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Turning Sessions Into Workshops May Provide Even Better Experiences

by Media

At our Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) in Hollywood, Fla., in November—or as some now refer to it, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood— Amanda Yarnell and Jessica Morrison from American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News, told their story and then had attendees collaborating and thinking.

(Members can listen to recordings of all the BIMS sessions here.)

The session was titled How to Re-Org Your Newsroom Around Product Without Breaking It. “In the past, “we didn’t really have an approach,” Morrison said. “We didn’t have a product mindset. What we did have was years and years of institutional knowledge inside people’s heads. We had a traditional style and a legacy newsroom that was the opposite of product thinking.”

After more description of their journey, Yarnell and Morrison divided the people into teams and had them choose roles and then prioritize newsroom activities. It was engaging and elicited some riveting and thoughtful discussion.

I thought of this again after seeing an article from ASAE this morning titled Attendee Engagement Tactics for All Budgets. Here is their number one recommendation:

“Integrate project-based, design-thinking workshops into your conference content. If your participants are engaged in discussion and idea-sharing, they will retain 50% of the information after the conference. If they are building solutions to real-world problems in small groups, they will remember 90% of the information. Small groups prove most beneficial if they include a blend of different mindsets and personalities within them. For some of my previous events, we’ve had attendees take Predictive Index and DISC (dominance, influence, steadiness and consciousness) behavioral assessments and used their results to form the small groups.”

This reaffirms the excitement that Yarnell and Morrison created and turns the electricity one notch higher. Of course, to do what they suggest, you would need the names of those in your session well ahead of time so you could get more information. But maybe it’s worth it. It’s almost the editorial equivalent of setting up customers and vendors at your events.

This isn’t just happening in our world. At our Corcoran School here in Washington, D.C. this week, GW University sent this out: “Join us for a lecture with [artist] Chantal James, of Rio de Janeiro, which will include a discussion and hands-on activity reacting to her project on decolonization.” And then I just received this: Paper Source invited me to a Valentine Card Making Workshop at their store next week. And they’ve tied it into the new film Emma. (Playing off of popular culture raises a whole other topic for another day.)

At BIMS, Dan Grech, founder and lead instructor of BizHack Academy, also quickly moved his attendees into groups for a hands-on marketing workshop. “The goal of today’s (very short) session was to generate peer interactions around shared areas of concern and opportunity,” he wrote to the group after. “You all collectively have the answers…” I heard good feedback from this session as well.

Workshops can also add to the networking that attendees are hungry for at your events, helping to build relationships among them that they can enhance later on. Achieving ROI from events is not just about attending the event as much as it’s about growing those relationships post-event. Perhaps that can lead to online discussion groups where attendees and speakers can continue the conversation, share resources, and recommend related online learning programs. Grech, for one, would hope this happens.

And speaking of speakers, doing an occasional workshop does give a session more of a beginning feel to a topic conversation, rather than an end. Instruct speakers to end their session with a “call to action” or “next step” for attendees. During the closing general session, announce a learning challenge. You could center it around a new approach to a thorny hot topic or the first steps to developing a new habit.

If it can get your audience moving and working together, all the better.

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Personalization, Sustainability and Apps Stand Out in 2020 Event Trends

by Media

“Experience is not something that you try to emulate. It’s part of your design. It’s part of your culture. One of the most valuable things a destination or a venue can offer is their support in incorporating their uniqueness and culture into that experience, and that extends to professional services and expertise.”

That’s from an article on today’s Event Management Blog (now a part of Skift) from Julius Solaris. I recently visited Bob and Joseph Coleman of the Coleman Report at an event they did here in Washington, D.C. for their small business banking audience. The happy hour mixer, which preceded a full-day event, took place in a very impressive law firm office. As the Event MB article said, the venue enhanced the uniqueness and culture of Coleman’s event. People were smiling, interacting and felt comfortable and important in a top DC building near the White House.

I’ve seen a lot of event trend articles lately; here are some that I believe apply to SIPA members:

Gamification remains popular. In their 100 event trends for 2020, The Event MB Studio team found that 10% of the apps they analyzed listed gamification features as part of the app. “Drive traffic through the exhibit floor by rewarding points for connecting to sponsors’ booths; let people win rewards for acing a quiz on the keynote. Leaderboards and awards have proven particularly effective, as attendees compete against one another for more recognition as well.” Our BIMS event had a very popular engagement leaderboard with a 2020 registration as the prize.

