SISO Update April 29, 2008
-Welcome to the SISO Update -
A Bi-Weekly Aggregated News Service
From The Society of Independent Show Organizers

Last Call for the 2008 ABM/SISO Compensation Survey

This is your last chance to get your survey in and benefit from the wealth of salary and other compensation-related information in the trade show industry. The deadline for the 2008 ABM/SISO Compensation Survey has been extended until Friday, May 2.

This is the third compensation survey for American Business Media and SISO. The survey is free of charge to ABM/SISO members who participate. Non-participating ABM/SISO members pay $695 and non-members, $995.

Please forward this survey to the proper person in your company to complete, and by return e-mail to ABM, advise ABM of that person's name for follow-up purposes.

You may download the survey from the following link. Be sure to follow the directions carefully. Direct all correspondence to Peter Craig at craigp@baysherman.com.

2008 ABM/SISO Compensation Survey template
2008 Compensation Survey job descriptions

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Check out Photos from the 2008 CEO Summit!
The CEO Summit was a great success! See for yourself. Click here to see photos from the event.

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Feature: Tips from the Event Doctor!
How to extend your brands seamlessly

The first major session at the recent SISO CEO Summit was entitled "Extending the Brand" and featured a number of media moguls such as Britton Jones (Business Journals), Frank Anton (Hanley Wood), Skip Farber (WSA), George Jage (World Tea Expo) and Kerry Smith (Red 7 Media). I've already detailed a wrap-up of that session and the rest of the conference here. The session reminded me of a conversation I had with Ted Doyle of FuelDog Media about the power of brands and particularly how you should seriously consider extending your brands into new media to meet new customer demands.

The role of events is to meet the medium- and long-term information needs of the customer (i.e. that if a customer has an immediate need for particular information he/she will get it online and not wait for it). As time goes on, the 'battleground' has been extended for the medium-term as other non-event options have emerged for a customer's attention. So this presents both a challenge and an opportunity: to harness the customer's desire for non-event options and simultaneously extend the lifecycle and reach of one's brand.

A key change that suppliers of information have needed to make in the past is the orientation of the delivery of information to reflect the needs of the customer. Depending on the demographic of the viewer and the industry, he/she may want the information in a written report, download or e-mail. Doing the research to find out what the predominant medium customers want to serve them therefore is a preliminary homework project for every event organizer.

If you decide to start sending more content to your 'audience' a key thing to remember is that you don't need to make a profit on everything, as long as the totality of your strategy adds a benefit such as better customer retention and attention. Just know that in this day and age, trying to monetize everything does not always work, and may not fit your 'new customer ways,' that the days of 30-60% margins are over. In addition, your content 'competition' may already be offering this content for free so yours needs to match that, plus be delivered when and where the customer wants it. Did we also mention that it needs to be of a higher quality?

The above already represents the reality for the media business, so if you are entering the events space from the media side - not the tradeshow or conference side, you already realize the above. If not, the commoditizing of information is going to require serious changes in how you do business in the future.

This may be the bad news, so how do you actually seize this opportunity? Here's what Ted recommends:

1) Look at and develop your brand strategy.

- What are your long- or short-term goals? How will you remain competitive in this vertical segment?

- Analyze your vertical. What is it about your content that your audience values most? What content has a long shelf life? How often do they need it? Events are a features business.

2) Decide the mediums that will provide content that the audience wants.

Plan a portal for your brand if it makes financial sense. Start slowly and invest incrementally. Examples of new media are: webinars and podcasts, online tradeshow, buyers guides, video, wiki (if involved enough), hosting news content, and blogs, among others.

3) Become an aggregator of buyers and sellers outside of the event.

Get sponsors of non-event media, including web advertising, etc. on a regular basis. Note that you won't get booth rates for a webinar, but you will get incremental dollars.

4) Realize that providing high quality content is not cheap.

Invest in this and provide it every day or as often the customer needs it. Consider RSS feeds.

7) Build your new 24/7 strategy based upon open source platforms since they can offer a lot of technical help.

Begin slowly, stay committed and upgrade when necessary.

8) Be strategic on where you charge viewers and sponsors and start package with other offerings.

9) Don't throw in web 2.0 technology just because.

The plan needs to make sense for your business. You don't have to do things all at once.

10) Stay the course and be flexible both in your plans and your thinking.

Ultimately, the decision to change your business model is a tough one fraught with hard decisions and the stamina to stay the course. Be decisive though, as you don't want to be in the position of having to be forced to change. Good luck on your journey!

Warwick Davies is the Principal of The Event Doctor!, a consulting company that helps event organizers realize greater revenues and profits by fixing 'broken' events and launch new ones both in United States and internationally . His clients include organizers in the information technology, healthcare, biotechnology and executive events markets. Previously, Warwick was responsible for internationally recognizable event brands such as Macworld Conference and Expo, LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, and the Customer Relationship Management Conference and Exposition worldwide. For more information on The Event Doctor! and past SISO The Event Doctor! Columns, please visit www.theeventdoctor.net/resources.html. He can be reached at Warwick@theeventdoctor.net or at 781-354-0119.

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Industry News: Trade Show Executive Launching Awards Gala & Summit

Trade Show Executive's Gold 100 Award Gala & Summit will debut this Fall. The event will honor the producers of the 100 largest trade shows in the nation, ranked by net square feet of exhibit space. Additionally, ten organizers will receive Grand Awards in a variety of categories.

Visit Trade Show Executive to sign up to be notified when registration officially opens for this event. For more information, contact Darlene Gudea at (760) 929-9666 or dgudea@tradeshowexecutive.com or Diane Bjorklund at (630) 312-8915 or dbjorklund@tradeshowexecutive.com.

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Industry News: Major Exhibit Space Expansion in New York

Vornado Realty Trust and its subsidiary, Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., will spend $100 million to renovate Piers 92 and 94 on New York's West Side.

When completed, the project will add 215,000 square feet of exhibit space to the 140,000 sq. ft. already on Pier 94.

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Industry News: NEMICE '08: Many Planners Far Along Green Meetings Curve

The focus at this year's NEMICE, the annual meeting of the New England Chapter of Meeting Professionals International, was making meetings green. Attendees split up into roundtables focused on recycling, green gifts and giveaways, environmentally minded site inspections, green hotels and transportation, and adding charitable elements to your meeting. For this entire story and more, visit MeetingsNet.

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SISO Member News: Introduction to the Industry

A presentation was developed by SISO and jointly funded by the Exhibit Industry Foundation to help members and others in the industry when they are asked to present information about the industry. This is a resource that's available to you as a SISO member. Check it out.