August 20, 2025 • 18 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Innovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT 2025, Matt spoke with Jen Mangini Perry, Senior Director, Brand Storytelling, and Mark Correira, Director, Go-To-Market Technology at Workhuman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:15):
Well welcome everybody.
Welcome to Cvent CONNECT,first podcast recording here.
We are outside the Innovation Pavilionon the third floor of the San Antonio
Conference Center, and excited to kickthis off with Mark and Jen from Workhuman.
Guys, thanks so much for joining us.
Jen Mangini Perry (00:28):
Thanks for having us.
Matt Heinz (00:29):
So this is kind of a last minute addition to our schedule,
which, you know, is apropo onbrand for conferences and events.
As much as we tried to planthem, it's a lot of, we were
talking before we got started.
It's a lot about that sort ofchaos and living and leaning
into that chaos of events.
Jen Mangini Perry (00:41):
You have to love it.
You have to love the chaos orthis is not the field for you.
Matt Heinz (00:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mark Correira (00:45):
Ready for everything.
Matt Heinz (00:46):
So you guys have worked together a long time, right?
It's like 10 plus years or something?
Yep.
So just quick introduce yourselvesand the role you play and
sort of how you work together.
What's the magic there tomake events work successfully.
Mark Correira (00:55):
I'm Mark Correira, the director of Go-to-Market
Technology at Workhuman.
I've been there about 14 years now.
And I've been working on WorkhumanLive, which is our flagship
event since its inception.
Jen Mangini Perry (01:04):
Yeah, yeah, same.
I've now been with thecompany for 10 years.
I started the same year that we startedour big flagship event, and I oversee
content and creative for all of ourevents which includes a couple in
Europe as well as here in the States.
Matt Heinz (01:17):
So much we have to talk about here.
And the one thing I wanna start withis not just producing events, but
thinking about event experiences.
What's the difference between doing anevent and really prioritizing and planning
for experiences people have there?
Jen Mangini Perry (01:30):
I don't know if there is, I don't think
there should be a difference.
Matt Heinz (01:33):
Ah, okay.
That's a trick question.
You passed.
Yes.
Jen Mangini Perry (01:35):
So I come from brand and I think that all
events are brand expressions.
Mm-hmm.
But they're the fullest form of the brand.
Somebody said that on stage yesterday,and I loved the way that he said that.
I think it was actually your CEO,about how the brand expresses
itself in 3D, how your people are.
That's right.
All of the fonts, colors, allof the things, but it's really.
(01:57):
You know, what is that statement about?
Nobody remembers what you saidit was how you made them feel.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so there's this whole sensoryand three dimensional experience
of a brand in its event.
It either fails or it succeedsand it's true or it's false when
it comes to your brand promise.
Yeah.
When it's an in-person event.
Mark Correira (02:14):
And I think from my perspective, being in charge of like the
event technology and those kinds of thingsit's important for me to understand.
And to ensure that our attendeeexperience is as seamless
and as flawless as possible.
Yeah.
Jen and I talked in a session wegave yesterday about the best parts
of creative and technology are whenthey're not something memorable.
Mm-hmm.
They're invisible, almost invisibleto the attendee, like registration.
(02:36):
You want that to be a seamless, flowyexperience that someone comes in, gets
their badge and walks away and it doesn'tleave a lasting impression in their mind.
Matt Heinz (02:44):
Yeah.
Talk about the importance ofhaving people thinking about the
brand and the experience, reallycollaborating tightly with the tech
teams that are producing the events.
'cause sometimes they don'talways speak the same language.
Right.
Talk a little bit about what bestpractices of making that work.
Jen Mangini Perry (02:57):
So what is, again, some of the things that we had said
yesterday, I think we talk aboutall the time is bring your tech
people into the conversation early.
Yeah.
I think that there's, if I have five ideasand I take those ideas to leadership.
They approve one of them.
I take the one idea tomy tech person mm-hmm.
When really my perception abouthow we would implement it on
the other four might be wrong.
(03:18):
It might be incomplete.
Yeah.
You know, Mark might say, oh, wellactually I could make that work.
It might be different.
Yep.
So what got approved, it wasn't a truerepresentation of what was possible.
And I like to live in the land of thepossible and never sleep on a great idea.
So if I have five ideas, and I taketo Mark and he can tell me, well,
two of those aren't actually viable.
(03:38):
If that's the outcome, weneed to do different things.
Mm-hmm.
But then he can one up an idea.
Mm-hmm.
He can say, okay, I couldactually make that bigger.
I could make that, youknow, an augmented reality.
I could make that allsorts of different things.
That's right.
How do I achieve that?
So bring in your people as early andcollaborate with them on the ideas.
Let them come up with half the idea.
Mark Correira (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think that's my role is reallyto bridge between the creative and the
possible, you know, understanding our techstack and knowing what our limitations
and our capabilities are, and being ableto think not just outside of the box, but
be able to take an idea or a proposal andbe able to pivot that slightly so that
it fits more closely with what's feasiblewithin our tech stack and doesn't, you
(04:20):
know, blow us out of budget or mm-hmm.
