Services

As you can see, many of our service offerings depend upon the collection, analysis, and interpretation of different types of data.

Analytics is one of our core competencies and one that’s severely underutilized in the events industry, for a variety of reasons.

We practice what we preach. We believe in data-based decision making and rely on it to make the most informed recommendations to our clients because without data, we’re just another bunch of consultant’s with an opinion.

– Apologies to Edward Deming

Content Strategy

Bill Gates once famously declared, “Content is King”.

Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk responded with, “Content is King, but Context is God.”

We’re not interested in debating which of these smarter-than-us guys are right. All we know is neither content or context matter without a strategy.

The purpose of your event’s content strategy should be to create meaningful, cohesive and engaging content that attracts participants.

It more than just content marketing. It’s designed to help you manage all of the content under your domain. It should also align with your overall business content strategy.

Here’s our process:

• Understand your business and your event goals and objectives
• Understand the wants and needs of your audience(s)
• Define specific event goals and metrics
• Ideate what kind of content will achieve your goals
• Prototype content with your target audience(s), iterate as necessary
• After learning what works, publish via the proper channels
• Learning and iteration continues after publication

This process ensures that you’re getting the right message to the right people via the right channel at the right time.

Cost – Benefit Analysis (CBA)

What’s the business benefit or impact of your event?

Wouldn’t you like to definitely answer this question next time someone asks you to defend your budget, or perhaps your job?

Most event stakeholders can’t answer this fairly straightforward question. Yet it’s top-of-mind when it comes to budgeting, procurement, marketing or why you’re even meeting in the first place.

A cost-benefit analysis is an opportunity to examine key elements of your event and better quantify or qualify its value; financial or otherwise.

It’s one of the best strategic tools for determining your return for all the time and money you invest in your event.

Data Audit

How do you get your head around all your event data, and ultimately, what does it all mean?

Due in part to the increasing use of digital technology, events are generating more data than ever before.

Most event professionals aren’t sure what kind of data they’re collecting, aren’t collecting the right data, or lack the analytical and interpretative skills to turn their data into something actionable.

A data audit assess the quality of your data and its utility for specific purposes. It involves identifying meaningful patterns and trends, key performance indicators (KPIs), etc., and drawing conclusions.

A data audit allows you to put your finger on the pulse of your event in order to make more informed business decisions.

Economic Impact Analysis (EIA)

Regardless of whether it’s a buyer’s or a seller’s market, aren’t you better off knowing the economic impact of your event?

Wouldn’t that information be helpful next time you’re negotiating with a destination, venue, or other event service providers?

• Accommodations
• Air Travel
• Entertainment
• Food and Beverage
• Ground Transportation
• Other discretionary and non discretionary spending

We use a variety of statistical sampling techniques to guarantee a select sample is representative of your population (generalizable).

The savings you can negotiate with this analysis is significantly greater than its cost.

Event Audit (Onsite)

What’s really going on at your event?

Do your existing assessment and evaluation tools and techniques fully capture the participant or exhibitor experience in ways that helps you make meaningful process improvements?

Are there things your participants or exhibitors aren’t telling you? Is there something more you’d like to know?

The objective of an onsite event audit is to fill in information gaps and address any information deficits.

We start by identifying your event strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT Analysis).

We develop a customized bank of open- and close-ended questions across a number of categories, including but not limited to:

• Accommodations
• Breaks
• Competitor Analysis
• Destination
• Educational Sessions
• Entertainment (onsite, off-site)
• Event App (other event tech)
• Event Staff
• Exhibitor Journey
• Expectations
• Food and Beverage
• Marcomm (pre-, during, post-event)
• Networking Opportunities
• Outcomes
• Participant Journey
• Signage/Way-finding
• Show Floor Layout
• Social Media
• Transportation
• Venue

We provide a trained team to conduct interview intercepts using a standardized process. This process provides for more focused feedback (effectiveness), faster data collection (efficiency), reduces potential bias, and controls for generalizability (less subject to misinterpretation).

We can augment the data we collect with other active and passive data collection methods, if needed.

We can also cross-reference our findings with other in-house or 3rd-party data.

Our onsite event audit is the most comprehensive and actionable assessment in the events industry.

Event Audit (Virtual)

What was your most engaging virtual event experience and what made it so?

If you’re like most people, you’ll have trouble answering this, never mind what made it memorable.

The technology hasn’t been invented (yet) that will replace face-to-face events.

However, virtual or hybrid (blended) events incorporating both onsite and online experiences are here to stay, primarily because of cost and convenience.

But if you thought planning and executing a face-to-face event was challenging, virtual events are that much harder for a variety of reasons:

• Poorly designed, developed and delivered content
• Lack of engagement, interactive opportunities
• Low media richness*
• Distractions (kids, pets, multi-tasking, etc.)
• Lack of motivation, self-discipline, focus
• Technological challenges (audio, visual, connectivity)

Since the introduction of online event platforms, the vast majority of virtual or hybrid events have taken the path of least resistance, migrating their face-to-face content online without repurposing it for a different delivery channel and the unique challenges it presents.

