You're Going to Use WHAT?

LinkedIn Questions is always a great source of information and discussions.

Nicolaas Pereboom recently asked about the use of mobile devices to conduct Audience Response. As you would expect, we've gone through all of the available research re: mobile device use in the events industry. From the technical to device market penetration, to audience receptivity/resisdence to the idea and so forth.

ALL of our research indicates that real penetration and real ARS uses on ubiquitous devices, such as mobile phones, just isn't there yet.

In response to Nicolaas' question, David shared a bit of our expertise.

Nicolaas: If you do business in convention centers you'll appreciate many of them are underground and often have spotty coverage for cellphones even when the hotel has installed cellular repeaters.

If you can get past the possible coverage issues, next up are people that scoff at the fees if they don't own an all you can eat text plan. We think this will become less and less of an issue but it might be another few years before we see the convergence of fees not being an issue and coverage being acceptable.

So covering costs and coverage are easy enough to monitor... next consider the demographics of your audience. If you are supporting a wired group of techno-wizards - then you are good to go. But if your audience is a mixed bag of the savvy and not, then your changes of success start to slide.

This is why we like a hybrid model that can accept data from both cellphones and ARS devices at the same time. You choose your flavor and everyone can be satisfied.

Events Play Increasingly Crucial Role in the Marketing Mix

We've known this for years, and as we've seen the growth of our events business caused in large part by cost structure and efficiencies, it's become clear that the events industry is being turned to more and more.

And now, we've got some evidence . . . turns out that in this report offered by the George P. Johnson company, Data shows decision-makers are turning to event marketing (also known as experiential marketing) to drive purchase behavior and deepen engagement.

In St. Louis, we're fortunate to have some of the top events company in the country, right in our own backyard. Companies like Promotion managing national campaigns for Fortune 100 clients (and we're talking about clients other than the brewery) have leveraged experiential marketing since their inception.

As BusyEvent continues to mature as a product and a company, it's cool to see that the industry is taking advantage of the types of tools that will help it to grow - creating opportunities, revenues and turning data into information.

Read more: http://gpj.com/asset/pdf/rp00000051_090209101252.pdf

We're Hiring a PR and Social Media Pro!

RETWEET: HIRING (Proj>Perm) Savvy PR Pro. Writer for blogs, PR, SocMedia. DM or hireme@pmgstl.com. Prefer STL, will consider virtual.

Panamedia Group, the parent company of the BusyEvent Event Management Platform, is hiring a freelance PR and Social Media Pro.

We’re looking for someone that has serious experience with social media. That means viral campaigns, blogs, twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and all that other 2.0 stuff that was hot 2 years ago and is mainstream now. You don’t have to be the genius behind the 25 Things meme, or the creator of lonelygirl15, but you should probably know what those things are, and why they were successful.

Your initial projects are going to be things like writing some copy for our web site, press releases, and some help with articles on our blog. We’d also like you to help us use social media to get our name out there.

We’ve got a bunch of people in our target demographic that read our blog and follow us on twitter, your job will be to help us expand that and turn some of them into happy customers. You’ll also help us brainstorm new ways to reach more people, and do even cooler things with the web.

This is a freelance, project-based job, you can work on your own but we will need you to come into our office when we start each project, and periodically after that. We do have a spare desk, so you’re welcome to work in our office if you prefer. The usual carrots of “if this goes well, we’ll do more together” apply.

You can find out more about us at www.busyevent.com. We’re a startup, with offices in Maryland Heights, MO right below the best place for Gyros in St. Louis. We have solid funding, real income, and despite the economy a growing client base and a lot of interest in our products. We just need the right person to help up boost our marketing efforts while we’re busy making awesome software instead of twittering and posting to blogs.

Interested? Send us a DM @BusyEvent or email hireme@pmgstl.com.

Event CRM - Making a Real Difference at Events

Legacy event management tools are complex, niche-focused, expensive and disconnected.

To run a modern event, meeting professionals have to oversee 3-5 companies supplying individual pieces or, manage the details using spreadsheets, post-it notes and an overwhelming number of phone calls and emails.

And it's time for that to stop.

Regardless of the approach, they lose valuable data and can never access actionable information until it’s too late to impact their event. Plus, the social networking tools being used aren't integrated into the overall event so that the one person you really want meet or learn from never crosses your path.

With BusyEvent, we're changing not only the face of the events industry, but the core of how events are run, managed, utilized and leveraged to create opportunity, connectedness and profit.

Learn more about the BusyEvent approach to events from our CEO, David Schenberg: http://www.smallbizamerica.com/sbb/detail/trade-show-leverage-with-david-schenberg/

The Mind of a Meeting Professional - Eliminating the Aaaaaargh Factor!

One month done.

Successful events and challenges met.

So, what do our clients 'think' and how was the decision made to hire BusyEvent?

Using some of the visualization tools we're deploying for our clients, we thought it would be an interesting experiment to apply our client survey data to those tools.

Here's what we found, we hope this is useful for you as well.

Turning Data Into Information (Part 2)

Putting meaning to data is as important at getting it in the first place.

As we continue to work on and develop the data > information pathway for our clients, "information visualization" tools are becoming an increasingly fascinating passion around our offices.

For instance, in addition to the "how many people BE-Linked with each other", we're also now able to slice data so that our clients can mine for the most ROI-laden nuggets of information.

Plus, being the voracious researchers that we are, we've recently run across a fascinating tool developed by Jeff Clark from the company Neoformix. While the work they're making public is primarily focused on the Twitter Stream, their idea of data visualization and making information out of the stream is intriguing.

How is this pertinent to the events industry? Can you imagine the amount of information that goes wasted after any 3 day event? Who met whom? Who mattered to whom? Who engaged with whom? Which vendors are most popular? Which topics are most popular? Which parts of the event fell flat on its face? For all the BE-Linking going on, which generated opportunities and revenues? And on and on and on!

"Just Add Water . . . and Run Your Event"

CEO David Schenberg was recently interviewed by Microsoft’s Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley for the Startup Success Podcast.

During the interview, they focused on how BusyEvent is providing “effortless event management tools so (event managers) can stress about the things that matter”.

David’s interview begins at 8 minutes in and a discussion about the BE-LINK system (at 23:30 in) outlines how BusyEvent combines Lead Management with Audience Response while helping people bring their personal and professional networks to an event – all with a single consolidated tool.

Listen to the podcast at: http://www.busyevent.com/blog/?p=77