When it comes to integration and automation in your events, 1 wrong decision can break everything.
😈 After all, the event devil is in the (small) details…
And the “small” mistakes are typically the result of not looking at the bigger picture.
To help you zoom out, fine-tune, and set your events up for success, Bogdan Maran and Merijn van Buuren have invited their first guest to Ctrl Alt Event: Ade Allenby 🥳
Ade is an expert on event technology, integration, and behavioral insights.
In this week’s episode, he’ll be sharing his experience and knowledge on:
🔥 Real-life examples of the impact of the little things
🔥 Behavioral Insights Through Tech Tools
🔥 Automation for Enhanced Experiences
🔥 and more…
If you’re organizing events and you want to ensure you know exactly what to do when you want to improve your event experience
Make sure to listen to this episode.
🗓️ Weekly Rendezvous: Mark your calendar! "Ctrl+Alt+Event" will be live on LinkedIn every Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT to answer all your burning questions.
🔄 Host Rotation: Bogdan and Merijn will alternate hosting the live event each week, so make sure to follow them both to receive notifications.
🔗 Connect with Us: Bogdan Maran, Merijn van Buuren
👥 Get more involved: reserve your spot here
🎙️ Become a guest on our show: apply here
It's not just a podcast; it's a tech-forward experience you won't want to miss!
See you next Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT! 🎉✨
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Merijn van Buuren (00:11):
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Event, the show where
we focus on real insights,technical solutions, and
everything event tech.
Really, we are so excited fortoday because special guest you
probably have seen the post, butwe will keep you waiting for a
few seconds because, before weget started, let me introduce
you to my favorite co-host,Bogdan Maran, the man who loves
(00:35):
integrations, data visualization, a real data storyteller,
founder of Visual Hive and AIcontent for event platform.
Definitely check them out aswell, Bogdan.
It's so good to see you.
Welcome back.
Bogdan Maran (00:50):
Absolutely great.
It's so fun to be here everyTuesday.
It gives me a scope in life toget past Monday and get to the
fun bit.
Thank you very much for yourkind words.
Let me introduce my very kindco-host.
Merijn is a guru ofintegrations.
He's the founder of EventMender as well, but he has been
(01:11):
working with hundreds of eventorganizers and with event
technology providers, so he'sbeen on both sides.
When it comes to integrationsand using anything from the API
or to multiple other code-basedfunctions, he's the guy to go to
.
But I would go to him when itcomes to strategy because I
really like how he's thinkingabout everything.
(01:32):
I think, without further ado,today is very special because we
are going to have with us verygood friend of mine and a man I
really really, really like andadore, which we have here now on
the screen.
Welcome Ade.
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Event.
Ade Allenby (01:50):
Hello.
Bogdan Maran (01:52):
Thank you very much for joining us.
For those who don't know Ade: Ade helps event organizers (01:53):
undefined
assess, deploy and maximize thebenefits of event technology to
increase revenue and NPS.
I think his background is indigital product management,
having worked for 10 years intelecoms industry although he's
only 25 now and he's managing todeliver transformation in sales
(02:14):
, marketing and servicefunctions.
Ade joined the event industryin 2015, so about just a bit
after I came to London workingspecifically for
Reed-exhibitions, now RX Global,as global head of digital
innovation.
That's how I've met Adesomewhere at Fox, after an ETL
(02:35):
or a conference.
It was actually in shortage atETL, I think that we first met,
Tested, Tested to link.
Definitely.
I've been very keen to workwith him and to work with him
because he helped dozens ofproducts, of products through
testing and implementation withthe best scaling globally.
He now works as a freelance fororganizers and vendors under
(02:58):
the hat of Allenby Advisory,where I'm very fortunate to join
him for some of the projectsand then know him from time to
time, and he's helping bringproducts and customer
experiences to get theresuccessfully.
So welcome Ade, and I'll do thelittle transition here, because
you have the white, the beardshow now, as Ade said earlier,
(03:19):
when we had the chat.
Ade Allenby (03:21):
Yeah, Thank you.
Thank you Merijn, Thank youBogdan.
It's brilliant to be here withtwo legends of Event Tech.
Thank you for having me.
Bogdan Maran (03:31):
Oh, I've missed our absolute special.
Merijn van Buuren (03:35):
No worries, I think we're all Anyone's
getting dizzy yeah it's alwaysmy fault.
Bogdan Maran (03:40):
Look, I've been married for 10 years.
It's always my fault.
Regardless of what happens,It's always my fault.
Merijn van Buuren (03:47):
Well, we are on the right place.
We have the right third lowerthird underneath us, so you can
all see who's who and what iswhat.
And we couldn't be more excitedto have Ade with so much
experience in the industry, butalso a lot of experience when it
comes to fine-tuning yourevents tech and behavioral
insights and that's what it'sall about.
(04:08):
Today, I think we're kicking itoff with integration stories.
We're going to dive a bit moreinto the vision of Ade.
Behind integration, the bigpicture, which is what everyone
has been joining for, we'll diveinto the little things.
We have some automation there.
We'll give you some real lifeexamples and much more.
So stick to the end to makesure you get all the information
(04:30):
you need to run an effectiveevent.
And without or with that, Iwould say Ade.
The floor is all yours.
Maybe you can tell us a littlebit more how you think about
integrations from the inside outrather than the outside in.
Ade Allenby (04:44):
Yeah, I thought it'd be useful to kind of start
off Really, first of all,understanding why integrations
are so important.
When I started at ReedExhibitions trying to bring new
event tech in new tools in, itwas kind of a means to an end.
But I think as my career hasprogressed in event technology,
(05:08):
it's just become so important toget integrations right.
And I think people shouldremember that integration
doesn't always mean automation.
It's a planned planning to havedata move from one place to
another, which can be aspreadsheet, which can be an
export and an import, as long asyou've planned that process,
because what you don't want isto have to do that on the fly.
(05:31):
But obviously, what we arereally recommending and what
we're trying to champion isautomated integrations and to
plan those integrations in termsof your customer journey and
what the projects I've done withBogdan.
We've really tried to providevalue for organizers by saying
(05:54):
look, let's take a step back andwalk through what you're
actually trying to do.
And people know when you take astep back, realize teams
realize that actually all thesebits should fit together in.
Sometimes data's in differentplaces, but you need to ask
yourself where's the data comingfrom, where do you want it to
get to, and what new eventfeatures would you like to add
(06:18):
that are going to then need thatdata in order to work properly?
So I'm thinking the main needsthose from large organizers.
You're usually talking aboutbigger integrations between the
Reg Platforms, CRMs, and thenkind of the event platforms like
(06:40):
the meetings platforms, theevent success platform, and what
those really need to focus onis a lot of platforms these days
already have integrations.
They have existing integrationsand then you don't have to do
that work bespoke because you'reusing, you want to have
(07:01):
advanced user as an organizationin CRM.
Then you're going to have lotsof custom objects and specific
ways of doing things that aretypical to events that you want
to be able to integrate thosequickly.
The more challenging situation,I think it is, you know from
from our exit that, Bogdan and Iworked with a few you know
(07:22):
organizers small to mid-sizedorganizers where they don't you
know the their tech stack isreally just kind of what they've
inherited as they've as they'vegone along.
You know which platforms of theadopted, which you know what
was the most cost effective at acertain time, which would hold
a specific type of data.
So you know data can be holding, held in different places and
(07:46):
be laborious to get data fromone place to another and
Therefore it's really importantto kind of walk through that
process and try and map out howyou can automate that as much as
possible.
And of course, you know thesedays there are there are a lot
of tools.
Not only our Event tech vendorsreally savvy you know there's
some really savvy vendors outthere about integrations but
(08:08):
there's other tools to help withthat, like like Zapier, etc.
And I did want to call out thatif you haven't seen the Grip
article on the ultimate eventtech stack, it's well worth a
read if you want to just Googlethat ultimate event text, that
really nice article helping youknow event professionals just
(08:29):
understand what what that textthat could look like should look
like and the way different waythe data could be integrating.
Bogdan Maran (08:37):
I think, just following up on on what you said
, it's it's been veryinteresting to dive into some
this midge, small and mid levelorganizers because you have that
experience from from RX, whichis huge.
It's this there in the top five, if not second.
I don't think they have bitinformed my yet, but there one.
(08:58):
When we went in to find outtheir challenges and after we
did some of the, the initialresearch, one of the things that
bumped into a but always bumpedup or always popped up, was the
point of truth.
