As marketers we are well known for our planning skills- and nothing helps more when preparing for an event than making lists. Lots and lots of lists.

Events can potentially be one of your largest marketing spends throughout the year, so when making such a big investment it is key to be organised and prepared.

So here are our top tips of the little things which often get forgotten which can help you plan and prepare for your event:

1.       Objective Setting

Even before thinking about booking that venue or event space you need to get organised.  Think about your key objectives. What do you want to get out of exhibiting and how will an event help you achieve this? Think about what your key measures of a successful event are or how will you track your ROI?

Think about who you want to target and how you’re going to appeal to them.

Also if you have attended an event previously- think about your successes and failures and include this in your plan. You don’t want to make the same mistakes you had previously.

2.       Budgets

Plan a budget and make sure you stick to it ensuring that you have covered even the small things off your list. This can help you measure your return on investment down to finite details. Think about how much your event space costs, your exhibition stand and even the little things like hotel costs and travel.

3.       Create an event calendar/ project list

Creating a list of important times and details (with project manager) can help you see your key task lists and who is supposed to complete it. Give yourself plenty of time to plan and have your exhibition stand build, produce your marketing collateral and order your promotional materials- these things can certainly take more time than you think.

4.       Create a marketing plan

Many exhibitors leave promoting their attendance at an event until the last minute. Think about creating a marketing campaign in advance of your event. Add your attendance to your website, social networks and blogs. Talk to your industry magazines and associations to promote yourself. Creating a formalised event marketing plan will really help you to promote your attendance and to get those all important attendees to your stand.

5.       Let your team know

Making sure you have your sales team or best company representatives at your event is hugely important; you can let them do what they do best in a fantastic environment. Making sure peoples’ diaries have the event in well in advance can ensure that internally your teams are well informed and are able to attend.  Often it is effective to create a staff rota to schedule breaks and lunches so that your staff don’t all disappear from your event stand at the same time. Make sure they have a list of all the details of the stand- organise a briefing before the show opens so they understand how to work all your stands gadgets and know where the pens and pads are for example.

Have a list of dos and dont’s to make sure your staff are aware of your expectations. It is also useful to create a document detailing features of the event including details of where they are expected to park, when you require them etc. These things often get forgotten.

6.       Let you customers and prospects know

It’s a great opportunity for you to meet with you customers and potential customers under one roof- the cost saving of having meetings at the venue vs. organising individual one to ones can be huge and it’s a great chance for you to show off your companies creativity with a fantastic exhibition stand. There is no point having an effective stand and well organised event but with no one to visit you.

7.       Sort out transport and hotels in advance

Once you know you are attending an event it’s a good idea to get booked up into a local hotel to your venue. Many are aware of local events and can hike their prices up so it’s a good cost saving exercise to book transport and accommodation for you and your teams.

8.       The don’t forget items…

Make sure you make a list of all those little bits and pieces which can get forgotten. Yes you have your huge exhibition stand but did you remember the stapler? Making sure you have thought about every possibility is better than not having the tools if you need them. Badges, stationary and other equipment are often left behind. Always be prepared.

This is a guest post by Tamara Pitt, marketing manager for exhibition stand manufacturer Nimlok.

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Interviews are always a nervous ordeal but more often than not a well prepared candidate will always rise above the rest of the pack and successfully take the job. That said, many candidates make the mistake of preparing for a video conference interview in the same way as a face to face interview which can leave an interviewer unimpressed. Here are my top 5 tips to help you beat a video conferencing interview:

1. Remove all distractions

If your video conferencing interview is taking place at your home then make sure you deal with any possible interruptions before the interview. If Fido has a tendency to barge into the room every now and again I am sure he wouldn’t mind playing in the garage for a while until the interview is over. Similarly if you have kids who tend to be quite loud, it will make you and your interviewer lose concentration as well as making you look much less professional. Get hold of a baby sitter or have them spend the day at your parents or friends. Whatever you do, just try to be home alone when the interview takes place.

2. Look at the camera

Just about every interview guru will tell you to make regular eye contact with your interview and a video conferencing interview is no different. This can catch out many interviewees since it is a common habit to look at the computer monitor instead of the actual camera. The camera is transmitting the picture and therefore if you don’t look at the camera it will look like you are looking away from the interviewer thus giving the impression that you are not interested in the interview. If you find this particularly difficult to do then try putting a picture behind your camera which will make it feel like you are talking to an actual person when you are looking at the camera.

3. Proper grooming

When doing a video conferencing interview it is easy to forget that you are being interviewed for a potential job offer. You may be at home but that does not mean that you can take part in the interview in your favourite carrot fit jeans with a T-shirt that has some a funny comment on it. Make sure you dress like you would if you were participating in a face to face interview as it will make you look more professional as well as making you feel more confident.

