For the last two weeks, Brian Solis and I have been discussing events and the role that blogging has had on them. We’ve done this largely as we actively engaged in the process at a variety of events in the Bay Area. More than a year ago, my life with syncPEOPLE was dedicated to the study of the role that social media can and would play in the event/conference business. It was a difficult process filled with fear and uncertainty. I’m happy to hear that there has been quite a sea change and the tide is moving in the right direction.

One of the major trends I have been observing is the migration to media. Almost every event organizer wants to hold onto the audience they have and to grow it in as many ways as possible. Remember this simple fact, sponsorship can’t grow without growth in attendance (up to the point of saturation, that is). It is this understanding of the world that has driven a lot of the experimentation in the conference industry. The truth, of course, is that there is not much room to not embrace new media and methods. Attendees have ever-changing needs and event organizers must adapt to new models.

In the last 2 weeks alone, I’ve been approached by no less than 4 events to assist in integrating social media into the attendee experience. I think it is a definite sign that more and more, everyone is looking back to the social dimension of events. It’s quite amazing how unsatisfying many events seem now when this is not properly planned and accounted for - after all, conferences are really about the contacts more so than the content.

This post was inspired by some discussion flowing today regarding the Nielson BuzzMetric client-only conference. The official word from the organizer was that the event was intended for its clients and that there were presentations of case studies from a variety of clients. Steve Rubel’s poses a broader question in response, “Should conferences ban blogging?” My simple answer: it depends.

While there are a number of reasons that organizers should consider integrating blogging and other social media into their event experience, I can undertand that under certain circumstances they might seek some privacy - though I do beg they consider it very carefully. In this case, it was a private event and there is no requirement for transparency. Naturally, asking people not to do something is often more like demanding they do the opposite - potentially undoing any attempt to “contain” the content.

Ultimately, I think we need to be more constructive in our criticism (Scott Karp agrees). While we all are empowered with our new suite of media tools, entitlement is still something quite different.

Quick ping to everyone reading for some help with a MT installation.  I need to put together a quick form that will let us utilize the MT API on the server side.  I don’t imagine this to be very difficult if you’ve worked with MT previously.

Add your resume to the comments or send it directly to greg AT socialroots DOT com.  This position needs to be filled immediately.

Well, we’re into the second installment of my response to an e-mail comment from Pete Caputa. Pete and I have been chatting via e-mail making sure we were ok with what was being said. We have both decided that we really don’t mind any criticism and think there’s a lot more to be learned by dissecting our mistakes together in public than simply hogging all the hollering. Ultimately, constructive criticism is indeed a form of support, if not the most important kind.

Which brings me to focus. Most everyone who knows me well will tell you that my mind moves all over the place. I’ll be the first to admit I suffer from entrepreneurial ADD. I don’t know how to not generate ideas and test the edges of the things I am working on. It’s my nature to second guess myself, perhaps to a fault.

Those same people, however, will tell you that in the last year or so I truly did have my head down in a significant manner as I focused on the conference business - I know since they bothered to mention it to me. We’ve been through quite a bit on this side of the fence, more than I could ever explain but I am planning to share some of that knowledge in the next couple of installments.

Needless to say, I think that focus can be a difficult thing to manage. If you follow my friend’s advice, you would seemingly keep your head down and fight the good fight. That’s right to a certain extent. I liken it to following a scent on the trail. You can focus on the scent as much as you want, just make sure you’re not walking off a cliff to stay with it.

As a young startup, agility is one of the main assets we have available to us. n Most often, however, we attribute that agility to our “feature set” and get tunnel vision with our direction. It’s important to self-correct when necessary - the key being to know when that course correction is needed. We were in a situation like this with syncPEOPLE. It didn’t matter what we wanted to sell, we were getting different information from the customer and we couldn’t ignore it - you almost never can. I’ll expand on that tomorrow.