Where does that data lie?
Can you tell us more about it?
A little bit more about that.
Ade Allenby (09:16):
Yes, I think you know we can think of multiple
examples where there's not oneplace, where where all the data
is being held and you know thatmay not seem important as well
as everybody's getting theirticket, or everybody's getting
registered, or from an, you know, exhibitor, sponsor perspective
(09:38):
.
But actually when you start tothin, try and add things to,
that becomes very difficult.
And so the first port of callis is to have your CRM as your
point of truth, because that'swhere your sales and marketing
data has to be the best datayou've got, because you want to
retain existing customers andyou want to people to come year
(10:01):
on year.
But it's, it's.
It's surprising how you know sowith some events it's basically
starting from zero every year.
You're not actually building onsaying, well, I already know
that about this group of people,so now as well, I know that if
I market to them in a certainway, that there's a good chance
that they'll attend, and I thinkyou know We'll talk about it
(10:23):
later on.
But you know, how do you gatherthat data?
How do you gather that?
Intelligence is reallyimportant.
Bogdan Maran (10:30):
And it's.
For one of the lessons thatwe've learned and it was
fascinating for me was the factthat it's not just about the
technology.
Integration and Having thepoint of truth, which is vital
because it helps you answerquestions down the line when you
really want questions we reallywant to ask questions and you
really want to have a deep diveinto what you're doing was the
integration between teams,because every team would have a
certain goal, a KPI or priorityfrom that perspective, and we
(10:55):
found that If they they are notaligned and they if they don't
move that data correctly or theycommunicate about that data
correctly, then at the end youdon't have that integrations.
And where I think it's becominginteresting, especially which
tools like, for example, eventmanager, when it's that, when
you have that point of truth,you can go then and switch
(11:15):
platforms depending on what youneed at that point, or rather
for that specific event, orbecause you might run multiple
events and some events might bemore focused on content, some
events might be more focused onnetworking, although you might
have your core.
Ade Allenby (11:28):
You can discover that change can be good because
it fits cultural differences,social differences, depending on
where and how you you you runthat, yeah, I think, think,
something we come up againstagain and again is that the, the
(11:49):
platform or the tech stack thatyou choose, it has to work for
the team almost before it canwork for the customer, and and
so you know, teams running offusing different parts of a stack
but not actually using it as ajoined up process Is is not
(12:12):
going to scale and it's it's notgoing to, you know, it's gonna
drive inefficiency absolutely IThink the word.
Bogdan Maran (12:20):
I don't know if, if you or Merijn came came up
with the moment of truth interms of receiving something at
the point of the journey, aremost likely to act on it,
regardless if it's pre event orpost event, but I really liked
it and that's one of Merijn wenton and on about this two
episodes ago, which was very funto listen to because the
(12:40):
behavior triggers are quiteimportant there.
Ade Allenby (12:45):
Yeah, that's.
You know.
If you, even if you just thinkabout you, know when are you
most likely to Favouritesomething in a schedule or
download the app, is that it'sat the moment when you you're
researching and you figuring howdo I get the most value out of
(13:05):
this and how can I?
How can I then I've alreadyseen these things that I really
like about the event how do Imake sure that I get the value
out of it, that I've got thefloor plan ready to go, that
I've got something?
I've started off looking atthings, at the few things that
I've favorited?
If it's an easy step into thatprocess, people will do it.
(13:32):
I remember a few years ago, rxwas experimenting with a floor
plan where it would lead youfrom the Reg process into a
floor plan which you couldactually then favor it things
without having to log in.
It would use cookies to do thatin a browser.
I thought that was a reallyelegant solution because it was
(13:54):
then giving you a reason to goback and create a login.
Bogdan Maran (13:59):
You mentioned, I think, going back to what we try
to do every Tuesday.
To give some practical examplesfrom that, you're looking,
especially with Allenby advisory.
You're looking acrosseverything from actual point of
sale to end event and the wholefeedback loop afterwards.
(14:20):
In our initial conversationsyou mentioned about the calendar
, booking and social advocacyand I know we've talked a lot
about that.
It's one of your favorite painpoints, to put it like that.
Ade Allenby (14:33):
I think there's different levels of automation.
There's a you've got to buildthese into, not only your event
but your ways of working.
For instance, at a task level,you're just having calendar
booking that works seamlessly,like whether it's Calendly or
(14:57):
Doodle or whatever you use, sothat you're not spending a lot
of time going back and forth onemails or ranging meetings.
Everybody should be doing that,but everybody isn't.
Hopefully, some of the more ofthe native tools are getting
better at that.
These days, using social mediato then allow your audience to
(15:21):
promote your event is just ano-brainer.
So it's putting the work intomaking sure that that's a
properly segmented campaignbetween speakers, exhibitors,
influencers, etc.
Then there's tools thatautomate processes within the
(15:43):
event.
Now there's lots of tools whichmake things simpler, like
meetings platforms designed tomake it easier to plan meetings,
to schedule meetings for yourparticipants.
But an example of an automatedprocess is where the platforms
use the preferences from thedifferent attendees to then
(16:08):
automate the matching processand then come up with a schedule
for all of the attendees.
That really does a heck of alot of heavy lifting for an
event team.
Then I think the overarchinglayer is this automating between
processes.
So you know that, becauseyou've registered, you want then
(16:32):
somebody to update their CRMrecord.
You want to all going to makesure that they're in the event
platform, the meeting schedule,so the meeting platform, so that
you're not then having to dothat.
Depending on the route they'vecome in, they'll have a route
through your process and thatwill be automated.
Merijn van Buuren (16:54):
And I think there it's also very important
to have that one point of truthwhere you know you want to store
that data, especially if youwant to if you're talking about
gathering information aboutattendees and you mentioned the
networking if you want to switchtools that you're not going to
lose all that data when you geta switching the tools, but you
actually have that in store.
(17:16):
As you mentioned, crm is theperfect place to have that one
source of truth.
And another thing that alsoplays a big role is those small
details along the way and havingthat overview.
I would like to go back to thepoint that we had on the agenda
a little bit earlier, but Ithink now is a good segue In
(17:38):
terms of the small details thatmatters.
You had some very good examplesin terms of not naming names,
not blaming anyone, but just togive people an idea in terms of
what a complete overview can docompared to going blindly into
something, and often you have tojust experience that to realize
the points you missed.
(17:58):
But because amongst us we havea lot of experience and you in
particular, you can educatepeople in terms of giving them
an idea of what those smalldetails, how much they impact
the whole process.
Ade Allenby (18:13):
And a lot of these small details only come through
making mistakes, only comethrough realizing something in
the moment, when things, in onerespect, things are doing quite
well.
But once you add volume andtraffic to things, that's when
(18:35):
they start to get stress tested.
And the two examples that Iwanted to discuss were both
around connectivity, becausewe're still seeing in 2024,
still seeing connectivity issuesin venues.
We've got rid of the challengeswith oh, will you download an
(18:57):
app?
Well, it takes 10 seconds onthe train on the way in, like,
you've got an unlimited gigabyteallowance, why wouldn't you do
it?
Those barriers have gone andnow it's the barrier of actually
being able to use the tools inthe new space and the advantage.
There's a kind of Pro and Conapp cases out there web apps,
(19:22):
progressive web apps or nativeapps.
Well, obviously, one of the keyadvantages of native apps is
you can download everythingbefore the event.
Obviously, there's progressiveweb apps to do that to some
extent, but the idea is thatyou've got native features of
the app as well as the abilityto download.
(19:44):
And the example that I wantedto give was when having a floor
plan integrated with a nativeapp, but actually integrating a
web view rather than an embeddedview of the app.
So there was the opportunity tohave the app so that everybody
(20:06):
that had downloaded it beforethey entered the venue could
open it, open it up and open thefloor plan.
The situation we foundourselves in was that, because
it was a web view, it had toreload every time that the user
wanted to view the map, which isonce in venues with poor
(20:27):
connectivity.
You start looking at thespinning wheel and there's only
so much time you're going togive it.
And that brings me on to thesecond point, which is I've done
a lot of work over the years inlead capture and one of the
surefire ways to capture leadwith no barriers is that it's a
(20:50):
little handheld device with thebarcode scanner on it.
But that's a handheld device.
It could get lost, but itfulfills a good value
proposition for most exhibitorsbecause they can pass it around,
they know that the leads are onthere.
