Building Alliances

“The ‘Atomic Unit’ of Instagram is an Image” –Kevin Systrom

Brian Duggan — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:28:06 +0000

I wrote the other day about a number of speaker’s at John Battelle’s Signal San Francisco Conference spontaneously sharing what they see as the “atomic unit” of their particular product or service.

I then tried to do just that in this post on The ‘Atomic Unit’ of a Conference

The distillation process represented may be even more worthwhile as one applies it to a larger variety of enterprises.

Let’s consider what else might benefit through being examined through this lens:

While not straight from the horse’s mouth, like they were at FM Signal, here are some of my answers to the above, for your consideration:

The Atomic Unit of Facebook is a __________ “Personal sharing”

The Atomic Unit of Google + is a ___________ “Piece of crawled content”

The Atomic Unit of Apple is ______________ “An unboxing”

The Atomic Unit of ________ is a ____________

Please fill in the blanks in the comments and let us know what you think.

By the way, I also tried to research a little more on the root of some of this “Atomic Unit” thinking, and came up with this great video from Marissa Mayer, on the Atomic Unit of media consumption, vis a vis Google News and the Newspaper and print media worlds:

Google VP Marissa Mayer on the atomic unit of media consumption…

“It ain’t pretty, but it’s real”

Brian Duggan — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:40:13 +0000

I’ve written recently about the three dimensions of events, covering learning, networking and lasting value. Or broken down to an event’s “atomic units”: shared ideas, personal interactions and concrete actions.

Today I want to explore: what does this mean for event producers? Ultimately, if you put on an event, it goes without saying that you are responsible for all aspects of it. And your job is getting harder.

You don’t just compete with other events. You compete with everything for the attention of your audience.

Increasingly, your audience is looking for more from you—they can see the latest talking heads at home on YouTube or the live stream from yours or another conference. They can network with their contacts via email and social media, and surf the web more easily than they can a trade show.

So it is incumbent on us as event producers to offer more—better content, more inspiring and unique experiences and more targeted marketing and connection opportunities. I had a chance to watch part of the live stream from last night’s Event Marketer Summit ex Awards, where the many winners definitely gave a taste for what stepping up our game may look like, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-tY5A_LDn0&feature=youtu.be

At our best, we will develop a super-heightened sense of both the interest graph and the social graph of our audiences, and leverage that understanding to compete effectively. So far, however, we are not measuring up to this challenge very well.

As you build your team of event vendors and services that allow you to serve the needs of your participants, speakers and sponsors, pay close attention to who is recognizing this new competitive reality, and is committed to upping their game accordingly.

Like the newspaper, travel and music industries before us, the Event Industry is increasingly on the receiving end of the Internet’s penchant to “eat” business as usual.

Call it disintermediation or call it what you will. One of my old event teammates was a caterer, and he, with his scruffy beard, and disheveled vibe, would often wear a shirt that sums up this current reality:

“It isn’t pretty, but it’s real!”

The “Atomic Unit” of a Conference

Brian Duggan — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:49:03 +0000

“The Atomic Unit of Instagram is an Image” –Kevin Systrom

One of the more interesting memes to come out of John Battelle’s recent Signal San Francisco Conference was that a number of speakers started to spontaneously share what they see at the “atomic unit” of their particular product or service.

Kevin Systrom got it started with “the atomic unit of Instagram is an image”

To be followed by other key execs with:

The Atomic Unit of Twitter is a Tweet

The Atomic Unit of Google is a Search

The Atomic Unit of PinWheel is a Note

The Atomic Unit of YouTube is a Video

Etc….

While this is obviously a trend that can be continued on and on, I think the answers get especially interesting in areas that are not as clear cut as the above.

For example, all of these came up on the main stage of a Conference, but what is the Atomic Unit of a Conference?

I would assert that there are three:

1. The Atomic Unit of a Conference Program is a shared idea.

2. The Atomic Unit of a Conference Community is a personal interaction.

3. The Atomic Unit of a Conference as a whole is a concrete action—one or more next steps taken
_—as a result of the ideas received and the interactions that take place.

How about you? Is that the way you see the “Atomic Units” of the events you attend, present or sponsor? Please let me know in the comments.