Or isn't overly complicatedfor the attendee.
So it's important really to have thatcollaboration and have that give and take
so that we can both kind of step on eitherside of the aisle and I can give Jen some
creative feedback or she could give mesome technical feedback like, what if it
did this, or what if it was that color?
Mm-hmm.
It's really important to blur the linein between creative and technology.
Matt Heinz (04:39):
So let's take that another step and talk about the difference
between creating the integration betweencreating great experiences at events
and getting people into the product.
Especially when you're doing, like,think about the flagship event you
have, like, we're not doing this justto give people great experiences.
We need them to keep paying us, right?
We're doing this to get new customers,to keep customers happy and loyal.
So we want them to see like, typicallywe're doing new features, we've got
(05:00):
new products, we're launching, we wantthem to get into that, but there's an
experience component to that as well.
Talk about bringing those together.
Jen Mangini Perry (05:07):
So,
there's so many things, when technologyis, you know, again, siloed in that
executional sort of way, they're not oftentold to think about the business outcomes.
Yep.
And I think when you involve yourtech partners and you think about
the business outcomes and creativedoesn't get too in love with its ideas.
Yeah.
And you're thinking about thebusiness outcomes, that's when the
(05:29):
collaboration really starts to happen.
And so we talk a lot.
We're both very friendly and have deeprelationships with our sales team.
Yeah.
And with our customer experiencepeople, we know how the product works.
We also use the product.
Mm-hmm.
At our company, we are thebiggest super user of our product.
And it is a fantastic thing to use.
So we have a personalinterpretation of it.
And then so when we get togetherand say, how do I get somebody
(05:51):
to understand this quickly?
Right?
Because our competitors like to saythat our technology is complicated.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna say it's robust.
There you go.
And there's a bigdifference between the two.
But at an event, youhave the element of time.
Yep.
It's shortened.
How do I get you to experiencewhat our product can do for you?
Yep.
In a shortened, gamified way.
(06:12):
So I don't know if you wantexplain like the Gratitude Bar,
like how we sort of got to that.
Mark Correira (06:16):
Well, sure.
And I mean, even before we get to that,one thing that we do with our activations
are make sure that we align some typeof analogy between what the attendee is
experiencing in their activation mm-hmm.
And some portion of the product.
Matt Heinz (06:29):
Yep.
Mark Correira (06:29):
So they're not just running around grabbing
swag, water, bottle, socks, right.
Stress balls, all those kinds of things.
We make sure that almost all of ouractivations have some common thread
that ties back to either a thoughtleadership or a focus area for the product
and some stress point or some issuethat the product is trying to solve.
Mm-hmm.
(06:49):
But also tie it back to the way that theuser might interact with the product.
So one thing, as Jen mentioned thatwe developed over time throughout
the event was our version ofwhat we call a Gratitude Bar.
So obviously Workhuman sells our rewardsand recognition, it's peer to peer.
And we came up with kind of an outsideof the product, very light version
of the rewards and recognition flowthat we call the Gratitude Bar.
(07:13):
And we activate thatwithin the event via iPads.
We have a digital wall that showslike the award feeds, so all
the moments that are going backand forth between our attendees.
And in recent years we've actuallyembedded that into the mobile app as well.
Yeah.
So everywhere the attendee goesthroughout the event they have that
ability to give and receive recognitionand it really takes almost no effort
(07:33):
from them from there to be able tointroduce them to a sales person.
Mm-hmm.
And it's really a much warmer introductioninto the sales process than it would be
if you were just hovering or the salesperson was just hovering, kind of waiting
to pull someone into their demo booth.
It feels almost car sales mini.
Yeah.
If it's that way.
But if they have that warm introductionand they say, oh, I noticed you just
(07:55):
gave a recognition moment to oneof your colleagues, why don't you
just step over here for a coupleminutes and I can show you how you
can bring that back to your companyand really build and foster culture
within your company using our product.
Jen Mangini Perry (08:04):
This is one of the ways that I think we get
a lot of executive permission.
Yeah.
And alignment and approval onsomething that's very expensive.
Events are not cheap.
Yeah.
We know that, you know, being in thebusiness, if you were using events as
a cost per lead, like that's expensive.
Yeah.
You know, when you're thinking aboutit from the business's point of view.
And so when we create these activationsand things for the users and the
(08:25):
attendees to get value out of playingwith a thing and networking and learning.
Mm-hmm.
But we need to tie it tosomething in the business.
If I'm gonna pay to build somecrazy bespoke activation, it's
gotta tie to the theme of theevent, pain points of my audience.
It, which is a way that thebrand shows our audience.
We know you, we understandwhat your pain points are.
Yeah.
And then also tie it to the product.
(08:46):
And so every activation ties toperformance recognition, gratitude,
we use them a lot to flip myths orpreconceived notions about what the
product is or what the product can do.
Mm-hmm.
How do we use all of these play thingsto say, you think you understand
what rewards and recognitionare, but not the way we do it.
Yeah, yeah.