They don't need connectivity,whereas event platforms and
(21:12):
specific vendors are providingapps for lead scanning.
But obviously, when thatconnectivity, when the
connectivity is poor, you startto see the spinning wheel.
As you scan a lead and use, thewheel spins and it's not
pulling the data in from thelead.
Now you can have an offlinecapability for an app, but the
(21:36):
question is and the detail partis, when does the app know that
it's not connected?
Because as long as it'sspinning the wheel, it thinks
there is a bit of connectivitythere.
So you have to make sure thatyour user experience is so that
if there's some you know atimeout or a recognition that
(21:57):
it's in a kind of lowconnectivity state rather than a
no connectivity state, becauseas soon as you start to get that
spinning wheel and some highvolume users of scanning apps,
they are making the way to theorganizers office to complain
(22:19):
very, very quickly.
Merijn van Buuren (22:21):
And I love those examples of small details
that matter.
Now, in terms of strategic techchoices, you have worked with
many different varieties ofhaving people make those
strategic tech choices In termsof a tech mix that grows as the
(22:42):
event grows.
Can you give us some examplesin terms of where to start?
Small events versus big events,the size in that regard?
Ade Allenby (22:51):
Yeah, I think that each event is on a bit of a
journey in terms of the way thatthe event is structured to
provide value for the attendeeand for the exhibitor, and so
therefore, you know there's onedimension of that is the
physical size of the event, andthen you know is it, does it
(23:16):
have a high amount of content atthe event?
And also then there's adimension of how much tech are
people used to, because you knowit's the case that if you have
a tool that people find usefuland you haven't got it the
following year, then you know,then there's disappointments.
(23:38):
But you have to build that overtime and it is a year on year
thing and it's classic.
You know, question over the.
You know how do you engage yearon year when there's so much
time between each?
But I think for newer, smallerevents, you've got to start
(23:58):
where your customers start andthey're just discovering the
event.
There's more going to be more.
You know, first time users,first time visitors, and so the
discovery phase is key.
You need to make sure thatyou've got an easy to use
exhibitor list, attendee list,depending.
(24:19):
You know it could be aconference, but you want to know
who is there and having theguide whether that's the
schedule of content or a floorplan is so important to make
sure that people can easily seewhere to start their day and how
to get the most value out ofthe day.
(24:39):
And then, as an event grows,there's going to be more need
for tech to support that.
You know a smaller show.
You can get around the show ina matter of you know minutes,
you can see from one end of thehall to the other.
But as the show grows, you wantto be able to.
You know there's a lot ofpeople there and a lot of things
(25:01):
to see.
So booking meetings is moreimportant matchmaking,
scheduling meetings, even thengrowing to meeting concierge,
dedicated meeting areas andthings like that as it grows.
But this is all about thinkingas it can.
You know what's the minimum thecustomer needs, what's the
minimum the user needs toactually get value out of show,
(25:25):
because that's probably all thatthey're going to use.
You're always going to get somesuper users who kind of want
more out of it, but you've gotto cater for that majority.
So, you know, we recommendthinking in the horizons of
where you want to get to interms of the event tools and
(25:46):
something that I'm really youknow, I'm really passionate
about is don't advertise yourtools as some kind of like now
you register for the event,there's some tools we've got.
I think the tools should bepart of how people get value out
of the event.
So come through our then,because this, will you know, our
(26:09):
tools will enable you to get todeliver on on its promise.
You know, to deliver on whatyou want, and I think you know
people try and, you know, put alot of effort into creating
brands for their events.
But I think making the toolspart of that brand make you know
the brand promise and the valueis critical to getting adoption
(26:32):
and success.
Merijn van Buuren (26:33):
I really like the point on the one oh yeah,
because I think it's also a verygood example of a different way
of integration, where it's notjust tech integration but
strategy integration, in termsof your tools, integrating them
into your strategy, but boththen.
Bogdan Maran (26:49):
Oh no, no, it's why I really liked it is because
I'm more geeky.
So I'm very much when you go toa client and we go and do those
mirror boards and then Adam,who hopefully join us on the
show as well, does all his lucidart, data flows and charts and
everything else and it lookedlike 10 steps ahead and then it
comes very calm.
(27:11):
Let's look in horizons and he'sabsolutely right, because we
are geeky and we are used toworking with, with technology
and we are looking from thatperspective, which is a
fantastic point of view becausewe really enjoy it.
But you need to get both theclients and the more importantly
, as we said at the beginningthe teams inside the events to
use it, because if we would, youwould spit out everything and
(27:31):
put everything in front of them.
They wouldn't even know wherethe value is, and that's why I
really like the horizon approach.
Ade Allenby (27:37):
You need to take a breath as a team, say, look,
we've got enough.
Now let's iterate on that a fewtimes.
The classic example with one ofour current clients is they're
going to get to use the tool setwe've given them for the next
few events during this year, andthen they'll know what to add
next.
But you can foreshadow that bysaying this is the next thing.
Bogdan Maran (28:00):
that is really possible that we, looking at the
way you serve your customers,would help talking about moving
forward and I've my will ofdeath has stopped spinning, so I
actually have my sticky notesand it's.
It's nice, because it is verymuch a sticky note guy as far as
I've learned today.
So, that has no wheel of death.
(28:20):
But talking about technologyand talking about looking
forward, we can talk aboutemerging technologies because we
there are some good players,some established players,
especially in the, in the leadand retrieval, in the
registration part.
But where does, where do youget excited about technology,
looking forward?
Ade Allenby (28:39):
Well, you know, for a number of years now I've been
interested in thosetechnologies which, you know,
kind of ignite the insights anddata that we've got from the
show floor.
You know, I remember a modelfrom years ago about, you know,
a B2B model.
(29:00):
You're trying to get in a B2Bmarketing sense.
You're trying to get peopleinterested in big pieces of
content so you can imply whattheir needs are.
But really, you know, like youimagine, how many times you read
an article in a normal, youknow, in a normal walk of life,
maybe once every week if you'relucky, but maybe less than every
(29:23):
few weeks.
So how often do these signalsreally come up?
Whereas once you get in anevent environment, you're going
to see, you know, three seminarsin a row and then you visit
another one because you've seensomething and it's inspired you
and you've gone to the next one.
So you're generating all thisdata and then you visit the
products and get the demosassociated with those ideas.
(29:44):
So there's a rich source ofdata about what people are
interested in, where the journeyis going to go next.
So you know engagement tech.
You know the tech to enablevisitors to capture information
easily, you know, and thevarious formats out there, be it
(30:04):
NFC, be it QR code, be it appdriven that then the exhibitor
can showcase what they've got onoffer and the visitor can take
that, rather than it being, youknow, a lead which may or may
not get followed up by theexhibitor.
I think you know thosetechnologies.
(30:25):
There's some great cameratechnologies, some great, you
know, visual AI technologies outthere as well, as you know.
Then, the matching technologies, which are only going to get
better when you think about whatthe likes of chat GPT can do
with content to feed into it.
So you know, that's been thecore of my interest.
(30:47):
But I also, you know, I've seensome other nice pieces of tech
coming about which provides somenew opportunities.
You know, like just last weeksaw Expo 360 is a great way, you
know, visualize your event andthen use it as a way to market
(31:07):
and sell your event afterwardsand provide more lead
opportunity by showing what goeson on your show floor.
I think shout out social is areally good tool to help curate
video.
Everybody's got too much video.
This helps, you know, clip andpush those videos out super
(31:28):
quickly.
And also Get Pica.
I would have the pleasure ofhosting a talk with Claudia from
Get Pica the other week, whereyou are.
You've got lots of photographsfrom your events but this allows
people to take a selfie andthen see all of the photos that
(31:48):
they featured on.
Obviously really great withinfluencers and speakers to help
them push out your content.
So you know some nice, somenice little tools out there that
are really adding value.
Bogdan Maran (32:03):
It's very nice because I like that you went to
the video, which is kind of myfavorite subject, and video and
photos because of my previousone previous experience and it's
and I'm going to go moretowards floor planning rather
than that because, yes, thereare.
It's nice that we have thetechnology now to get more of
the content and curate thecontent better.
I think I like I liked thereare two more companies like
(32:27):
Capcat Pictury and they do verygood jobs from that perspective.
But I was fascinated last weekof our conversation of how we
talking about integrations,about the floor planning,
especially around FFair andIventis and Crowd Connected,
about how those three can worktogether and that's from a data
(32:47):
visualization point of view.
