Charlie Todd created Improv Everywhere, which defines itself as “a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places”. At TEDxBloomington, Charlie presents some of the their most famous projects and the inspiration behind them.
Funny and intense, it shows how to create shared experiences, a necessary ingredient for any good conference. Read the full article →
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Lovely video shot at Burning Man 2011 based on famous writer of children books Dr. Seuss‘s final book before his death. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! deals with life and its challenges, ups and downs and how to get over them. The video-story acts also as a presentation of at least one of the sides of Burning Man, e.i. a place to share stories, experiences and find inspiration.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Rarely have I seen such a clear and useful way to represent the event strategy of a company. Michelle Thorne (blog, twitter) of the Mozilla Foundation (the guys behind the web browser Firefox among other things) has recently published the Mozilla Event Menu, and overview of different event formats they will be acting throughout the year to add value to its participants in several different ways.
Any organization using face-to-face and virtual events should definitely learn from this approach to better define their event offerings, the goals and increase the value provided by them. Read the full article →
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Selling tickets on Facebook is a natural step towards providing a service (selling tickets) where the users are already present (Facebook is expected to reach 1 billion users by August 2012, link). Most big online ticketing platforms (Eventbrite, Amiando, Ticketea) already offer the possibility to add a ticket module to Facebook pages and I’ve came across quite a few events using them.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Unfortunately, most presentations –at corporations, conferences, etc– are like this. Boring, irrelevant, forgettable, useless… a total waste of time. This video offers a funny reminder and also a guide of the usual things you should avoid.
Video created by Habitudes for Communicators, who have recently launched a book with tips for avoiding presentations like the one you se above.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Creating “interactive experiences” is essential for live events, be them face-to-face (f2f), virtual) or hybrid (a mix of f2f and virtual). Interactive experiences are one of the reasons that justifies being present, a way to connect attendees with each other, with the content and with the speakers.
Creating interactive experiences is also an over-hyped expression that’s often brought out to justify mobile technology or other kind of rube-goldbergian mechanism that participants end up by not using (not intuitive enough, too complicated, no real value added, etc). An art installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama dubbed “The Obliteration Room” shows how a great interactive experience is created and while this one was aimed to kids, it summarizes some of the key factors to create one (more on that below).
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a rather abused concept and often it means using tricks and not real value to make your content more findable on search engines, but there are a few things that are smart to increase discoverability (the possibility of your event being found).
The main search engines, including Bing, Google, Yahoo!, have created special html tags –documented by Schema.org– which structure content in a search engine friendly way, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
During 2011 I’ve organized a couple of events, spoke at 5 or 6 and attended in total more than 20 in 8 different countries, big and small, including international conferences, seminars, meet-ups , gatherings and university lectures. Many are still playing it safe in an industry which is heavily influenced by outdated principles of the pre-internet era. The most fantastic ones, those that made it worth it to be there in flesh and bone, were those outliers that are challenging business as usual and creating new kinds of experiences that attract media , smart crowds and business dollars alike.
This report presents the eight most relevant trends from those events that are shaping the industry for better and how you can use them in your own conference. Consider it a Christmas present
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
The upcoming issue of The Conference Basics Tribune newsletter (subscribe now!) will feature, among other things, this young (19 y.o.) and passionate conference organizer that’s already rocking it: Ricardo Sousa (web, twitter)
I met Ricardo back in April when he invited me to speak at his SWITCH Conference (web, twitter) in Oporto, Portugal. I was surprised by how him and his energetic team pulled off a world class event with top speakers, a very interesting audience and just few resources.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
This post is sponsored by Eventbrite. Nonetheless, I find the product updates mentioned below quite useful as a conference organizer
There is a current trend in the events world –or at least in many of the events that I admire and are setting the baseline on how events should be– which is concerned with:
Using [web] technology to make events more discoverable, sell better and help logistics run smoothly and painlessly both for the organizer and the attendees
Making technology disappear (by making it invisible or eliminating it altogether) inside the conference room to create a more intimate atmosphere and allow face-to-face (F2F) interaction in it’s purest form
Today Eventbrite announced three products (one completely new, two improved) that further expand their services to help you with the first point mentioned above.
The Conference Basics Tribune is a free newsletter specifically made for event organizers -> It includes a selection of articles, tips, recommended mobile apps, books and featured event organizers. Want to see how the newsletter looks like? Here are a few examples.
Charlie Todd created Improv Everywhere, which defines itself as “a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places”. At TEDxBloomington, Charlie presents some of the their most famous projects and the inspiration behind them.
