What Makes a Conference?

A very happy new year to you. We escaped Christmas and New Year madness (well, Irish style!) by heading off to Las Vegas. We hoped for sunshine and a bit of warmth. We got some sunshine, and lots of warmth – but only from the heaters inside the casinos It was an excellent break.

But – to the point of the post – what makes a conference? How many people ought to be present for a meeting to be termed a Conference? The classic definition of a conference is a prearranged meeting for consultation or exchange of information or discussion (especially one with a formal agenda).

For me, a pre-arranged meeting of fewer than 25 people is a large meeting rather than a conference… hmmm… let me know what you think defines a conference by leaving a comment below.

This post was sparked by an advertisement in StandOut magazine, where Sandown Park in the UK are offering a complimentary conference for 10 people as a prize.

Growing Your Business…

This Saturday I get to stand in front of a crowd of small business owners and pontificate on growing your business through excellence in customer service. On my mind recently has been the issue of Software as a Service – because that’s what we deliver with our online booking system. One of the main reasons we’ve been as busy as we have been (and I do have to say somewhat successfull) is that whilst we deliver software as a service (in that it’s a hosted application and not a boxed product) we concentrate very hard on delivering services with the software.

I wonder if there’s a new term for that – SaaSwS perhaps? For us, it’s pretty obvious that not everyone is going to want to build their own web page or booking form or set up their own online payment pages. They want someone else to do it for them, whilst they concentrate on what they’re good at : organising their event or selling their stands. Our challenge is to keep the cost of the services reasonable enough. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t as people’s perceptions of what things should cost are so broad and variable.

Had a lovely conversation yesterday with an academic who has tried out a little bit of entrepreneurship. We worked with him as co-chair on a conference earlier this year and he was so “massively impressed” (his words!) by the service we offer that he’s going to bat for using our service on another conference next year even though his colleagues (who weren’t involved in the first one) want to use another set up that has a lower obvious cost…  Although he knows as well as I that the actual cost will be higher than using us.

It was an inspiring conversation, and makes me all misty eyed as I heard a happy customer explain to me why he would be insisting his colleagues used our service. Wish I could have videotaped it! Darn, why didn’t I think of that at the time.

Now if we could just Bring Back Bertie

I stayed up late last night with my fingers crossed that Obama would make it – what a sigh of relief! Now we’ll hopefully see some optimism come into the marketplace – although I could do without the dollar strengthening right now. Ah well, you lose some, you lose some.

If we could now just bring back Bertie, I’d really begin to feel hopeful. Who’s with me on the campaign trail?

A Pretty Bad Hair Day

You may know Tricia Murphy (AKA the Networking Queen of Ireland) – you may have attended one of her salons or been a delegate at a conference where she entertained and enlightened you on the subject of networking. If you don’t know Tricia then I hope you get to meet her in the future.

Tricia is passionate about networking – about its benefits and about its purpose. When she takes to the floor with her signature bell or hat or crown, she makes everyone feel good about themselves. She has a huge warmth and kindness and openness to everyone.

Recently she was diagnosed with what she calls herself “a little nasty” and since she will lose all her hair to chemotherapy soon, she is going to get it shaved off and donate the funds to the APA – a charity in Africa that she is involved with. This is typical Tricia – turning the negative into a positive. You can help her to do that by going to:

http://www.mycharity.ie/event/tricia_murphys_sponsored_shave/

Where you will be able to donate online.

Good luck soldier! We’ll be with you all the way…

Finally! October is here…

You know all those plans you had for the Summer? How you’d use the quiet time to reflect, organise, prepare and plan? Did it work for you? Not for me. Although I got a little bit of time off, most of the last few months have been about panic – as people decided at the last minute to go ahead with their events and realised they needed a booking system in place ASAP.

The stress that places on a small company is awful – although I’m a deadline junkie (as well as a slot junkie!) – it means that you spend your life in these frantic periods followed by exhausted relief. We pride ourselves on always meeting deadlines, try not to promise the impossible and deliver 95% of the time. But I sure wish there’d be some stability around. Not a return to the glory days, but a little stability – something that makes people feel confident in making plans again.

The events business has changed so much over the last 5 years – deadlines and planning times were already shrinking. This past few months has shrunk planning time even further and it’s enormously challenging. Roll on 2009! While we’re at it, take a look at the Santa Train at Rathwood Garden Centre in Tullow, Co Carlow. We love it and I can’t wait to take my horrendously advanced 2 year old grand niece Suzannah on it!

Happy Autumn!

Surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and just possibly, excitement

This is what Seth Godin says that conference organisers need to offer attendees. I’m a regular reader and ardent follower of this man – how he manages to post so much insightful, interesting, thought provoking and just plain common sense so often is incredible.