We have something new to show you and sortof bring them in, like Mark said, to draw
(09:07):
them into those, you know, deeper salesexperiences when they're asking deeper
questions, where they're interested in it.
And then it's a little less, somebodyspraying you with perfume at the mall.
Matt Heinz (09:16):
Yes.
Such great eventstorytelling examples so far.
Here we've got Mark andJen here from Workhuman.
We're outside the InnovationPavilion at Cvent CONNECT.
Mark, you're the directorof Go-to-Market Technology.
Jen, you run content, creativeand brand that is oil and water at
some companies, but you have workedtogether for 10 years making this work.
What's some of the keys to the successfulrelationship you have working together?
Mark Correira (09:38):
Sure.
I think the ability to see eachother's perspective mm-hmm.
Is something that'simportant to both of us.
We never come into a conversationor even a meeting about the event or
anything that we might be trying todo from either a tech or a creative
perspective with a hard set agenda.
Yeah.
Where we always come in open tocollaborating, to being able to
(09:59):
be flexible on either our ideasor what the end outcome is.
Yep.
And the means to get there.
So I think that collaborativespirit is really, really
important and paramount to us.
Matt Heinz (10:07):
Love that.
Jen Mangini Perry (10:08):
Yeah.
I think this is one of thoseplaces where I want people to
think about creative and technologydifferently, creative and innovative.
Are two synonyms.
Mm-hmm.
And we think of creative as colorsand fluff and design and decor.
When design is a term of engineering.
And when we think about innovation,we think about technology.
But without a user interface it's useless.
(10:29):
Yeah.
Without the human way to perceive it or,you know, absorb it, it can't happen.
So I, I think we both have a deep respectfor the idea that we are problem solvers.
We are here to help someone get tosomeplace better, to some new thing.
And we definitely have a, you know,no god's no Kings mentality when we
get into a room to brainstorm it.
(10:50):
A great idea can come from anywhere.
Matt Heinz (10:51):
Good, good, good.
You know, I think a lot of people,when they design events, when even when
they talk about doing the next eventafter something, they use a lot of
intuition, they use a lot of emotion,they use a lot of anecdotal evidence.
You guys use a lot of datato pull this together.
I wanna understandwhat's on that dashboard.
What's some of the data you use todayto sort of make the next event better?
Mark Correira (11:10):
Sure.
One thing that we certainly paya lot of attention to are our
session and post-event surveys.
Mm-hmm.
We pay huge attention to thecomment section, obviously.
Yeah.
We want to know, aside from thequestions that we're asking, what
are the things that are top of mindfor our attendees that we may not
be considering even in the questionsthat we're asking in these surveys?
Yep.
So it's really important for usto come back really synthesize all
(11:32):
of that data that we come throughand compare it year over year.
We do the same thing with our event.
We tend to move it around.
We don't repeat locations very often.
Mm-hmm.
And every year is somewhere new.
So we even follow that mantralike, are we too far away from
a hotel in this particular city?
Are we too far away from like thedowntown for evening activities?
And all of that really goes into alot of the planning as well around
(11:54):
some of like the less fun logisticalthings like are we having to do
shuttles and all that type of stuff.
But it really does depend onfeedback from our attendees.
Mm-hmm.
And we're constantly listening.
We're always gathering feedback eitherin person or through, you know, an
event app or a post event survey.
Yeah.
So that feedback from the attendeesis really paramount to us.
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (12:12):
And Jen, I know a lot of brand and creative folks that think
of data sometimes as a limiter, butI know in your case, like it actually
gives you flexibility and freedomto use that as a launching pad.
Jen Mangini Perry (12:21):
Absolutely.
And again our teams arevery strategic creatives.
We might like the blue ad best,but if it's not performing,
it's not worth anything to us.
Right.
You know, I think our creativeteam looks at it like a science
experiment all the time.
How do I make them move,do something different?
How do I change a behavior?
Even if we launch the agenda adifferent time every year, or our
(12:43):
big keynote speaker, what effectdoes that have on registration.
We've learned it doesn't, yeah.
Our double down data is ourdouble down date, year over year.
We have a decade's worth of data.
So, you know, sometimes you'relike, oh, well was it the location?
Was it all these other thingsthat we change about the event?
Mm-hmm.
Like what's steady versus what's flexible?
And it teaches my teamwhat they have power over.
You know, where can we make strides.
(13:05):
Where can we test new things?
Where can we flip atable and start all over?
Yeah,
Matt Heinz (13:09):
yeah, yeah.
You've referenced sales acouple times, and I want to dig
into that a little bit, right?
Because the end of these events, we cantalk about experience and everything
else, but we're gonna look at somehard pipeline numbers at some point.
And there's a couple anglesI wanna take on that first.
As you're designing an event and asyou're designing like the, it's like
the Innovation Pavilion here, right?
Like here at Cvent CONNECT,there's a significant portion
that is Cvent space, right?
(13:30):
How do you design that at Workhumanto not only allow for a great customer
and attendee experience, but to givesales the opportunity to do their job.
Jen Mangini Perry (13:38):
Mm-hmm.
