Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Blogs and The Meeting Planner-A love story!

No, that's not the name of a new fairy tale - the time is upon us to see new ways (which could be good or bad) in which our members are only a text message away, blog or streaming video from talking about our events to the  world at large.

I found this blog entry very interesting and thought I'd pass it on.  I got it off a website I recently just found (as in last night) - these folks are at the forefront of new ideas - it's time for us to pay attention.

A taste of the blog entry from Kare Andersonco founder of Say it Better Center, LLC :

"Live blogging just started recently, mainly at tech-centered conferences or unconferences. Audience twittering just started within the past 14 months or so. Yet the trend will spread quickly to more kinds of meetings. Parents are learning text messaging to keep in touch with their children. Young meeting attendees expect to make their views heard, in the moment. As more meeting attendees adopt these social media tools, they’ll use them the conferences they attend.

Thus more and more attendees won’t wait to vote on the questions the speaker or panel wants to ask. They’ll be commenting, asking the questions and trading opinions as the program unfolds. They’ll take photos from their seat, then try streaming video."


See the whole article here: 

http://theswom.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1306361%3ABlogPost%3A2268

If you were in Seattle you heard Mich Matthew's talking about this...that it's coming.  I think that time has come.

What do you think?  How are you using new technology at your events?  What's stopping you? Who's the evangelist in your organization that's pushing for this?  Do you have one?  If not, you might want to gather a team together and look at this to see what you can do to join in the fun....and it is fun, exciting and just a little intimidating.

- Christine Melendes

2 comments:

KareAnderson said...

Christine,
As a fan of this blog I was delighted to see you caught my commentary on the SWSX interview + what it portnds for the meeting world. More ideas aobut making meeting more (positively) participatory
here
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=204

Anonymous said...

I'm creating a special event scheduled for April 2009 and wnat it to be engaging and interactive. This entry and the entries referenced in the comment section is a good reminder to know my audience and/also helpful. I had considered a live blogging center - but forgot all about the audience's phones. Excellent points here. Thank you.