4. Set the scene

When carrying out a face to face interview, you go to the interviewer which means that the interviewer will make his decision based on you and you alone but on a video conferencing interview, the interviewer will be able to see you and your room therefore your room should also give a professional feel. I am not saying that you should completely redecorate but make sure all dirt has been cleaned and the room looks well organised. In addition to this, temporarily remove any posters which may embarrass you during the interview although sensible pictures and paintings can help create a more sophisticated atmosphere. This will help to give a positive first impression and will start the interview on a good note.

5. Practice makes perfect

Rehearsing your answers to popular interview questions as well as general interview techniques is essential for a successful interview but a video conferencing interview brings with it its own challenges and therefore more factors need to be added to the mix when rehearsing. You will need to get into the habit of talking out aloud when nobody else is in the room so set up your own video conference system prior to the interview and ask your friend to interview you. After the interview ask your friend to give you some feedback.

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Many conferences ask for feedback after the event and the Interactive SXSW one arrived today.

As a research survey it was flawed in three ways.

First error – question structure

Take this example of a question on the first page

Overall, how satisfied were you with the information distributed in our print publications? 5= Very satisfied, 1=Very unsatisfied

Looks all good  But then two questions later they ask

Please respond to questions on a 1-5 scale, 1 being very unsatisfied, 5 being very satisfied. If questions do not apply to you, leave them blank.

Did you notice the inversion of the 1 to 5 scale?

Why change the scale? This is going to test the respondents. Many will skim read and the outcome is they’ll get inverted results as respondents assume the scale was the same.

Second flaw – Giving the feedback I wanted

I always think that any survey that enables me to give exactly the feedback I want by asking the right questions is both well-constructed and the survey designer has a deep understanding of the event in order to ask the right things.  This fulfilled neither.

Having ‘catch-all’ comments is not ideal for survey analysis – especially of large response events.  I reproduce below all the free-text answers I gave.  This shows that there should have been space for qeustions about

• excellence or poor performance in panels / sessions
• overcrowding
• travel arrangements to venues outside the convention center
• wifi / AV / power sockets in venues outside the convention center
• value for money perception
• learnings / business opportunities or transactions

Third flaw

The over-high reliance on free text answers.  A question on the trade show didn’t have pick lists of exhibiting companies; a question about audio visual only focused on the convention center not on other venues just seems to raise the likelihood of added analysis workload.  Plus insertion of seemingly erratic questions about sponsors and perception awareness of contributing brands some of which had such a low profile I never noticed and others seemed to be ‘trick’ questions e.g. listing both Pepsi and Pepsi Max… were both there?

There also seems to be a green agenda going on…. which wasn’t in evidence at the event at all.

Does your company pursue green/sustainability initiatives?
Does your employer or organization require proof of sustainable choices in housing or transportation during your time at SXSW?

My detailed answers

Interactive Panels, Conference Events and Party Comments:
One of the branding / marketing panels was not prepared [client knows best #sellideas] and Day Stage session by Colin Shaw #beyphil promised 7 tips for customer experience and didn’t give out any - he was AWFUL.

I went to 5 talks at non-convention center venues and 2 were full when I got there.  None had adequate power points and AV was less good. Very disappointed that many talks were repeating old material and only two advanced sessions #rdbdeath and #healthapps were “leading edge”.   The quality is lower and the overcrowding of venues spoilt my enjoyment. In value for money terms SXSW is now 50% lower than my previous visit. I may not come back.

I wish I could read more blog posts on SXSW.com about?
Liveblogging each session. I did this on my site (creativeagencysecrets.com). I think you should leave a permanent record of each session online like TED does. A written liveblog plus audio would be a valuable addition to online knowledge.

I missed 2 sessions because of overcrowding – there was no way to hear what was said in the hallway and no record after of what was discussed = VALUELESS.

Trade Show/Exhibition comments:
Wish it had started on Sunday as I had to leave Monday after lunch.

Which sponsor(s) enhanced your SXSW experience and how?
Samsung in Bloggers lounge – good food and drink, great interaction with other bloggers, OK book signing by Guy Kawasaki and other interviews.  The not for profit lounge had the BEST people inside using it. Verizon in the Hyatt – their lounge had nothing in it but fancy white sofas – not of any value at all.

Any other comments?
The overcrowding this year was noticeably greater than in 2009 when I last attended.

Fewer sessions had ‘leading edge’ thinking. Many sessions were too populist and frequently speakers were “content-free”.

Mediocre to awful panel chairing skills e.g. Gigi Peterkin of Edelman, Alessandra Lariu at McCann Ericson and Allison Mooney of Google meant we got less from these sessions.

The committee needs more influence over panel selection to weed out the time-wasters.