There’s even a name for this, it’s called, “Lift and Shift”, and it’s not meant benevolently.

We review your content before you migrate it to make sure it’s clear, compelling, and results-oriented in the first place.

We analyze your audience needs and use that to design and develop more engaging, interactive content.

Finally, we evaluate your virtual programs to make process improvements, but mostly to ensure they achieve their desired outcomes.

* Face-to-face is the richest medium because it allows for the simultaneous interpersonal exchange of cues from linguistic content, tone of voice, facial expressions, direction of gaze, gestures, and postures.

Event Strategy

Most event stakeholders mistake their event plan for an event strategy.

These are not the same.

Plans are short-term. Strategies are long-term.
Plans are detailed. Strategies represent the big picture.
Plans answer Who? What? When? How? Strategy answers Why?

An event strategy should always precede event planning as it shapes the details of the plan.

We look at events as a business within your business and, as such, believe it would benefit greatly from having its own strategy. Those benefits include:

• Greater clarity, focus, and direction
• Clearly defined goals and objectives
• Framework for decision-making
• Improved accountability, performance

Depending on your event goals (growth, innovation, execution, operational efficiency, etc.) we recommend one or more tools and techniques to help you formulate and implement event strategies and ultimately align them with your overall business strategy.

Here’s a partial list of the strategic tools and techniques we have experience with:

Tools

Gap Analysis (aka Needs Analysis)
Used to compare where an event is now, where it wants to be, and how to bridge the gap between. Good for identifying specific internal deficiencies.

OKR Analysis (Objectives and Key Results)
One of the more straightforward strategic planning tools and popular among tech startups. Designed to create alignment and engagement around measurable event goals by clearly defining what you want to achieve (objectives) and how you’ll measure progress (key results).

PEST Analysis (Political, Economic, Sociocultural, and Technological)
Can also include “Environmental and Legal” (PESTEL). Looks at the environment you operate in and determine what might affect your event’s health.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
Systematic process for identifying “root causes” of event problems and developing a response to them. Basic idea: effective event management requires more than “putting out fires”, but finding a way to prevent them.

SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results)
Focuses on an events current strengths and vision of the future in developing its strategic goals. SOAR engages all levels and functional areas of an event team, while SWOT is typically a top-down approach. With SOAR, the focus is on enhancing what you currently do well, rather than concentrating on perceived threats and/or weaknesses.

SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
Strengths and weaknesses are considered internal factors. Opportunities and threats are considered external factors. Helps event stakeholders identify where they’re doing well and in what areas they can improve.

VRIO Framework (Value, Rarity, Imitability, Organization)
Relates more to your mission and vision statements than your overall event strategy. Ideal for establishing a competitive advantage for your event in the marketplace.

Techniques

Benchmarking
Comparing your event KPIs and other metrics to a competitor or an industry average.

Business Analysis
Validating assumptions underlying your event using techniques such as “Voice of the Customer” or statistical analysis.

Design Thinking
Systematic process of “Immersion, Analysis, Ideation, Prototyping and Implementation.” Used to understand your event context, analyze it, generate ideas and test them, observing their impact before implementing them.

Mission, Vision, Value Proposition
Foundational statements of why your event exist, where it’s headed, and what you do better than others. Events with a strong sense of identity and purpose are more successful in the long run.

Risk Identification and Mitigation
Estimating the impact and probability of natural or man-made risk factors on your event and strategies to proactively deal with them.

Scenario Planning
The practice of making assumptions about the future and how your event may need to change overtime.

Experience Design Excursion

Experience Design (XD) is the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, omnichannel journeys, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience.

At the heart of experience design is understanding people’s needs and the will to improve their lives.

It is not driven by a single design discipline. Instead, it requires a cross-discipline approach that considers multiple aspects of the brand-business-environment experience.

In designing event experiences, we look at the following dimensions:

• Duration: Attracting, entering, engaging, exiting, and extending
• Intensity: Level of engagement
• Breadth: Channels, environment
• Interaction: Passive, active, interactive
• Triggers: Sensory, themes, concepts, and symbols
• Significance: Meaning, emotion, and function

We lead excursions of stakeholders through your event using a variety of tools and techniques to assess the participant and/or exhibitor experience.

Facilitation

Having worked with event professionals for decades one thing is certain: everyone thinks working in the industry automatically makes them a great facilitator.

But if you talk to those attending the meetings they facilitated, you hear quite a different story.

We are certified by the International Association of Facilitators in both face-to-face as well as online events. As professional facilitators, we provide benefits others cannot, including:

• Efficient use of time and money
• Improved outcomes
• Full participation, engagement, and ultimately, accountability
• Better management of dysfunctional group behavior
• Allowing group leaders to participate (i.e., not be distracted by facilitating)

In short, professional facilitators help you accomplish more in less time, eliminate the need for multiple meetings, and generate momentum on issues of importance.

