Not all venues are created equal, and whilst some are fantastic spaces for amplified and hybrid events, others have not yet caught up with the social media age.

So, what should you look for in a venue if you are planning to run an amplified or hybrid event?

Here are three important things you need to bear in mind when choosing a venue for your amplified event:

1. Lighting

 
Mood lighting is all very well and nice, but if you are planning to record or live video stream your event, you will need to think carefully about the lighting at your venue.

Cameras are not as sensitive to light as the human eye, and the low light levels found in a lot of conference venues (particularly hotels) can lead to dim, grainy footage.

If the light levels in your chosen room are low, or particularly yellow, it is worth hiring additional lighting to help improve the quality of the video footage you are able to get from the event. Talk to your videographer or your event amplifier to find out what will work best.

Keep in mind that the speaker will need to be well lit at all times, even when they are showing slides on a projector screen. One of the biggest problems we often face when filming events is the inexplicable tenancy organisers seem to have for dimming ALL of the lights when a projector screen is in use, plunging the speaker into gloom at the side of the stage. This has a negative impact on your speaker, your physical audience and the quality of your final video footage.

Good lighting at your conference venue will have lots of other knock-on benefits. It will help your conference photographer produce better pictures and improve the experience for your physical attendees too by lifting the atmosphere of the event. It is an important aspect to get right when choosing your venue.
 

2. Wifi

 
Amplified and hybrid events rely on your audience having access to the internet in order to share in the online discussions surrounding the event.

Wifi is absolutely fundamental for any amplified event. However, some venues charge steep rates for delegate access to wifi, and it can be tempting to ask delegates to pay for this themselves if they want to make use of the wifi. This inevitably leads to much grumbling and a steep reduction in the amount of tweeting and other online activity around the event.

If you are serious about encouraging amplified discussions surrounding your event, you must negotiate with your venue to include delegate wifi access as part of your venue hire package.

Some venues are able to put limits in place to avoid excessive data consumption and therefore prevent costs racking up if your delegates blow your bandwidth allowance. You will need to think carefully about what your delegates are likely to be doing with their wifi access whilst they are at the event to assess whether this is appropriate.

You might also consider publishing an acceptable use policy, reminding delegates to be considerate of others when using the conference wifi and to avoid downloading or uploading large amounts of data over the network, as this will slow things down for everyone.

One of the best setups I have come across for delegate wifi was at The Mermaid Centre in London, the venue for the AHRC Digital Transformations Moot. The venue’s technician could see who was abusing their network access, slow their internet speed and send them a message asking them to be more considerate. If only all venues had that level of wifi management!
 

3. Mobile Signal

 
There will always be times when wifi networks fail, but in order for the conversation to go on, it is vital that your delegates can get some kind of access to the internet.

When carrying out a site visit, it is good to check the strength of the 3G signal, preferably from several different network carriers. Good mobile access at a venue will help keep your delegates happy, and keep the discussion going around the conference venue, even when wifi is out of reach.

Conclusions

 
It is worth discussing venue requirements with your event amplifier to make sure you choose a venue that supports everything you want to do at your event. Holding these discussions early will allow you time to arrange the hire of any additional equipment or services that may be required to get everything absolutely right for your whole audience, wherever they may be on the day.

The post Choosing A Venue For An Amplified Event appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
In late 2012, UStream announced that they would be withdrawing their pay-as-you-go premium live video streaming service: Watershed.

Since 2009, we have made extensive use of Watershed to deliver ad-free live video streams for event organisers with a tight budget as part of our event amplification service. Watershed allowed us to bill clients only for the amount of time that the live video stream was actually watched, at a rate of $1 per viewer hour. Unlike the many free alternatives, Watershed live video streams could be embedded in other web pages, branded and shown without any advertising.

Watershed was almost the perfect, low-risk solution for event organisers who wanted to try live video streaming from their event for the first time to gauge interest, or for organisers running small-medium sized events. It only offered a Flash-based viewer, which caused a problem for viewers using iOS devices, but otherwise the service was very good. You could cap your viewer numbers to ensure that you didn’t go over budget and you got a full dashboard of viewer statistics to review after the event.
 

What are the alternatives?

 
Since Watershed has been withdrawn, we have been researching possible alternatives for one-off events that don’t break the bank. Nothing can match the Watershed PAYG model for cost efficiency and flexibility, but there are alternatives that don’t come with frightening price tags…
 

UStream vs Livestream

 
The two big players in the premium live video streaming space are UStream and Livestream. Both offer a range of subscription-based “pro” accounts, including UStream’s new Pro Broadcasting Service, which has replaced Watershed. However, most of their monthly or annual subscription plans are priced for high volumes of live video, placing them out of reach of most of our clients. That said, there are cheaper packages available, depending on the features you need.

Most cost effective option seems to be UStream’s Starter subscription at $99 (approx £60) per month for 100 viewer hours, with additional viewer hours charged at $0.50 thereafter. This should fit within the budget restrictions of most small events, many of which are unlikely to exceed the 100 viewer hour limit.