Today, I’ll share a different example. I met Pete through my blog some time in 2004. The very first time I met him in person, I happened to be in his area and popped in to see how things were going. During that day, we went through his product, WhizSpark. I was looking through the interface and general usability, providing any input I could. It was my opinion that the app was probably too hard to use and could use some significant tweaking to ease the user processes. I offered as a possibly better option that they could simply do the work for the client, essentially using the system on their own and selling the service.

There was pushback on both fronts. The code was committed which meant, for reasons only they can explain, that they couldn’t change it. Why not? I still don’t know the answer but I left it alone. As for the service route, well, they had committed that they were making a do-it-yourself solution. They didn’t want to be in the service business (though it was clear they already were). That was then. Today, almost 2 years later, they’re offering a service option.

Could this have happened earlier? Of course. Could they have made more money with it? Maybe. Was focus an asset or a hindrance in this situation? That’s for you decide.

I was writing more this morning and then Firefox crashed on me - what a pain. I’ve been busy working on presentation files and other arrangements all day so I haven’t had a chance to come back and write.

It’s 2am. My flights in 5 hours, I’m leaving in 4. This is the first trip out of 4 (5 if you count LA) in the next month. I’m not looking forward to all the time away, but, well, it’s part of getting what we need done.

See you all on the Left side.

Worst part is there’s 4 flights not listed on there since I have to punish through on OTHER airlines - bleh.

When I was first drawn to the meetings and event industry, it was the conversation that pulled me in. Which conversation? The the one whispered during presentations, the one in the hallways, and, of course, the one screamed out during the cocktail parties.

From the beginning, I saw events as a living, breathing social network that lacked any of the topology that we are used to in the online world and, well, I wanted to fix that problem. I’m often amazed when I speak with people from the business and it seems like the first time they’ve heard this, though, I know they know it inherently. Sometimes it just takes someone trying to sell you something for you to realized just what it is you already have.

Today, Sue Pelletier, of Face2Face Blog, has a nice reminder of why I went into this business in the first place. As she observes:

While Kathy Sierra is talking about why the teens today are so hooked on the social networking site myspace, what are meetings if not social networking sites in real time and real space? And if you want to meet the needs of your next generation of attendees (who, by the way, sound like they will insist on being participants, not attendees), think about what they like about myspace.

[…]

That’s setting a pretty high bar for live meetings, if they can get all this in cyberspace. Can you imagine a convention where events can turn on a dime, based on constant monitoring of feedback and somehow psychically being able to intuit what they’ll want next? If not, just wait a few years and you’ll see it start to happen. Because if it doesn’t, they most likely will give the whole meeting scene a pass, mentally if not physically.

Source: Face2Face, “Is your meeting ready for the next generation?”

That psychic ability that Sue mentions, well, it’s not that far off. In fact, it’s been there all along despite our lack of sensitivity to the data. The surge of interest in unconferences and Open Space Technology are finally blowing the doors off the building. Seemingly, these new formats provide the “edginess” of myspace for real world events.

Indeed, we want to be participants. Perhaps more interesting to consider, though, is this: Did we ever say we wanted to just be “attendees” or did someone designate us that role?

Last month, we hinted that we were working on an alternative solution to monetizing blogs - that is a way that doesn’t involve advertising. Today, we’re ready to start sharing more of that with you.

Overview

The site header says it all: “x:posted is a marketplace for buying and selling online content”. That’s pretty much what we’re trying to do. x:posted (read crossposted) is meant to give you a way to connect directly with potential buyers of the content you are already creating.

Who’s It For?

We’ve got two audiences in mind - buyers and sellers. Sellers include any and all bloggers, photobloggers, podcasters, vloggers, and any other hybrid format that might come along in the next 30 seconds. If you’re making content today, you’re eligible to be a seller.

Buyers include anyone that’s interested in lightening the load of maintaining a blog with hungry readers. We’re focusing initially on the conference, trade show, and association marketplace. In the end, anyone with a credit card and a need for content is a potential buyer.

Why Do This?