Reflections on my SXSW Session: Events are Now Platforms: Seven Tools for Success

Brian Duggan — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:37:33 +0000

This session achieved my goal of being a true interactive conversation, with lots of voices heard, questions asked and perspectives shared.

The audience included producers of events, tool providers, lovers of events and others drawn together by the chance to experience the magic that can only happen live and in-person.

Our room was overfilled, and almost everyone stayed throughout—the caliber of conversation was great, and my thanks to all who participated.

What were the main learnings?

There is a hunger for more on this topic. Events are increasingly important, but also increasingly challenging.
Technology is part of the problem, offering new ways to compete for our attention, but also can provide solutions when it comes to event discovery, better learning and more targeted networking.
Producers are challenged when it comes to programming speakers for events, marketing events, decided what to share online, how to encourage networking, how to deal with sponsors.
Technology has changed the game in all of these areas, and continues to change it today, almost daily—some best practices are emerging, though each case is still unique.
There are a wide variety of cases, with SXSW and leading tech events being very advanced with tech usage, and the vast majority of mainstream events often being much slower in the adoption cycle, but still needing to learn, with an eye towards the future.

While no one asked for a definitive list of seven tools, almost all of those mentioned on here were included in the conversation at one point or another.

There is also hunger for this interactive ‘Core Conversation’ format, as opposed to the talking heads or panel model. Many in the room hope we can return to continue the conversation at SXSW2013, as well as online.

I’ll follow up with a ConferenceBites style post, to share more of the flavor of the session. (First batch is now up, here. )

I also want to thank Xavier Damman, Founder of Storify for the great Storify he created of the session (in real time on his iPad)—a great example of a disruptive event technology in practice.

The Event Graph as it played out at SXSW

Brian Duggan — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:34:37 +0000

Those of us who work in the event business, know how particularly intense it can get sometimes, with only so many hours until ‘Showtime!”.

For me, SXSW and our session there on “Events are Now Platforms: Seven Tools for Success” came sandwiched right in between two major events I was involved in SignalP&G in Cincinnati, and Signal San Francisco, which just ended yesterday.

Hence the delay in getting back to you all with even this placeholder post:

Our session at South by Southwest was a huge success, filing and overfilling the room with event producers, tool providers and others hungry for conversation about how events are changing.

It was a truly interactive core conversation with lots of input from many quarters.

This Storify post from founder Xavier Dammon, can help give you a feel: http://storify.com/xdamman/sxsw-new-platforms-for-success (and also showcase a very cool new technology for creating content on the fly, on the iPad, while at an event!)

Most exciting, there was a strong desire to continue the dialog online. While a formal mechanism isn’t in place for that yet, I encourage everyone to weigh in on the comments, either here or in Google+.

In the meantime, some of the key themes from the session included:

– How to integrate sponsorship that doesn’t suck

– How to market events against the backdrop of everyone’s overwhelm and challenges for where to put their attention

– The role of technology, both in exacerbating some of the above problems, but also offering new solutions as we move forward

I’ve got more posts coming soon to further flesh out some of what we discussed, and to suggest more and other interesting tools that may play a role in transforming events for the future.

But in the meantime, let us know in the comments what seems most important to you, regardless of whether you were able to join us in person or not. Thanks!

Tools for Event Transformation

Brian Duggan — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:29:46 +0000

When we first announced our “SXSW Session on “Events are now Platforms”, it always had as its subhead, “Seven Tools for Success”. While the number is actually arbitrary, my goal is to move the conversation forward around how technology can transform events for the better.

Below are just a few examples of tools which may play a part in this coming events renaissance. A couple of caveats—this list is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point to provoke conversation and dialog among those of us that are developing, using and promoting these solutions. So I especially want to hear about the products, services and websites I have left out here:

1. Event Discovery and Information Sharing (Solving event problems relating to The Interest Graph)

—–a.   Platforms for event discovery
———–i.   Lanyrd
———–ii.   ConferenceHound
———–iii.   Conferize

—–b.   Vehicles for sharing event content
———–i.   Ustream
———–ii.   Livestream
———–iii.   SlideShare
———–iv.   YouTube

—–c.   New tools for content curation
———–i.   Storify
———–ii.   Flipboard
———–iii.   Fotopedia