It's absolutely fantastic.
Ade Allenby (32:52):
Yeah, I think you know FFair has really, I think,
filled the space and added valuewhere in this exhibitor, the
exhibitor onboarding space and,and you know, my advice to
pretty much any event team, anyany organizer, is try and get
(33:14):
some mystery shopping on yourexhibit experience because you
know they are notoriouslychallenging to make into a
seamless process and then toprovide value like data on you
know the outcomes and stuff likethat.
So you know, if you can startto understand where some of the
gaps are in your process, thenyou're going to be able to
(33:37):
retain exhibitors a lot better.
And I think FFair is with twoF's is FFair.
Bogdan Maran (33:45):
Which means I found out last week that it
means expo in Welsh, which Ireally liked because I didn't
know how to James was kindly to,kind enough to help me but it's
, I think, FFair is one of thosetools which is not nice to have
.
It's a must have as a specific,not necessarily just them, but
the principle of sorry, my doggot excited the principle of the
(34:05):
principle of those two thatit's nice to have and it would
be very good and would add valueif you know how to use them.
But those tools like planningand visualizations should become
a must have, like the expo 360thing that the FFair that you've
mentioned run events.
I think we had a conversationabout those as well and they're
very, very good.
Merijn van Buuren (34:28):
Can we go quickly back to actually the
first topic, because I seeJulius Solaris actually asked
our video clippers of any use.
I find that most are amazing onpaper but the results are very
poor.
And I know especially, Bogdan.
Have a go at it because I thinkit's an interesting topic, it's
(34:50):
very much top of mind forpeople.
Bogdan Maran (34:53):
It's my favorite topic.
I think I'll do a third.
I try to do a 30 second andthen I'll let Ade.
I think the first thing thatevent organizers need to learn
is the word editorialized andwhat it means and how it's being
used.
Then go to things like clipperor all the other things that are
on the market and shout out anduse that.
(35:13):
But the AI editing tools andthat's why I liked the shout out
to shout out is because the punis, because it's not a.
I is not about clippingautomatically.
It's about knowing and addingcontext for your knowledge,
which these tools don't have yet, but will get to the point
where we will have it.
And it's just about how youapply it and the team, where you
go with the team.
(35:33):
So the tools are as good as theuser, and the user needs to be
trained because we don't reallyknow how to use content in the
events industry.
Ade Allenby (35:43):
I like this idea of the tools that give your event
event superpowers, because whatI liked about the conversation I
have with Dan from Shout outwas that he said this is about a
collapse, setting up acollaborative, collaborative
(36:03):
network.
So at the event you've gotpeople out there on the floor
who are sending in clips to acentral platform and then easily
top and tailing them with somebranded some, you know some
branded intro and outro, andthen it's out there and so,
whether it's a quick box pop orinterview or you know a clip
(36:24):
from a, from a session or a talk, it's immediately getting out
there.
So I think but again, witheverything you've got to see
that You've got to set it up forsuccess and you've got to kind
of have a plan in mind the ideaof the tool is that you can be
fleet of foot and you can.
You know you can go to thething that's interesting and
make a content out of that, andso you know you can have
(36:47):
contributors and then somebodyediting and pushing out
centrally but super quick, and Ithink that's the.
That's the piece that getsmissed, because you know it's
often something that happensafter the show and then you've
lost the moment.
Bogdan Maran (37:02):
Can I just add just a quick thought on that
question?
It's, it's, I think, for me andI know I've rented to, at least
to the two of you over and overabout the difference between
user generated content, which isfantastic, and the user curated
content and the tools that theevents organizers need is that
the tools that allow them tointeract with the nice produced
(37:22):
content that you get from getpick our, from any AV or from
shout out.
So give them the tools tointeract with that, but don't
give them the tools just to dosomething automatic, because
they have their own knowledge,love it.
Merijn van Buuren (37:33):
And to add my two cents on it.
I think they're very useful ingeneral that the tools as in on
paper, mainly because I agreethat the quality is often not
there yet, it cuts videoshalfway and they still have to
go back into editing.
But in terms of quickly gettingsome, some clips that highlight
(37:55):
the, that show you somehighlights which you can then
mainly just do a quick edit onit yourself to get the actual
highlight how it should be, itdoes save some time in terms of
skipping, like when I used to gothrough the content that I
created and I had to go througha whole video and really listen
to every second and be like, oh,second, one to second is where
(38:18):
it's a highlight one and thenminute one to one.
Then is the highlight to.
It's going to take you a longtime and I can speed up that
process so it makes you moreefficient.
It kind of picks out thehighlights for you.
It's relatively good at that.
But then the details, theediting, you still need some
hands on approach, but they willget better in the future.
Bogdan Maran (38:41):
So oh, I'm just there, yeah, yeah, mainly
because I'm working on one, soit's not selling point, but yeah
, no, it launched the out byyour right.
It's the attention to details,because that's the episode.
Right, it's attention todetails and it's as we said,
it's as much as about trainingthe teams for the events to
(39:01):
actually use those tools and notpush everything when you can't
push a content tool and youdon't have a content team.
And by content team I didn'tmean the very the guys who work
very hard to actually put thecontent on the stage, but the
guys who use that content andtransform your event company
into a media company.
Merijn van Buuren (39:19):
Amen, I see we are.
We have flown through time.
It's already actually outsideof our time zone timeframe.
But I know that there is a lastpiece of advice Ade wanted
wanted to share with us, and itcomes down to matching your
technology to your event and notthe other way around.
Maybe you can close off at thatone.
Ade Allenby (39:38):
Yeah, I think you know when something's going to
work for you, when you'relistening to a demo and you're
going, yeah, I've got that, I'vegot that problem, or yeah, I
wanted to be able to do that.
What what I witnessed, you knowmany times, was that obviously,
you know event teams are hardat it, you know we've got so
(40:00):
many problems to solve, but thetemptation is to say, yes, but
can I do this thing that Ireally wanted to do?
And then, of course, thevendor's going to go, yeah, it
could do that, and.
And so I think there's a.
You know there could be achallenge around trying to make
a platform sort of bend to intothe.
(40:22):
You know what your event wants,but vice versa, you can.
I suppose you know this iswhere you know people like us
can help, because we've seenwhat actually you know one of
the pros and cons of differentplatforms and and there isn't
the one size fits all, but Ithink that's a.
It's just a good rule of thumbto say you know, is it, is it
(40:47):
the platform matching your needsor you get your needs, you know
to match on for, you know,hitherto unspecified
functionality.
Merijn van Buuren (40:58):
I think that's a great takeaway for
people to go home with.
Obviously, we will be divinginto a next topic next week.
Actually have another guest,brian Monaham.
I'm looking very much forwardto that one.
It's about the kind ofbreakpoint between AV and
technology and hosting an eventin different formats, whether
(41:21):
that's virtual, hybrid, inperson, and how you can better
optimize your communication withthem to organize better events.
So make sure to come around fornext week If there are any
questions other than Bob givinga shout out to to Ade.
Great discussion.
Thank you guys.
Well, thank Bob for for joiningus.
It's been our pleasure.
(41:41):
If there are any questions,make sure to drop them.
Whilst I'm wrapping up thissession, we'll be happy to jump
into those.
But yeah, in the meantime, Ithink I want to give a big thank
you to Ade for for joining ustoday.
I have a little bit of anadditional in terms of what he's
(42:02):
actually doing with Allenb yAdvisory, I think you get an
idea in terms of what hisexperience is, but it's good for
you to know what he actually isdoing and how he can help you
target or tackle these smalldetails and make sure you have
that full overview, that birdseye view, of your event so you
can better optimize and createbetter event experiences.
(42:24):
They actually focus a lot aboutaudience engagement, onboarding
, integrations and ensures youselect tools aligned with your
audience and resources, as youmentioned, make sure you
actually match the righttechnology to your event or
instead of your event totechnology, but also fostering
(42:47):
communities, optimizing contentand CRM utilization.
They offer flexible retainersor project based solutions, so
make sure to reach out to Ade Ifyou need any help, because they
have the expertise to elevateyour events.
I do not see any questionscoming in, so I think yes, thank
(43:10):
, you very much and see you nextTuesday.
Bogdan Maran (43:12):
And thank you very much.
It has been an absolutepleasure to have you here.
Ade Allenby (43:14):
That's great as the first guest.
Bogdan Maran (43:16):
The bar is very high from now, I love.