So Cvent is only used at events.
It is a site specific technology, right?
Like it's on your websites, it'sa part of an event experience.
We're human as a technologyshould be a part of the daily
life of all of your humans.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think that design should beonomatopoeic, it should feel like what
it is in every space that it exists.
(13:59):
Yep.
And so they're woven together.
There is no space.
That is without sales, without theproduct, without the company's brand.
Because it's a philosophy,it's a thought leadership.
We're about connectinghuman beings to one another.
Yeah.
And so that should bepresent in all the spaces.
So while we do have, you know, specificplaces for demos and people to ask a
question, that's only by the nature ofhumans, wanna know where to go to get
(14:23):
breakfast, get coffee, get a thing.
As far as way finding is concerned,but we try to weave their
experience in, they attend thesessions, they go to the parties.
Mm-hmm.
We want sales to be thereto create relationships.
Right.
I don't wanna say this too loudly, likeI don't care how many demos they show, as
long as they have deep conversations andconnections with the people who matter.
(14:44):
Yeah.
We're gonna measure things like,how many demos did we have?
Of course, those things have to exist in,you know, the day-to-day of the business.
But really it's about creatingspaces for them to have connection
that then exemplifies thisconversation was so great.
Yeah.
If we worked together, I would'vegiven you a recognition moment
and we would've changed theculture of our company together.
Matt Heinz (15:03):
Yeah.
Jen Mangini Perry (15:03):
And to give sales that narrative is paramount to our company.
Matt Heinz (15:07):
I think that's so important.
I wanna reiterate that for the people inthe back that may not be listening, that
like in the room, the experience you have,it's not the only opportunity to sell.
Right.
It sets up future opportunities.
Sometimes three steps is faster than one.
And so engineering thatand reiterating that.
Yes.
And then getting consensusfrom the sales team.
To sort of be patient and to bedisciplined to do that the right way, that
(15:28):
isn't always an easy thing to get done.
Mark Correira (15:30):
No, absolutely.
And we also spend a lot of time thinkingabout opportunities for putting those
attendees in front of our sales reps.
So even when we design our WorkhumanCentral, which is what we call our
trade show floor, Workhuman live.
We spend a lot of time thinkingabout traffic flow, traffic pattern.
We tend to use a lot of either quadrantbased or like hub and spoke model.
Mm-hmm.
So that everything flows throughthe center of that space.
(15:52):
Yep.
And one other feature that wetend to keep year over year is
putting our main stage content,
Jen Mangini Perry (15:59):
mm-hmm.
Mark Correira (16:00):
Adjacent to Workhuman Central.
Yeah.
And we use that as a forcing function sothat the only way in and out of main stage
is to pass through that trade show floor.
Nice.
It's forced traffic and it mightseem like something that's trivial.
But the amount of conversationsthat happen, even in that transition
time in between leaving main stageand going to a breakout session are
just another opportunity to get ourattendees in front of our sales folks.
Jen Mangini Perry (16:21):
I think that's one of the places where I believe that language
is where you win the game of brand.
And so as they come out of main stagewhere they've heard all of the language
that we want them to hear, whether it'sfrom our speakers or people we've hired.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we have a thematic narrative.
People have come to talkabout certain ideas.
Yeah.
They walk into this space and wereiterate those words are on signage,
whether it's digital signage that'smoving, or you know, a stagnant
(16:42):
signage that's there so that they'rereceiving these messages over and over.
Throughout it and then thesales team bringing it down to a
conversational level where they'vebeen surrounded by a whole concept.
Yeah, it's a 360understanding of the brand.
Matt Heinz (16:55):
Love it.
All right.
We only got a couple minutesleft to finish up with you guys.
I wanna do a lightning roundquestion for each of you.
So we talk about best practices.
I want a cautionary tale, it can be adumpster fire, but I want a short, very
short story of like something that youwould recommend other people avoid in
doing events based on your experience.
Mark Correira (17:10):
I'll say overcomplicating registration.
Yeah.
We talked about this in our sessionas well, but at one point we had 18
different badge types that neededto be printed at registration.
Matt Heinz (17:19):
Oh Lord.
Yeah.
Mark Correira (17:19):
And just taking all of that philosophy and all of those touch
points and simplifying that down to as fewthat's still accomplished the same goals.
Matt Heinz (17:26):
That's fantastic.
Jen Mangini Perry (17:27):
Same in creative, overcomplicating too many names,
too many colors, too many elements.
We did this one year where everyspace had like 17 things going on
and I was like, that's so confusing.
And one of the places where werealized how confusing it was is we
were trying to consolidate it intothe app and I was like, why does this
have 92 ways to categorize itself?
Which was unnecessary.
It was very pretty and veryshiny, but also not simple, not
(17:49):
as easy from the user perspective.
Matt Heinz (17:51):
Yeah.
Less is more.
Yes, less is more for the user,for the experience for you to
have to produce this as well.
Yes.
That's a great lesson.
Awesome.
Mark and Jen from Workhuman.
Thank you guys so muchfor joining us here today.
Jen Mangini Perry (17:59):
Thanks you so much.