Livestream offers a similar package at a cheaper rate ($49 per month), but this does not include the ability to embed the live video stream in any web page. You have to pay $399 for that!

During my research, I found that while Livestream’s sales staff were particularly attentive, their technical support staff were slow to respond to queries. However, UStream was able to answer my questions much more promptly.

Both services allowed you to pay for one month and then cancel the subscription to avoid ongoing charges.
 

Audio-Only Streaming

 
An alternative to live video streaming would be to use an audio streaming service, such as Mixlr. Whilst at a cursory glance Mixlr looks like it is mainly geared up for broadcasting music from SoundCloud, it will in fact allow you to live stream an audio feed from any source and embed this within a page for as little as £4.99 per month. There is a free option, but this does not allow embedding.

Many remote event participants admit to having a live video stream open on another tab in their internet browser so they can listen whilst working on other things, rather than watching avidly. If this is likely to be the case for your remote audience, an audio-only stream (effectively an event radio station) may be the most cost effective way to offer convenient live access to your event. It will also have benefits such as lower data rates, meaning that viewers with slower internet connection speeds will have a smoother experience.

It is worth assessing how much of your event will be visually significant and perhaps polling your prospective remote audience to see if they would prefer audio or video.
 

Ad-Supported

 
If you really must have video, but can’t afford a premium service, it is worth considering the ad-supported services. These include:

• Livestream (although their free account sign up is now hidden away!)
• UStream
• JustinTV
• Qik
• Stickam

…to name but a few.

This is effectively the low risk option. You pay nothing for the streaming service, so if no-one watches you haven’t lost anything. If lots of people watch, you don’t blow the budget. However, it is worth investigating what type of adverts will be shown to ensure that these are suitable for the audience, and warning your remote audience that there will be adverts, so this doesn’t come as a surprise.
 

Audience Fee

 
If adverts are not acceptable to your audience, but you don’t have the budget for a premium service, you can consider requesting a small contribution from the remote audience towards the cost of the live video streaming. This requires remote audience members to sign up for the event in advance, pay for a ticket and receive a private link to the stream.

Whilst there are advantages to this approach (you will know more about your remote audience for one thing!) this will move you more towards a hybrid event model, where access to the event is restricted to those who are prepared to pay, rather than free for all.

I have yet to see any useful research into acceptable price points for live access to events by sector, so working out what to charge may be a bit of a minefield!

Conclusions

 
PAYG live video streaming was a really useful pricing model for small-medium events and event organisers who wanted to put the first toe in the water of live video streaming to gauge interest. As this post shows, there are still cost effective alternatives available, but as with all event amplification, creativity and audience knowledge will be vital to choosing the right mix for your event.

The post The Demise of PAYG Live Video Streaming appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
We are often approached by event organisers who know they ought to be doing “some social media stuff” or live video streaming at their event, but have no clear idea why. They often lack any any sense of who they are trying to reach or what they are trying to achieve by amplifying their event. They usually just ask what we can do and simply choose the services from that list that fit within their budget and their own preconceptions. Then they leave us to get on with it.

I appreciate that a lot of event organisers don’t really understand event amplification or the associated technologies – it is a specialist area and there are lots of other things event organisers need to know about. However, after working with quite a few clients that have followed this pattern of procurement, I have come to believe that this approach to engaging an event amplifier is flawed and should be discouraged.

Firstly, if the organiser is not clear who they are trying to reach and what they are trying to achieve, there is no clear way to measure how successful the event amplification has been in order to justify the financial outlay. Secondly, if the organiser fails to put any effort into promoting the amplified materials or integrating them into the rest of the event, this can result in fairly low engagement. As we have discussed before, this is particularly true for live video streams, which are a relatively expensive to produce well and require dedicated promotion to attract a significant audience.

Failure to integrate and promote the event amplification effectively wastes money. As an event amplifier, it is not in my long term interests to help clients waste money. I want to help organisers improve their events, but this may mean changing their attitudes towards hiring me.

So how should you procure event amplification services?

Here’s how I would like to see event organisers approaching the process of hiring (or not hiring!) an event amplifier to ensure they get maximum value for money out of our time…
 

1. Work out what you need

 
If you are one of those event organisers who isn’t sure what amplification your event really needs, start by asking an event amplifier to develop a strategy for you. Don’t commit to hiring the event amplifier to perform any aspects of that strategy, but do expect to pay them for developing it. This is effectively consultancy.

An event amplifier will be able to provide you with advice about the latest trends, research your target audience’s social networking habits, and provide you with a practical plan tailored specifically to your event. They will be able to identify the resources you will require and highlight current best practices to make sure that any event amplification meets the needs of your intended audience and helps to expand the discussion surrounding your event. This should all be based upon clear supporting evidence that event amplification will help to meet your aims for the event. If event amplification is not right for your event, the event amplifier should say so.
 

2. Review your own capabilities honestly

 
Look at your event amplification plan. Are there elements can you deliver using internal resources?

