What To Expect When Integrating New Technology Into Your Event

Are you integrating new technology into your event this year? Congratulations! Isn’t it exciting? Whether you are adding a new event app or implementing online registration, one of the most important aspects to consider is your audience. We love to geek out about a new product, but we always have to remember not everyone is as excited about it as we are! Your audience is the key to your success. It is up to you to prepare them for anything you throw at them, especially if it something new and may seem scary!

Adoption Rate

How quickly are you looking for your attendees to adopt this new technology? What level of adoption rate are you looking to get? If you don't know these answers, take some time to determine them. It is important to be realistic with these answers.

Depending on the technology being implemented, these numbers can vary drastically - it depends on your goals and your plan. For example, if you are “going green” with a mobile app and immediately abolishing a printed program the first year of the app, you may get some pushback and low adoption rate in the beginning. The same goes for online registration. If your attendees are used to registering for your conference by calling, emailing, or mailing back a postcard (yes, it still happens!), it may take a few years to fully implement that online registration system and get to a high adoption rate. It will be worth it in the long run, though!

Communication, Instructions, and Support - Oh My!

While it may take some time for these examples to achieve your desired adoption rate, don’t fear (they can smell it!). With time, clear communication, and instructions, it can happen! During this time, you will need to be patient with those that do pushback, understanding that they may be scared or uncertain to jump into something new. Give them options, and be prepared for additional communication and long phone calls to help ease them into these new processes.

Finding ways to effectively distribute instructions will be vital as well. While some people actually do read every word in their emails, regardless of the length, there are plenty of people who only skim them, and rarely get through a complete email before moving on. You will need to adapt your marketing plan to fully include this exciting new feature. Let the attendees know the benefits of using the great, new technology! Hopefully, the product you choose is smooth, user-friendly, and intuitive. Even if it is, though, there always needs to be some instructions and tips. Embrace the early adopters and enable them as representatives, spreading the enjoyment to others, while helping them at the same time.

During this transition time, you may need to offer options to your attendees in order to keep everyone happy and give them the time to test the waters on their own before you force them into it! For a mobile app, you may need to offer a printed program while overtly pushing and advertising the mobile app for a year or two, as you gradually reduce the visibility and number of printed programs available. For a new online registration system, you may need to offer multiple ways to register while everyone gets used to and comfortable with the system. While this will end up taking more work on your part, it will help in the end once everyone is using the online system!

Don’t Give Up!

Ultimately, your attendees should determine your process. Make sure your adoption rate goals are realistic to the event. Some events may have very high adoption rates the first year, while it may take other events a few years to reach a high adoption rate. You, as the planner, have a unique understanding of what your event needs and in what direction it needs to move to stay successful. As you transition in this new technology, be open minded and request feedback from your staff and attendees. Be flexible if needed, but don’t necessarily give in to the pushback. People don’t like change, but once it is no longer new, they don’t know how they lived without it!

As a planner and a leader - embrace the change, and the challenges that come with it! Be confident in your path. Ask for help if you need it. We are here if you need anything!

To Ask or Not To Ask

The Call

Imagine this scenario:
With demand growing for a new technology product you are totally unfamiliar with, you finally set up a call with a salesperson to figure it all out and determine what you need, or if it will even work for you. You are a bit apprehensive because: 1) you don’t know much about the product or even what it can do for you, 2) you don’t have time for this call because there are so many other pressing needs, and 3) you hate sales calls! Regardless, you know it has to be done, so you bite the bullet and jump on the call.

Surprisingly, the call seems to go very well. The salesperson seems confident, has just the right balance of friendliness, and is informative. Soon, you are engrossed with the product. They take you through screenshots and examples that promise you the world, all with very little work on your part. You start to believe that this product really is amazing and too good to be true. You kick yourself, bringing yourself back to reality, but can’t find anything in what they are saying that makes you believe otherwise. The call ends exactly on time, with the salesperson saying something like, “Feel free to ask me any questions you have! I am always available!” You leave the call, feeling proud of yourself and confident that this product is right for your event and you completely understand how to easily implement it.

An hour later, as you look at the demo that was sent over, you are clueless. You have no idea what to do. This looks nothing like what you saw on your call. You are lost. You don’t want to call the salesperson back and have them explain things to you again - you said earlier that you understood it. That happy, informative conversation is now a blur and seems like a lost void in your day. Obviously, you know you have lots of questions to ask because you don’t know what to do or where to start, but you don’t know what to ask or how to ask it!