The new job: event technologist. “Event technologists will be largely responsible for planning and implementing the technological strategy of their organization’s events programs,” wrote the Event MB team. “They may be involved in sourcing the technology, and will probably be the point-of-contact for tech suppliers. Event technologists will need to be problem solvers with a strong penchant for data collection and analysis. Event technologists will take event and organization KPIs and translate the data gleaned from their tech stack into ROI reports.”

Diverse speaker lineups. There’s no excuse anymore for a speaker lineup that lacks women or young people or people of color. I find that it just takes a little more digging—a look at your LinkedIn connections and their connections, or going through the week’s headlines in your niche—but it could be well worth it because a diverse speaker lineup should also diversify, and increase, your attendees.

Better analytics dashboards. “For 2020, I see an appetite for aggregated analytics dashboards,” said Adam Parry, editor, Event Industry News, in an article on the site G2Planet. “These dashboards pull data from multiple sources such as CRM’s, registration solutions, marketing platforms, and social media. They will help whole organizations make data-driven decisions rather than basing them on historical experience or opinion.”

Tracking onsite engagement. “The biggest tech trend will be analyzing attendee behavior as part of an integrated event management pipeline,” said JT Long, content chief, Smart Meetings, in her response. “[That pipeline will] track activity from interest to registration, emotional responses, engagement with content, and learning over time after the event to inform better future content and create lasting relationships with the company and other attendees.”

Sustainability. Event organizers are looking for apps that reduce their paper consumption and waste, doing away with the need for big programs. You’re seeing more vegan choices for meals and snacks. Look at past years’ budgets to see what areas you over-used and which were on par with your budget. Identify which area you want to target and track the biggest impact.

Even more personalization. As I mentioned yesterday in the story on workshops, some organizations are reaching out to attendees before a conference to help them set up a personalized agenda—and even to know which groups to put them in at a workshop. A recent study by Salesforce found that 84% of customers say being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning their business. And delivering personalized experiences drives customer loyalty, with 70% saying a company’s understanding of their individual needs influences their loyalty.

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How Informa Jazzed Up a Report to a Profitable Tune

by Media

In 2018, the Informa Pharma Intelligence editorial and marketing teams collaborated on the release of its annual white paper analyzing the evolution of pharma R&D for the past year. But this wasn’t your typical medical or scientific report. It was more music to their audience’s ears.

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“Using the evolution of music as the backdrop for the 2018 report, the team set the trends in therapeutics, diseases and company pipelines up against everything from present day pop charts to the birth of jazz,” wrote Informa on their 2019 SIPAward-winning entry for Best Editorial and Marketing Collaboration. “Additionally, the team created webinars, an infographic, additional articles, a supplement, and even an accompanying Spotify playlist based off the white paper to ensure its life extended beyond the initial launch and provided value for Pharma Intelligence clients throughout the year.”

Indeed there is a list on Spotify called Pharma R&D Annual Review 2018 with 23 songs such as U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for, Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You and Lady Gaga’s The Edge of Glory. And the cover of the Annual Review features images of headphones, a concert and a microphone.

Subheads in the report play off the music theme:

  • Plenty of debut singles, but the middle-eight is sounding a bit flat;
  • Novartis is still top of the pops;
  • New technologies call the tune;
  • Despite inharmonious times, Pharma keeps on rockin’ and rollin’.

The report and webinar acquired more than 875 client downloads and registrations resulting from Informa Pharma Intelligence email campaigns and website visits. And this engagement resulted in big revenue for Informa Pharma Intelligence from leads.

What jumps out at me here, besides these high notes, is the collaboration. That spirit of working together and sharing knowledge is also at the heart of SIPA’s new-and-just-about-ready-to-roll Executive Councils. Fortunately, there’s still time to sign up here.

The Councils—with some built around executives and others key topics—will consist of 12 niche publishers who meet by video conference 11 times a year, plus once a year for an in-person meeting in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with SIPA’s annual conference in June.

“It’s so easy to get stuck in the day-to-day dealing with in-house fires,” said Stephanie Williford, CEO of EB Medicine. She looks forward to “forcing myself out of the weeds at least once a month to focus on the business instead of in the business. She also has the unique perspective of having been a member of Vistage, a peer network group.

While that membership has allowed her to “take a high-level step back, hear from the outside and focus on strategy and big opportunities,” it has been with people who don’t know her industry.

