events

Events
related: Promoting Events, How is your conference green? recommended listening: [|future of conferences] slideshare: [|engaging events] (45,000+ views) outbounding: [|how do we make events more engaging?] worksheet: [|events checklist] editing: [|Calendar]

All events can be more engaging.

Planeta Wiki's calendar of events appears in the left-hand column of each page. We feature the small and local, large and bureaucratic and do not charge for an event listing. We invite event organizers help edit their own web pages and of the place where the event occurs.

Some of the events are Indigenous celebrations, including New Zealand's Matariki, others natural events (Total Solar Eclipse), others cultural (UNESCO Heritage Meeting).

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Rating Global Events
We host an online conversation specific to rating the global events on their merits. Please let Ron Mader know if you'd like to help formulate the ratings. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nlBxT_jd72PdA1m2CjB6SpD0oOG-mWppSs0dHZpLFy8/edit

Open Access/Creative Commons [|#livestreaming] video and engage remote participants include the local community - engage, bolster Public facing What was announced? Testimonials Directory of participants Role of remote participants
 * Considerations:**

Essay
The best events motivate, educate and inspire.

Here are some to ways to 'hack your own event' using the social web:

Most of these ideas can be used for other events, including Local Travel in the USA, hashtag [|#localtravelusa]. Suggestions welcome.

Periscope - Livestream the event. Periscope is new and hip. We can heart you if you [|#periscope] Ustream - My recommendation to livestream the presentations and Q&A sessions from the event. Ustream's advantage over Periscope is the ease of uploading (and archiving) videos to YouTube. Twitter - Tweet and retweet. Favorite tweets and bonus points if you embed a tweet on blog. More bonus points if you create a Twitter list Flickr - Upload photos. Take us for a walk in Ecuador/Poland. We love pictures of city parks, mountains, markets and good signage. Tweet your favorites! Facebook - Share stories from the event using relevant groups. Slideshare - Post presentations or documents, preferably with a Creative Commons attribution-share alike license Storify - Curate your favorite bits YouTube - Upload your own video of responsible travel and ecotourism in action.

Invite Ron to give a presentation
 * How to ...**

Blog
[|Hack your own event]

Questions for Event Organizers: Online Focus
1. What is the event’s hashtag? 2. Are you scheduling Google+ hangouts? 3. Do you have the Twitter lists of your speakers, sponsors and participants? 4. Do you know how know how to make a Twitter list? 5. What are your recommendations for remote participants?

Questions for Event Organizers: Local Focus
1.How will locals benefit during the event? 2.Can locals host satellite events? 3.What are your recommendations for locals? 4.What will be the legacy of the event and how can this be monitored?

Questions
Is there an event page on Facebook? = ¿hay una página del evento en Facebook?

Facebook
[|Planeta Events]

Google+
[|Upcoming Events] https://plus.google.com/events

LinkedIn
[|How can traditional travel conferences best interact with online participants?] [|Evaluating tourism conferences: What works, what fails]

How is your conference green? barcamp ost tentpole tradeshows unconference workshops wifi
 * Wiki**

Favorite events from 2016 http://planeta.wikispaces.com/fmgm http://planeta.wikispaces.com/nethui

mentions http://planeta.wikispaces.com/iucn2016

Slideshare
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[|NetHui: Shaping the Future Together] - [|Storify]
 * Benchmark Events**

Suggestions for Event Organizers
Your paying face-to-face attendees are using the Web? Your non-paying virtual fans want to know what's happening. How will you engage the participation of both crowds? Easy! Connect them.