2. More effective event networking (Solving event problems relating to The Social Graph)

—–a.   Platforms for events to deploy
———–i.   Pathable
———–ii.   CrowdVine
———–iii.   MobileRoadie

—–b.   Tools for individuals to utilize
———–i.   FourSquare
———–ii.   Sonar
———–iii.   Presdo
———–iv.   Highlight
———–v.   Glancee
———–vi.   Ban.jo
———–vii.   Kismet

3. Tools for lasting business impact (Relating to what I am calling The Event Graph–where the Social and Interest Graphs come together around an Event and its aftermath)

—–a.   CRM and lead management tools
———–i.   Salesforce.com
———–ii.   Microsoft Dynamics
———–iii.   Oracle, SAP, etc…
———–iv.   Marketo
———–v.   Rapportive

—–b. Content Sharing tools–The Big Four

———-Given that lasting impact is going to come by sharing across the Social Graph and our personal Interest
———-Graph, itis also important to recognize that the top four Social Networks:

—–       -I. Twitter
—–       -II. Facebook
—–       -III.   LinkedIn
—–       -IV.   Google+

———-…all have an important role to play as solutions to our event challenges.

—–-c. In many cases they are leveraged by some of the more specialized tools above, but they also have a
———–number of their own direct initiatives that could play a key role in improving events, including:

———–Google Hangouts
———–Facebook Live
———–LinkedIn Events
———–Twitter Initiatives

4. Event infrastructure tools

And finally, the three solution areas above are supported by a growing collection of overall Events Industry tools, including:

—–a.   Event Management Tools
———–i.   EventBrite
———–ii.   Cvent
———–iii.   Eventasaurus

—–b.   Sponsorship & Vendor Marketplace Tools
———–i.   SponsorHub
———–ii.   Eved
———–iii.   EventUp
———–iv.   The EventShop

If I’ve left you out, or mis-categorized you, please let us all know in the comments. And if you are attending SXSW, please join me for the in-person part of this discussion, along with Loic LeMeur of LeWeb and Robert Scoble at our Interactive Core Conversation on March 12th.

3 Keys to Event Transformation

Brian Duggan — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:34:27 +0000

I believe it is helpful to look at Conferences and other Business to Business events in terms of an “Event Graph” with three main dimensions:

1. The content presented and the learning received
2. The networking and connections that take place
3. The lasting business impact which results

New digital and social tools can dramatically improve our event experience if they can help us do three key things better:

1. Prioritize where to invest our attention
2. Identify and meet with the best potential contacts
3. Integrate what we learn and who we meet with our ongoing activities

These correspond to the dimensions above, and also to three of the ways that Events today are broken (and becoming more so every day):

1. We as an audience are overwhelmed

We don’t know which events or sessions to attend, or where to really pay attention once we’re there. We often can’t leave our desks to attend events that would be groundbreaking for us. And how do we best keep up on the most important information coming out of the events that we can’t get to in person?

Once we are present in the room, we still have to battle to be less engaged with our digital devices and messages than with the speaker right in front of us. Equal parts blame here go to lame event content (uninspiring talking heads, or unfocused panels) and the ongoing crush of business activity pulling our attention back to the business at hand.

2. Networking is haphazard

We all as business people have developed the skills of working a room, being friendly, and networking with those we encounter. But it remains hit or miss. We’ve all had those great moments of serendipity, but we’ve also been frustrated by the inefficiency of knowing there are five great people in the room for us to meet—we just don’t know which five they are!

3. We fail to tap the potential events have for lasting impact

Even when we get truly inspired at a great event, we often fail to apply that new thinking into our businesses and our lives. Contacts may get into a CRM system post show, but we often fail to follow up in the most meaningful way we can.

As a result, events fail to deliver on their true promise, reducing value for participants, for the events themselves and for the sponsors who rely on them as business development and content marketing drivers.

Ultimately, we need new tools to meet these three key challenges

Ironically, technology has exacerbated or caused some of the above challenges but it also holds the key to improving and transforming our event experience.

In my next post, I will add to this Event Graph (see below) my first pass at a list of tools to help us in the key areas of that transformation:

1. Event discovery & content sharing

2. Onsite networking and

3. Overall event management.

Please add your thoughts in the comments, and let me know who should be added to this list of solutions.