Ade Allenby (43:20):
I love.
I love chatting e vent tech.
I liked hearing new stories ofpeople's challenges, so this is
a this is a great forum.
Thanks for having me.
Merijn van Buuren (43:30):
Absolutely pleasure, our pleasure, and with
that, we're looking forward toseeing all of you next week in a
discussion about AV and how youcan apply that to different
event formats, how to juggle thein person, hybrid and virtual
events, which is going to beanother exciting episode where
I'm looking very much forward to.
(43:51):
But for now, thank you all forbeing here.
Thank, Ade, again again forjoining us and, yeah, we're
looking forward to the next one.
Bogdan Maran (43:59):
Thanks, thank.
You have a lovely day.
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Event, the show where
we focus on real insights,technical solutions, and
everything event tech.
Really, we are so excited fortoday because special guest you
probably have seen the post, butwe will keep you waiting for a
few seconds because, before weget started, let me introduce
you to my favorite co-host,Bogdan Maran, the man who loves
(00:35):
integrations, data visualization, a real data storyteller,
founder of Visual Hive and AIcontent for event platform.
Definitely check them out aswell, Bogdan.
It's so good to see you.
Welcome back.
Bogdan Maran (00:50):
Absolutely great.
It's so fun to be here everyTuesday.
It gives me a scope in life toget past Monday and get to the
fun bit.
Thank you very much for yourkind words.
Let me introduce my very kindco-host.
Merijn is a guru ofintegrations.
He's the founder of EventMender as well, but he has been
(01:11):
working with hundreds of eventorganizers and with event
technology providers, so he'sbeen on both sides.
When it comes to integrationsand using anything from the API
or to multiple other code-basedfunctions, he's the guy to go to
.
But I would go to him when itcomes to strategy because I
really like how he's thinkingabout everything.
(01:32):
I think, without further ado,today is very special because we
are going to have with us verygood friend of mine and a man I
really really, really like andadore, which we have here now on
the screen.
Welcome Ade.
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Event.
Ade Allenby (01:50):
Hello.
Bogdan Maran (01:52):
Thank you very much for joining us.
For those who don't know Ade: Ade helps event organizers (01:53):
undefined
assess, deploy and maximize thebenefits of event technology to
increase revenue and NPS.
I think his background is indigital product management,
having worked for 10 years intelecoms industry although he's
only 25 now and he's managing todeliver transformation in sales
(02:14):
, marketing and servicefunctions.
Ade joined the event industryin 2015, so about just a bit
after I came to London workingspecifically for
Reed-exhibitions, now RX Global,as global head of digital
innovation.
That's how I've met Adesomewhere at Fox, after an ETL
(02:35):
or a conference.
It was actually in shortage atETL, I think that we first met,
Tested, Tested to link.
Definitely.
I've been very keen to workwith him and to work with him
because he helped dozens ofproducts, of products through
testing and implementation withthe best scaling globally.
He now works as a freelance fororganizers and vendors under
(02:58):
the hat of Allenby Advisory,where I'm very fortunate to join
him for some of the projectsand then know him from time to
time, and he's helping bringproducts and customer
experiences to get theresuccessfully.
So welcome Ade, and I'll do thelittle transition here, because
you have the white, the beardshow now, as Ade said earlier,
(03:19):
when we had the chat.
Ade Allenby (03:21):
Yeah, Thank you.
Thank you Merijn, Thank youBogdan.
It's brilliant to be here withtwo legends of Event Tech.
Thank you for having me.
Bogdan Maran (03:31):
Oh, I've missed our absolute special.
Merijn van Buuren (03:35):
No worries, I think we're all Anyone's
getting dizzy yeah it's alwaysmy fault.
Bogdan Maran (03:40):
Look, I've been married for 10 years.
It's always my fault.
Regardless of what happens,It's always my fault.
Merijn van Buuren (03:47):
Well, we are on the right place.
We have the right third lowerthird underneath us, so you can
all see who's who and what iswhat.
And we couldn't be more excitedto have Ade with so much
experience in the industry, butalso a lot of experience when it
comes to fine-tuning yourevents tech and behavioral
insights and that's what it'sall about.
(04:08):
Today, I think we're kicking itoff with integration stories.
We're going to dive a bit moreinto the vision of Ade.
Behind integration, the bigpicture, which is what everyone
has been joining for, we'll diveinto the little things.
We have some automation there.
We'll give you some real lifeexamples and much more.
So stick to the end to makesure you get all the information
(04:30):
you need to run an effectiveevent.
And without or with that, Iwould say Ade.
The floor is all yours.
Maybe you can tell us a littlebit more how you think about
integrations from the inside outrather than the outside in.
Ade Allenby (04:44):
Yeah, I thought it'd be useful to kind of start
off Really, first of all,understanding why integrations
are so important.
When I started at ReedExhibitions trying to bring new
event tech in new tools in, itwas kind of a means to an end.
But I think as my career hasprogressed in event technology,
(05:08):
it's just become so important toget integrations right.
And I think people shouldremember that integration
doesn't always mean automation.
It's a planned planning to havedata move from one place to
another, which can be aspreadsheet, which can be an
export and an import, as long asyou've planned that process,
because what you don't want isto have to do that on the fly.
(05:31):
But obviously, what we arereally recommending and what
we're trying to champion isautomated integrations and to
plan those integrations in termsof your customer journey and
what the projects I've done withBogdan.
We've really tried to providevalue for organizers by saying
(05:54):
look, let's take a step back andwalk through what you're
actually trying to do.
And people know when you take astep back, realize teams
realize that actually all thesebits should fit together in.
Sometimes data's in differentplaces, but you need to ask
yourself where's the data comingfrom, where do you want it to
get to, and what new eventfeatures would you like to add
(06:18):
that are going to then need thatdata in order to work properly?
So I'm thinking the main needsthose from large organizers.
You're usually talking aboutbigger integrations between the
Reg Platforms, CRMs, and thenkind of the event platforms like
(06:40):
the meetings platforms, theevent success platform, and what
those really need to focus onis a lot of platforms these days
already have integrations.
They have existing integrationsand then you don't have to do
that work bespoke because you'reusing, you want to have
(07:01):
advanced user as an organizationin CRM.
Then you're going to have lotsof custom objects and specific
ways of doing things that aretypical to events that you want
to be able to integrate thosequickly.
The more challenging situation,I think it is, you know from
from our exit that, Bogdan and Iworked with a few you know
(07:22):
organizers small to mid-sizedorganizers where they don't you
know the their tech stack isreally just kind of what they've
inherited as they've as they'vegone along.
You know which platforms of theadopted, which you know what
was the most cost effective at acertain time, which would hold
a specific type of data.
So you know data can be holding, held in different places and
(07:46):
be laborious to get data fromone place to another and
Therefore it's really importantto kind of walk through that
process and try and map out howyou can automate that as much as
possible.
And of course, you know thesedays there are there are a lot
of tools.
Not only our Event tech vendorsreally savvy you know there's
some really savvy vendors outthere about integrations but
(08:08):
there's other tools to help withthat, like like Zapier, etc.
And I did want to call out thatif you haven't seen the Grip
article on the ultimate eventtech stack, it's well worth a
read if you want to just Googlethat ultimate event text, that
really nice article helping youknow event professionals just
(08:29):
understand what what that textthat could look like should look
like and the way different waythe data could be integrating.
Bogdan Maran (08:37):
I think, just following up on on what you said
, it's it's been veryinteresting to dive into some
this midge, small and mid levelorganizers because you have that
experience from from RX, whichis huge.
It's this there in the top five, if not second.
I don't think they have bitinformed my yet, but there one.
(08:58):
When we went in to find outtheir challenges and after we
did some of the, the initialresearch, one of the things that
bumped into a but always bumpedup or always popped up, was the
point of truth.
Where does that data lie?
Can you tell us more about it?
A little bit more about that.
Ade Allenby (09:16):
Yes, I think you know we can think of multiple
examples where there's not oneplace, where where all the data
is being held and you know thatmay not seem important as well
as everybody's getting theirticket, or everybody's getting
registered, or from an, you know, exhibitor, sponsor perspective
(09:38):
.
But actually when you start tothin, try and add things to,
that becomes very difficult.
And so the first port of callis is to have your CRM as your
point of truth, because that'swhere your sales and marketing
data has to be the best datayou've got, because you want to
retain existing customers andyou want to people to come year
(10:01):
on year.
But it's, it's.