It is important to be completely realistic about what you can do well internally. The available staff might not have all the necessary skills to perform certain amplification tasks or to deal with any difficulties that might arise. Equally, you may have staff who do have the necessary skills, but are likely to get swept up engaging in the event itself, making it impractical for them to take responsibility for any aspect of the event amplification. You will need to balance your organisational priorities to determine what you can do in-house, and what you need to outsource to a professional event amplifier. This needs to include the effort involved in overseeing any amplification carried out by your own staff and co-ordinating those involved.

If you do have staff available to help with some, but not all of the event amplification, this can help reduce the costs of outsourcing.

Ask your event amplifier to advise you on staff training, and to specify which roles do not require specialist skills. For instance, an external event amplifier may need a runner, or a member of staff dedicated to monitoring and blocking hash tag spam on Twitter. Internal volunteers, be they staff or students, can often perform these tasks for the event amplifier, which may be cheaper than asking the event amplifier to bring in extra external staff to perform these functions. Make sure any volunteers are fully briefed before the event and there is a clear timetable showing who should be doing what and when.
 

3. Negotiate on price

 
If you are working to a fixed budget, prioritise those areas of your event amplification plan that will deliver the most impact for your intended audience. Your event amplifier should be able to help you with this if you are unsure, so make sure you explain any budget restrictions from the outset.

Many of the tools we use to amplify events are free, so the main cost is the time involved in posting content and monitoring the different channels. Pairing down the “nice-to-have”s and focusing resources only on the absolutely key channels will allow you to deliver the maximum amount of amplification permitted by your budget. There will always be more that you could do, but in times of austerity compromises sometimes have to be made. Offering some amplification may also help to attract funding and delegates for future events!

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask about cheaper options to deliver the same benefits from these key areas. This may involve making compromises, such as offering a free, ad-supported live video stream rather than using a premium, ad-free service, or offering an audio-only live stream. It is worth carrying out a quick survey of your intended audience to check whether this will adversely affect them in any way. Given the choice between seeing advertising within a live video stream and not being able to see the event at all, most people are willing to make the compromise!
 

4. Take responsibility!

 
A professional event amplifier can deliver professional materials and services, but they cannot work magic. If you as the event organiser fail to promote what’s available, or fail to integrate it into the main event, you must take responsibility for low levels of engagement or dissatisfaction. If you want maximum bang for your buck, you have to get involved in making the event amplification a success.
 

Conclusions

 
Event amplification and live video streaming do not need to be expensive, but as with everything, the convenience of a professional service will cost money. As a professional event amplifier, I want to represent really good value for money with the level of service I provide. I really hope that event organisers in 2013 will help me to achieve this.
 
Photo Credit: 401(K) 2012.

The post Getting Value for Money from Event Amplification appeared first on Event Amplifier.

As live video streaming from events has become more popular and easier, we have been looking for ways to add value by creating a professional, polished live stream that meets the needs of both the remote audience and the event organisers more effectively.

At our most recent event, we explored a new role for an event amplifier at a live streamed event: that of continuity presenter.
 

Context

 
At the recent AHRC Digital Transformations Moot, we were asked to use live video streaming to bring the whole event to life for the remote audience as part of a wider event amplification strategy.

In addition to the traditional presentations and panel discussions that are the staple part of most events, the Digital Transformations Moot featured a large exhibition area loosely divided into Hack, Yack and Making spaces. A wide range of interactive stalls provided opportunities to explore some of the fantastic arts and humanities research projects associated with the digital transformations theme. It was a visually interesting and engaging space.

The organisers were keen that the remote audience should be able to experience these integral elements of the event. As a result, they requested two live video streams: one which focussed on the formal proceedings, and the one which provided a roaming window on the more unusual parts of the event. This included live performances, such as this one by a visual artist and coder, and a live tour around the exhibition space.
 

Delivering a Roaming Live Video Stream

 
The tour around the exhibition space was one of the most logistically difficult parts of this event to plan.

We normally operate with a fairly lightweight live streaming rig, designed to fit into any space unobtrusively. However, creating a rig that we could move around a large, densely packed area on different levels of the venue was a new and exciting thing to plan.

We sourced equipment that could run entirely on battery power for short intervals and required the minimum number of cables to create the simplest and most compact set up possible. We transported all this around the venue using a small trolley. The venue kindly provided us with our own wifi connection separate to the one used by the delegates so we could confidently stream via wifi, rather than an ethernet connection.

To manage the live video stream smoothly, we created a hold reel showcasing video clips provided by the client, which we could effectively use in place of advert breaks to cover the time we needed to move the equipment around the venue, locate a power point and set up the next shot.
 

The Digital Transformations Moot live stream hold reel
 

The Event Amplifier as a Continuity Presenter

 
Unlike a normal live video stream, where the stream simply provides a window to passively observe the event as it unfolds, we felt that this roaming stream required the event amplifier to take on the role of a dedicated presenter to provide some form of continuity. In addition to conducting live on-air interviews with exhibitors in front of the camera, the event amplifier spoke directly to the remote audience to explain what was happening and what to expect later on the stream. This made the experience more television-like for the viewers.

