I’ve been meaning to write a post about conferences, conference organizers and how they prepare for a social media world. I attended two conferences in the last week KMWorld and FutureVision. Both were inadequately prepared for social media. I use them only as an example, both were excellent events in their way and yet they were missed opportunities. Still, rather than address the organizers I thought I’d address the presenters. There are lessons listed for Organizers and PR firms too.
Presenters generally came unprepared for a social media world. Unless we are talking an O’Reilly conference, Supernova, Barcamp or a Blogging convention you as a presenter may not have been confronted with the “problem” … or is that “opportunity” before. Each time I’ve gone to a non-tech / non geeky conference in the last few years outside of communications I’ve felt lost and unsupported. I’ve also learned “bloggers” just aren’t understood. So take a moment and just consider, if you are a presenter and your presentation is being live blogged… What do you do?
- Tell the blogger to stop! (Not likely, they may be falsely accused!)
- Make it harder to follow your presentation? (To the contrary you should make it easier to follow)
- Complain afterwards via your own blog or in comments?
No! Each of these represents a problem where in fact it is an opportunity. (Dave Snowden’s picture used just for interest; he would be on my a-better-example’s list)
“The Art of Conference Blogging”
- Because it gives me a record of a gathering that I can work from, quoting speakers and ideas in later blog posts.
- Because it forces me to pay attention to what’s going on at a conference, not just to visit with my friends, chat in the hallways, enjoying the spectacle.
- Conference blogging gets me invited to conferences I couldn’t otherwise afford to go to, and which I enjoy being present at.
- Other bloggers link to my conference posts, which raises my Technorati profile, and makes it more likely people will read my original writing.
- People expect me to.
The Impact of the Live Blogger on the Presenter’s Talk:
Leverage the Blogger’s Audience
To the contrary your lone live blogger may actually be feeding an audience that is greater than the number of people sitting in the room. The lone blogger typing away may just have an audience of 1000, 10000 or even 100000 readers. Of course it is the same deal with the press. Just the press won’t be live blogging every word. A few bloggers in the audience could potentially turn you into a rock star. If you worked hard on your presentation and really want to leverage it and learn from it… this person or mini-group is offering you a potential opportunity for hundreds of new recruits. So where do they go? Where do I point them? How easy is it for my readers to connect with what you have just said?
Post Event Review
Don’t just look at the blogger and assume the information is being shared with your traditional followers or constituents. Unlike those notes scribbled in a notebook to take back and brief the company on, I’m using my blogging post to learn more, to see what other connections may be made. Check the search engines, I’ll tag you and your name, I may appear on your Google page within minutes of your talk. If I’m excited about you then I have just evangelized you to all my friends and readers. Use their blog to research where new opportunities and connections may lie. Add comments to blogs. Be gracious.
Keep Track of Your History
What I write is being archived for prosperity. It’s a little history of and for the presenter. While that may sound a little scary, the opportunity to leverage it is immediate. What better as the presenter than to present to a series of posts written about your presentations; no need to ask the author. These references are just there – a gift for you to use. If nothing else del.icio.us links to posts that you may want to reference later.
Stay on Message – Some Soundbites Please?
Don’t fear the blogger any more than you may fear the audience. Believe me most bloggers won’t waste their time capturing content that is meaningless to them or if they lose track. Posts done during a conference are much more meaningful even when short. Even the blogger that just twitters “Dave did a fantastic presentation on X.” and sends a tinyURL may drive lots of new interest in what you were talking about. (Organizers note. If one of those big twitter names with lots of followers is in your audience and sends a single line / link it may again be seen by thousands. Twitter is more likely to bring people and curious to learn more right then and there. So then, if they come on when the audience is on.. what do they get? Streaming Video or nothing? The conference Twitter feed?
Make it Linky Simple in Advance
Consider how to make it simpler for me. Write a post about what you are going to present, and any special links to old materials, backup etc. It makes my post more valuable. So help me with the background. Even help me with pictures, tags you’d like to see. I may not follow any of this stuff. If you give me links to delicious, or other sites at the same time I can also point to other places where you may be found on the web. Try and understand me. I’m trying to internalize what you say, capture what it means to me; provide a little commentary, add some quick notes and links. I’m listening for value, if you have lots of visuals put some jpegs in flickr and mark the page with the flickr account or create a group for the presentation. I don’t have time to get quality pictures. If it is really visual, my interpretation changes. If I cannot provide the visual with my post then it may be very hard for me to write it up.