Mark Correira (17:59):
Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Jen Mangini Perry (18:01):
This was great.
Well welcome everybody.
Welcome to Cvent CONNECT,first podcast recording here.
We are outside the Innovation Pavilionon the third floor of the San Antonio
Conference Center, and excited to kickthis off with Mark and Jen from Workhuman.
Guys, thanks so much for joining us.
Jen Mangini Perry (00:28):
Thanks for having us.
Matt Heinz (00:29):
So this is kind of a last minute addition to our schedule,
which, you know, is apropo onbrand for conferences and events.
As much as we tried to planthem, it's a lot of, we were
talking before we got started.
It's a lot about that sort ofchaos and living and leaning
into that chaos of events.
Jen Mangini Perry (00:41):
You have to love it.
You have to love the chaos orthis is not the field for you.
Matt Heinz (00:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mark Correira (00:45):
Ready for everything.
Matt Heinz (00:46):
So you guys have worked together a long time, right?
It's like 10 plus years or something?
Yep.
So just quick introduce yourselvesand the role you play and
sort of how you work together.
What's the magic there tomake events work successfully.
Mark Correira (00:55):
I'm Mark Correira, the director of Go-to-Market
Technology at Workhuman.
I've been there about 14 years now.
And I've been working on WorkhumanLive, which is our flagship
event since its inception.
Jen Mangini Perry (01:04):
Yeah, yeah, same.
I've now been with thecompany for 10 years.
I started the same year that we startedour big flagship event, and I oversee
content and creative for all of ourevents which includes a couple in
Europe as well as here in the States.
Matt Heinz (01:17):
So much we have to talk about here.
And the one thing I wanna start withis not just producing events, but
thinking about event experiences.
What's the difference between doing anevent and really prioritizing and planning
for experiences people have there?
Jen Mangini Perry (01:30):
I don't know if there is, I don't think
there should be a difference.
Matt Heinz (01:33):
Ah, okay.
That's a trick question.
You passed.
Yes.
Jen Mangini Perry (01:35):
So I come from brand and I think that all
events are brand expressions.
Mm-hmm.
But they're the fullest form of the brand.
Somebody said that on stage yesterday,and I loved the way that he said that.
I think it was actually your CEO,about how the brand expresses
itself in 3D, how your people are.
That's right.
All of the fonts, colors, allof the things, but it's really.
(01:57):
You know, what is that statement about?
Nobody remembers what you saidit was how you made them feel.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so there's this whole sensoryand three dimensional experience
of a brand in its event.
It either fails or it succeedsand it's true or it's false when
it comes to your brand promise.
Yeah.
When it's an in-person event.
Mark Correira (02:14):
And I think from my perspective, being in charge of like the
event technology and those kinds of thingsit's important for me to understand.
And to ensure that our attendeeexperience is as seamless
and as flawless as possible.
Yeah.
Jen and I talked in a session wegave yesterday about the best parts
of creative and technology are whenthey're not something memorable.
Mm-hmm.
They're invisible, almost invisibleto the attendee, like registration.
(02:36):
You want that to be a seamless, flowyexperience that someone comes in, gets
their badge and walks away and it doesn'tleave a lasting impression in their mind.
Matt Heinz (02:44):
Yeah.
Talk about the importance ofhaving people thinking about the
brand and the experience, reallycollaborating tightly with the tech
teams that are producing the events.
'cause sometimes they don'talways speak the same language.
Right.
Talk a little bit about what bestpractices of making that work.
Jen Mangini Perry (02:57):
So what is, again, some of the things that we had said
yesterday, I think we talk aboutall the time is bring your tech
people into the conversation early.
Yeah.
I think that there's, if I have five ideasand I take those ideas to leadership.
They approve one of them.
I take the one idea tomy tech person mm-hmm.
When really my perception abouthow we would implement it on
the other four might be wrong.
(03:18):
It might be incomplete.
Yeah.
You know, Mark might say, oh, wellactually I could make that work.
It might be different.
Yep.
So what got approved, it wasn't a truerepresentation of what was possible.
And I like to live in the land of thepossible and never sleep on a great idea.
So if I have five ideas, and I taketo Mark and he can tell me, well,
two of those aren't actually viable.
(03:38):
If that's the outcome, weneed to do different things.
Mm-hmm.
But then he can one up an idea.
Mm-hmm.
He can say, okay, I couldactually make that bigger.
I could make that, youknow, an augmented reality.
I could make that allsorts of different things.
That's right.
How do I achieve that?
So bring in your people as early andcollaborate with them on the ideas.
Let them come up with half the idea.
Mark Correira (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think that's my role is reallyto bridge between the creative and the
possible, you know, understanding our techstack and knowing what our limitations
and our capabilities are, and being ableto think not just outside of the box, but
be able to take an idea or a proposal andbe able to pivot that slightly so that
it fits more closely with what's feasiblewithin our tech stack and doesn't, you
(04:20):
know, blow us out of budget or mm-hmm.
Or isn't overly complicatedfor the attendee.