When we reviewed the video footage after the event, we felt that this technique was particularly effective, and helped to retain viewers through what might otherwise have been a fairly disjointed session. It was a really enjoyable thing to do and we would be keen to try this out at other events to create more dynamic event coverage. I will have to perfect my Martin Brundle impression though so we can do proper “grid walk” style coverage next time!
 

Live on-air interview at the Digital Transformations Moot
 

Wider Applications

 
This experience prompted us to consider whether we could extend this use of an event amplifier as a continuity presenter to improve our live coverage of more traditionally structured events.

In the past we have tried, with varying levels of success, to encourage various event chair people and speakers to address the remote audience directly and to be aware of their presence when chairing a live streamed conference session to communicate a sense of inclusion. When the chair person has taken this on board, we have received very positive feedback from the remote audience. However, it is often easy to forget and can feel unnatural to some people. It is rarely possible to train event chair people and speakers effectively to help them develop this awareness in advance of the event, and we have become reliant on explanatory slides at the beginning and end of sessions to help inform the remote audience about what’s coming next.

We have become increasingly aware that this is not an effective strategy from an accessibility perspective, and fails to provide context to those live stream viewers who prefer to listen to conference proceedings whilst working on other things, rather than watching the live stream avidly.

At future events, we want to make use of our more direct relationship with the remote audience to provide verbal continuity announcements, direct to camera where possible, to help guide the remote audience through the event. We hope that this will make our live stream coverage more personal and encourage greater engagement with the event by the remote audience. This very much builds on the idea that an event amplifier should be a guide through the event for remote participants, as well as a creator/curator of amplified materials for their consumption.

The post Does A Live Video Stream Need A Continuity Presenter? appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
It is always good to hear when event amplification has made a real difference to the impact of an event – particularly for smaller events, which can often have only a limited reach in real time.

I was therefore really pleased to read a post by Rob Bristow describing the impact of several workshops I covered for the JISC Green ICT programme earlier in the year.

For each of these workshops, which covered topics such as Conferencing in Universities and Colleges, and Intelligent Buildings and Smart Estates, I compiled a Storify summary to capture and contextualise the resources from the event. By providing a narrative around the interviews, video footage, photographs of flip chart diagrams, slides, tweets and other digital snippets collected at each event, I created a single focal point for these amplified materials that enabled them to be consumed more easily. Over time, the summaries have gradually brought each of these small events to an increasingly wider audience.

As Rob writes:
 

To put this into context, each of the four events covered consisted of around 30-40 delegates. This means that the Storify summaries have increased this reach by an average of 14 times per event, which is fantastic news.

The key here seems to be context: “cryptic PowerPoint slides” alone will not necessarily convey the full meaning of the discussions held at an event, whereas we know that views of the Storify summaries will have conveyed all of the key points from the event really clearly, using a variety of media and narrative. Whilst the Storify viewer statistics do not necessarily reflect repeat or brief visits, we can have a greater degree of confidence that people viewing the resource took away a more complete picture of the event and the knowledge transferred therein than they might otherwise have done from partial or scattered amplified materials.

These are straightened times, and organisers increasingly have to show the value of smaller events and workshops to justify the time and expense involved compared to larger-scale, high impact events. Being able to demonstrate the longer term relevance of smaller events through a little bit of co-ordinated amplification could be the key to delivering greater value.
 
Photo Credit: Spettacolopuro.

The post Evidence of Impact appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
Attacks by event hash tag spammers seem to be on the increase, with large-scale events, popular events, and smaller events featuring high profile speakers seeing a proliferation of spam. Most of this spam originates from automatic bots, and there are growing calls for Twitter to clamp down on such accounts, with little action so far.

The worst attack I have experienced professionally was at Leeds Trinity Journalism Week, where students were addressed by addressed by Channel 4 News anchor man, the legendary Jon Snow, who has a very high profile on Twitter. After he mentioned/was mentioned on the event hash tag, the hash tag spammers went to work, resulting in a flurry of promotional tweets accompanied by profile pictures of scantily-clad women. I spent most of his keynote blocking the spammers!

So how can you assess the risk that your event hash tag will be hit by spammers in advance, and what can you do to minimise the impact this has on your event community?
 

Are You Really at Risk?

 
If you are worried about your event hash tag attracting spam, carry out a risk assessment to consider whether you really are at risk. Risks include:
 

• High volumes of Twitter activity

  If you hope your event hash tag will trend, be aware that that will imply a higher risk of spam. If you are not sure how much Twitter activity you are likely to get, look at similar events or collect Twitter IDs from participants as they sign up and create a Twitter list. This will help you to get a rough idea of how vocal they are!

 

• High profile speakers

  If you are inviting a well known person to speak, search for them on Twitter to see how much spam they tend to attract.