As a Presenter Did You Ask the Organizer About Bloggers?
- Is there a list of bloggers attending?
- Were you given some “passes” to invite some bloggers along? (Baseball players get family tickets; what about your blogging entourage?)
- As a presenter were you informed by the conference organizers how they would promote the conference via social media? Even the simple things, tags, pictures, community hub, etc.
- Is there a “Bloggers Briefing” area just like the “press room”? Should you get a bloggers briefing time before your presentation? 15 minutes. (I don’t know just an idea?) Is there an opportunity to humanize yourself and build a relationship with potential bloggers before presenting? Back to knowing who is coming.
A few lessons for Conference Organizers.
You are Managing a Community not a Conference
This post by Ray Sim really illustrates the opportunity. My earlier posts on Poptech illustrate another. My post on Twitter provides another view.
- People wanted to be at these conferences that couldn’t and they were looking for information while it was on.
- People that went to a previous conference want to reconnect and tune back in. The alumni factor.
- People who are at the conference and want to spread the word through their own notes / liveblogging.
- People who will twitter real-time updates and or follow / track the conference.
Social Media Makes or Breaks The Future For You.
Conferences generally aren’t advertised on TV. Great conferences spread virally via word of mouth. You cannot hope to start a new conference or series today without enabling the archiving, and reselling of the ideas shared. These are more powerful pointers than any POS brochure. Conferences are brands, and they must be out in front of people. Some conferences like TED and Pop!Tech are almost sold out as soon as they finish. Conferences are also made by the community, by the connections made there, and in many cases the business that is done. Social media requires you to engage the users in open transparent design and opportunity. Examples are Reboot, NorthernVoices, BlogTalk. These conferences are rebuilt each year with their audiences. They are using the social tools.
Conferences That Are Social Media First
Small exclusive conferences with high price tags may actually be social first. Demo is the first example that comes to mind. The format is being followed by others in the Tech industry. Still I’d expect the P&G / CPG Demo equivalent before long complete with Walmart and Target Buyers. It’s a good way to launch products when budgets are limited and you want to stimulate a conversation around them. CES doesn’t do this and yet it has a huge following that are blogging and talking about the “what’s new”. Poptech has moved from small exclusive to Social Media Event.
Blogging Presenters can Create Buzz.
They are effectively selling to their audience. Many may want to come and see them. A book may credential them; a blog lets me know where they are going. How many presenters are you inviting that have blogs? Did you do an analysis on Google before you invited them? BTW.. not all should be in this camp. Many will attend to discover somebody new. We may also go to see somebody who we’ve admired for years. Sometime’s it’s just one person, sometime it is a small group. Ross Dawson’s blog is a good example.
Lessons for the PR Firm:
It’s an Opportunity for Your Firm to Build Relationships. Your guy/gal may not blog. That’s perhaps ok. Not everyone should blog. Still all the above applies on catering to the live blogger and bloggers in the audience. Some conferences do press / blogger follow-up well. (Eg VON was good at scheduling General Press / Blogger updates after a presentation). Use the opportunity to share some “stories” and build some relationships. Rather than the technical details, tell us the stories that come from your customers. Or simply address the inquiries.
Your client is going to get tagged, photographed, quoted, talked about etc. more and more. Both parties will have to get used to it. The more visible the more that will be written. So are you advising them on follow-up, are you participating in “listening” for them? Are you identifying “conversations” they may like to have? Are you making it easy for them to share their product, to enable us to take a test drive or try it out? Are you creating any mini-panel sessions? Oh and did you get that list of bloggers that are likely to be at the conference? How many do you know?
I bet there are many more ideas out there. I think social media is revolutionizing how conferences ought to be done. Unconferences are not a replacement. Conference 2.0 is yet to arrive. The lesson is relationships drive conferences in the end. Concurrently many conferences are past their due date; exhibitors who aren’t watching the meme keep paying and support one’s we should really never go to. It’s not to late to try some new things at your next conference! That’s true whether you are a presenter or the organizer.
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What baffled me, as a first-time attendee of both Internet Librarian and KMWorld (organized by the same company), was the difference between the two in their support of social media. Going into Internet Librarian, I knew what tags to use for del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati etc., bloggers were solicited in advance (and given access to the press area) and the wiki was a great source for people’s schedules and presentation materials as well as tips on the area, Internet access, etc..