It's surprising how you know sowith some events it's basically
starting from zero every year.
You're not actually building onsaying, well, I already know
that about this group of people,so now as well, I know that if
I market to them in a certainway, that there's a good chance
that they'll attend, and I thinkyou know We'll talk about it
(10:23):
later on.
But you know, how do you gatherthat data?
How do you gather that?
Intelligence is reallyimportant.
Bogdan Maran (10:30):
And it's.
For one of the lessons thatwe've learned and it was
fascinating for me was the factthat it's not just about the
technology.
Integration and Having thepoint of truth, which is vital
because it helps you answerquestions down the line when you
really want questions we reallywant to ask questions and you
really want to have a deep diveinto what you're doing was the
integration between teams,because every team would have a
certain goal, a KPI or priorityfrom that perspective, and we
(10:55):
found that If they they are notaligned and they if they don't
move that data correctly or theycommunicate about that data
correctly, then at the end youdon't have that integrations.
And where I think it's becominginteresting, especially which
tools like, for example, eventmanager, when it's that, when
you have that point of truth,you can go then and switch
(11:15):
platforms depending on what youneed at that point, or rather
for that specific event, orbecause you might run multiple
events and some events might bemore focused on content, some
events might be more focused onnetworking, although you might
have your core.
Ade Allenby (11:28):
You can discover that change can be good because
it fits cultural differences,social differences, depending on
where and how you you you runthat, yeah, I think, think,
something we come up againstagain and again is that the, the
(11:49):
platform or the tech stack thatyou choose, it has to work for
the team almost before it canwork for the customer, and and
so you know, teams running offusing different parts of a stack
but not actually using it as ajoined up process Is is not
(12:12):
going to scale and it's it's notgoing to, you know, it's gonna
drive inefficiency absolutely IThink the word.
Bogdan Maran (12:20):
I don't know if, if you or Merijn came came up
with the moment of truth interms of receiving something at
the point of the journey, aremost likely to act on it,
regardless if it's pre event orpost event, but I really liked
it and that's one of Merijn wenton and on about this two
episodes ago, which was very funto listen to because the
(12:40):
behavior triggers are quiteimportant there.
Ade Allenby (12:45):
Yeah, that's.
You know.
If you, even if you just thinkabout you, know when are you
most likely to Favouritesomething in a schedule or
download the app, is that it'sat the moment when you you're
researching and you figuring howdo I get the most value out of
(13:05):
this and how can I?
How can I then I've alreadyseen these things that I really
like about the event how do Imake sure that I get the value
out of it, that I've got thefloor plan ready to go, that
I've got something?
I've started off looking atthings, at the few things that
I've favorited?
If it's an easy step into thatprocess, people will do it.
(13:32):
I remember a few years ago, rxwas experimenting with a floor
plan where it would lead youfrom the Reg process into a
floor plan which you couldactually then favor it things
without having to log in.
It would use cookies to do thatin a browser.
I thought that was a reallyelegant solution because it was
(13:54):
then giving you a reason to goback and create a login.
Bogdan Maran (13:59):
You mentioned, I think, going back to what we try
to do every Tuesday.
To give some practical examplesfrom that, you're looking,
especially with Allenby advisory.
You're looking acrosseverything from actual point of
sale to end event and the wholefeedback loop afterwards.
(14:20):
In our initial conversationsyou mentioned about the calendar
, booking and social advocacyand I know we've talked a lot
about that.
It's one of your favorite painpoints, to put it like that.
Ade Allenby (14:33):
I think there's different levels of automation.
There's a you've got to buildthese into, not only your event
but your ways of working.
For instance, at a task level,you're just having calendar
booking that works seamlessly,like whether it's Calendly or
(14:57):
Doodle or whatever you use, sothat you're not spending a lot
of time going back and forth onemails or ranging meetings.
Everybody should be doing that,but everybody isn't.
Hopefully, some of the more ofthe native tools are getting
better at that.
These days, using social mediato then allow your audience to
(15:21):
promote your event is just ano-brainer.
So it's putting the work intomaking sure that that's a
properly segmented campaignbetween speakers, exhibitors,
influencers, etc.
Then there's tools thatautomate processes within the
(15:43):
event.
Now there's lots of tools whichmake things simpler, like
meetings platforms designed tomake it easier to plan meetings,
to schedule meetings for yourparticipants.
But an example of an automatedprocess is where the platforms
use the preferences from thedifferent attendees to then
(16:08):
automate the matching processand then come up with a schedule
for all of the attendees.
That really does a heck of alot of heavy lifting for an
event team.
Then I think the overarchinglayer is this automating between
processes.
So you know that, becauseyou've registered, you want then
(16:32):
somebody to update their CRMrecord.
You want to all going to makesure that they're in the event
platform, the meeting schedule,so the meeting platform, so that
you're not then having to dothat.
Depending on the route they'vecome in, they'll have a route
through your process and thatwill be automated.
Merijn van Buuren (16:54):
And I think there it's also very important
to have that one point of truthwhere you know you want to store
that data, especially if youwant to if you're talking about
gathering information aboutattendees and you mentioned the
networking if you want to switchtools that you're not going to
lose all that data when you geta switching the tools, but you
actually have that in store.
(17:16):
As you mentioned, crm is theperfect place to have that one
source of truth.
And another thing that alsoplays a big role is those small
details along the way and havingthat overview.
I would like to go back to thepoint that we had on the agenda
a little bit earlier, but Ithink now is a good segue In
(17:38):
terms of the small details thatmatters.
You had some very good examplesin terms of not naming names,
not blaming anyone, but just togive people an idea in terms of
what a complete overview can docompared to going blindly into
something, and often you have tojust experience that to realize
the points you missed.
(17:58):
But because amongst us we havea lot of experience and you in
particular, you can educatepeople in terms of giving them
an idea of what those smalldetails, how much they impact
the whole process.
Ade Allenby (18:13):
And a lot of these small details only come through
making mistakes, only comethrough realizing something in
the moment, when things, in onerespect, things are doing quite
well.
But once you add volume andtraffic to things, that's when
(18:35):
they start to get stress tested.
And the two examples that Iwanted to discuss were both
around connectivity, becausewe're still seeing in 2024,
still seeing connectivity issuesin venues.
We've got rid of the challengeswith oh, will you download an
(18:57):
app?
Well, it takes 10 seconds onthe train on the way in, like,
you've got an unlimited gigabyteallowance, why wouldn't you do
it?
Those barriers have gone andnow it's the barrier of actually
being able to use the tools inthe new space and the advantage.
There's a kind of Pro and Conapp cases out there web apps,
(19:22):
progressive web apps or nativeapps.
Well, obviously, one of the keyadvantages of native apps is
you can download everythingbefore the event.
Obviously, there's progressiveweb apps to do that to some
extent, but the idea is thatyou've got native features of
the app as well as the abilityto download.
(19:44):
And the example that I wantedto give was when having a floor
plan integrated with a nativeapp, but actually integrating a
web view rather than an embeddedview of the app.
So there was the opportunity tohave the app so that everybody
(20:06):
that had downloaded it beforethey entered the venue could
open it, open it up and open thefloor plan.
The situation we foundourselves in was that, because
it was a web view, it had toreload every time that the user
wanted to view the map, which isonce in venues with poor
(20:27):
connectivity.
You start looking at thespinning wheel and there's only
so much time you're going togive it.
And that brings me on to thesecond point, which is I've done
a lot of work over the years inlead capture and one of the
surefire ways to capture leadwith no barriers is that it's a
(20:50):
little handheld device with thebarcode scanner on it.
But that's a handheld device.
It could get lost, but itfulfills a good value
proposition for most exhibitorsbecause they can pass it around,
they know that the leads are onthere.
They don't need connectivity,whereas event platforms and
(21:12):
specific vendors are providingapps for lead scanning.
But obviously, when thatconnectivity, when the
connectivity is poor, you startto see the spinning wheel.
As you scan a lead and use, thewheel spins and it's not
pulling the data in from thelead.
Now you can have an offlinecapability for an app, but the
(21:36):
question is and the detail partis, when does the app know that
it's not connected?
Because as long as it'sspinning the wheel, it thinks
there is a bit of connectivitythere.
So you have to make sure thatyour user experience is so that
if there's some you know atimeout or a recognition that
(21:57):
it's in a kind of lowconnectivity state rather than a
no connectivity state, becauseas soon as you start to get that
spinning wheel and some highvolume users of scanning apps,
they are making the way to theorganizers office to complain
(22:19):
very, very quickly.