 

• Hash Tag Clashes

  You should be checking for this as a matter of course anyway, but it is worth reiterating that if your hash tag is the same or similar to that of another event, you may end up with irrelevant content on your event hash tag, which could be viewed as spam. If your event hash tag uses an acronym, check for organisations that use the same acronym that may be holding events around the same time. Remember, not all event organisers publicise an official event hash tag, so the community around that event may end up settling on your hash tag quite by accident.

Whilst these are not the exclusive causes of event hash tag abuse, these are risk factors that can make it more likely that you will encounter some level of spam activity during your event.

Once you have identified your potential level of risk, don’t panic. Twitter users are, unfortunately, quite accustomed to spam activity, and as long as they can see you making an effort to address the problem, they will generally support you.

Here are some of the efforts you can make to tackle spam, when it occurs…
 

Encourage Community Ownership of the Problem

 
Identify a team of people who can keep an eye on Twitter and block any offenders. Unfortunately, Twitter does not action blocking requests instantly, but the more people who block spam accounts, the better. Appeal to the audience for their help and thank them for their patience and assistance accordingly.
 

Filter Twitter Display Screens

 
If you are using a large screen to display tweets at your event, you might be using a tool like visibletweets.com to render a Twitter search in an aesthetically engaging way. However, it is difficult to filter what appears in the results for the Twitter search, which can mean that spam tweets appear writ large for everyone to see.

I’ve been playing around with Twitter’s advanced search operators to find a solution. The best I can suggest is this:

#eventhashtag -filter:links

This filters out any tweets on the event hash tag that contain links. One of the key features of hash tag spammers’ tweets is that they contain links: after all, they are spamming because they want to attract traffic to a particular site. By filtering out tweets with links, you should be able to avoid a large proportion of spam content. Pictures attached to tweets will still appear as links, but not as expanded pictures, meaning the risk of offensive content appearing on the screen is relatively low, even if the event hash tag is targeted by spammers.

Arguably, whilst in most contexts links are really valuable, having them displayed on an animated screen is less useful. There will be some really insightful tweets that do not get to appear on the big screen because they contain a link, but this may be a sacrifice that an event organiser has to make in order to reduce the risk of spam content appearing.

Where the risk of event hash tag spam is high, my ideal solution would be to take a feed of favourite tweets from the official event amplifier’s account to display on such screens to provide a completely human filtered selection of “top tweets” from the event. However, there does not appear to be a Twitter search operator that will allow you to specify favourite tweets from a particular user. If you know of one, please let me know!
 

Provide Client Filtering Advice

 
Know how to filter certain search terms out of the Twitter search results given by the most popular Twitter clients so you can provide assistance to any participants who are feeling overwhelmed by the spam. When hash tag spammers hit, they often repeat the same message, so filtering particular words used by the spammers should help to reduce the amount of noise in the hash tag search results whilst you wait for the blocking to work.
 

Conclusions

 
It is not always possible to avoid attacks by event hash tag spammers, but if you can mitigate the worst effects, your participants should appreciate your efforts and tolerate the noise that unfortunately often comes with popularity on Twitter. You never know, Twitter may even do something about it one day!
 
Photo Credit: Isabelle Palatin.

The post Beating the Event Hash Tag Spammers appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
Thanks to @ernestopriego, earlier today I was alerted to a provocative article on Inside Higher Ed titled: The Academic Twitterazzi. The article draws attention to a debate between scholars about the etiquette of live-tweeting at academic conferences. The article raises a number of interesting points about the cultural use of Twitter within academia, including the use of Twitter by some academics to build up their own personal brand. Ernesto has posted his own reaction to the debate, including an excellent set of Super Basic Rules of Thumb for Live-Tweeting a Conference, which I thoroughly recommend, and notes that many other best practice guidelines have sprung up in the wake of the debate. However, I would like to focus on a few more general key points about live-tweeting at conferences, from my perspective as an event amplifier.
 

Organisers: Give Guidance

 
When I am involved in developing an event amplification plan for any event, I always recommend that the organisers publish formal guidance on the use of social media at the conference. This includes the equivalent of an “acceptable use policy”, like the one used at IDCC11. Whilst I always insist that organisers seek permission from speakers to live stream or video their presentations, I will admit that I have not been strict enough about the social media guidelines being circulated to the conferences speakers in advance for their comments.

If you are a conference organiser and you intend to encourage social media use, I would strongly recommend drawing up some guidelines to send out with your joining instructions for the event, and make sure your speakers have the opportunity to express any concerns they may have about these well in advance. You may need to ask your chairperson to reinforce any specific restrictions on reporting from particular presentations if a speaker is uncomfortable for any reason, or feels that the presence of people live-tweeting may restrict what they can say.

Speakers: Be Up Front

 
Be aware that if you stand up at a podium to make a presentation in front of an audience, you should expect that your words will be discussed. That discussion could take place anywhere: during the Q&A, in a formal panel session, over coffee, in the bar afterwards, or online using any of a wide variety of social media tools, including (but not limited to) Twitter. Many of the people discussing your comments will be your peers, but there may also be other people present from different academic disciplines with different social norms about how new ideas get discussed. Unless you know everyone in the room personally, or the event is operating under the Chatham House Rule, it is likely that there will be someone out there in the audience who will not share your views of what constitutes good etiquette when it comes to sharing and discussing conference content. That person may, or may not, be using Twitter.