So it's important really to have thatcollaboration and have that give and take
so that we can both kind of step on eitherside of the aisle and I can give Jen some
creative feedback or she could give mesome technical feedback like, what if it
did this, or what if it was that color?
Mm-hmm.
It's really important to blur the linein between creative and technology.
Matt Heinz (04:39):
So let's take that another step and talk about the difference
between creating the integration betweencreating great experiences at events
and getting people into the product.
Especially when you're doing, like,think about the flagship event you
have, like, we're not doing this justto give people great experiences.
We need them to keep paying us, right?
We're doing this to get new customers,to keep customers happy and loyal.
So we want them to see like, typicallywe're doing new features, we've got
(05:00):
new products, we're launching, we wantthem to get into that, but there's an
experience component to that as well.
Talk about bringing those together.
Jen Mangini Perry (05:07):
So,
there's so many things, when technologyis, you know, again, siloed in that
executional sort of way, they're not oftentold to think about the business outcomes.
Yep.
And I think when you involve yourtech partners and you think about
the business outcomes and creativedoesn't get too in love with its ideas.
Yeah.
And you're thinking about thebusiness outcomes, that's when the
(05:29):
collaboration really starts to happen.
And so we talk a lot.
We're both very friendly and have deeprelationships with our sales team.
Yeah.
And with our customer experiencepeople, we know how the product works.
We also use the product.
Mm-hmm.
At our company, we are thebiggest super user of our product.
And it is a fantastic thing to use.
So we have a personalinterpretation of it.
And then so when we get togetherand say, how do I get somebody
(05:51):
to understand this quickly?
Right?
Because our competitors like to saythat our technology is complicated.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna say it's robust.
There you go.
And there's a bigdifference between the two.
But at an event, youhave the element of time.
Yep.
It's shortened.
How do I get you to experiencewhat our product can do for you?
Yep.
In a shortened, gamified way.
(06:12):
So I don't know if you wantexplain like the Gratitude Bar,
like how we sort of got to that.
Mark Correira (06:16):
Well, sure.
And I mean, even before we get to that,one thing that we do with our activations
are make sure that we align some typeof analogy between what the attendee is
experiencing in their activation mm-hmm.
And some portion of the product.
Matt Heinz (06:29):
Yep.
Mark Correira (06:29):
So they're not just running around grabbing
swag, water, bottle, socks, right.
Stress balls, all those kinds of things.
We make sure that almost all of ouractivations have some common thread
that ties back to either a thoughtleadership or a focus area for the product
and some stress point or some issuethat the product is trying to solve.
Mm-hmm.
(06:49):
But also tie it back to the way that theuser might interact with the product.
So one thing, as Jen mentioned thatwe developed over time throughout
the event was our version ofwhat we call a Gratitude Bar.
So obviously Workhuman sells our rewardsand recognition, it's peer to peer.
And we came up with kind of an outsideof the product, very light version
of the rewards and recognition flowthat we call the Gratitude Bar.
(07:13):
And we activate thatwithin the event via iPads.
We have a digital wall that showslike the award feeds, so all
the moments that are going backand forth between our attendees.
And in recent years we've actuallyembedded that into the mobile app as well.
Yeah.
So everywhere the attendee goesthroughout the event they have that
ability to give and receive recognitionand it really takes almost no effort
(07:33):
from them from there to be able tointroduce them to a sales person.
Mm-hmm.
And it's really a much warmer introductioninto the sales process than it would be
if you were just hovering or the salesperson was just hovering, kind of waiting
to pull someone into their demo booth.
It feels almost car sales mini.
Yeah.
If it's that way.
But if they have that warm introductionand they say, oh, I noticed you just
(07:55):
gave a recognition moment to oneof your colleagues, why don't you
just step over here for a coupleminutes and I can show you how you
can bring that back to your companyand really build and foster culture
within your company using our product.
Jen Mangini Perry (08:04):
This is one of the ways that I think we get
a lot of executive permission.
Yeah.
And alignment and approval onsomething that's very expensive.
Events are not cheap.
Yeah.
We know that, you know, being in thebusiness, if you were using events as
a cost per lead, like that's expensive.
Yeah.
You know, when you're thinking aboutit from the business's point of view.
And so when we create these activationsand things for the users and the
(08:25):
attendees to get value out of playingwith a thing and networking and learning.
Mm-hmm.
But we need to tie it tosomething in the business.
If I'm gonna pay to build somecrazy bespoke activation, it's
gotta tie to the theme of theevent, pain points of my audience.
It, which is a way that thebrand shows our audience.
We know you, we understandwhat your pain points are.
Yeah.
And then also tie it to the product.
(08:46):
And so every activation ties toperformance recognition, gratitude,
we use them a lot to flip myths orpreconceived notions about what the
product is or what the product can do.
Mm-hmm.
How do we use all of these play thingsto say, you think you understand
what rewards and recognitionare, but not the way we do it.
Yeah, yeah.
We have something new to show you and sortof bring them in, like Mark said, to draw
(09:07):
them into those, you know, deeper salesexperiences when they're asking deeper
questions, where they're interested in it.
