Social Media Marketing Quick Interview Video: UnMarketing’s Scott Stratten with Virtual Emcee Judi Holler

MPITechCon is the premiere tech conference for the meeting and events industry.

The annual event is located in Chicago Illinois and is hosted by the Chicago Area Chapter of Meeting Professionals International. www.mpicac.org

Share and Enjoy

@mpitechcon Here’s our thank you for the wonderful event. It’s a fun story -> sfy.co/r1rp #eventprofs

— astekweb (@astekweb) February 20, 2013

Thanks again to the amazing crew at @mpitechcon! Made many new friends.

— SlideKlowd (@SlideKlowd) February 20, 2013

@mpitechcon You guys crushed it.Amazing event. Proud to be a part of it!

— Judi Holler (@JudiHoller) February 20, 2013

@mpitechcon home in NYC but already looking forward to 2014! Thanks for an amazing day!!

— Suzanne Medcalf (@IMEXSuzanne) February 20, 2013

Kudos to @kylehillman for organizing an amazing event. What a fun day!@mpitechcon #MPITechCon

— Abby Goetsch (@abbygoetsch) February 20, 2013

Great Event to be Sponsoring & Excited to see everyone @mpitechcon Stop by to say hi! #techcon #meetingprofs @nat1280

— Kalahari Resorts (@KalahariResorts) February 19, 2013

One of the best conferences I’ve been to! RT @mpitechcon: It can only get better in the next 50 mins! #mpitechcon

— Marketing the Mitten (@MarketingtheMit) February 20, 2013

@rockitranch great job! Thx for having us!

— Billy Dec(@BillyDec) February 22, 2013

Thx @mpitechcongreat job on your event! Enjoyed it!

— Chris Brown (@SRI_AV) February 21, 2013

@mpitechcon No, thank you!!!! #MPITechCon twitter.com/cakebuzz/statu…

— Keith Bessler (@cakebuzz) February 19, 2013

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

For those of you in attendance who were wondering who provided what at MPITechCon the following is  a list of products showcased at TechCon and the name/link so that you can inquire about a quote for your event. (We will add photos, when photography is available).

LED Chandelier and Ceiling Swags: – Those amazing LED panels and chandelier were from Chicago’s RGB Lights.

Touchscreen Charging Stations: The phone charging stations were provided from Smart Source.   Features included touchscreen wayfinding, updating agenda, speaker information and more.

Drapery:  All of the drapery used to transform the space was provided from Quest Drape.

Food: Lunch food was provided by Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, Desserts by  Fantasy Cakes and Pastrys, and reception food was provided by IIT.

Linens: Linens for MPITechCon were provided by Classic Party Rentals

Furniture: Each vendor had a desperate area where furniture was provided for pods on the show floor which consisted of: Cort, Castle Party Rental and Modern Event Rental.

Breakout Lighting and Structures: The structures in the breakouts, as well as, lighting in the reception were provided by Accenting Images

Uplighting Front Hall: The uplighting in the main hall with the LED Chandelier were provided by RGB Lights.

Uplighting Back Hall: The uplighting in the back hall were provided by ILC

Reception and Social Media Desk: The MPI reception black leather desk and the light up social media desk were provided by Modern Event

iPad “Rental”: The iPads provided free to attendees of TechCon were generously loaned from Meeting Tomorrow.

Virtual Component: The virtual broadcast of MPITechCon was provided via Sonic Foundry.

General Session AV: The general session AV, including screens, rigging, audio and video were provided by VidTech

General Session Structure: Lighted general session structures and video background structure provided by Expressive Structures

Fog Screen: The fog screen used to divide the two halls was provided by Big Shoulders Productions

Audience Response Systems: The three separate audience response systems used at TechCon were: McCormick Hall – IML, Sales Hall – Conferences.IO, and Research Hall – SlideKlowd

Graffitti Wall, interactive floor projection and Crystie tile wall: All three wildly fun digital toys were provided by CineViz

Mobile App: The official mobile app of TechCon was provided by Cvent’s Crowd Compass

Games: The large Foosball, dart board, floor hockey dome and photo booths were provided by Record-A-Hit

The DJ:  The Dj from 12-5 was provided by Rockit Ranch

Printing: Printing for the event was provided by 3rd Coast Imaging

Twitter Wall Projections & Outside General Session: Both projections were provided by PSAV

Twitter Wall Display: the visual display of the twitter wall was provided by Tweet Beem

Video Wall Graphic Design: The logo graphic work for the video interview wall was provided by Out House Design