At the event
Display the event's hashtag Display the event's wifi access code Display the discussion about the event with a 'Twitterfall'

Buzzword Bingo
Academic Conference - Attendee - Check-in - Collaboration - Communication - Consultation - Conference - Engagement - **Events** - Face to Face - Engagement - Exclusive - Forum - Fringe Event - Guest List - Host - Inclusive - Information Doer - Livestreaming - Local - Marquee event - Meeting - Networking - Online - Open Space Technology (OST) - Organizer - Participant - Parallel Event - People - Photo Safari - Presentation - Powerpoint - Registration - Remote Participant - Reservation - Satellite Event - Slideshare - Soundwalk - Sustainability - Tentpole Event - Tickets - Trade Show - Venue - Workshop

Example: http://tedxsydney.com/site/satellite.cfm
 * Satellite Events** = Activities or meetings independently organized and conducted in tandem with an official event. (Not to be confused with events in the satellite industry which are also called 'satellite events')

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Current Events (2015)
climatecop rtd9


 * Recent events**

cbdcop11 rtcities oregon ecotourism european ecotourism nethui rioplus20 conservation congress wtm

I'd like to see more overviews of events that take a broader view of opportunities and constraints. To what degree do we maximize the offsite networking. Consider how Cape Town, South Africa positions its locals as ambassadors for tourism. The events do not take place just in a conference center but in the city as a whole. In my view, this is the future of events conferencing, selling not only a particular venue but including the entire place.
 * Specific Ideas**

Fringe events - particularly outside the WTM - are another good example.

Live streaming is a fantastic thing to offer at events. That said, it can be costly and complicated. Here are simple ways to build the buzz for the event using the social web. For me, I'm hoping to learn something about the youth travel market, why it's important (citing all the brilliant things Toni can say) and a bit about the region.

So here goes

Use and encourage the use of Flickr to document the event and outings >> http://www.flickr.com

On Twitter we should follow and retweet those participating. There should also be a hashtag specific to the event. >> http://twitter.com

On Facebook's event page, info can be posted and liked and tweeted >> http://www.facebook.com

On Google+ https://plus.google.com/events/create

On Youtube participants can upload videos or make playlists >> http://www.youtube.com

Participants who use Powerpoint or other formal presentation software can upload their documents to Slideshare >> http://slideshare.net/planeta

On the wiki we can update either a regional pages >> http://planeta.wikispaces.com

Events are more engaging when they allow those at the event and remote participants to co-create something of relevance - wiki, google doc

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Benchmark
In Ron's book the May 2011 Responsible Tourism in Cities Conference set a new benchmark for tourism events. The event was engaging with presentations followed by lived Q&A discussions and a guided walk through the Durban city market. Best of all is that the conference started a much-needed conversation. Rarely do we talk about responsible tourism and cities in the same breath. The conference included live-streaming video with questions solicited from those following on Twitter. Videos and presentations are archived online. We should expect nothing less from tourism events.

Twitter Tips
If your conference participants have access to the Web, announce the event using a specific hashtag before the event that can be used during and afterwards as well.

During the conference you can solicit feedback from those paying attention. You can also request questions that can be repeated at the venue.

Red Flags
• Closed Door Sessions • Speakers not paid • Excluding locals • Reading presentations • Dictating what can be tweeted media type="custom" key="22826224"

When events fail to meet expectations
We have all been to boring events. The crime is repeating the events with a business as usual attitude. Enough with the notion that people get credit for presenting or attending. Bums on seats is not a measure of an engaging event.

Personally, I don't know how we change the status quo. Speakers could insist that events push the boundaries for participation, transparency and legacy. I would love events that promised a blended learning environment of face-to-face interaction and digital engagement. What if speakers promised to participate in Google hangouts before and after the event? What if participants were given the event Twitter hashtag during registration? What if remote participants could be called on to create real-time transcripts of the proceedings and encouraged to ask questions which would be fielded by those at the physical event?

When events fail to meet expectations, what are our options? We would like ways to suggest improvements to event organizers. Do events collect feedback from participants? If the event has local impact, do locals have a way of indicating what worked and what did not? If the event has regional or international impact, are there ways to collect feedback from the larger public? And in each of these cases, to what degree is the feedback received in an open and transparent manner?

