It’s All About The Numbers: Social Media Jungle Presentation

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Mar 24, 2009 in Conferences, Marketing, Metrics, Video | View Comments

Many thanks to Jeff Glasson and Perkett PR for recording and publishing the video, and to Jeff Pulver for hosting the event.

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Pixelated Business Marketing Conference

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Jan 21, 2009 in Advertising, Conferences, Marketing, Video | View Comments

Pixelated Business Marketing Conference

A while back, Mitch Joel posted his Pixelated conference series, a collection of seminars and sessions from conferences that contain the “best of the best” for any set of topics. I’ve been so busy doing stuff that I never got around to putting mine together until now. This version of Pixelated is focused on Business Marketing – ideas from sales, marketing, branding, and new media that should help any business do things a little better.

If this were a conference, a real life conference, I have no doubt that attending it would cost you thousands of dollars, at least for the first sessions. Thanks to the exceptional generosity of conferences and events who post their sessions, you can enjoy some of the best content on earth without leaving your chair.

Treat this as an actual conference. Take a day or half a day to watch the videos and give them your undivided attention. Have a bottle of water, a notepad, and an open mind as you watch the sessions, as if you were actually there.

Rather than just a pile of videos, I’ve also added brief annotations about why I think each session is important.

Updated: refreshed for July 2010, with some new sessions from TED and other shows.

Pixelated Business Marketing starts… now.

Seth Godin @ TED: This is Seth’s newest set of perspectives, based on his book Tribes. The evolution of marketing from mass media to hero culture of sorts.

Rory Sutherland @ TED: An amazingly funny and insightful talk about the creation of non-tangible value.

Malcolm Gladwell @ TED: This session ranks super high on my list because Malcolm gets you to think outside the box. What product or service do your customers deeply want but don’t know it?

Joseph Pine @ TED: If nothing else, this talk should make you think about what experiences are and how to give them to customers, rather than products or services.

Dan Ariely @ TED: Dan’s book, Predictably Irrational, is the basis for this talk about how our decision processes are flawed, including why consumers buy things they really shouldn’t.

Garr Reynolds at Google Talks: Garr is the author of Presentation Zen, a phenomenal book that asks you to look at how you present information and how you can make your presentations better, more impactful, and less boring.

Avinash Kaushik at Google Talks: Avinash is pretty much THE bottom line when it comes to web analytics. In this talk he goes over a good chunk of his book and also talks about data-drive corporate culture and its importance.

Seth Godin @ Inbound Marketing Summit: Seth is a master marketer. His talk goes over how you can make your products or services more remarkable.

David Meerman Scott from Inbound Marketing Summit: David’s book, the New Rules of Marketing and PR, power part of this talk as he goes over how the ground is changing underneath traditional business outreach.

NEDMA: I talk about email marketing and social media integration.

Optimization Summit: I talk about the best practices of email marketing.

Inbound Marketing Summit: I talk about whether or not your business should be podcasting.

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PodCamp in 2009: Thoughts for organizers

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Nov 25, 2008 in Conferences, PodCamp | View Comments

As we wrap up 2008 and the interesting year that it was, I wanted to throw out some ideas there for PodCamp organizers for 2009.

1. Use the tools! 2008 showed rapid growth in every social network of note, and as organizers, the more you can help people meet and greet prior to the event, the better. Set up Twitter accounts for your event, groups on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many others, use search and readers and RSS to keep tabs on word of mouth. There’s no shortage of opportunities to help your participants connect in advance. At MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer, every speaker’s Twitter handle was bundled on a handout – no reason that every participant at a PodCamp who’s active in social media can’t make a directory listing in the event’s wiki.

2. Separate lecture from conversation. Mitch Joel pointed this out in his Pixelated conference series, where he and others gathered together the talking head portions of major conferences. Figure out what makes your local PodCamp special and what’s just talking head stuff, and provide talking head stuff well in advance so that participants can maximize their time together. Grab videos of folks like Mitch, CC Chapman, Chris Brogan, and many other PodCamp favorites far ahead of the event and share them so that when participants arrive, they’re ready to collaborate and share, rather than passively listen.

3. Go paid. The economy has made life tough for the end user and consumer, but even tougher for the marketing budget. Plan your PodCamp to run 100% participant-paid at the door. If you get sponsors, great, but don’t bet the farm on them, and don’t financially extend your PodCamp beyond what money you already have in the bank. Continue to publish your ledgers publicly so participants can see how every dollar is allocated, but strongly consider going paid and having the event be wholly “sponsored” by the participants.