Learning Strategy

How much do your education programs contribute to helping your participants improve their own job performance or the performance of the organizations they work for?

If you can’t answer this question, what’s the point of your education programs?

There’s more to providing professional development or continuing education at your event than a “Call for Presentations”. Yet, that’s primarily what most organizations do.

Ensuring your programs result in meaningful outcomes requires a learning strategy. Here are some of the key elements of a comprehensive learning strategy:

Competency Model
A competency model identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform any particular job successfully. It’s the foundation of all professional development or continuing education initiatives.

Instructional System Design (ISD)
The process of assessing needs, designing the learning path, developing materials and evaluating their effectiveness (ADDIE) in a manner that results in the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills.

Blended Learning (aka Hybrid Learning)
Combines traditional place-based instructional methods with online educational materials and opportunities for interaction. It provides greater flexibility in how to present and consume learning material and allows for more personalized learning paths.

Informal Learning
Refers to learning that takes place away from a structured, formal environments and comes in many forms, including informal conversations, viewing videos, reading articles, participating in forums and chat rooms, coaching sessions, games, etc. Informal learning is superior to formal learning when it comes to two important outcomes: how much learners are able to retain and how much of that learning they’re able to transfer to their jobs.

Ultimately, we believe the objective of every event learning strategy should be to:

• Provide the information participants need to know
• Provide the information participants need to know
• In the manner that’s most convenient to them

We also specialize in Learning Experience Design (LX Design), a process for creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve desired outcomes in a human centered, goal oriented way.

Mystery Participant Experience

This is a covert audit of the participant journey, before, during, and after your event, focused on key, client-specific milestones using a standardized process.

Hotels and restaurants use mystery guests as one of their market research tools. Why not events?

We focus on understanding your core demographic groups and their unique personas. We hire actors who represent those profiles and provide them with scripts to follow.

Mystery participants can help you understand if your expectations of the participant experience are being met and identify opportunities for improvement. They can provide insights into specific areas of your event operations that are not readily available through other assessment or evaluation methods.

Social Media Audit

Are you having a dialog with your participants or is it more of a monologue?

Social media is all about conversation. If you’re not having a dialog with your audience, you’re doing something wrong.

A social media audit is a series of steps taken to evaluate and optimize your event’s social media profiles and strategies. And strategy is key. Everyone’s doing social media. Not many are doing it well, primarily due to lack of a coherent strategy.

Our objective is to better connect you with your audience(s), increase awareness of your brand, and grow your community beyond your event.

Research

Most event stakeholders can’t point to a single research initiative – internal or external – that’s had a meaningful impact on their event.

The most influential and common purposes of business research are exploration, description and explanation.

• Exploration involves familiarization with a topic
• Description involves describing situations and events through scientific observation
• Explanation involves answering the questions of what, where, when, and how

We believe research is as an underutilized tool to help event stakeholders:

• Understand and communicate with current and potential participants
• Provide more customized event experiences
• Design more personalized products and services
• Position your event in the marketplace
• Keep you updated on current trends

We have a reputation for our innovative research designs, our ability to collect data using a variety of active and passive methods, and most importantly, our ability to analyze and interpret data using sophisticated statistical methods.

We also specialize in monitizing research through sponsorship and thought leadership.

Request for Proposal Policy

We do not respond to RFPs.

Instead, we invite you to have a preliminary, informal conversation with us (and any other firms you’re interested in) about your general areas of concern.

We suggest there be no pre-determined outcome to this conversation, just a candid discussion about your issues and an exploration of options for your consideration.

Often we find it helpful to include others in your organization in the conversation. If this makes sense to you, make them available. If it doesn’t, feel free to say, “No”.

Again, the objective of this conversation is to help you make the most informed decision on how to address your issues.

Then trust your gut.

Have we (or anyone else you’re talking to) listened to you or tried to “sell” you? Did you feel heard? Did we talk more about ourselves or more about you? Did we seem street-smart or just book-smart, or not smart at all? Did you get the sense we were willing to take some risks with you, or were we being overly cautious? Could you see working with us over a long period of time? Do you trust our motives? Did our thoughts and ideas make sense to you?

If you can answer “Yes” to enough of these questions, then you’ve learned more about us than you would have from an RFP – and all it cost you was a meeting or two.

If you hire us (or another firm) using this process, we’ll already be well along the way of getting to know each other, which improves the odds of doing the right work, and doing it well.

Never be afraid to talk. Without risks, there are no opportunity for rewards.

And no one can force you to make a decision you don’t want.

Finally, if we believe we are not a good fit for you or your issue, for any reason, we will do our best to identify others you should be talking to.