Good question. Basically, as we started having conversations with more and more groups, we realized that they were scared of blogging - specifically about the committment it required. Seeking a solution, we realized that if we could connect them to the bloggers of the world, there would be a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Plus, we knew that lots of bloggers were interested in how to cover their costs, time, etc. and advertising splattered across their site just wasn’t an option.

What Content Do You Want?

Wrong question. It’s actually a question of what content do our Buyers want. We’re here to connect you to them. You can sell text, photos, audio, video. It’s up to you. The only requirement is that you actually own it.

What’s In It For Me?

Better question. Essentially, we’re going to charge a transaction fee. It will start out at 25% of the price but we’re working on lowering that if we can get the payment processing tweaked the right way. The prices are always determined by you, not us.

Cool, Where Do I Sign Up?

We’re glad you asked. Currently, any publication (aka blogger) can Nominate their work. We’ll get in touch as soon as we have a Buyer.

Buyer’s are on a more restrictive pathway. We’re doing a private alpha with some of the beta clients we have for the time being but we’ll be opening the gates on this soon to the world at large.

The world of meeting and events is about to experience a period of tremendous fluctuation in the next year or two. The reason? Competition - from the edges. For more than two years now, I have been keenly watching two formats, primarily - the conference and the unconference. In the last 9 months or so, there’s also been a surge in the Camp model. Both Unconferences and Camps are stirring the proverbial pot and have many in the Meetings Industry wondering whether or not the formats are viable for their own uses.

Background on Unconferences

Yesterday, Dave Winer, creator of the Unconference format (though not the name itself) drafted a manifesto of sorts. The piece, titled “What is an unconference?” has many useful points and I have to agree with pretty much all of it. Here are a few useful excerpts:

First, you take the people who used to be the audience and give them a promotion. They’re now participants. Their job is to participate, not just to listen and at the end to ask questions. Then you ask everyone who was on stage to take a seat in what used to be the audience.

…

I’ve heard it said that there is no advance prep for an unconference, not in my humble opinion, there’s lots to prepare for. The idea is to fully explore a topic from all angles. Every person in the room is responsible, in an ideal unconference, for understanding what’s been said before on the topic at hand, much as a panelist at an old-style conference would be, if they took their job seriously. I always spent a couple of hours, at least, on the phone with each discussion leader before the unconference.

Source: Dave’s Wordpress Blog, “What is an unconference?”

The “Whole” Spectrum

Unconferences have become quite popular in the last year or so - at least the concept of them. As best I can discern, the term itself is sprinkled on essentially any event that’s not a “large production” or conference. In fact, that’s probably not really a fair assignment.

Here’s the spectrum, more as we see it here at syncPEOPLE.

So where are people going wrong? I think many people consider a lack of structure to be indicative of an Unconference. In fact, that’s more a hallmark feature of an Open Space meeting - quite similar to that used in the Camp model. If you’ve ever been to a BloggerCon, for example, you are quite aware that there is quite a bit of organizational structure applied before the anarchy discussion sets in.

A Different Set of Sliders

One of the larger problems is that we continue to assume that these models are at odds with each other. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

My partner in crime, Stowe Boyd, has written up a great review of the various sliders that dictate the success of an event. Here’s just the list, but read the full post:

• Podium Height
• Scale
• Scope
• Technology
• Social
• Format
• Locale
• People
• Sessions

Source: Conferenza, “Unconferences: But Aren’t There More Dimensions?”

I agree entirely with Stowe’s list. If I were to add anything to the discussion, it would be to raise the roles of profit and passion to the equation. I’m going on a limb here (which I am sure someone will come and saw off soon) to guesstimate that the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from things down spectrum (social conferences, unconferences, and open space meetings) stems from the passion the individual participants have for the subject matter. However, note that I am not saying that traditional conferences are packed with impassionate zombies, just that the format and atmosphere are suffocating that energy.

The profit side - well that’s an argument I will save for another day.

The Truth Is In the Middle

I’m fond of working through problems by balancing equal parts of the parties involved. I don’t think any one side is every completely telling the truth - hence, the truth remains somewhere in the middle.