My top 3 favourite Seth Godin posts are:

On how taking those few extra seconds to smile and be welcoming won’t cost you much…

On how to organise a room for a conference… the psychology of seating

On how to make money out of blogging – or not…

This last one is quite topical over this side of the big pond, as some Irish bloggers have been up in arms about being used as an advertising channel. Hmmm…

Happy Birthday to Us!

Eventznet was six on Thursday – and finally spurred me back to the blog. It has got to be one of the most difficult things to do… not the writing, not the ideas, but the consistency required for a live blog. New year’s resolution : Just do it!

What did we do in our sixth year? First we moved offices – out of NovaUCD where we were kindly incubated by Pat Frain and his team. We made the leap to our very own office in Dun Laoghaire, where we’ve been happily settled for almost a year now. One thing that surprised me about that was the number of people we deal with who don’t have a good contacts database, or way of filtering change of address/phone number throughout the organisation. Hmmm… smell the need for some training…

Next, we re-branded – and started this blog! We changed our corporate colours from blue to grey and red, and flipped our mark to be a little more forward facing. We exhibited at the Marketing Expo and had so much fun getting all the new collateral and brochures ready for that… I’d forgotten what a drama it is, but enjoyed working with Dan Mulcahy from Arrow Print Management.

Conor moved on from NEO Ireland, and Sigrid stepped in. We got the news that the Events Industry Skillnet received grant approval, and then had to accelerate the setting up of the Centre for Excellence in Events – and the Events Industry Skillnet. That took some doing – getting all the ducks in order to be able to start delivering training in early January. Which we did.

Since then, it’s been a bit of a blur. Along with all the extra curricular activities over the past 12 months we’ve been delivering online registration for conferences, exhibitions, seminars, networking events and festivals. Over 50,000 bookings in total and almost 1 Million Euros in payments have been processed through our systems . We’ve produced and delivered e-marketing campaigns for events, corporates and many others. We’ve worked on websites and new projects for some great clients, including a number in the UK.

It’s been hectic, but still fun and I’m looking forward to what this next 12 months brings… Interesting it’s bound to be…

Peter Renwick of Irish Boiler Services I Love You…

Last post you may have seen that I was impressed by young Peter Renwick of Irish Boiler Services – good customer service was my conclusion. Now let me tell you that this young man has that golden touch. So much so that I wasn’t entirely convinced that his actual technical work would be up to much – I mean, if the guy was so good at customer service could he also be a good engineer/technician?

Let me tell you a little story:
Year 2000 we gutted our new house and got a new plumbing system installed.
Year 2000 we discovered that the plumbing was, em, crap.
Years 2000 – 2008 we stuggled along… by late 2007 I could only ever have either a lukewarm shower or a shower with rotten pressure. I was miserable.
Years 2002 – 2006 we spent a small fortune replacing parts in the gas central heating boiler that had been destroyed by the leaking pipes. That fortune went to boiler repair men (Robert loved the name the Gas Man so much that he insisted on using them).
Last week when the boiler went puff the Gas Man didn’t answer his phone (for what is a fairly large company, a bit below par to still have the out of office hours message on the phone up to 9.45). I rang two other companies found in the golden pages. Company 1 told me it was unlikely that an engineer would be able to ring me back to make an appointment or discuss anything with me until after lunch and I’d be better to try someone else (hallo???). Company 2 – nice gentleman answered the phone, discussed the issues and told me that Peter would call me back within a half hour to see if he could help. Peter rang me back within a half hour and after discussing said he’d pop over in his lunch hour to see could he help.

Over he popped, took a look, hoped that a simple fuse change would work and re-arranged a few things for the afternoon to go find one and come back. Came back (with his brother Barry, an electrician) and discovered it didn’t actually help. We had a confab. He treated me like a human being, had great pride in his work, but offered to help however it was going to work best for us.

He gave me quotes for a) patching up the old boiler and repairing the pipe work (and I would have had a serious problem paying him as little as he was asking for) and b) replacing the pipework and the boiler with one that he could personally stand over. He said if we wanted to do a) we could get it done on Friday, but he’d reallly recommend b) and would need to give over all of Monday for it.

Tempting as it was to go with the Friday option – it’s a little chilly without central heating and limited hot water – we went for b). I trusted him as a professional – but still wondered if he could possibly also be as good technically as he was with customer service.

Peter and Barry came when they said they would on Monday morning, laid straight into fitting the new boiler in an impossible space. All done with great attitude, attention to detail, pride in their work and humanity. This evening, I came home pretty tired and a bit cold from getting tomorrows conference finalised – went to take a shower, stood under it and had to turn the heat setting down for the first time in 12 months and I’m telling you – I said out loud – Peter Renwick, I love you.