Also suggest you cut number of ticket sales and adjust room allocation based on attendees’ likely topics of interest so popular tracks like Marketing / Branding get larger venues.

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Can you app your way to better health?   Of the apps downloaded 26% are only used once and a tiny percentage use them.  Few medical apps have FDA approval but they are going to require this – approved ones are airstrip, mobile medical imaging.  Are apps changing behaviour?

• B.J. Fogg @bjfogg Director of the Persuasive Technical Lab, Stanford teaching persuasive design
• Jane Sarasohn-Kahn @healthythinker Health economist working sometimes for Edelman
• Margie Morris @margi-emem – Senior Researcher at Intel, clinical psychologist
• John de Souza @john_desouza President & CEO of MedHelp – the largest online community and medical app site
• Gigi Peterkin @gigi_peterkin – VP Digital Health Edelman

#healthapps

Is there one landmine to consider when delivering a health app?

Fogg - sloppy thinii9ng about behaviour change – there are about 15 types.  Each is different.

Sarasohn- Kahn - apps that focus on the individual are data silos – the real value is  when these can connect to other kinds of data in the health ecosystem so the clinical record can be connected to the objservstions of daily living

de Souza – the focus should be on consumers not on patients.

Morris - assumption that people set health goals and follow them in a logical and steadfast manner.  There’s a lot of variation in motivation – we need to address social factors here.Sarasohn-Kahn - There are around 8000 health apps.  The Mandala of health slide.  around the person is transport policy, family, spiritual life – all drive health. Health can be complicated – you may want to track many things in a day e.g. diabetes.   More chronic diseases means you seek health information online less = dis-engagement.  Health app users are mostly young and don’t have a high burden of chronic conditions.  Edelman health engagement study.

de Souza – everything is mobile now. Patient needs Research:  #1 request is better ways to communicate with your doctor – people want this.  They also want an awareness “where am I compared to other people?”, third is a baseline so I can track periodically.

Fogg - focus of health behaviuour – Managaing chronic conditions, preventing diseas, optimise wellness.  Personal, peer or professional. Slide 3×3 of health tools.   There were few social peer apps for maintaining health and less for support group for chronic group peer.  There are clinicans using diagnostic apps.  Shows where the opportunities are.  The money is on the left side of the slide.

Morris- consistent and persistent behaviour change is rare.  Apps to address mood – uses experience sampling and physiological sensor work to indicate stress – great video.  Congnitive Therapy to get people to assess if they are over-reacting.  Peer tools for mental health.

De Sousa – apps need to be relevant to both the user and the caregiver/doctor.  Find the engagement and keep that use up.  It has to be inclusive and on multiple dimensions – holistic.  Nike shoe app – when you get injured you can’t use it and the Nike person got depressed and I ‘killed the avatar’ because I was swimming not running.  When they use the app and if it fails or they can’t understand it the first time they use it you’ll lose them for ever.

Fogg - Behaviour change – epiphany, new context, baby steps.  Designing for baby steps and succeed your self-efficacy goes up and you change the context of your life. 7 words Trigger the Right Sequence of Baby Steps.  It’s very hard to do.  konw the goal and find the baby steps to get there…. it’s a huge idea.  There are systematic ways to plan for these and design for them.

Sarasohn-Kahn – The health system – how can these maintain momentum?  You have to develop apps with users.  The most effective tools and apps have to be user-centric and user crowd-sourced.  Incentives to people adopting tools/apps think about the mandala of health.  The 2 financiers in US – employer-based private system; [looking at prevention and wellness and new ways of buying and designing plans value-based benefit design using lifecycle.  Churn is no longer an issue.  Employers want productive and present staff – use tools to engage with their health.  In the public sector this will be bolstered by in-health reform by a provision in the Act that Hospitals won’t get paid if they get re-admitted after a first discharge for Medicare patients.  They are responsible for keeping them healthy at home after discharge.  Work collaboratively with the hospital to adopt tools at the home measuring e.g. CHF weight – a scale that bluetooths the weight to the doctor or coach’s office daily.   Home will be the hub of health – TV companies are doing pilots for whole-health programmes.  M-health apps will be necessary but not sufficient – part of the tools and incentives.

Morris - what is the role of doctors families and friends in motivating behaviour change?  There are many ways social network apps can expose people to positive influencers and role models who aren’t close family members or friends.  These have a long way to go.  people are starting to use FB to deliver interventions to networks not individuals.  You will have a broader impact if a person’s network changes they can make and sustain changes.

de Souza – when you track you get better results.  If you include others you track for longer.  If you include professionals you get the best results out of that… Doctors say an app has to be medically relevant as well as the consumer’s need.  Learn from finance – what you show the doctor has to be different from the end user.  What view does a doctor want?  A huge personal health record is a liability especially if I don’t read all of it.  But if you show me 1 thing relevant to my specialism then I can work with it.