Merijn van Buuren (22:21):
And I love those examples of small details
that matter.
Now, in terms of strategic techchoices, you have worked with
many different varieties ofhaving people make those
strategic tech choices In termsof a tech mix that grows as the
(22:42):
event grows.
Can you give us some examplesin terms of where to start?
Small events versus big events,the size in that regard?
Ade Allenby (22:51):
Yeah, I think that each event is on a bit of a
journey in terms of the way thatthe event is structured to
provide value for the attendeeand for the exhibitor, and so
therefore, you know there's onedimension of that is the
physical size of the event, andthen you know is it, does it
(23:16):
have a high amount of content atthe event?
And also then there's adimension of how much tech are
people used to, because you knowit's the case that if you have
a tool that people find usefuland you haven't got it the
following year, then you know,then there's disappointments.
(23:38):
But you have to build that overtime and it is a year on year
thing and it's classic.
You know, question over the.
You know how do you engage yearon year when there's so much
time between each?
But I think for newer, smallerevents, you've got to start
(23:58):
where your customers start andthey're just discovering the
event.
There's more going to be more.
You know, first time users,first time visitors, and so the
discovery phase is key.
You need to make sure thatyou've got an easy to use
exhibitor list, attendee list,depending.
(24:19):
You know it could be aconference, but you want to know
who is there and having theguide whether that's the
schedule of content or a floorplan is so important to make
sure that people can easily seewhere to start their day and how
to get the most value out ofthe day.
(24:39):
And then, as an event grows,there's going to be more need
for tech to support that.
You know a smaller show.
You can get around the show ina matter of you know minutes,
you can see from one end of thehall to the other.
But as the show grows, you wantto be able to.
You know there's a lot ofpeople there and a lot of things
(25:01):
to see.
So booking meetings is moreimportant matchmaking,
scheduling meetings, even thengrowing to meeting concierge,
dedicated meeting areas andthings like that as it grows.
But this is all about thinkingas it can.
You know what's the minimum thecustomer needs, what's the
minimum the user needs toactually get value out of show,
(25:25):
because that's probably all thatthey're going to use.
You're always going to get somesuper users who kind of want
more out of it, but you've gotto cater for that majority.
So, you know, we recommendthinking in the horizons of
where you want to get to interms of the event tools and
(25:46):
something that I'm really youknow, I'm really passionate
about is don't advertise yourtools as some kind of like now
you register for the event,there's some tools we've got.
I think the tools should bepart of how people get value out
of the event.
So come through our then,because this, will you know, our
(26:09):
tools will enable you to get todeliver on on its promise.
You know, to deliver on whatyou want, and I think you know
people try and, you know, put alot of effort into creating
brands for their events.
But I think making the toolspart of that brand make you know
the brand promise and the valueis critical to getting adoption
(26:32):
and success.
Merijn van Buuren (26:33):
I really like the point on the one oh yeah,
because I think it's also a verygood example of a different way
of integration, where it's notjust tech integration but
strategy integration, in termsof your tools, integrating them
into your strategy, but boththen.
Bogdan Maran (26:49):
Oh no, no, it's why I really liked it is because
I'm more geeky.
So I'm very much when you go toa client and we go and do those
mirror boards and then Adam,who hopefully join us on the
show as well, does all his lucidart, data flows and charts and
everything else and it lookedlike 10 steps ahead and then it
comes very calm.
(27:11):
Let's look in horizons and he'sabsolutely right, because we
are geeky and we are used toworking with, with technology
and we are looking from thatperspective, which is a
fantastic point of view becausewe really enjoy it.
But you need to get both theclients and the more importantly
, as we said at the beginningthe teams inside the events to
use it, because if we would, youwould spit out everything and
(27:31):
put everything in front of them.
They wouldn't even know wherethe value is, and that's why I
really like the horizon approach.
Ade Allenby (27:37):
You need to take a breath as a team, say, look,
we've got enough.
Now let's iterate on that a fewtimes.
The classic example with one ofour current clients is they're
going to get to use the tool setwe've given them for the next
few events during this year, andthen they'll know what to add
next.
But you can foreshadow that bysaying this is the next thing.
Bogdan Maran (28:00):
that is really possible that we, looking at the
way you serve your customers,would help talking about moving
forward and I've my will ofdeath has stopped spinning, so I
actually have my sticky notesand it's.
It's nice, because it is verymuch a sticky note guy as far as
I've learned today.
So, that has no wheel of death.
(28:20):
But talking about technologyand talking about looking
forward, we can talk aboutemerging technologies because we
there are some good players,some established players,
especially in the, in the leadand retrieval, in the
registration part.
But where does, where do youget excited about technology,
looking forward?
Ade Allenby (28:39):
Well, you know, for a number of years now I've been
interested in thosetechnologies which, you know,
kind of ignite the insights anddata that we've got from the
show floor.
You know, I remember a modelfrom years ago about, you know,
a B2B model.
(29:00):
You're trying to get in a B2Bmarketing sense.
You're trying to get peopleinterested in big pieces of
content so you can imply whattheir needs are.
But really, you know, like youimagine, how many times you read
an article in a normal, youknow, in a normal walk of life,
maybe once every week if you'relucky, but maybe less than every
(29:23):
few weeks.
So how often do these signalsreally come up?
Whereas once you get in anevent environment, you're going
to see, you know, three seminarsin a row and then you visit
another one because you've seensomething and it's inspired you
and you've gone to the next one.
So you're generating all thisdata and then you visit the
products and get the demosassociated with those ideas.
(29:44):
So there's a rich source ofdata about what people are
interested in, where the journeyis going to go next.
So you know engagement tech.
You know the tech to enablevisitors to capture information
easily, you know, and thevarious formats out there, be it
(30:04):
NFC, be it QR code, be it appdriven that then the exhibitor
can showcase what they've got onoffer and the visitor can take
that, rather than it being, youknow, a lead which may or may
not get followed up by theexhibitor.
I think you know thosetechnologies.
(30:25):
There's some great cameratechnologies, some great, you
know, visual AI technologies outthere as well, as you know.
Then, the matching technologies, which are only going to get
better when you think about whatthe likes of chat GPT can do
with content to feed into it.
So you know, that's been thecore of my interest.
(30:47):
But I also, you know, I've seensome other nice pieces of tech
coming about which provides somenew opportunities.
You know, like just last weeksaw Expo 360 is a great way, you
know, visualize your event andthen use it as a way to market
(31:07):
and sell your event afterwardsand provide more lead
opportunity by showing what goeson on your show floor.
I think shout out social is areally good tool to help curate
video.
Everybody's got too much video.
This helps, you know, clip andpush those videos out super
(31:28):
quickly.
And also Get Pica.
I would have the pleasure ofhosting a talk with Claudia from
Get Pica the other week, whereyou are.
You've got lots of photographsfrom your events but this allows
people to take a selfie andthen see all of the photos that
(31:48):
they featured on.
Obviously really great withinfluencers and speakers to help
them push out your content.
So you know some nice, somenice little tools out there that
are really adding value.
Bogdan Maran (32:03):
It's very nice because I like that you went to
the video, which is kind of myfavorite subject, and video and
photos because of my previousone previous experience and it's
and I'm going to go moretowards floor planning rather
than that because, yes, thereare.
It's nice that we have thetechnology now to get more of
the content and curate thecontent better.
I think I like I liked thereare two more companies like
(32:27):
Capcat Pictury and they do verygood jobs from that perspective.
But I was fascinated last weekof our conversation of how we
talking about integrations,about the floor planning,
especially around FFair andIventis and Crowd Connected,
about how those three can worktogether and that's from a data
(32:47):
visualization point of view.
It's absolutely fantastic.
Ade Allenby (32:52):
Yeah, I think you know FFair has really, I think,
filled the space and added valuewhere in this exhibitor, the
exhibitor onboarding space and,and you know, my advice to
pretty much any event team, anyany organizer, is try and get
(33:14):
some mystery shopping on yourexhibit experience because you
know they are notoriouslychallenging to make into a
seamless process and then toprovide value like data on you
know the outcomes and stuff likethat.
So you know, if you can startto understand where some of the
gaps are in your process, thenyou're going to be able to
(33:37):
retain exhibitors a lot better.
And I think FFair is with twoF's is FFair.
