ECDU12 - Leonora Valvo – The Original Social: Facilitating the Right Connections – US

The Original Social: Facilitating the Right Connections

Leonora Valvo, CEO

Event Camp Down Under 2012

What Makes an Event “Worth It”?


Making It Worth It

• Walking into the event already knowing people

• Finding the right people

• Having a meaningful conversation

• Solving a problem/gaining insight on an issue


Why Isn’t Everyone Designing for “Worth”?

• Logistics are time consuming!

• Fear of giving suppliers/vendors contact information

• Organisational fear of becoming irrelevant if provide the contact information

• Command and control mindset

• Change is hard!


Why Are People Designing for “Worth”?

• A positive experience creates an “afterglow” effect increasing the probability of remembering the event

• Positive experience increases likelihood of attendee taking further (positive) action

• Recommending, Repeat Registration, Taking on a Sponsorship, Visiting a Community, etc


Event Experience Mindset

• Allow attendee to create their own event experience

• Facilitate, not dictate

• Provide contact information & tools to allow attendees to easily interact before, during and after the F2F event

• Get the small talk/introductions done BEFORE the F2F event


Logistics-Centric Mindset

• What’s your budget?

• Do you have a venue?

• What’s the date?

• How many people?

• Are there dietary restrictions?

Experience Mindset

• What are the hot topics that everyone is worried/excited about?

• How can we group people together (by topic/interest area, by industry, by age, by favorite team, etc)?

• What physical environment is most conducive to having a meaningful converation (Couches? Desk? Table and chairs? At the bar? Break-out rooms? Special pod areas designated on the event floor?)

• What information do attendees want to have about each other to make decisions about who to meet?

Logistics v. Experience Mindset


Facilitate the Right Experience

• Think through what data to collect

• Collect data at various touchpoints throughout the pre-event period, during the event and post-event

• Go beyond collecting “typical” data (name, address) and collect data on taste & preference


Make Use of Technology

Use tools to deliver:

• real-time attendee registration lists

• list of appointments of people that show similar interests

• ability for attendees to set appointments & message one another

• reports that provide hard data on who is actively networking


Use Event Marketing to:

• Identify trends in topics under discussion

• Identify natural social networks (who is meeting together, who’s connected)

• Better segment and target attendees

• Create the right networking packages (i.e. programs) with the right price that targets the right people to create demand for your overall event


Goal: Create a Positive Feedback Loop

• More info/insight on attendees

• Attendees have better experience

• Increased satisfaction by attendees

• Attendees more open to give feedback

• Greater demand for higher prices

• More targeted programs


Summary

• Become a facilitator

• Use information elicited from attendees to better network and match into like-minded groups

• Provide time & physical space within event program for participants to network

• Work towards developing positive feedback loop of increasingly personalized programs