If you choose to present in front of an audience, I would argue that you should take responsibility for protecting your own content by making it explicitly clear to both the organiser and the audience what you are happy to have shared beyond the conference room walls. Cameron Neylon has a fantastic slide that he uses at the beginning of each of his talks to communicate to the audience how he happy for his presentation to be used, including attribution. Different speakers may have different feelings about the reuse and discussion of their presentations, so if you are concerned about people live-tweeting throughout your presentation, taking your photograph, or recording your presentation, you really do need to be upfront about that at the start so everyone is clear.
 

Amplifiers: Recognise The Limits

 
When I am delivering a live commentary of an event via Twitter, I am acutely aware that some issues cannot be completely encapsulated in a single tweet, and must be taken in context. This is one of the reasons why it is important to curate selected tweets and provide additional context for anyone reading the coverage of an event at a later date. Where a speaker in any way indicates that a particular point is not for general public consumption, or when it could be easily mis-interpreted without the proper context, I make a conscious decision to leave it out of the commentary. This won’t necessarily stop others in the room from live-tweeting that comment, but I often find that the presence of an official live commentary on an event hash tag reduces the amount of informal live-tweeting/reporting and increases the number of more reflective or discursive comments anyway.

Recently, another amplification option has emerged that may also help to address this problem. Branch allows users to take a tweet as a starting point and take it into Branch, where participants can discuss the issue in more depth, without the 140-character limit. I’m hoping to experiment with this more at future events, but it looks like it could potentially allow more complex issues to be discussed in context, avoiding those rogue out-of-context tweets that can cause confusion, embarrassment or worse.
 

Participants: Give Your Interpretation

 
If you are tweeting from a conference, remember that your followers want to hear your voice and your take on the issues of the day. If they wanted to hear what others think, they would be following them, not you. Take the opportunity to reflect and share your own thoughts on the issues to help prompt more amplified discussion. There may be a few great quotes you really must share, which is fine, but ideally tweeting at conferences should be about participating in an active, amplified discussion and making new connections.

The post The Perils of Live-Tweeting a Conference appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
The summer is a great opportunity to review event materials and see how things are going as part of the longer tail of your amplified event. I have just started a summer project examining the return on investment for event amplification as a support service for event organisers, and decided to start with the low hanging fruit: event video footage.

Most of the event amplification plans that I put into action involve video in some way, usually in the form of recording presentations or conducting video interviews. I tend to use Vimeo or YouTube to host these videos, which means that detailed viewing statistics are publicly available. However, upon reviewing many of these videos, I am seeing a worrying trend towards low viewer numbers over time for many of these resources.
 

Vimeo statistics dashboard for a reasonably healthy video. Few look like this!

There might be many reasons for this: the videos may be very long and therefore represent too great a time investment for the target audience to watch, the videos may be too specialist in nature, they may have been intended for a very small audience in the first place, or they may not have been used or promoted by the client after delivery.

The latter leads me to worry that organisers are often not thinking longer term about their event materials and how they can be amplified over time. Once I have amplified the live event and provided all of the post event materials, my invoice is paid and technically I have no influence over how the materials are used or exploited after this point. It is then down to the event organiser to make the most of those materials, which may not be practical for many reasons. I may need to change my business model to combat this, perhaps offering longer term amplification after an event, or more consultancy for clients to help them to make the most out of their event materials.
 

How should we measure video ROI?

 
I referred to video content as low hanging fruit in terms of return on investment. This is because of all my amplification activities, this is the easiest one to relate directly to cost. I know how much it cost the client for me to produce the videos, so I can divide this by the number of views to calculate the cost per view for the video. Simple. As the number of views increases over time, the cost per view decreases and the videos therefore become better value for the client.

However, as with a live video stream, the organiser needs to clearly define what success looks like for each individual video they request in order to provide a benchmark against which we can measure the success of that video. Success for an hour long lecture in an extremely niche subject area may be only 5 or 6 views, provided those viewers are the right people. A 40-minute talk by a high profile keynote might be expected to attract much higher viewer numbers across a wider range of disciplines. One video may be produced purely to satisfy the ego of a difficult speaker, so the number of viewers it attracts may not be important, whilst another video may be intended to be used intensively a year down the line when the organiser is promoting the next event, so the viewer numbers before that point would be less significant.

It may be safe to assume that in most cases the higher the number of views and therefore the lower the unit cost per view, the better. However, unless the organiser has clearly defined what they intend to use the video for and how they hope it will be used over time, it is difficult to map viewer statistics against the organiser’s aims to ensure that the resource is actually delivering the type of return required.
 

Increasing video ROI over time

 
Here are a few strategies I have been using, or intend to make greater use of in the future, as a result of my research in this area:
 

1. Have a plan

 
All videos are not created equal. When you plan which sessions of your event to record, or who to interview, consider who you expect to watch those videos and how you intend to use them. Each planned video should be considered separately, as they may all have very different aims. As an event amplifier, this will help me to plan how to use the footage, and how to measure the success of the amplification of that footage.
 

