Advice from Clinton's Events Manager

Event Solutions 2009 Conference & Tradeshow is currently running in Vegas. The show is a goldmine of useful information, new products and trends - for example have you jumped on the trend of nightclub buyouts for your event yet? You can follow all the action here. We took special note of the section titled "19 Ways Event Planners Can Use Twitter" after our previous blog post!

One of the speakers at this year's Conference was Laura Schwartz, former White House director of events for the Clinton administration. In typically pugnacious American style, Schwartz shared her Seven Power Tips for Leveraging Networking to Achieve Business Goals (catchy!). Keep these in mind next time you're doing the rounds at an industry function:

1. Power of opportunity. Nothing is optional. Make the most of every opportunity.
2. Power of goals. Give yourself a goal and follow through to achieve it.
3. Power of preparation. Be prepared for every opportunity and ask questions to help yourself learn.
4. Power of introduction. What's your line? Practice it and have it ready.
5. Power of conversation. You don't have to know it all -- try to know a little about a lot so you can participate in any conversation. Schwartz suggests skimming newspaper headlines daily.
6. Power of business cards. Always have your card available and accessible.
7. Power of follow-up and follow-through. Send a creative follow-up to any connection you make so you can be remembered.
   

Some people find networking an incredibly painful experience. Practice these tips, keeping in mind that getting out there and meeting people is the best way to develop new business and it really does get easier the more that you do it. Laura's advice is great, but we're not sure why she is obsessed with power, maybe its in the water at the White House.

www.bluefishevents.com.au

All a Twitter

Here at Blue Fish Events we like to stay on top of current trends. Facebook has proven that its not just for teenage girls by revolutionising our methods of communication in business and the next big hit could well be Twitter.

If you haven't yet encountered Twitter, its a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. In English, that means it is a way to send and receive very short messages, very quickly, very easily.

Twitter has already started to change the world - according to wikipedia, "during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every five seconds as the tragedy unfolded. Twitter users on the ground helped in compiling a list of the dead and injured. In addition, users sent out vital information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals that needed blood donations." Pretty impressive stuff.

Now, you'll notice that we're saying Twitter could be the next big hit. When even the Breakfast show on ABC2 is plugging its Twitter address you know this is something that you can't ignore. On the other hand, picking winners in Web2.0-world is a tricky business and the main problem with Twitter is that, frankly, we just don't get it!

In the Blue Fish Events pond we could intuitively grasp Facebook from the first glance and even explain it to our mothers. We've been on Twitter for a while now and we can see the attraction for the web-obsessed but we still haven't figured out what makes it a valuable business tool.

Thankfully we are not alone in our confusion, Event Solutions is also experimenting with Twitter and wondering where the payoff is hiding. They suggest that event managers could use it to:

• Engage audiences through commenting on sessions and speakers
• Obtain real-time feedback from attendees
• Get instant opinions faster than by e-mail
• Provide customer service for registration, answer questions from customers
• Instantly message out information or breaking news
• Quickly schedule meetups with partners and vendors during conferences

All very powerful and useful, but only if your attendees are Twitter-users (twits?) and know how to access the information.

Twitter has not yet reached the 'tipping point' that turns it from a webtrend into a tangible business tool. Until (if) it does, we'll follow the event industry experiment at Event Solutions and keep you posted.

Tweet you later?

www.bluefishevents.com.au

UPDATE: 5 May 2009. Since writing this article, the Twitter experiment has exploded. Politicians in the US and UK have been bitten by Twitter controversies and the media coverage of the 2009 Logies was mostly about the disparaging coverage from the Twitterverse. We’re still not convinced that it will become a widely-accepted tool to enhance events but you can follow our tweets at www.twitter.com/bluefishevents

Top Trends for 2009

Its tempting to start the year with a crystal ball, if only so you can look back at the end of the year and have a laugh at your predictions.

The brave people at Trend Hunter have nominated their Top 20 Trends for 2009. Will the credit crunch force us back into the kitchen? Will '09 be all about Geek Pride and Ugly Beauty, or will we reinvent history and embrace the 60's?

Click below to find out......