“I am really looking forward to taking that same council idea but doing it with my industry,” she said. “They’ve lived and understood your same exact challenges and will have unique insight and perspective. There are shared real-life experiences. The other thing I like is that you don’t have to leave your office to get this value.”

The last line of Informa’s winning entry sums up the value of collaboration. “[Our] clients rely on [our] expertise to make decisions in their respective industries, and while Ian Lloyd has been the well-known author of the report for some time, it’s a task unable to be achieved without incredible interdepartmental cooperation between analysts, editors, marketing and content teams.”

That same cooperation and collective spirit should turn up the volume for any SIPA publisher. Check out the Executive Council landing page here where you can ask for further information and learn the benefits and costs involved. We’re very excited that this idea has finally come to fruition for SIPA.

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LabX Media Group Acquires Drug Discovery News

by Media

LabX Media Group has acquired Drug Discovery News (DDNews), a highly respected media organization dedicated to the news of technology and business in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Old River Publications/DDN News was represented by Connectiv member Grimes, McGovern & Associates in this transaction.

In the ever-evolving landscape of pharmaceuticals, where precision and efficiency are paramount, the integration of advanced technologies plays a pivotal role. This includes industrial mixing processes that are crucial in the production of pharmaceutical compounds. The strategic move by LabX Media Group positions them to explore cutting-edge solutions in this domain. As the industry adapts to new methodologies, the expertise of Visimix software engineers becomes invaluable, seamlessly aligning with LabX Media Group’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. This acquisition can not only signifies a broader reach for LabX Media Group but can also underscore their dedication to staying ahead in an era of rapid innovation.

Amidst the dynamic landscape of pharmaceuticals, the importance of precision extends beyond manufacturing processes to analytical scrutiny. Here, the inclusion of advanced analytical techniques, exemplified by MAS Test, assumes a paramount role. MAS, renowned for its expertise in materials analysis, aligns seamlessly with LabX Media Group’s strategic vision of exploring cutting-edge solutions. Their expertise enables laboratories to guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of industrial mixing processes vital in pharmaceutical compound production.

This marks a significant acquisition for LabX Media Group, which has considerably strengthened its leadership position in the scientific community by investing in strategic acquisitions while enjoying rapid growth with its existing brands. The acquisition of DDNews fits within LabX Media Group’s strategic business plan set in 2015 of organic and acquisition growth to becoming the leading media organization serving the science marketplace with high quality timely and trusted editorial content.

Since its launch in 2004 as a news magazine, the founders of DDNews – Bruce Poorman and Larry Doyle – have evolved the brand into a multi-platform media organization dedicated to covering the news in discovery, development, diagnostics, clinical trials, cancer research and much more.

“We’re excited to match up DDNews and its breadth of content, marketing and sales solutions with LabX Media Group’s leading brands to create best-of-class products and services that build high value for scientist and laboratory professionals and their partners,” said Bob Kafato, President of LabX Media Group.

“I am particularly pleased to be working with the extremely talented team of DDNews, who under the leadership of Mario Di Ubaldi, will lead our efforts in serving the pharma and biotechnology community. The acquisition marks LabX Media Group’s continued investment in high-performing and premier properties with engaged audiences and best-in-class products and services. The DDNews portfolio of products adds to LabX Media Group’s product portfolio, adding a robust emedia component to its fold, and expands our reach on a global basis.”

The acquisition of DDNews enables LabX Media Group to service the various science communities with our highly engaged brands and creates an exciting opportunity for our employees and customers.

LunchByte | Doing Business in the International School Space with Guest Diane Glass

by Uncategorized

This episode of LunchByte features host – Jill Abbott, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of ETIN as she speaks with Diane Glass.

Host

Jill Abbott is currently the Senior Vice President and Managing Director of ETIN. Her passion centers on education and helping people reach their maximum potential. With this inspiration and insights gained from a comprehensive background in education reform, personalized learning, assessment, curriculum design, and policy and program development. She is a seasoned executive in education holding local, regional, state, national, and international roles in improving education through transformative practices.

 

Special Guest

Diane has been with ISC Research for many years and leads a team supporting education suppliers and higher education establishments wishing to develop business and successful relationships with international schools. She has over 20 years of global business consultancy and development experience.

 

The LunchByte is the podcast for the Education Division, ETIN, of SIIA This series provides you with access to leaders in the education industry and private enterprise.

Learn from leaders what:

·        The new topics in education are,

·        They are thinking about for the next wave of technology,

·        The greatest trends in sales and marketing involve, and Much more.