Dave’s assertion is that once you go to an unconference, you won’t want to ever go to a traditional one again. That’s flat out wrong. You can scan Stowe’s list of levers to see that there are more things at play. You can scan the room and tally how many people actually participate versus those that simply listen. Are those people simply lemmings that don’t get it or perhaps they’re there to learn by listening?

Here’s what Scoble had to say on the matter:

One other thing? My favorite sessions have been where the speaker has some structure, and a point to make, and then goes into the audience Oprah style to get the audience involved.

Maybe the best conference is 50% old style conference mixed with 50% unconference?

Source: Scobelizer, “The Unconference”

I think I agree.

Enter Social Conferences

In fact, I agree so much I’ve dedicated my business life to building just that solution. When we started looking at this industry, we saw immediately that there was a need to bridge these two formats.

SocialConference.com provides a platform for deploying these types of events. What kind of event you ask? That’s up to the organizer. We see this as a spectrum where an event can be anything from “mildly socialized” to “completely socialized” and anywhere in between.

The traditional conference business has been around for quite some time. In many, many ways, they are run very conservatively - don’t fix what ain’t broken is how I have had it explained to me. Fortunately for us, and for participants everywhere, is that increasingly organizers of traditional events are starting to see the way that things could be - and they like it.

Naturally, that doesn’t mean that they want to jump in head first - which is where we come in. We make it possible for little baby steps to be taken. We’ll test the value of these systems in some piecemeal manner until more is warranted/desired. Anyone who thinks this is easy hasn’t spoken to an organizer with 100K members and a annual event that brings together 20K of them.

Best of all, we’re almost there. We’re deploying our first socialconferences this week and next and we’ll post some updates for you to get an idea of how this can and will work.

Next month, we’ll open up the platform and anyone will be able to create their own social conference in a few minutes - just add participants :)

To go with our new branding, we’ve also re-launched the web site. As part of that launch, and in many ways because of it, we have also added a section for Downloads.

Why? you might ask. Well, it’s been known that we are working with Ruby On Rails (if not, we’re working with Ruby on Rails). In that time, we’ve created some seriously amazing code and we’ve given it back to the world. Don’t believe me, search for these:

• acts_as_taggable
• bundled_resource
• syncPEOPLE on Rails TextMate Bundle

It’s that last one that got us really going on the new site. Just look at what people are saying (we’re beyond flattered):

All of you Rails developers using the wonderful Textmate editor may want to sit down for this. Duane Johnson has been on a roll creating the greatest Textmate Bundle ever - syncPeople on Rails. - Jack Baty

i can’t praise the syncpeople bundle enough. if improved todo lists, the migrations snippets, and inline partials aren’t enough for you, let me tell you of the joy that comes from ‘intelligent go to file’ and ‘txm footnotes’… - ian

Which got us to thinking.. we’re building all this stuff and we’re not letting anyone really know we’re doing it. That had to change. So yesterday, Duane and I whipped out the new site mostly so we could launch our new screencasts (320×240 - 11MB, 640×480 - 59MB) Duane made to show people how the Bundle works.

Find out more here. Download it here. Enjoy!

I’ve been sitting on this for months now. Some time ago, we were working on the UI for the site and I was having tremendous problems integrating our logo into the general scheme. The main problem was that we use a hall metaphor for our products - mapping different products to different “halls” in a physical conference. For example, our Presentation Hall product provides social tools for speakers and attendees.

Our motto here is Connecting People, Passions, & Pursuits. We firmly believe that by giving people the tools and space to interact, we can encourage better dialog and meaningful relationships. What I found out, however, was that the logo we originally had didn’t convey these concepts well. It was locked off, protective, and not easily “connected” to any other idea.

We needed a change and we got one. Here’s the results.

I spent the better part of today getting not 1, but 2, new sites ready for launch tomorrow. I’m a bit under the weather so I’m going to hold off till morning.

Expect to see two new sites tomorrow - we like to think it will be worth your while :)