You got the point eh? He was there when I needed him (well, his company was). He treated me like an intelligent human being. He came over to me in his lunch hour and then re-arranged a few things to try and help. He was straight and honest. He did what he said he’d do. He even made sure to clean up all the debris and dust! He was human… And he was every bit as good technically as he was with customer service. If you need a plumber or a boiler man, I wholeheartedly recommend Irish Boiler Services. They don’t have a website, but you’ll get them on:

(01)2164396

(087)4183758

Tell them Sarah Says that they’re brilliant.

Doing Business Differently…

The UCD Quinn School of Business are hosting what looks like a very interesting public dialogue. Renegade builder Mick Wallace (is there any other type?) will be in conversation with journalist Sara Burke on the topic of “How well do ethical, political or moral obligations combine with business?  Can we do business ‘differently’? You may remember Mick Wallace from his No to Nice banner debacle, or if you’re into football, then he may be more familiar to you from that.

I’m looking forward to going along to thank Maeve Houlihan for the lovely basket of chocolate she sent to our office after we finished up the ILPC Conference with her. I mentioned Maeve before, as even before she sent more chocolate than one small office could eat over to us, she was high up in my list of people I’d love to work with again. Looking forward to meeting her finally on the 24th April.

This event is being jointly organized by the Equality Studies Centre within UCD’s School of Social Justice, and UCD Quinn School of Business collaborating through the UCD Egalitarian World Initiative – for more info see http://www.ucd.ie/ewi/

 

Girl Got Giggle

Sorry, that should have been woman had a moment of sheer pride and joy but it doesn’t sound quite as fetching as Girl Got Giggle. So it was a moment of sheer pride and joy standing at the edge of the CHQ in the Docklands, watching 5,000 people or so watching the spectacular Pearl show. Show – what kind of a word is that? Spectacle of course. Pride and joy was that little moment that went – you all used my software…

We had the honour of providing the online ticketing system for the Pearl @ Docklands and National Lottery Skyfest @ Cashel this week – funny how little things trigger that sense of pride? Our national day, our national festival and we got to be a service provider for it. I probably shouldn’t have that little buzz, it’s just another event really, but I do. And then I had the pleasure of being introduced to many of the team behind St Patricks Festival 08, as Sarah – you know, the one with the ticketing system. And then them saying, oh that Sarah! The first time, I quivered, waiting for the guy to say something bad. But it turns out it was all good! They were able to get numbers and stats on all sorts of things – like where people were coming from, how they were travelling there, if they were staying in the area … all things that you need to know when you’re trying to manage huge crowds like the 20,000 expected at Cashel this evening.

At the same time as our servers were handing out tickets to Skyfest and Pearl, we were also helping almost 2,000 people donate in excess of 120,000 Euros online to the 98FM Care4Kids Radiothon at DonationPoint.ie. DonationPoint is one of the other companies I’m involved in (I’m called technical director, but most of my direction is over…) and this is the second Care4Kids Radiothon we have supported. It’s amazing to see the generousity of Irish people, and heartbreaking when you hear the stories of how people have had to interact with the 4 Dublin Childrens Hospitals. You can still help out at www.donationpoint.ie – and there is more information at www.98fm.ie .

So it was with a lot of disappointment that I couldn’t find the Conway Institute in the dark on Friday evening, after watching some of Pearl at the Docklands. The lovely Dr Antonio Campos-Torres from the Marie Curie Molecular Neuroimmunology PhD Programme who organised the International Neuroimmunology Symposium at UCD this week had invited myself and Cathal to the closing reception. Cathal, in case you don’t already know, is our superstar webmaster/technician who looks after our customers better than I can. But he was off on holidays, and I was lost in the middle of UCD so I never got to go and say well done, and thank you for being such a pleasure to work with to Antonio – nor to meet our friends at Unique Dining who were catering the event. They had catered the NEO Ireland members away day at Derrybawn House last May and their food, yum!

Now I’m off to have a long weekend, and get ready for the next onslaught! Although I don’t think we can bite off much more than we bit for the last few months. We launched new systems and applications for the Pine Forest Art Centre (I love the new look and feel), as well as for NEO Ireland (more butterflies!) as well the many conferences and exhibitions, networks (like NetWorth – you should pop over there if you feel like joining a new network) or Tricia Murphy’s lovely Networking Salons (you can contact Tricia to get onto the invite list at www.tig.ie).

Definitely time to debrief and relax for a coupla days – sayonara!