Photography: The photography for the event was provided by edward fox photography

Exhibit Hall Sound: Sound equipment for the exhibit hall was provided by StandAndClap Entertainment

Disposable Plate-ware: Environmental friendlier plate-ware and spork was provided by Your Green 2 Go

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

If you attended Andy Crestodina’s excellent presentation on content marketing at yesterday’s MPI Tech Conference you saw Andy’s slide about using content marketing concepts to follow up with your community after the conclusion of the event. Andy was kind enough to make mention of how I had used a number of those techniques to follow up after a recent training class we held at 312 Digital. I thought it might be nice to write a post recapping ways we used some of those techniques and the ways those techniques helped us. As Andy said yesterday, the end of the event is not really the end of the event, at least from a content marketing perspective. In many ways, it’s just the beginning.

In January, we at 312 Digital launched a business that provides digital marketing training to marketers, bloggers, social media people and agency personnel. Our first event was held in January and we had 34 people attend. Our next training class is slated for March 20^th where we’ll be covering SEO for a whole day. Within a week or so of the event, I used some of the content marketing ideas Andy shared to continue to communicate with the people who were in attendance.

• Uploaded Slides. During the conference, we planned to provide printed copies of the classroom materials for students to be able to take notes. Unfortunately, we experienced a snag and did not have slides available on the day of the class. Instead, we provided all the slides from the day’s sessions on a password protected page on our web site. http://312digital.com/slides (The password is “slides”). I’ll pull this page down in the next week, so if you’re interested in checking out the simple format, be sure to visit soon. In the last 30 days, this page is our fourth most visited page on the site. Even though we had only 34 attendees at the event, this page has seen 174 visits – so either attendees have come pack or reloaded multiple times (possible because we had 4 main presentations uploaded to the page) or they shared the page with others. I tend to think more the former than the latter. Either way, it’s been used quite a bit.
• Email thank you. Immediately after the class concluded, I sent out a follow up email to our students thanking them for attending the event and asking them to participate in our short survey which I had created on Survey Monkey. The survey was VERY short – only 3 questions total and asked the students to rate the facility the content and each speaker  on a 1-5 ratings scale. It them concluded with a simple question – “Would you recommend 312 Digital to a friend.” Gladly, 100% of our respondents said they would recommend a future 312 Digital course to a friend.
• Pictures. I have a friend who is in the digital media who shoots events like this on the side and I invited him to attend the class. We agreed to trade a free ticket for him shooting a bunch of photos of the event. As soon as I received the file with the photos, I uploaded a number of them to our Facebook page and created an album. Unfortunately you cannot be logged into your page as the business and tag people in the photos. But, you can navigate back to that page as yourself and tag as many photos as you wish. So, be sure to tag your attendees if you know them. That will alert them to the existence of those photos and will create a very high engagement level with your Facebook page.
• Video. We had a video team on site shooting a bunch of video with the aim of producing a couple short videos for us. One that will provide basic highlights from the event and give people an overview of what they can expect at future events. We’ll soon receive a second video that blends a bunch of personal testimonials from attendees. As soon as I received the first video, I uploaded it to our landing pages for future events and shared it on twitter and on Facebook.
• Blog Post. After all of this information was assembled, I took the time to write a debrief post about the event. One of the hallmarks of our little company is an openness and integrity to what we are doing. I believe that if you do the right things while building companies you have an opportunity to rally people to your side and enlist their assistance in promoting events and building companies. Because of that philosophy, this blog post might seem a little over-inclusive to you. I felt it struck the right tone. We were not perfect. We learned some things during that event, and I wanted to share with our community – people who attended that specific class and those that might attend a future class – what we learned from that specific day. It’s not apologetic. It’s not overtly promotional. It’s real. This page is the fifth most frequently visited page over the last 30 days. Lots of visits, despite not really promoting it very heavily.

So that’s a brief roundup of some of the techniques and tactics we used to continue the discussion after the event. What about you? What have you used to keep your attendees talking about your events after the conclusion? What’s worked well for you?

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Author: Hali Cooper CMP, MPI-CAC VP of Education, Meeting Expectations

The 2013 MPI CAC TechCon will be a masterful blend of cutting edge technology applications and education.  If you haven’t heard about the event yet – you most certainly will soon!  The blend of artfully created YouTube videos, Twitter outreach, and overall social media blast is a study for all association and meeting management professionals.