And then it's a little less, somebodyspraying you with perfume at the mall.
Matt Heinz (09:16):
Yes.
Such great eventstorytelling examples so far.
Here we've got Mark andJen here from Workhuman.
We're outside the InnovationPavilion at Cvent CONNECT.
Mark, you're the directorof Go-to-Market Technology.
Jen, you run content, creativeand brand that is oil and water at
some companies, but you have workedtogether for 10 years making this work.
What's some of the keys to the successfulrelationship you have working together?
Mark Correira (09:38):
Sure.
I think the ability to see eachother's perspective mm-hmm.
Is something that'simportant to both of us.
We never come into a conversationor even a meeting about the event or
anything that we might be trying todo from either a tech or a creative
perspective with a hard set agenda.
Yeah.
Where we always come in open tocollaborating, to being able to
(09:59):
be flexible on either our ideasor what the end outcome is.
Yep.
And the means to get there.
So I think that collaborativespirit is really, really
important and paramount to us.
Matt Heinz (10:07):
Love that.
Jen Mangini Perry (10:08):
Yeah.
I think this is one of thoseplaces where I want people to
think about creative and technologydifferently, creative and innovative.
Are two synonyms.
Mm-hmm.
And we think of creative as colorsand fluff and design and decor.
When design is a term of engineering.
And when we think about innovation,we think about technology.
But without a user interface it's useless.
(10:29):
Yeah.
Without the human way to perceive it or,you know, absorb it, it can't happen.
So I, I think we both have a deep respectfor the idea that we are problem solvers.
We are here to help someone get tosomeplace better, to some new thing.
And we definitely have a, you know,no god's no Kings mentality when we
get into a room to brainstorm it.
(10:50):
A great idea can come from anywhere.
Matt Heinz (10:51):
Good, good, good.
You know, I think a lot of people,when they design events, when even when
they talk about doing the next eventafter something, they use a lot of
intuition, they use a lot of emotion,they use a lot of anecdotal evidence.
You guys use a lot of datato pull this together.
I wanna understandwhat's on that dashboard.
What's some of the data you use todayto sort of make the next event better?
Mark Correira (11:10):
Sure.
One thing that we certainly paya lot of attention to are our
session and post-event surveys.
Mm-hmm.
We pay huge attention to thecomment section, obviously.
Yeah.
We want to know, aside from thequestions that we're asking, what
are the things that are top of mindfor our attendees that we may not
be considering even in the questionsthat we're asking in these surveys?
Yep.
So it's really important for usto come back really synthesize all
(11:32):
of that data that we come throughand compare it year over year.
We do the same thing with our event.
We tend to move it around.
We don't repeat locations very often.
Mm-hmm.
And every year is somewhere new.
So we even follow that mantralike, are we too far away from
a hotel in this particular city?
Are we too far away from like thedowntown for evening activities?
And all of that really goes into alot of the planning as well around
(11:54):
some of like the less fun logisticalthings like are we having to do
shuttles and all that type of stuff.
But it really does depend onfeedback from our attendees.
Mm-hmm.
And we're constantly listening.
We're always gathering feedback eitherin person or through, you know, an
event app or a post event survey.
Yeah.
So that feedback from the attendeesis really paramount to us.
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (12:12):
And Jen, I know a lot of brand and creative folks that think
of data sometimes as a limiter, butI know in your case, like it actually
gives you flexibility and freedomto use that as a launching pad.
Jen Mangini Perry (12:21):
Absolutely.
And again our teams arevery strategic creatives.
We might like the blue ad best,but if it's not performing,
it's not worth anything to us.
Right.
You know, I think our creativeteam looks at it like a science
experiment all the time.
How do I make them move,do something different?
How do I change a behavior?
Even if we launch the agenda adifferent time every year, or our
(12:43):
big keynote speaker, what effectdoes that have on registration.
We've learned it doesn't, yeah.
Our double down data is ourdouble down date, year over year.
We have a decade's worth of data.
So, you know, sometimes you'relike, oh, well was it the location?
Was it all these other thingsthat we change about the event?
Mm-hmm.
Like what's steady versus what's flexible?
And it teaches my teamwhat they have power over.
You know, where can we make strides.
(13:05):
Where can we test new things?
Where can we flip atable and start all over?
Yeah,
Matt Heinz (13:09):
yeah, yeah.
You've referenced sales acouple times, and I want to dig
into that a little bit, right?
Because the end of these events, we cantalk about experience and everything
else, but we're gonna look at somehard pipeline numbers at some point.
And there's a couple anglesI wanna take on that first.
As you're designing an event and asyou're designing like the, it's like
the Innovation Pavilion here, right?
Like here at Cvent CONNECT,there's a significant portion
that is Cvent space, right?
(13:30):
How do you design that at Workhumanto not only allow for a great customer
and attendee experience, but to givesales the opportunity to do their job.
Jen Mangini Perry (13:38):
Mm-hmm.
So Cvent is only used at events.
It is a site specific technology, right?
Like it's on your websites, it'sa part of an event experience.