I raised the issue of lack of facilities for conference blogging with the organisers and they have promised to do something next time (I think). I agree with most of your points above. When I get a chance to blog at a conference I find it increases my attention and retention of the material as well as creating a wider audience/
What an *excellent* blog post, Stuart! I do hope that plenty of various different (KM related) conferences would get to read of these words of wisdom you have put together, because they are just spot on! I had a very similar experience myself just this year, after I attended the AQPC KM & Innovation in Houston, where I seemed to be one of the few folks blogging about the event (http://tinyurl.com/2g4jnp).
So much so, that after having put together a bunch of blog posts I had a few more and gave up on writing further reviews since a) couldn’t do live con-blogging, so writing something up at a later time becomes more difficult, not only from the perspective of timeliness, but also from getting busy with other stuff, usually catching up after you come back b) lost the motivation since hardly any of the folks at the conference engaged further in co-blogging the event. Disappointing, indeed, so I am hoping that next year things would improve quite a bit and your blog post shows that it can be done!
Thanks for putting together such a thoughtful resource which I am more than happy going to share with a bunch of other folks, too!
Thanks for all your comments!
Steven, I spoke to Jane Dysart briefly about both of these conferences. There is no doubt that the Librarians are way ahead; this may also be partially due to identifying with their community rather than working for company x. Still no effort was put into KMWorld to build this platform, support and community. It require preplanning, requires letting attendees know we will be trying different things this year.. bring along laptops, mobiles etc. Attend some bootcamps.. etc. I’d even run these in the future.
Dave, I too listen better when I have to write the notes and just like Luis says, if you don’t post them then you may never post them. For the most part I went out after each session reconnected to the hotspot and pushed publish. Some of the results lack links as I couldn’t do them there and then.
Isabel, Thanks for picking up on the “It’s a Community” I really believe this and there’s a huge opportunity to help organizers to facilitate this more effectively.
Oh, and while reading the follow up comments, I forgot to mention as well something that was really important from both Stuart’s and Dave’s input. Blogging while attending a session is one of those activities that keeps people engaged in trying to get the most out of the overall session, so paying attention is something that goes along the lines of providing some more useful insights. To be honest, I attended a number of sessions at various KM related conferences and those sessions I blogged I still remember them quite clearly, the others are… just … simply … gone! (Unless the speaker is someone I know and trust and therefore I know that is going to stick around with me for a while, because if I forget I can always ask again
)
I left the following comment on Dave Snowden’s blog today. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2007/11/conference_blogging.php
Dave
One element I didn’t work up too much was the presenter / blogger who is represented by a speaker bureau. If the Speaker’s bureau did a little more negotiating they could significantly improve things. The cost of an expensive keynoter makes a little wifi nothing when compared to the benefits for both organizers and the presenter.
I think I made Samuel’s point to by saying put a key diagram on flickr in advance. Put them in a group so it is easy to find them. You could put them in your own photoblog too, just a bandwidth etc trade-off vs where do you link to. My learning is… less on slides. I cannot use really view slides if I am listening and typing. Slides take away the focus in many cases. They are often not in synch with what is said either. So key word, one picture, one link etc. Telling the story forces us to be more compelling. I think this is also why Ross Dawson says “my slides aren’t my talk” and puts them up with a little protest. The flickr approach may get around that.
I also take my ipod and recorder and simply put it on the table. That way I can check something later. It would never make podcast material; it is a possible way to check back quickly later for a missed fact or statement. May also save me from a “mad” presenter or enable me to recognize and correct a mistake I’ve made.
It also helps the blogger if time is allowed for questions. They may not come fast, but 10 minutes can make a huge difference to reinforcing their takeout of the presentation, what the audience is interested in or wants to learn more of etc. Otherwise it’s framing in a vacuum.
Another, for making life simpler for the conference blogger. First provide power! if there is no power you get no blogs and chasing plugs becomes an issue. There were no plugs virtually anywhere at KMWorld.
If you want to experiment with the right crowd.. give them the opportunity to live twitter your presentation. Set up a Twitter account for the presentation to auto follow and let it run on the screen… Most would need some training in twitter first. Use it like voting on american idol. or pose questions before… IE what makes you curious about what the presenter is going to say? …. then at some point break and use for questions etc.