Fogg - we are in the ‘friendster’ stage of the industry for m-health.  We haven’t seen the FB of mobile health.  I don’t think a monopoly will emerge for health.  The traditional health companies probably won’t lead these changes.  Ways to innovate in this space – the creators and the subject matter experts are divided so overcoming this is important.  Adoption and use are working – but are they changing behaviour?  The startups and medical researchers are not connecting enough.

Questions

If we got gamers engaged in the design stage could this improve apps for health

Startups have issues with heavy regulation and long medical decision making timescales

de Souza - now that we have mobile it’s easier if a consumer can go to a doctor with something in their hand then the question comes back what is this can we have it too?  Get consumers involved.  Fogg - get evidence and show this to insurers and providers who are eager to go with something… they won’t go with it until there is proof.   They need the confidence of a pilot.

What is the role for a hospital to do these things?

Sarasohn-Kahn – the most powerful thing about mobile is it’s both social and local.  This is what a provider needs – you serve a community bond patients to local providers (Kaiser with green markets).  de Souza – beware the Trojan horse – just get the adoption e.g. Microsoft Healthvault pushed Silverlight in order to get it = resistance.

Should we pay people to be compliant?

Fogg – I am not a fan of that.  I like tiny successes in a row.  building the momentum of success and mark the success (not with cash).  This helps to create habits.  Maybe use cash to get one-off actions.  I’m not sure there is a big difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.  Look at Qurora, Farmville  for recipes of behaviour change to build your app not starting from academic research papers.  De Souza - using gaming versus paying in virtual research.  We gave stars and when they went to the next level they got different coloured stars and it motivated well.

Have any apps been defined as a medical device?  (works for Novartis)

Saraohn-Kahn - regulation.  spoke to FDA informally and they think that apps are either informational or prescriptive.  The informational are fair game. If they are prescriptive and may lead over to the device area – talk to the lawyers.

Photos of some of the slides presented

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Imagine a world in which brands tell the truth, advertisers act like publishers and all communication is real-time.  Is this world possible? #brandjo

• Kyle Monson – Editor JWT
• Brian Clark – President of GMD Studios
• Bob Garfield – Advertising Age
• David Eastman – CRO JWT North America
• Shiv Singh – Head of digital, Pepsico

Eastman: Everyone understand the brand bit – the journalism is an editorial approach to brand buildling – thinking engagement and transparency over messaging and control.  It’s a non-fiction attempt at advertising which people would rather engage with.  From an agency point of view it’s about thinking as publishers rather than marketers.

Clark: I think everyone would prefer advertising to be like  content rather than the other way round.

Monson: Been a journalist for 6 years.  We are making journalists more relevant rather than less because this skill of publishing is more relevant than ever.

Garfield – the marketing maven part of me says ‘interesting’ and the journalist in me makes me want to punch you in the face.

Singh – this is a clear imperative.  Important.  The definition is all about real time marketing – as life happens.  

This is a JWT event…. demonstrate your bona fides.

Monson: Who’s doing good stuff?  MacDonalds 5 years ago.  Mormon.org is running – turning their brand over to church members to say why they are members of the Mormon church in video.  They aren’t editing it at all just deciding whether to run or not run.  Representing the brand to the world.

Clark: MacDonalds took a PR agency solution the Moms programme.  They took 8 mothers to where they grow the potatoes all on video.  ”the mom says they use real eggs?”   This is custom publishing (a print industry) this has been around for years and has been created using the same process.  [interesting....I disagree]  The process how a brand and a content editor can work together is ‘muscle memory’ and can happen.

Singh: We compete with everything else for consumers’ attention we have to act and think the way someone who is writing a status update does.  We can’t just launch something about co-creation – it has no resonance or meaning for consumers or us.  If it’s not aligned with our values it has no meaning.  It’s about the resonsnce between our brand essence and values and where they meet together.

Eastman: The bigger picture is everything is becoming digital and becoming media and when everything is media it’s becoming marketing.  When everything is marketing how should brands and agencies behave with each other?

Garfield: Advertising goals are awareness and persuasion. In Social Media the goals are credibility and trust.  How do you forge a relationship around sugar water?

Singh: None of us have a deep relationship with this building.  Our relationship is with SXSW which is at the Austin Convention Centre.  With Pepsi the relationship is with the brand, it’s often the moment and what the drink evokes.  Goes beyond the product itself.  The Pepsi Refresh Project – we gave away $20m to good causes.  This wasn’t philanthropy budget but marketing.