We're human as a technologyshould be a part of the daily
life of all of your humans.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think that design should beonomatopoeic, it should feel like what
it is in every space that it exists.
(13:59):
Yep.
And so they're woven together.
There is no space.
That is without sales, without theproduct, without the company's brand.
Because it's a philosophy,it's a thought leadership.
We're about connectinghuman beings to one another.
Yeah.
And so that should bepresent in all the spaces.
So while we do have, you know, specificplaces for demos and people to ask a
question, that's only by the nature ofhumans, wanna know where to go to get
(14:23):
breakfast, get coffee, get a thing.
As far as way finding is concerned,but we try to weave their
experience in, they attend thesessions, they go to the parties.
Mm-hmm.
We want sales to be thereto create relationships.
Right.
I don't wanna say this too loudly, likeI don't care how many demos they show, as
long as they have deep conversations andconnections with the people who matter.
(14:44):
Yeah.
We're gonna measure things like,how many demos did we have?
Of course, those things have to exist in,you know, the day-to-day of the business.
But really it's about creatingspaces for them to have connection
that then exemplifies thisconversation was so great.
Yeah.
If we worked together, I would'vegiven you a recognition moment
and we would've changed theculture of our company together.
Matt Heinz (15:03):
Yeah.
Jen Mangini Perry (15:03):
And to give sales that narrative is paramount to our company.
Matt Heinz (15:07):
I think that's so important.
I wanna reiterate that for the people inthe back that may not be listening, that
like in the room, the experience you have,it's not the only opportunity to sell.
Right.
It sets up future opportunities.
Sometimes three steps is faster than one.
And so engineering thatand reiterating that.
Yes.
And then getting consensusfrom the sales team.
To sort of be patient and to bedisciplined to do that the right way, that
(15:28):
isn't always an easy thing to get done.
Mark Correira (15:30):
No, absolutely.
And we also spend a lot of time thinkingabout opportunities for putting those
attendees in front of our sales reps.
So even when we design our WorkhumanCentral, which is what we call our
trade show floor, Workhuman live.
We spend a lot of time thinkingabout traffic flow, traffic pattern.
We tend to use a lot of either quadrantbased or like hub and spoke model.
Mm-hmm.
So that everything flows throughthe center of that space.
(15:52):
Yep.
And one other feature that wetend to keep year over year is
putting our main stage content,
Jen Mangini Perry (15:59):
mm-hmm.
Mark Correira (16:00):
Adjacent to Workhuman Central.
Yeah.
And we use that as a forcing function sothat the only way in and out of main stage
is to pass through that trade show floor.
Nice.
It's forced traffic and it mightseem like something that's trivial.
But the amount of conversationsthat happen, even in that transition
time in between leaving main stageand going to a breakout session are
just another opportunity to get ourattendees in front of our sales folks.
Jen Mangini Perry (16:21):
I think that's one of the places where I believe that language
is where you win the game of brand.
And so as they come out of main stagewhere they've heard all of the language
that we want them to hear, whether it'sfrom our speakers or people we've hired.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we have a thematic narrative.
People have come to talkabout certain ideas.
Yeah.
They walk into this space and wereiterate those words are on signage,
whether it's digital signage that'smoving, or you know, a stagnant
(16:42):
signage that's there so that they'rereceiving these messages over and over.
Throughout it and then thesales team bringing it down to a
conversational level where they'vebeen surrounded by a whole concept.
Yeah, it's a 360understanding of the brand.
Matt Heinz (16:55):
Love it.
All right.
We only got a couple minutesleft to finish up with you guys.
I wanna do a lightning roundquestion for each of you.
So we talk about best practices.
I want a cautionary tale, it can be adumpster fire, but I want a short, very
short story of like something that youwould recommend other people avoid in
doing events based on your experience.
Mark Correira (17:10):
I'll say overcomplicating registration.
Yeah.
We talked about this in our sessionas well, but at one point we had 18
different badge types that neededto be printed at registration.
Matt Heinz (17:19):
Oh Lord.
Yeah.
Mark Correira (17:19):
And just taking all of that philosophy and all of those touch
points and simplifying that down to as fewthat's still accomplished the same goals.
Matt Heinz (17:26):
That's fantastic.
Jen Mangini Perry (17:27):
Same in creative, overcomplicating too many names,
too many colors, too many elements.
We did this one year where everyspace had like 17 things going on
and I was like, that's so confusing.
And one of the places where werealized how confusing it was is we
were trying to consolidate it intothe app and I was like, why does this
have 92 ways to categorize itself?
Which was unnecessary.
It was very pretty and veryshiny, but also not simple, not
(17:49):
as easy from the user perspective.
Matt Heinz (17:51):
Yeah.
Less is more.
Yes, less is more for the user,for the experience for you to
have to produce this as well.
Yes.
That's a great lesson.
Awesome.
Mark and Jen from Workhuman.
Thank you guys so muchfor joining us here today.
Jen Mangini Perry (17:59):
Thanks you so much.
Mark Correira (17:59):
Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Jen Mangini Perry (18:01):
This was great.
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