To ask or not to ask. That is the question.
What do you do when you don’t know what to ask?

Does this situation sound familiar? It is all too common for companies to script out their sales pitches, even to the point of recording them and practicing them verbatim. They focus on getting the delicate balance of psychology and language to make you feel comfortable and informed. Their scripted performances do not take into account that each person they speak to is unique and different, and each brings with them a different level of experiences and knowledge. This is where the process breaks down, and the language barrier occurs. Both sides begin speaking different languages. The company reviews their call and sees everything went according to script, so you should totally understand everything. You haven’t contacted them because you are overwhelmed or too busy. They think it is simply because they did a great job and you have no questions. They follow up in a few days anyways, asking if you have any questions. You do, but you don’t know what to ask or how to ask it! This begins the cycle of frustration and time-consuming effort, just trying to get started!

Let me clarify something here. A lack of quality communication does not mean the product is bad. There are plenty of successful companies with wonderful products that implement these typical, yet ineffective strategies. As a public school teacher for 10+ years, I found that using a script is not the best way to ensure understanding. It is simply a way to not say something wrong. While it serves to protect the person speaking, it does nothing to ensure understanding of the topic. To teach something to someone, you must first have an ultimate understanding of the topic yourself - not from a script you memorized, but from first-hand knowledge and expertise. At that point, you are ready to have a conversation and truly talk with someone, without needing a script. You can mold a conversation effectively, and explain anything that person may need.

At Power Event Group, we aim to remove the language barrier, struggle, and confusion between planners and event technology companies. As both planners and event technologists, we are able to speak and understand both sides of the table, with the ability to effectively communicate with both sides. Whether it is discussing contracts, comparing technology needs, managing an event app, building and managing your online registration, or actually implementing the technology and asking the questions for you, we are here to help bridge that gap.

We understand that technology is sometimes overwhelming, especially when it is new to you or you don’t have the time to comprehend and learn the million things that were thrown at you in your demo call. We also understand that everyone has a different level of expertise, and sometimes, it just doesn’t make sense. Our goal is to help you understand it, not sell it.

If the typical sales calls don’t work for you, give us a call. Tell us what your goals are, and we can discuss what the best options are for you. From there, we can train you and your staff, or even implement the product for you, removing the sales calls, confusion, language barriers, and time constraints.

To Contract or DIY - That Is The Question

Sometimes, the answer is easy. It is easy to decide you need an outside contractor for larger and prominent specialties such as furniture rentals, electricians, and catering. That is how is has always been. These have always been separate fields and trades, and are considered highly detailed specialities. Times are changing, though, and planners are now also finding themselves having to decide whether or not to hire a contractor to do something they used to do themselves just a few years ago. Over the past few years, though, specialty fields like event technology and sustainability have blossomed and grown into unique trades and even career paths. They have become very detailed and time consuming, and each can easily be considered a full time job, just like a caterer and electrician.

Making the decision to contract out something that you used to do yourself is sometimes difficult. The struggle is real. We understand the amount of pride and confidence that comes with being in the event industry. We also understand that as the industry changes and evolves. Planners are faced with balancing all of the new demands placed upon them. We know that, given the time, planners would be able to learn everything and understand these specialty fields. Time is the deciding factor in this situation. How valuable is your time to you? 

Here are a few ways that contractors like Power Event Group can help you:

• Give you more time in your day to do other things! Best gift ever! How many times have you said that you don't have enough time to get everything done?
• Contractors are already experts in their field and can do something in a fraction of the time it would take you to learn it or train someone else to do it.
• Contractors often have relationships they have already built within the industry, and can provide you with more options and possible discounts.
• They can work with you and smoothly integrate into your team, increasing your own possibilities and productivity.

Do you have other reasons you hire (or don't hire) contractors? Join the conversation by commenting below!

2017 - The Year of Specialized Event Planners - The Example

As we wrote in our bit last week, event planners are needing more and more specialties, and some have even begun to break the mold and create specialized event planning services. We realized we may need an example of what we were talking about - just to hit home a little more. Let's do a technology example, since that is where we have the most experience.

Picture this:
The event technology market is exploding and expanding at a furious pace. While some event planners love technology, they just don't have enough time in the day to dedicate to learning everything new that comes out and utilize that technology to it's fullest potential. Other planners are very uncertain about technology and don't know where to begin. Herein lies the problem. Some event technology companies sell the shiny new gadget to the tech-savvy planner that doesn't have the time to use it, or completely overwhelms the planner that doesn't understand it. Feel familiar?