We saw a lift in persuastion, brand health, brand equity.  People who voted / participated formed a closer relationship.  We are scaling it up for 2011 because it worked for us.

Clark: Ford Bold Moves was part-documentary enabling film crews to access new places like board meetings, plants being closed and part-journalism they agreed not to edit what the journalists wrote.  Point, counter-point articles.  Debate about what Ford should do to turn the corner.  Because  we let them say what they believed, they were willing to work with Ford.  Ford uses a lot more real people, informal tone of voice, got away from “sheet metal porn” and into more real stuff.  This can still be seen today.

Monson: Aggregation is hard – pulling in negative news stories is a hard nut to get clients to agree to.  We’ve got Microsoft to hire freelance journalists and publish things that MS doesn’t agree with – they post a response post to these articles.

Clark: I disagree – third party content exists already – why are we still talking about bad things on the internet being an issue?  It’s here.  don’t be afraid of something that isn’t a glowing testimonial.  A good review should be showcased. 80% might be as good as you’re going to get.

Singh: That misses the point.  If I publish 25% of my content that’s bad about my brand just to show I’m transparent it is inward looking even if consumers think we ‘get it’.  I think it’s about adding value to consumers’ lives – the 183,000 ideas submitted gives us insight into what matters to people in the country today.  This is an example of doing something new but adds value.

Garfield: Chrysler “I find it’s ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity but nobody knows how to f** drive!”  The employee got fired from the social media agency.   This is a pretty good line about Detroit.  Does highlight how vulnerable a brand can be – careless candour, morbid humour, maligned conduct.  How to reconcile the control freakdom of brand management versus individuality of social media.

Singh: It was by the PR agency – they got fired as an agency by Chrysler.  If we as brands want to take brand journalism seriously the jounalists need to be part of your organisation and they know brand values.  Chrysler didn’t have an employee tweeting on their behalf – if he’d been an employee he might have said the same thing and he shouldn’t have been fired.  They should have taken this opportunity to fix the driving issues in Detroit.

Eastmen: without the word f*** it is a perfectly acceptable sentiment.  Doesn’t this say more about the reaction from Chrysler – they look slightly foolish for having over-reacted.  Not particularly smart.

Monson: It’s a Public Relations thing – this is a tweet that the public actually related to and they fired the guy for it.

Singh: To think that in social media a brand can have a big fat anonymous voice [is wrong].  A tweet error mistake hapens. we know our executives also make errors.  We’re all human.

Garfield: The guy should have gotten a raise.  The tweet is about the community – it made a human connection.  Are we engaging as people or as brand messangers?

Singh: if Chrysler had their other 300k employees tweeting about what they think about driving in Detroit that would have been authentic about the brand and the city.

Eastman: in 1990 Iraq invaded Saudi Arabia and they managed to keep it secret from the populace of Saudis – now the social media transparency makes that impossible.

Monson: employee social media policies.  Write as if your boss isn’t reading over your shoulder.  As consumers we are very good at avoiding advertising.

Eastman: Should a cereal have a twitter account?

Monson: but who are the 1100 followers?  Are they relevant to the brand? [these guys never work in a niche].

Singh: I don’t think the number of followers are a measure of active engagement.  I think we all need to ask Twitter and Facebook to move away from followers as the core metric.  But daily engagement or active engagement gives much more value.  Can they improve the public metrics?

Monson: is there a direct relation between attention and quality of writing.  The Internet is tooled to respond to ‘awesome’ not to respond to quality and it could be terrible.

Eastman: there’s a backlash beginning with un-friending happening.

Q&A

Schwartzkopf new home page is all focused on content (Oscars hair styles) all produced by Conde Nast editors.  After 4 weeks we have 10x more usage.  Is it the wrong idea to employ journalists in agencies?

Clark: Use custom publishers, second bring someone in-house to cross fertilise to colleagues; or freelance writers.  Brands can do the same thing.

TimeWarnerCable Blogger – what’s the best way to teach people storytelling skills that doesn’t just say ‘this sucks’?

Monson: Are you doing conversation monitoring?  Pick up themes and how you turn those into contents that can draft off what your readers are talking about.  You need a mix of proactive and reactive content.  You guys have gotten involved with me when I was in despair from my twitter feed. You encourage me to complain by responding to me.  Is this a good idea?

Singh: One role of customer journalist and social media can’t be merged.  The training for customer journalist is not the same as customer support.  Acknowledge the differences.

Garfield: I disagree the public sees one brand, Pepsi not separate job titles.

We’ve been takling about content creation not about journalism “non-fiction” content by brands.

Monson: I agree.  What about non-fiction narrative as a definition of journalism.

Clark: if done right you are holding up a lens to show what’s happening in the world.  Ad agencies put vaseline on the lens andgetting them to buy in is a key change.