2. Embed in multiple places

 
I have recently taken to embedding event materials on Lanyrd as well as on official event websites to help increase exposure. However, there may be other forums where specific videos may be useful to both the event community and any overlapping communities. Work with your event amplifier to identify a list of appropriate places for each individual video. As a professional event amplifier working across a number of different overlapping disciplines, I am in the fairly unique position of being able to offer additional value to event organisers by effectively cross-pollinating between communities. You should also encourage your speakers to share video footage of their own sessions on their own websites or forums. Don’t just embed it on your event website and hope for the best!
 

3. Know what you’ve got

 
If you have a list of materials that is easily accessible, there is more chance that you will be able to share a relevant video should it become topical again at any point in the future. There are automated ways to measure the buzz around particular keywords or phrases and receive an alert, which could help trigger you to share a particular video. More on this in a later post.
 

4. Plan to reuse

 
Identify periods where news stories may be scarce, such as the summer period, and schedule social media updates featuring videos that may have otherwise dropped off the radar. This works particularly well for shorter videos, such as video interviews and or lightning talks, which you can promote for people to watch as a kind of “lunchtime snack”. Remember to explain what the video is and why it is useful to help sell it to your followers. If you want to promote longer videos, pull out the key highlights to help potential viewers decide if it really is worth the hour of their valuable time required to watch in full.

 
Image Credit: Mindfieldz.
 

The post Taking Stock of Video appeared first on Event Amplifier.

Now, as more people cotton on to the benefits of live streaming, there are a plethora of streams available from around the world, together with hours of useful content in the form of recordings.

Whilst this increased awareness of events online is great for me as an event amplifier, it is creating a competitive environment where it is very difficult to convince people to commit the time to watch a particular live video stream for any length of time.

We are fast approaching the point where organisers who want to invest in providing a live video stream from their event need to work as hard to attract an audience to that stream as they do to attract delegates to attend their event in person. I have been receiving more and more requests for live video streaming at events, which is great, but I have reached the conclusion that I need to be working more closely with event organisers from an earlier stage to understand what they want to get out of the live stream, and to provide more strategic advice about the ways they can use a live video stream to meet their aims.

This might include…
 

1. Advertise the live video stream early

 
People still value face-to-face meetings, so if they CAN come to your event in person, they will. Knowing there is a live video stream available will not sway the decision for most people.

However, most event organisers spend so much time panicking about “bums on seats” that they fail to promote their live video stream until very close to the event – or worse, leave it until the day of the event to announce that a live stream will be available! By that stage, everyone who might have watched remotely has a full schedule for the day and can’t take time out, or doesn’t get the message about it until too late. As a result, the stream gets low viewer numbers. The organiser is disheartened and feels that the stream has not delivered value for money.

I always advocate advertising the live video stream early, and promoting the link to people who have signed up to attend in person. Many organisations will not foot the bill for multiple team members to attend an event, either for operational reasons or due to the cost involved. The one or two team members who are permitted to attend your event are the perfect people to promote your live video stream to the other members of their organisations. The same thing works with speakers – if the speaker knows they will be streamed early enough, they can promote this to their colleagues and associates to help raise their own profile.

It is essential to have a link to promote from an early stage, even if this is just a simple holding page. Circulating a link for the stream will increase the chances that someone who hears about the stream will be able to find it easily or bookmark it for reference.
 

2. Advertise an online programme

 
It is important to help your remote audience to choose which sessions they particularly want to watch so they can clear space in their schedule to watch. Few people will be able to watch the whole event from beginning to end, so providing a clear programme of what will be streamed when will help the remote audience to dip in and out to follow the sessions of most value to them.

It is also useful to provide some guidance about how to participate in an online event, including practical advice about following live, such as blocking the time out in their diary, telling colleagues that they will be busy, or finding an alternative space to watch via a laptop or tablet device where they won’t be disturbed.
 

3. Think about a broader audience

 
For your physical event, you may have an audience profile that is fairly specific, or at least contains people with a lot of overlapping interests. After all, they have to be interested in being together and hearing the same kind of material for the whole event. Your remote audience can be much, much broader. A member your remote audience may only be interested in one particular session. They would never travel to your event and for that one talk, and you probably never thought to market the event to them as a result.

I believe this is one of the key opportunities missed by most event organisers when they live stream their event. They assume that the remote audience will be very similar to their local audience in every way. However, if you think about each of your sessions in isolation, you might identify a broader audience who may wish to watch just that one talk. You can then reach out to those people through different channels to promote the live stream of that one talk and almost make a mini event of it. The speaker may be able to help with this.
 

4. Think strategically

 
Finally, it is important to consider how you could use your live video stream to meet strategic goals. This might involve creating links between other events happening at the same time, perhaps by streaming a session to another workshop or conference, or by establishing “pods” where small groups of people come together to watch the stream and engage with the discussions.