4. Support your local community. Pick a local charity and find a way to divert time, energy, or resources to it so that your community is a little better off for having a PodCamp.

5. Stay lightweight. Keep expenses to a minimum. We’re all adults for the most part who can locate the nearest Starbucks, Dunkin, or McDonald’s. The magic of PodCamp isn’t in refreshments or epic sponsored parties, but in bringing together people to learn, share, and grow their skills. Some facilities will allow you to unbundle catering from facility rental, which can keep costs way down, as food & drink are typically the most expensive part of any conference.

6. Add pieces along the way. Start with barebones expectations for attendees. As funding becomes available, you can add amenities later. Set expectations low, and you’ll never disappoint.

What things have you learned from PodCamps and other conferences in 2008 that you would pass on to PodCamp organizers for 2009? Leave your comments below!

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A fantastic time at Digital Marketing Mixer 2008

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Oct 24, 2008 in Conferences | View Comments

I had a blast at the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer, held in Fountain Hills, Arizona. 300 of marketing’s most dedicated people flew, drove, and walked out to the middle of the desert to talk shop on social media, email, and search marketing, and my hat’s off to MarketingProfs for throwing yet another successful event. Some highlights:

- Speaking to an overflowing room about the prerequisites of social media. I got a real kick out of seeing so many people so eager and energized to learn more about social media and how to get started. Conversely, whenever the conference organizers have to make an announcement that extra chairs are being brought in and it’s STILL standing room only after more seating is installed, I know as a speaker I have to bring my A game up to an A+, to live up to the trust and energy that the crowd brings.

- Speaking on a panel with Gary Vaynerchuk and Greg Cangialosi. Great fun, some powerful takeaways from Gary (including stuff I’ll be trying with the Financial Aid Podcast), and intense energy. If you don’t watch Wine Library TV and read Gary’s blog, you’re missing out, even if you don’t care a whit about wine. Gary’s that passionate and engaging about a subject he loves and deeply cares about. Fun trivia fact that Greg Cangialosi pointed out at the beginning – Gary and I attended the same high school, 1 year apart.

- The HubSpot booth. The folks over at HubSpot, in case you don’t know, have a great little tool called WebsiteGrader.com, which does some very basic SEO assessments of any web site. What made their booth fun was them letting spectators stand around and chat with other participants about their sites. At the conference, there was a representative from a prison management software firm, a virtual mortuary firm, an executive dating firm, and many others, all of whom I wouldn’t have learned about if I hadn’t just hung around and chatted. Really interesting to see how people perceived the relevance of Internet marketing to their industries (so many people say, “But my industry is different because…”) and then watch their eyes light up when you show them how to Google prospective customers and partners.

- Late night discussions with Julien Smith. If you don’t know or follow Julien, you should. He and Chris Brogan are writing their first book, Trust Agents, slated to come out in mid-2009. We chatted on everything from trust to marketing to conspiracy theories.

- Sunrise over the Arizona desert. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun peek out over the horizon, illuminating the landscape. The Arizona desert is beautiful, if hostile.

- Meeting some great new people. I’ve got a pile of business cards to go through, but I had some fantastic and funny conversations with old and new friends alike. Big shout outs to Kati Ryan, Becky Carroll, Bryan Rhoads, Paula Drum, Ace Bailey, Rohit Bhargava, Chris Glenn, Pam Martin, Maly Ly, David Alston, Ron Ploof, Leslie Banks, Sonny Gill, Sharon Philippart, Mandy Clive, Frank Eliason, and the many, many others whose conversations made the conference terrific.

- Being on vacation. I actually booked the MarketingProfs event as vacation time away from the Student Loan Network. It helps me to separate out the vitally important work at SLN from time when I allow myself to just sit back and enjoy an experience. Ironically, I’ve got more potential business partners and business from vacation than I’ve gotten from some financial aid events, and I hope to be able to bring those opportunities to Financial Aid Podcast listeners and readers in the near future.

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Why Pixelated is brilliant and wrong

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Oct 6, 2008 in Conferences | View Comments

Mitch Joel created a great meme over the weekend – Pixelated, the 100% virtual online conference, assembled from video footage of conferences past. Since then, lots of folks have created their own riffs on this idea.

It’s brilliant and gets the idea of conferences wrong.

Conferences aren’t about sessions, talking heads, and lecture format, which is what online video captures best.

Conferences are about interaction, collaboration, and meeting people, at least to me, all things that one-way, online video is terrible at.

