More than 80 percent said the technology replaced actual trips.

Consider the travel policy at P&G:

“Our policy is set up so that virtual media must be considered if business objectives can be achieved,” said Diana Johantgen, service manager for Procter & Gamble’s new meeting, event and convention management team, who helped incorporate a virtual meetings program into that company’s strategic meetings management program.

This shift towards virtual meetings means good things for Cisco (Telepresence and WebEx), Nortel and HP (Telepresence), Citrix (GoToMeeting), Microsoft (Live Meeting) and many others.  While virtual meetings and telepresence may never reproduce 100% of in-person meetings, you can’t beat the cost efficiency and convenience.

Additionally, online meetings provide unique benefits, such as the meeting archive.   Ever need to schedule a series of information sessions or training presentations?  Why not do a virtual meeting (live) and record it – take the archive, edit it down (if needed) and then allow all reamining groups to view the session on-demand, on their schedule.  If the presentation is mandatory, the online meeting can be tracked to ensure that all required users end up viewing it.

OK, gotta go now.  A virtual meeting awaits!

Year of the Ox

The Chinese will celebrate 2009 as the Year of the Ox.  For B-to-B marketers, I’m convinced that 2009 is the Year of the Virtual Event.  While virtual events have already taken shape – in the IT space, 2007 was a growth year and 2008 was even stronger – I believe we’re facing a watershed moment when a “perfect storm” of factors will lead to a phenomenal surge in virtual events.

I believe that companies who provide products and services around virtual events will experience 50%, 100%, 200% and higher annual revenue growth in 2009.  On the flip side, companies whose primary business is around supporting B-to-B face-to-face events will experience diminishing demand and all but the top 5-10% will struggle to survive.

Here are the factors I see contributing to this watershed moment:

1. Attendee demand - let’s consider the IT Pro.   Those who survived a layoff are facing significant internal cost controls.  It’s likely that all travel has been cut, which means that Joe IT Pro will not be attending a face-to-face event, even if it’s in the nearest major city.  This is one factor driving B-to-B event marketers to scale back their 2009 event plans.
2. Exhibitors’ requirement for cost efficiency – if you’re lucky enough to have marketing budget for 2009, you don’t want to spend it on a high-end hotel (with their elevated food and beverage costs), along with the travel and lodging costs for your colleagues.  Instead, you could pay less for an online event.  Today, more than 50% of a virtual event’s cost is associated with the headcount required by the platform provider to configure the event.  The virtual event platforms, however, are moving to a full-blown  SaaS model, where the exhibitor becomes a mere tenant on the multi-tenant platform – and configures the event 100% on her own.  This means that the costs will trend downward over time (imagine that).
3. The Green Movement – who hasn’t been encouraged lately to think and act Green?  A virtual event is virtually carbon-free.  Exhibitors stay at home (or in the office); attendees stay at home (or in the office).
4. Measurability - with a virtual event, exhibitors can track and analyze all of the discrete actions taken by an attendee.  In addition, with tools like text chat (the equivalent of instant messaging), exhibitors can interact with attendees and have all the chat transcripts available for later review.  Other tools, like search, allow exhibitors to identify (and connect with) target attendees who are online in the event right now.  What this means is that exhibitors can measure and calculate their Return on Investment with higher precision and accuracy.
5. The human touch – event marketers will tell you that nothing beats a face-to-face, in-person meeting.  2009 is a year where virtual events will merge with telepresence – with early adoption most likely in closed/private event spaces.  There are cost factors with telepresence – but, imagine virtual events combined with high fidelity video and it’s  like you’re in the same room as the person half way around the world.  With telepresence costs bound to come down over the long term, I see virtual events + telepresence being a killer combination.

All in all, I look forward to 2009 with great excitement.  For folks in the virtual events space, the Year of the Ox may be better labeled the Year of the Racehorse – as it’s off to the races we go.