TechCon is set to officially take place on Tuesday, February 19^th at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  However, prior to the event, a three day “Hackathon” will be taking place in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.  A Hackathon, sometimes referred to as a “Codefest” is an event in which computer programmers and other software development professionals spend time collaboratively working on a software project.  It’s an intense, often weekend-long event where “hackers” work 24-7 in one room living off RedBull and Pizza.  All to come up with a new solution to a given request.  Talk about brain power!  If you’ve ever said to yourself, I really wish I had an app that could (fill in the blank), now’s your chance! Visit http://mpitechcon.com/hackathon/ and enter your idea … it may just be chosen to be part of this year’s competition.

Are you looking to obtain credit towards your CMP or other industry certifications??  Than TechCon is your ticket!  With 16 speakers, and 12 sessions, you will have an opportunity to gain 5 CE’s approved by the CIC for CMP reporting, or up to 0.6 CEU’s for industry certifications.  This value equates to an approximate 50% savings if one had to attend all these sessions individually.  From an education perspective … What a deal!

Mark your calendars, register, and come prepared to experience technology in a whole new light integrating new applications into your business, lifestyle and home.  Don’t get left out in the cold – register now at http://mpitechcon.com. Join the twitter feed #MPITechCon and become part of the event before it even starts.  You will feel the ROI immediately.

Share and Enjoy

“Concert to Corporate” is the technological journey that the greatest Audio Visual innovations take.  In the AV world, there are essentially two arenas in which we practice; entertainment and corporate. Entertainment may include music performances, theater, or television. Corporate refers to events that are for associations, incentive, and education.  Sometimes, these two disciplines commingle depending on the type of event.  For instance, you may be attending a managers meeting hosted by a Fortune 500 company and they’ve hired Elton John to perform at the Closing Gala.

Technology considered cutting-edge for corporate events has often been considered commonplace on the concert circuit for some time.  Tours by popular artists and musicians are the proving grounds for testing and deploying emerging technologies that have broad applications to the corporate event world. When people marvel about the changes technology has introduced over the past 10 years, my response is always, “You haven’t seen anything yet!”  Technology is advancing so quickly that it’s almost inconceivable what we will experience over the next 10 years.

In the past decade we’ve seen huge strides in the areas of Audio, Video, & Lighting. Sound engineers have embraced line array speakers systems. The technicians and designers that live in the video world have been manipulating projection to map images onto organic surfaces. The lighting industry has taken the LED to new heights in brightness and color saturation.

Environmental Projection or Projection Mapping is not a new technology.  The first known instance of projecting virtual images onto real world objects for an audience occurred with the 1969 opening of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride.  While this technology was originally limited to entertainment industry installments with large budgets, technology advancements, cost efficiencies and advent of multi-screen processors have made this video technique explode in popularity with corporate event planners.

Providing an audience with pristine sound quality is a challenge for even the most legendary audio engineer.  Bill Hanley was a pioneer in the music industry in addition to being the sound designer for the original Woodstock Music Festival.  He was charged with the task of delivering a high-quality audio experience to one of the largest concert audiences ever assembled.   Had he been equipped with a Line Array, even Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With Little Help From My Friends” would have been intelligible.

The immediate future of lighting is most definitely LED Technology.  Concerts started incorporating LED lighting for the color mixing ability and low power consumption benefits.  LED lighting is one of the most innovative and cost effective means of providing high impact to an event.  LED instruments became a new way to quickly change a scene or add color to a stage.  In addition to using less power, LED fixtures have a low heat output, and can be used in areas where the high amount of heat conventional stage fixtures put off would not be ideal.

Technology is doing things that even 20 years ago people would have dismissed as improbable, impossible, or thought was just plain magic.  Look for ways of improving your customer experience by finding the right technology to make it magical.

About the author:  Travis Reedy is a 20-year veteran of the event solutions industry. He is the founder of TRAVIS Inc., a full-service Audio, Visual and Event Design Company.

His adventures start with a vision and a desire to challenge what once was thought impossible. While converging digital technology with creative artistry he continues to push the limits of live events. Often times the barriers to creative, are the limitations in technology; Travis breaks through these barriers by translating the emerging technologies found in concerts down the path to corporate theater. His spin on traditional is what captivates his audience and brings impact to his events regardless of budget boundaries, providing an Academy Awards feel on an Advisory Board Budget.

You can catch Travis presenting on this topic at MPI-CAC TechCon Chicago 2013 on Tuesday, February 19 from 2:40pm-3:40pm – http://mpitechcon.com/research-hall/

Share and Enjoy