What is Pixelated, then? It’s pretty much a Gigadial podcast or a Google Reader shared items for video – hand-selected content that you think is important.

Does this make the idea bad? Not at all. It’s especially insightful when you see a Pixelated from someone you respect, like Mitch, because it’s a way of seeing what they think is important. Like seeing their iPod playlist for business, if you will.

But it’s not a conference or an unconference. When you finish a Pixelated, you probably will not have increased the size of your business network or collaborated to create a new meme like bacn or lolsaurs.

Make your own Pixelated. Call it a conference if you like, but realize that it doesn’t fulfill those vital roles of collaboration and interaction, not yet.

How would you add interaction, collaboration, and networking to Pixelated?

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Why pro conferences are different than PodCamps and why neither is better

Posted by Christopher S. Penn on Aug 11, 2008 in Conferences, PodCamp | View Comments

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Why pro conferences are different than PodCamps and why neither is better

Some interesting discussion this morning on the differences between PodCamps and pro conferences like the Affiliate Summit, which I’m speaking at on a panel on Tuesday, August 12. A difference to highlight, from the registration page of the Affiliate Summit:

PHOTOGRAPHY, RECORDING & VIDEO TAPING: Sessions may be photographed, recorded and/or video taped by Affiliate Summit. By your attendance, you give Affiliate Summit permission to be photographed, recorded or videotaped and agree to the public display and/or sale of the photographs, recordings and/or videotapes. Personal recording or videotaping of any kind during the event is prohibited.

This is part of what separates PodCamp from pro conferences (that and the price tag, PodCamp Boston 3 was $50, $99 at the door, the Affiliate Summit is $949 for early bird, $1,949 at the door). That said, there are several very good reasons for pro conferences to prohibit recording, considerations that went into PodCamp and were ultimately rejected.

1. Protection of speaker intellectual property. This is a big deal. PodCamp has been absolutely blessed by speakers like David Meerman Scott, Mitch Joel, David Maister, and many others, who normally charge tens of thousands of dollars to speak at a conference. The presence of any kind of recording online causes them real economic harm – it literally costs them money, since it makes them a less valuable speaker. Why? Exclusivity counts for a lot. Imagine being a conference planner and trying to advertise that your pro conference has information that’s exclusively available at your conference… and then finding out that your keynote speaker can be found on Blip.tv or mDialog for free. You’re less likely to book that speaker as opposed to someone who’s always behind a paywall.

2. Protection of conference revenue. One of the biggest sellers at a conference? The conference DVD, often for up to 2/3 of the price of the conference. If you pay $1,949 for the conference and the DVD is available for $695 or you can see it on YouTube for free, which will you choose? More important, if recordings are freely available online, why would you go to the conference in the first place?

3. Protection of conference attendees. As we said at PodCamp Boston, the conference is the hallway. At top-tier pro conferences, there are a lot of folks floating around who, quite frankly, don’t want to be recorded for any reason unless they’re compensated to be, and that’s fair. That’s their choice. Some of these folks have exceptionally valuable information that isn’t intended for the world to consume, and the premium they charge for that information is their prerogative.

All of these considerations are valid, and make good sense for a professional conference model. That’s an important distinction, because a lot of folks in social media believe PodCamps, BarCamps, etc. are the evolution of the conference, and that the models which power PodCamps, BarCamps, and unconferences are the right way to go for professional conferences.

They are not.

Professional conferences and unconferences are two completely different animals, two completely different models. Professional conferences work on a revenue model that emphasizes profitability. Speakers get paid and share proprietary information, attendees pay and derive value from sessions (not to mention craploads of handouts, printouts, etc.) and access to VIPs, vendors and sponsors pay and get lead generation lists and access to top level corporate folks. Everything works.

Unconferences emphasize a revenue model of meeting costs. Attendees occasionally pay, sponsors pay for exposure, speakers don’t get paid, but the net effect is that everyone pays much less than a pro conference. An “expo floor” booth at an unconference will probably run a company $1,000 or less. An expo floor booth at a pro conference will cost at least $10,000, if not more. Because no one’s making money beyond meeting costs, expectations are lower and people are more free. Again, everything works.

Which model is right? Both are right for their roles, and both are supremely wrong out of context. A professional conference that let recordings be free would do itself significant economic harm. A PodCamp that sold its registration list for $25/head would be demonized by its community. It’s inappropriate for members of either style of conference to criticize the other for not being more like them, since each plays a vitally important role in the events ecosystem, and each attracts the crowd that wants to be there.

There’s room enough for everyone, pro conferences and unconferences alike.

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