What a great start to the week for everyone at Glisser. First we have the amazing news on TechCrunch on Monday morning about the recent funding and the new PowerPoint add-in. Then Rebecca and I attended the Event Organisers Summit and got to mingle with our events industry peers.
Over 110+ event professionals, service and tech providers came together at Wakefield Park in Berkshire for this annual 2-day summit. The event was packed with educational seminars, supplier-buyer speed dating opportunities and new ideas and tips for audience engagement. We’ve had great discussions all round. All this topped off with excellent food and entertainment by the organisers.
We came to meet new people and left with additional inspiration on how to design, plan, and deliver better events. We have also learned how some of the event planners have used different techniques to re-energise their presentations and engage their audiences.
Part I - The journey of an event
Day one of the event started with an interactive session from David Bassett & Ruth Dowson (Leeds Beckett University). They shared their tips and best practices in the planning and execution stage of the event:
Set clear objectives
We all know that focusing on customer needs first is of uttermost importance. In order to measure the results of your event, there must be clear and measurable objectives right at the beginning. Otherwise, how do we know if results are good or bad? Only if you have the event objectives in mind, can you then design an event that fits your customers’ expectations. Something that seems obvious, but it’s always good to be reminded of.
Involve your stakeholders
From previous discussions with Elling Hamso (ROI Institute), I’ve remembered him stating: “Every person to which the success of the event is important, can be seen as a stakeholder. Stakeholders can potentially have conflicting objectives which need to be reconciled by the main meeting owner. Having templates and processes in place can help get everyone in sync.
Build business relationships
We are all aware that business relationships are important. But how can we maintain and grow these vital relationships with our suppliers and make them a part of our own events team? In response to that discussion, most delegates stated they are working towards a mutual beneficial relationship with partners and suppliers and this was key. They need to ensure that everyone has a vested interest in going that extra mile. Most, if not all, participants value face to face networking opportunities to engage with suppliers and appreciate small touch points on an ongoing basis.
Part II - Corporate Speed-Dating
Following the session, we had the chance to meet and mingle with the respective Head of Events at top UK companies. These, among many others, included British Water, Brother, AIG, MacFarlanes LLP, ICAEW.
The format of these sessions which took place before and after lunch was a 20-minute speed-dating setup which I think worked really well and was the perfect time duration. Just enough time to show our potential clients how Glisser works in a nutshell.
It’s always great to learn more about our clients’ upcoming events and what their goals and difficulties are and how Glisser potentially can help to improve their events. Plus, it’s always energising getting some feedback about our event tech.
'Technology needs to be easy then I will use it.' Francesca Desquesnes at Alere
“Technology needs to be easy then I will use it.” [Click here to tweet] A quote we should remember. It really shows that customer centric UI and UX is key to success in the ever so crowded event tech space. Thank you everyone for meeting with us and for anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity, please feel free to reach out to us.
We finished the first day with an educational session from Abi Cannons (former Educational Content Executive at Reed Exhibitions). She provided us with some useful insights on audience engagement, activities that endorse your delegates’ networking and methods to make your panels more engaging. Her advice was that using images in presentations can go a long way. Plus, having a seed question planted to engage more questions is another strategy. Or even displaying the wrong answer on the main screen to create interaction and get people talking is a cheeky way one of the delegates recommended. We love talking about those strategies.
What we thought…
Overall, we can highly recommend the Event Organisers Summit for planners and suppliers alike. We’ve made new connections, had interesting conversations and left inspired with new ideas.
Did you attend? What were your thoughts?