Eastman: we are talking about agencies and brands doing things in a different way – agency hire different skills.  Ultimately what you call it doesn’t’ matter.  We know there’s an interest in doing this.  Clients think they can do it themselves.  When we talk about editorial calendars, real time responsiveness, the implications of legal then they realise they need an agency.

Related articles

• Chrysler dumps agency linked to F-Bomb tweet (windsorstar.com)
• Employee canned after sending out F-Bomb on Chrysler’s Twitter account
• Brand Journalism: “It’s a Trap!” (adgeek.us)
• SXSWi Video: JWT’s David Eastman (clickz.com)
• Chrysler red-faced and fuming after employee posts obscene tweet against Detroit drivers on company’s official Twitter feed (dailymail.co.uk)

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How many Rungs do you have to climb? social change and the engagement ladder. #howmanyrungs

• George Weiner Dosomething.org @georgecaweiner.  Engaging with young people (3 rules are no money, no cars no adults!).  They measure ‘actions’ not slactivism ‘likes’.   Their model is a 15/17 to 25 year olds presidents / VPs, Following, Slackers.  Focus is the middle of bellcurve.  Engage with what is the next step.  We go where teens are and includes a lot of SMS to SMS advertising and advertising using ChaCha.  Celebrity tie-ins for the PR is important.Teens for Jeans for homeless shelters.  Tie in with Aeropostale stores collecting over 4 weeks.  The economic engine can do this again and again.  Youth action + celebrity = result (no car/money/adults).   Teens need frequency and freshness fortnightly.  Getting them to come back after age 25 is the next step.
• Laura Cochran, Gannett @wplauracochran.  Formed a cross-company team to improve our role in community leadership.  We feed the media, we do research outreach first – how we engage slide.  The Indianapolis Star newspaper did a campaign with an embedded reporters in schools who reported what schools needed (climb ropes, mittens, food, clothing, footballs etc).  From that she learnt is that hasty involvement in action may mean lack of defined vision and goals.
• Patty Huber, Groupon.com @Patty360  Groupon started out as ThePoint but it had problems – too little focus. It was a for profit and the 5% take on funds raised didn’t work.  We knew people used the Point for collective buying and so a spin off site Groupon was launched to take advantage of this and it became very successful.  Her plan is to launch GTeam to leverage the huge subscriber base of Groupon.  ”We have rescued the small business community”.  We email 30million people daily.  the platform for our causes provide credibility.  Our campaigns run for 3 days (not 24 hours like Groupon) but people act quickly.  Once you’ve subscribed we already have your credit card information and you only have to click ‘buy’.  We set up Japan campaign page yesterday and already have $13,000 raised.  Ideas we have are to work with social enterprises – not just charities.  The local campaigns are good for small amounts focussed.
• Tom Dawkins, Hopelab and StartsomeGood @tomjd [healthcare]  A ladder for online engagement makes no sense because many of the actions are taken offline.  if you’re not tweeting or using the hashtag you ‘don’t exist’ online.  But we know you’re in the room. No technology is a panacea – they just give us the opportunity to experiment with new ways of connecting. It’s hard work and the intention of people that makes these technologies work for good.  What is a ‘rung’ on a ladder?  Does it require intentionality, consistency, progression?  Do the participants have to know they are involved in social change to make it worthwhile?  What if it’s just fun or a game?   There is a sequence of actions for organisations to do – ti makes sense from the perspective of the non-profit not from the individual.  ReMission is a video game for kids with cancer to get them to take their drugs properly.  The game works by motivating (3rd person shooter moving through the body blasting cancers) the drugs are the weapon…. We thought it’d work through information but kids don’t want that. It has to be fun, cool and for everyone Zamzee a movement monitor for teens that gives rewards for movement.  Startsomegood new fundraising idea – remove barriers to 501c registration.  Micro donors don’t care about tax deductions.  Small donors make emotional connections not financial decisions.  The Health pyramid slide is a better model.  The ultimate endpoint is helping people to become changemakers.
• Robert J Rosenthal, VolunteerMatch.org @volmatch Moderator.

Three big questions:

1. when it comes to online engagement for offline social good, how much do traditional notions of the ladder of engagement still apply?
2. with so many options, what are the key things you should keep in mind if you’re planning to deploy an online campaign to engage audiences in social good
3. how do you balance business needs with your desire for social impact?

Volunteer match has a mission to make it easier for good people and good causes to connect.  Funded by companies and brands who are also  supporting good causes. Nowadays there are a lot of free agents working in this space.

The hard part for wanting to make a different in a scaleable way is the right mix of social tools, sharing and engagement.  The ladder of engagement starts with visitors, members, contributors, evangelist and leaders.