Bogdan Maran (33:45):
Which means I found out last week that it
means expo in Welsh, which Ireally liked because I didn't
know how to James was kindly to,kind enough to help me but it's
, I think, FFair is one of thosetools which is not nice to have
.
It's a must have as a specific,not necessarily just them, but
the principle of sorry, my doggot excited the principle of the
(34:05):
principle of those two thatit's nice to have and it would
be very good and would add valueif you know how to use them.
But those tools like planningand visualizations should become
a must have, like the expo 360thing that the FFair that you've
mentioned run events.
I think we had a conversationabout those as well and they're
very, very good.
Merijn van Buuren (34:28):
Can we go quickly back to actually the
first topic, because I seeJulius Solaris actually asked
our video clippers of any use.
I find that most are amazing onpaper but the results are very
poor.
And I know especially, Bogdan.
Have a go at it because I thinkit's an interesting topic, it's
(34:50):
very much top of mind forpeople.
Bogdan Maran (34:53):
It's my favorite topic.
I think I'll do a third.
I try to do a 30 second andthen I'll let Ade.
I think the first thing thatevent organizers need to learn
is the word editorialized andwhat it means and how it's being
used.
Then go to things like clipperor all the other things that are
on the market and shout out anduse that.
(35:13):
But the AI editing tools andthat's why I liked the shout out
to shout out is because the punis, because it's not a.
I is not about clippingautomatically.
It's about knowing and addingcontext for your knowledge,
which these tools don't have yet, but will get to the point
where we will have it.
And it's just about how youapply it and the team, where you
go with the team.
(35:33):
So the tools are as good as theuser, and the user needs to be
trained because we don't reallyknow how to use content in the
events industry.
Ade Allenby (35:43):
I like this idea of the tools that give your event
event superpowers, because whatI liked about the conversation I
have with Dan from Shout outwas that he said this is about a
collapse, setting up acollaborative, collaborative
(36:03):
network.
So at the event you've gotpeople out there on the floor
who are sending in clips to acentral platform and then easily
top and tailing them with somebranded some, you know some
branded intro and outro, andthen it's out there and so,
whether it's a quick box pop orinterview or you know a clip
(36:24):
from a, from a session or a talk, it's immediately getting out
there.
So I think but again, witheverything you've got to see
that You've got to set it up forsuccess and you've got to kind
of have a plan in mind the ideaof the tool is that you can be
fleet of foot and you can.
You know you can go to thething that's interesting and
make a content out of that, andso you know you can have
(36:47):
contributors and then somebodyediting and pushing out
centrally but super quick, and Ithink that's the.
That's the piece that getsmissed, because you know it's
often something that happensafter the show and then you've
lost the moment.
Bogdan Maran (37:02):
Can I just add just a quick thought on that
question?
It's, it's, I think, for me andI know I've rented to, at least
to the two of you over and overabout the difference between
user generated content, which isfantastic, and the user curated
content and the tools that theevents organizers need is that
the tools that allow them tointeract with the nice produced
(37:22):
content that you get from getpick our, from any AV or from
shout out.
So give them the tools tointeract with that, but don't
give them the tools just to dosomething automatic, because
they have their own knowledge,love it.
Merijn van Buuren (37:33):
And to add my two cents on it.
I think they're very useful ingeneral that the tools as in on
paper, mainly because I agreethat the quality is often not
there yet, it cuts videoshalfway and they still have to
go back into editing.
But in terms of quickly gettingsome, some clips that highlight
(37:55):
the, that show you somehighlights which you can then
mainly just do a quick edit onit yourself to get the actual
highlight how it should be, itdoes save some time in terms of
skipping, like when I used to gothrough the content that I
created and I had to go througha whole video and really listen
to every second and be like, oh,second, one to second is where
(38:18):
it's a highlight one and thenminute one to one.
Then is the highlight to.
It's going to take you a longtime and I can speed up that
process so it makes you moreefficient.
It kind of picks out thehighlights for you.
It's relatively good at that.
But then the details, theediting, you still need some
hands on approach, but they willget better in the future.
Bogdan Maran (38:41):
So oh, I'm just there, yeah, yeah, mainly
because I'm working on one, soit's not selling point, but yeah
, no, it launched the out byyour right.
It's the attention to details,because that's the episode.
Right, it's attention todetails and it's as we said,
it's as much as about trainingthe teams for the events to
(39:01):
actually use those tools and notpush everything when you can't
push a content tool and youdon't have a content team.
And by content team I didn'tmean the very the guys who work
very hard to actually put thecontent on the stage, but the
guys who use that content andtransform your event company
into a media company.
Merijn van Buuren (39:19):
Amen, I see we are.
We have flown through time.
It's already actually outsideof our time zone timeframe.
But I know that there is a lastpiece of advice Ade wanted
wanted to share with us, and itcomes down to matching your
technology to your event and notthe other way around.
Maybe you can close off at thatone.
Ade Allenby (39:38):
Yeah, I think you know when something's going to
work for you, when you'relistening to a demo and you're
going, yeah, I've got that, I'vegot that problem, or yeah, I
wanted to be able to do that.
What what I witnessed, you knowmany times, was that obviously,
you know event teams are hardat it, you know we've got so
(40:00):
many problems to solve, but thetemptation is to say, yes, but
can I do this thing that Ireally wanted to do?
And then, of course, thevendor's going to go, yeah, it
could do that, and.
And so I think there's a.
You know there could be achallenge around trying to make
a platform sort of bend to intothe.
(40:22):
You know what your event wants,but vice versa, you can.
I suppose you know this iswhere you know people like us
can help, because we've seenwhat actually you know one of
the pros and cons of differentplatforms and and there isn't
the one size fits all, but Ithink that's a.
It's just a good rule of thumbto say you know, is it, is it
(40:47):
the platform matching your needsor you get your needs, you know
to match on for, you know,hitherto unspecified
functionality.
Merijn van Buuren (40:58):
I think that's a great takeaway for
people to go home with.
Obviously, we will be divinginto a next topic next week.
Actually have another guest,brian Monaham.
I'm looking very much forwardto that one.
It's about the kind ofbreakpoint between AV and
technology and hosting an eventin different formats, whether
(41:21):
that's virtual, hybrid, inperson, and how you can better
optimize your communication withthem to organize better events.
So make sure to come around fornext week If there are any
questions other than Bob givinga shout out to to Ade.
Great discussion.
Thank you guys.
Well, thank Bob for for joiningus.
It's been our pleasure.
(41:41):
If there are any questions,make sure to drop them.
Whilst I'm wrapping up thissession, we'll be happy to jump
into those.
But yeah, in the meantime, Ithink I want to give a big thank
you to Ade for for joining ustoday.
I have a little bit of anadditional in terms of what he's
(42:02):
actually doing with Allenb yAdvisory, I think you get an
idea in terms of what hisexperience is, but it's good for
you to know what he actually isdoing and how he can help you
target or tackle these smalldetails and make sure you have
that full overview, that birdseye view, of your event so you
can better optimize and createbetter event experiences.
(42:24):
They actually focus a lot aboutaudience engagement, onboarding
, integrations and ensures youselect tools aligned with your
audience and resources, as youmentioned, make sure you
actually match the righttechnology to your event or
instead of your event totechnology, but also fostering
(42:47):
communities, optimizing contentand CRM utilization.
They offer flexible retainersor project based solutions, so
make sure to reach out to Ade Ifyou need any help, because they
have the expertise to elevateyour events.
I do not see any questionscoming in, so I think yes, thank
(43:10):
, you very much and see you nextTuesday.
Bogdan Maran (43:12):
And thank you very much.
It has been an absolutepleasure to have you here.
Ade Allenby (43:14):
That's great as the first guest.
Bogdan Maran (43:16):
The bar is very high from now, I love.
Ade Allenby (43:20):
I love.
I love chatting e vent tech.
I liked hearing new stories ofpeople's challenges, so this is
a this is a great forum.
Thanks for having me.
Merijn van Buuren (43:30):
Absolutely pleasure, our pleasure, and with
that, we're looking forward toseeing all of you next week in a
discussion about AV and how youcan apply that to different
event formats, how to juggle thein person, hybrid and virtual
events, which is going to beanother exciting episode where
I'm looking very much forward to.
(43:51):
But for now, thank you all forbeing here.
Thank, Ade, again again forjoining us and, yeah, we're
looking forward to the next one.
Bogdan Maran (43:59):
Thanks, thank.
You have a lovely day.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.