Better go and post this comment on my blog too!.
The comment has not appeared on the blog yet Stuart and I can’t see it in the spam filters. I agree on power by the way, the sight of people walking round halls trying to grab the one slot …..
Speaker bureaus I cannot help with as I don;t use them and generally do the big events for expenses and treat it as marketing, although that may change. However that may change, but fees such as $80K seem to be wrong. My experience is that speakers from those environments are delivering a standard performance and are unlikely to be interested in feedback.
Not sure on the twitter point (I have tried an equivalent), presentation is a performance, especially a keynote and you read the audience directly in effect starting to create a symbiosis of non-verbal interaction. Where you get lots of small feedbacks you tend to start responded to them as they happen. In a seminar, good but not so sure in a larger pitch.
Pictures on Flickr are a good idea, if you prepare in advance. I tend to put the slides together in the half hour before I get on stage, but given wireless link they could be directly posted.
You took the words right out of my mouth! I started live blogging from events here in Germany last year in November and: You’re absolutely right.
Some thoughts out of my personal experience:
Organizers may fear their event becomes less important because people can read everything in the web (“bloggers give away my conference for nothing”):
a) half of an event’s value is the knowledge the attendees gain – the other half is the live networking they enjoy
b) live bloggers not only write on the presentations and the facts – they write on the atmosphere / ambience and the networking, too
So live blogging adds more value and more “want to be there” feeling to your event. Same arguments applies for presenters respectively.
Presenters fear their slides being publicly available for competitors:
So why are you presenting them anyway? If you have secrets, keep them secret. Because your competitor may be in the audience just as a “normal” attendee.
Presenters should comment live posts:
Use a blog search (i.e. Google, Ask.com, Yahoo) and social tagging services (i.e. del.icio.us) to find and identify post on your presentation (like you already suggested). Read them and comment on them. Don’t blame the blogger for having misunderstood your presentation. Give him and all the blogger’s audience the correct information. Ask for feedback on what you could do to avoid future misunderstandings. Write on additional aspects that you couldn’t cover at the event (i.e. lack of time or focus). Provide links to downloads and Slideshare.net (where you uploaded your presentation a day before the event).
Advice for organizers on blogging infrastructure:
- Live bloggers sooner or later desperately need a power outlet with extension cables right into the audience.
- WiFi is essential but in case of security concerns (i.e. event takes place within a company’s venuew) direct connection with ethernet cables to routers could suffice (provide long cables!). More and more bloggers take a real bunch of pictures and have a camcorder. So be sure there is stable and broadband connection.
- Live bloggers often have a camera but no high-end camera. So provide them seatings near the stage (and think of good illumination, too).
- Live bloggers and as well as journalists appreciate having some kind of a lounge where they can interview presenters, the organizer or some people from the audience without being disturbed. If you have a get-together after the formal event: Keep the lounge open. Remember the other infrastructure.
Here here to more power/outlets at any meeting/conference venue. It’s embarrassing how disconnected the venues are from the desires of the organizers and attendees. Mercenary fees on wifi access as well.
Something I’ve started doing recently is to post my slides slightly in advance to slideshare.net, and reference that fact from the very first slide of the live presentation – so people can hop to it for thmeselves. Has worked beautifully so far – hiccups on slideshare.net not withstanding.
All great points though Stuart – it’s a brave new world, and the more ways to engage the live and in-person audience, the “shadow” (virtual) live audience, and the Long Tail, I’m all for it. Not much point in talking if only a handful of people hear the message!
I’m getting a nice extra Long Tail on my presentations – a presentation I gave live to 25 people has now been seen by over 1100 on slideshare.net. That’s a nice magnification.
Thanks for the BlogTalk reference Stuart. We’re using Drupal for our CMS, FeedBlitz and a Jaiku channel for notifying people, Upcoming and Facebook for further event promotion, and MoinMoin for our co-located workshop on Social Network Portability. The one thing we did come in for criticism for was our proposal submission process which required a two page paper. We’ve relaxed this a bit, but the reason was that BlogTalk is a bridge between the practitioner, developer and academic world, all of whom are used to different types of events. But of course its important to be able to create these bridges.
Anyway, great post! Thanks, John (co-chair, BlogTalk 2008).