Beth Kanter has a similar one

Sitelogic ones focuses of online actions.

Does the ladder always make sense?

After a crisis many people make a donation and then never re-engage.

Christine Eggar from Social Actions – shell of radiating actions getting a wider engagement.

Q & A

Our audience are pre-social media (letter to your senator) and they are time poor.  What is the value of retention or should we just be happy with periodic engagements?  George Weiner responded – retain versus repeat.  You are still keeping people with you.  Think of it as a circular ladder – repeat.  Let people activate where they can.  Do something with actions that take 5 minutes or 5 years…. are you looking for something for the spring break or the whole summer.  Patty Huber – people can connect where they are and if they don’t come back the user chooses.  The charity can give them a list of the next set of actions they want presented to the donor group.

For corporate partners is there a ‘toolkit’ or does it just take a long time.  Robert Rosenthal replied saying that corporates take a long time and this is normal.  Laura Cochran – we use third partnerships rather than build from scratch.  I partner with folks that have the technologies.  Do you need branding or reporting technologies built in?  these slow you down a bit.  But just fund raising from friends can be done easily.  Don’t wait for it to be perfect before launching.

Is there a trend in the youth where they need motivation without the information/context?  Does lead to empty activities?  Tom Dawkins I feel like the media finds the least informed person there and ask them why they are there…”I just want a day off school!”  We do need people to be thoughtful about what they do.  What we can/can’t do to help in the Middle East for example.  Context and paying attention are important.

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John Pettengill

#OMGdiabetic

I am a diabetic and I live with a chronic disease.  25.8 million in the US today.   A diabetic looks at each meal as a carbohydrate count with high/low glycemic index.  You are thinking about yoiur condition all day long and we know why lab values like A1C are important.

Some of us are bigger experts than others 17million / 67% US diabetics aren’t managing their blood sugar well.  Something is systemically wrong with the system if this number are having problems.  This is not to remove personal responsibility.  Cost to US is enormous in healthcare costs and chronic diseases cause 7/10 deaths per year.

Why aren’t we handling it?

Can technology help us manage it?

IN 21 minute segments (an average doctors visit) we talk about our health.  They ask questions about our lifestyle and health.  It’s isolated within the doctor’s office which is outside the normal pattern of your life (bar, office, restaurant, gym).   This is 2 hours per year approx and the doctors aren’t there when we make daily decisions about our disease.

This isn’t enough for patients with chronic disease.  31% are having problems with their medication in 45-54 age bracket.  Even more are dissatisfied with their eating or exercise plan.  The problem doesn’t lie mostly with the areas where doctors write prescriptions…. “eat well and exercise” doesn’t work.

Read the full post on our client’s site LifetimeHealthDiary.com

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Preparation is key to getting the most out of any conference or seminar you attend.  But it’s often hard to make this work for busy executives.

Enter EventExtra.  A new service from Matt O’Neill [he's the person who introduced us to our Guest blogger, Paul Foley]

EventExtra’s sole purpose is to help conference participants be better prepared and briefed before they arrive.

Once at the event, EventExtra creates new ways to generate energy and engagement that focus on measurable outcomes.

It is ideal for those typical two to three day off-site internal conferences with participant workshops.

Tell me more?

EventExtra works in two interconnected, yet potentially separate ways:

1. Engaging both participants and the wider organisation through facilitated digital communication. By creating a ‘before, during and after’ component, people are more invested in the process.
2. Providing workshop facilitators who practice a ’100% buy-in’ principle, which takes participants beyond traditional ‘talking shops’ into accountability and commitment to achieve outcomes beyond the event itself.

Although the team here have been developing these techniques for over five years, it is only recently a decision was made to bring everything together into a single service.

Hence EventExtra was born.

He asks for help

Matt wrote to me asking for my help.  I have done my bit – can you?

The favour I ask is to simply ask if you know of people who are involved in initiating conferences or acting as an internal sponsor and might be interested in this fresh approach to achieving a far greater return on their investment in these events. Very often these people will be senior managers or directors responsible for issues such as organisational change, sales and marketing or HR.

If you know anyone that could fall into these categories, could I call on you to forward this email to them, together with this link to the site at http://www.eventextra.net

I rarely ask for help, and I would not normally do so without believing totally that the skills EventExtra brings to incompany conferences will totally transform their effectiveness. So in helping me, I firmly believe you will be passing on something of real value to people you know.

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SXSW panel promotion is a serious business especially for creative agencies who want to advance their business cause by being on stage at this key annual gig in March.

The team behind the #kebab panel (hijackers from last year’s event) want to ‘grow up and formalise’ their appearance and so submitted a panel proposal for the 2010 SXSW. I want to get on the panel, and help them get the panel chosen and so here’s what we did.