You also need to be really clear about what you hope to achieve with a live video stream. What will success look like? How many viewers would you be happy with? Are there any sessions where you would hope for higher viewer numbers? Mapping out these aims for the live video stream will help to establish how much effort needs to go in to promoting the the stream, and what strategies you might use.
 

Conclusions

 
Live video streaming can be an extremely effective and cost efficient way of opening up an event to a much wider audience. However, as with most event amplification techniques, as we move from a period of experimentation into a period of common practice, event organisers need to be clearer about their aims and be prepared to work with their event amplifier more closely to help make the most out of such a service.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone has tried any alternative techniques to those described above to help generate an audience for a live video stream. Please leave a comment below to share your own experiences.

The post Promoting a Live Video Stream appeared first on Event Amplifier.

 
I have written previously about my discovery of Storify and the role I could see it playing in amplified events. Since then, Storify seems to have taken off at a rapid pace, with many event organisers using it in different ways support their event.

With this in mind, I felt it was high time I revisited the tool and documented the various ways I have been using it to help amplify events.
 

1. Storify as an event summary tool

 
A number of event organisers use Storify as an event summary tool. Most seem to use it as a means of displaying selected tweets or entire Twitter discussions, and add very little in the way of contextualisation or alternative content. Whilst this is overwhelmingly the most popular use for Storify, it does seem to defeat the nature of the tool as a means of “curating” social media content.

From my earliest dabbling with Storify, I have aimed to use it to tell a story, by adding illustrations from Flickr, useful resources such as videos or slides, contextualising headings and original commentary to help bring the materials together. Particularly since the arrival of embeddable tweets, one could argue that this type of summary could be recreated perfectly well on most blogging platforms, without the need for Storify at all, except that it provides an easy interface to search different streams of social media content, then drag and drop it into place. However, I have recently worked on a number of smaller workshops, where there is no appropriate blog or platform for such a post to appear, and creating one for the purpose is equally not appropriate. Having the summary hosted separately on Storify allows the organisers to engage with social media, without the need for any more permanent infrastructure to monitor and maintain.

A good example of this is my summary of the Intelligent Buildings and Smart Estates event, which was organised as part of the JISC Greening ICT programme. This brought together all of my coverage from the event, including photos, tweets (as @RobBristow) and video interviews with participants. Whilst it is a little on the long side for a Storify summary, it provides an overview of the event in one place.

As an external or consultant event amplifier, using Storify in this way also provides a number of logistical advantages:

• I don’t have to be established as a user on a project or organisation blog
• I don’t get held up by the security settings on someone else’s site or blog, which can often prevent me from embedding materials using iframes
• I can easily notify people I have quoted in my summary of the event, which makes the process more open and spreads the word about the summary much more effectively
• Organisers can send out one link to the Storify summary in their post-event communications, providing once central point for participants to recap or share with their colleagues

2. Storify as an online programme

 
At IWMW 12, I experimented with using Storify to create an evolving programme – that is, a page that starts as a programme and gradually becomes a summary as each session is completed. This was originally created for our own logistical benefit as event amplifiers: we needed a way of collecting the speakers’ slides together in a single place so that my colleague could show them as part of the live video stream.

Inspired by the JISC 2011 conference’s use of an online programme to help inform remote delegates about live streamed content, I decided to publish this and use it throughout the day as a tool for the remote audience. As each session finished, I added a one paragraph summary of the session and a selection of the most pertinent tweets, to help give anyone who missed the session of flavour of what was covered, and what the audience thought about it.

As a result, by the end of the day my programme had evolved into a complete summary of the proceedings. This meant I was promoting the same link throughout the day and afterwards, thus reducing the number of separate links being tweeted around to various resources, which can often be an overwhelming side-effect of amplification at the end of an event.

The programme/summary could also be included in summaries produced by other participants. Ann Priestley included it in her live blog (also created using Storify).

The two summaries can be viewed here:

• IWMW 12 Day Two
• IWMW 12 Day Three

Note: IWMW Day One featured mainly parallel sessions, which were not live streamed, and one plenary, which was publicised to the remote audience separately.
 

3. Backing Up Storify

 
Storify offers an export function, which allows you to publish the summary to your own blog, where it appears in HTML. I have created a separate Amplified Event Back Up Blog to collect back up copies of each of my Storify summaries, using this facility. In this way, I can protect my work and my clients from any loss of materials, should anything untoward happen with Storify. So far, the service has been very stable, but I have observed that several of my very early stories are no longer showing up on the site. Storify does not provide any details about how long it will keep users stories available, but it does have perhaps one of the nicest sets of terms and conditions of any online service I have come across. Many online services periodically clear out old content or old statistics, so it is always safer to have a backup that is under your own control.

Conclusions

 
Further changes in practice may evolve both as the tool develops and as we come up with more diverse ways of deploying it within the amplified event mix. For now, this is one tool that is growing in hype, but needs more widespread intelligent use to really shine as an event amplification tool.
 

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