Also, a reminder: leading companies in this space are invited to join with me, and my co-presenters Loic LeMeur and Robert Scoble for an Interactive Core Conversation at SXSW on March 12^th. Our vision with the session (and with this online dialog) is to spark a continued and collaborative exploration that can truly make events better for all of us. We hope you can join us for it, if not in person, than via this online dialog here and on Google+. Thanks!

The “Dinner Party” that is our SXSW Session

Brian Duggan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:44:15 +0000

The advantage of leading a Core Conversation at SXSW is that it’s not a Panel. Rather than invite a few talking heads to sit in the front of the room, my vision is to invite a number of leaders in the space to come together to explore how Events are now Platforms and the Tools for Success we all need.

I want to start with two special announcements:

The first is that Loic Le Meur, founder of Le Web and Seesmic is going to join me as the official co-presenter of the conversation. I am delighted about this for a number of reasons, including Loic’s real world experience and perspective as the producer of one of tech’s leading global events and his deep involvement in building and using social media tools.

I am also delighted to announce that Robert Scoble is also going to join us for the discussion. The only reason he too isn’t an official co-presenter is that we are only allowed two of us, but he has agreed to come join us, and share his perspective. I see this as another big boon, given his role as one of our industry’s foremost event participants, and a premiere “super-user” of all manner of tech tools. I am very excited to be able to add his voice to our discussion.

I will have a longer list of invited guests to announce soon, but as I work on it, my question for you, is who else should I be sure to include? And even if they can’t join us in person in Austin, who should be in the loop for the dialog remotely before, during and after?

The Event Graph

Brian Duggan — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:44:38 +0000

As I prepare for my session at SXSW on Events Are Now Platforms, I find myself wrestling with a couple of questions:

1. What makes Events so uniquely compelling?
2. As social media has permeated all aspects of the events world, how can we best unlock their power for us, both personally and professionally?

Some describe what is going on as “the Internet eating its way through industry after industry”. Think music, publishing, travel. And now that disruption is extending to the world of events.

I’ve produced events for decades, and forged beneficial alliances around high level business conferences for the last fifteen years. Never have the answers to the above questions been more pressing.

That’s why the Session at SXSW won’t be just another panel presentation– it will be an interactive exploration (what they call a “Core Conversation”) that I invite you to join us for.

It is critical we start by re-thinking what events really are and the functions they truly perform. The chart below is a starting point that I offer for discussion:

The Event Graph

What might “The Event Graph” include and how can it help us in understanding:
what events have been
what are their functions, and
what are they becoming

For the purposes of this exercise, I am focusing on business conferences in particular, rather than the wider universe of all events.

I use the term “The Event Graph” because I think it has value for our purposes here. Obviously, the two most well-known “Graphs” are the Social Graph and the Interest Graph. These represent two of the core functions of events, and of the new tools (think Facebook, Twitter, etc…) which are transforming events. The Event Graph Model can hopefully be useful for us as we think further about our personal connections to what we get from events, and to the relationships between the major players in the Events ecosystem.

Even as I turn my attention to a follow-up post on the role of social tools (as potential solutions as well as disruptors), I would love to get your feedback in the comments, especially on the basic elements and functions I’ve posited above as making up The Event Graph. Is this the way you see it too? And what am I overlooking?

My upcoming SXSW Presentation

Brian Duggan — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:02:07 +0000

I am very excited to announce that I’ve been selected to present a session at SXSW this year, on Events Are Now Platforms: Seven Tools for Success. Here is the vision behind the session:

The goal with this session is to explore how to make events better for all of us. The new ideas and relationships we all seek from events are now available to us across a continuum of ongoing social tools, so audiences give as much attention to their devices as they do to a speaker, or to the person sitting next to them.

How can we as event participants, producers, and sponsors best adapt to this new reality?
How can these digital tools serve to humanize and improve our experiences, and make us more present, as opposed to being just another source of distraction and overwhelm?

The session will offer an opportunity to join with leaders in the field as we explore best practices for using the wide array of tools that are emerging in the event space.

In keeping the session’s vision about how events have been changed by social media and new digital tools, and that they no longer exist in a vacuum, I hope to enter into a dialog with you here on the site, whether you will be able to join us in Austin in March or not. With that in mind, what are your thoughts on how events have changed, and how you’ve adapted to keep pace?