The results won’t be known for a while and the panel voting is now closed.

1.  List of seriously connected people who might be persuaded to ‘amplify’ the #kebab message to their networks.  Should include all suggested panel members and others who were there last year (Birmingham, British Trade & Industry folk).

We came up with a list of 15 key people whose circles of influence are complementary.

By midday we had retweets from seven whose followers totalled over 20,000 people.

Three comments on the voting panel

2.  Agree message text and link to voting

Sample text / tweets included

Thursday 13th August – Hey excitement #kebab panel selected for voting at SXSW2010. “”#kebab presents . . . the SXSW Un-Panel” Voting opens Monday.  Link to follow.

Friday 14th August – advance tweet… watch out for SXSW panel #kebab voting
(maybe have this up two times during the day)
Friday / Saturday –
write blog posts detailing how wonderful #kebab was last time.  Include all links to video / blogs / flickr.  Here’s my effort.

Monday 17th August –

GET VOTING for “#kebab presents . . . the SXSW Un-Panel” at #SXSW 2010. http://bit.ly/LvWQK
The #kebab anti-panel of irreverent Brits who hijacked #SXSW are back! Vote your support. “Better than Monty Python…” http://bit.ly/LvWQK
Delighted #SXSW has selected @gandy @memespring @rebeccacaroe re-run of illicit #kebab panel for public voting http://bit.ly/LvWQK  Pls RT

Tuesday 18th August – Voting continues on #kebab for #sxsw currently running at …. http://bit.ly/LvWQK
Support Britain versus the rest of the world at #sxsw for the #kebab panel http://bit.ly/LvWQK
Hardened Brit Humor selected for public vote at #SXSW 2010.  But need votes to get selected. http://bit.ly/LvWQK

Thursday 20th August

RT weekly on Monday update on voting if we can see how many votes it’s getting online.

w/c 31 August plug hard as voting closes 4 Sept.

3.  Agree which of us will contact who on the key list.  Brief them on what we need, get them to agree to participate, agree key dates for launch and later dates for ‘updates’.

4.  Set up key stimulus points over the three week voting period e.g. tweet later, forward dated blog posts, facebook?   I wanted to include update on voting but that isn’t possible as all the voting is kept secret to the SXSW team (shame).

5.  Cross fingers

And we’re still here with those pinkies crossed.

What would you have added to this?  Did we miss any tricks?

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Last night I went to C4 where the great Sarah Blow was hosting her last GGD (she's moving onto new roles working on international and charitable status for the organisation).

A fine crowd listened  to the panel speaking on Technology, Gender & Public Perception through Media live and online with TechfluffTV's support.  Moderator, Maggie Philbin kept the panel – Alice Taylor , Belinda Parmar , Margaret Robertson and Emma Persky – on some fine topics frequently interspersed with questions from attendees and web viewers (@joannejacobs).

Here are my notes.

Role models for women

Why don't we see scientists in adverts who aren't white men with beards in lab coats?  See this research from US on 7th graders. (Robertson)

At Toys R Us the aisles are pink (princess) or gorillas.  There's nothing in between (Taylor).  This is a missed financial opportunity as many women and children fit between the extremes of the bell-curve.

Teens are quite 'metro' so how do they get there from the princess vs gorilla early childhood stereotype?

Apple takes an androgynous approach (Parmar) and Nike Women is powerful especially when compared to "Della". 

How do we drive technology job awareness to young women?  there is a cultural problem of girls not seeing tech jobs as being accessible, interesting or appropriate.  They have to believe it's a viable choice for me.

CHALLENGE – can all girl geeks go into a school and talk about 'my love of technology'? Go to the Women In Technology site to sign up their volunteering section.

Is the issue with the 'girl' or the 'geek' label? When women play games they tend to enjoy the less complex, less skills-based and less obsessive/compulsive types of game. (Robertson).  Geeks love knowledge and the test is do you know your onions when you meet another geek.  'you're in' if you do.  It's a secret handshake. This is easier than in other industries where other issues matter more.

TV watching statistics for Horizon male:female is 6:1 and for press quotations is 5:1.

Jobs – getting women to apply for tech jobs. Applicants tend to decide before the age of 10 whether their 'acceptable' career choices are. And if the 'scientist' stereotype view exists, they won't overcome it unless they visit a lab and see for themselves.

Heroes of our past: Joanna Lumley in Sapphire and Steel, Maggie Philbin in Tomorrow's World and Uhura in Star Trek.  [someone had an Uhura doll!]

The patriarchal imperative does not need to continue.  

Action for all readers – if you see an advert which is overtly male / female role stereotyping, write and complain to the Advertising Standards Authority or equivalent in other countries.  Around 30 letters will make them notice. [Persky)

A very fine evening all-round.

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