In the end, the technology becomes a headache for both types of planners! It winds up not being implemented smoothly or fully, and attendees ultimately have problems and complaints. Yuck! This leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth regarding the technology.

Meeting Professionals International (MPI) is beginning to see this specific trend as well. Below are some survey results they recently captured regarding technology use and event planners:

• Only 8% of event planners feel they are making the most out of their event technology
• Only 21% of event planners are confident about buying event technology solutions
• 60% of event planners say that it is not always easy to understand the capabilities and benefits for event tech from vendor communications

In most cases, the technology is actually not the problem. The problem lies in the understanding and implementation of it - and having the time in the day to do it all. This is how the times are changing. Fields like event technology have become so much more specialized and advanced from just five years ago. It takes more time and expertise to keep your event technology running smoothly and effectively. Using event technology is already a balancing act. Many attendees want to use it and enjoy it, as it has become a part of their everyday lives, but they have had so many negative event technology experiences in the past, they don't want to "try again". It is important for event planners to change that attendee experience into a more positive one.

As event planners that specialize in technology, Power Event Group assists you at any level necessary, whether it be consultation or by serving as your white labeled event technology department where we act as employees of your company. We are prepared and ready to handle the initial sourcing/contract conversations, the overall event technology design and build-out, communication with vendors and attendees, on-site implementation/monitoring, and even on-site staffing of an attendee Technology Command Center/Help Desk for any attendee needs. While we are there supporting and handling all of your technology needs, we are able to give back to you the most precious gift - time! How much is your time worth? How much more could you do with that extra time?

Regardless of your feelings towards it, event technology is not going away. It is up to the passionate event planners (and event technologists like ourselves) to help build a new atmosphere of event technology that attendees enjoy and embrace. The way things are now regarding event technology is not working. It is holding the industry back. You are not in this alone, though. We are here to help. We are here to help change the current status quo regarding event technology and turn it into an experience where attendees leave your event saying, "Yes! That is the way technology is supposed to work!"

2017 - The Year of Specialized Event Planners

A new trend is beginning to emerge in the event planning industry - event planners are beginning to become more specialized. They are specializing in fields such as Food & Beverage, Sustainability, Technology, and more.  As each field becomes more specialized and detailed, more expertise is also needed to keep up the expected level of performance in each individual field, and there is often simply not enough time in the day to keep up! In order to solve this problem, companies and independent event planners are beginning to hire outside contractors to fulfill these specialty niches and maintain the highest level of expertise possible. 

MPI seems to agree with this as well. According to surveys done by MPI International, 45% of event planners are increasing the amount of contractors they hire. We recently had the opportunity to attend an MPI Virginia educational session with by Jessie States, CMM, Manager of Professional Development, Meeting Professionals International. She went into further detail about the event planning industry, stating that as industries in general mature, they typically follow a five-level classification pattern: 1) not defined, 2) ad hoc, 3) repeatable, 4) defined, 5) managed and optimized. She continued by saying that "as our industry moves into its fully optimized stage, we find organizations and individuals shifting their foci from merely managing their meetings and events to strategically and thoughtfully integrating these programs into their overall businesses, and consistently improving and innovating them over time. This requires a shift from the mere management of events (Level 4), and it requires new skill sets that meet the demands of this ever-shifting marketplace. Specialists are called in to provide expertise in myriad areas, from technology and corporate social responsibility to experience and even learning design. Large organizations may fill these roles with full-time employees, while smaller organizations may look to consultants to answer their needs."

As the event planning industry evolves and grows, a new sub-culture within the industry has started to grow with it, as some of the specialized event planners have broken away from tradition and started new companies to help meet these new needs! In the past, the relationship has always just been between the buyer and the seller. The planner and the product. Two different worlds, regardless of how much you talk. This relationship is often strained to the point that planners no longer want to deal with vendors. Never fear - you now have other options! There are companies out there like Power Event Group that have your best interest in mind and fully understand their specific field as well. They are run by specialized event planners that serve as middlemen, or brokers, for you.

Times are changing. As we all strive to move our industry forward, MPI and Jessie agree that "[s]pecialists will drive our industry forward. They will help guide the events marketplace as key identifiers of trends and next practices." Regardless of what field you may need assistance with, if you are feeling more and more overwhelmed with the amount of details and expertise you need, remember that you are not alone. There are new companies out there that are not just selling a product. They truly have your best interest in mind and want to help make the event planning industry even better!