Quotes
You can't just throw people who come from different perspectives in a room, lock the door and come back in an hour and expect them to have solved these problems, it takes time for people to develop a shared vernacular, it takes engineered serendipity, that is the creation of serendipitous moments in which people can begin to decode each other's professional vernacular and build their own shared vocabulary. And it's from there that we see an emergent soup of nascent collaborations emerge. – Andrew Zolli, [|Generating innovation through the ideal of the idea]

One of the first and most important insights in all of this is that the digital makes the analogue more important, not less important. In the early days of the rise of digital media, in our euphoria collectively I think there was a belief that somehow digital convenings and digital content were going to eliminate the need for people to get together. In fact actually what's happened is that face-to-face convenings, face-to-face connections matter much more because they provide the trust, the relationships, the sense of deep connection and shared identity that can then be used online when people are not together to work more effectively. – Andrew Zolli, [|Generating innovation through the ideal of the idea]

It’s time to empower the //audience//, not the speaker. Audiences need the power they deserve—or, more accurately, speakers need to acknowledge and accept the power audiences already have: the power to let their minds fully explore the ideas presenters are sharing with them. Audiences are already reaching out. That’s why the backchannel sprung up in the first place. That’s how “live tweeting” came into existence. Because people want to talk, and are accustomed to talking every time they get a great idea, or every time they hear a great idea. [|Conversation is the New Attention]

Your event can be as big or as small as you like. - [|Big Aussie Swap]

The idea of charging a fee for video and audio from conferences and events is old, and comes from the days of charging for tapes of presentations as a way of boosting revenue from live events. Those days are over. - Todd Lucier, [|Why Live Streaming your Event is a No Brainer]

We also benefit from walking into a conference (physically or virtually) already knowing something about who is in the room - not just who is on stage. And those on stage should know who their audience will be -- and what their interests/concerns are. How do we put delegates in touch before the conference begins (with one another, with the speakers)? And help them sustain those connections after the conference ends? The backchannel should have the potential to come to life as a full-blown conversation, only receding to the "back" for the concentrated period of the formal conference, no? - Kurt Ackermann

Gastamos más tiempo en el transito que en el destino - Conversation

We need more speakers who are like DJs [rather than rock stars] The DJ creates an environment in which people have fun, in which people are engaged, and I think we need more superstar DJs on the conference scene than rock stars. - Matt Moore, [|The Future of Conferences] @RNFutureTense @engin_eer http://www.outbounding.org/articles/view/the-future-of-conferences
 * ===recommended listening: [|The future of conferences]===

The word 'conference' is synonymous with bad food, hard chairs and boring speakers. At least it is for many of us. But it doesn't have to be that way and, in fact, it's already changing. The industry is adapting to meet changing consumer expectations. Reasons why, according to **Matt Moore**, Director of Innotecture and chair of the Knowledge Management Forum, are the following trends 1) Participants have less time and money for events 2) The technology has become easier to use 3) People are getting bored with the traditional conference format. "You're starting to see things like barcamps erupt all over the place ... Open Space .... Stand in contrast of the 19th century model of 'I'm going to stand in front of the class and you're going to listen' model."

Previous ways of doing things are no longer tenable.

All of the wonderful web technologies are now starting to work - web conferencing, streaming video

You can build on the foundations that are already there.

We need more speakers who are like DJs who create an environment in which people are fun, in which people are engaged.

They forgot they were in the business of making music, not plastic things. || media type="custom" key="4017429" || [|Generating innovation through the ideal of the idea] The idea of having an ideas festival is a popular idea indeed. But the idea that they’re universally ideal as a way of fostering creative new ideas is an idea that’s hotly contested.

[|Generating innovation through the ideal of the idea] The idea of having an ideas festival is a popular idea indeed. But the idea that they’re universally ideal as a way of fostering creative new ideas is an idea that’s hotly contested.

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Elsewhere on the Web
[|What is a Bar Camp (wikipedia entry)] [|What is an Open Space event? (wikipedia entry)] [|What is a World Cafe?] [|Events - Slideshare] [|Upcoming.org] [|Eventful.com] [|Why Live Streaming your Event is a No Brainer] [|Conferences and events] http://www.iso20121.org [|Making a better conference] - [|@adzebill] https://www.crowdcast.io - [|@crowdcst]

Blogs
http://www.eventmanagerblog.com - http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/marketing/ideas

Example: Scientific Events
http://aas.org/posts/news/2013/12/guide-aas-meeting-etiquette http://www.astrobetter.com/tweeting-the-aas223-meeting-and-introducing-aasviz

Example: Academic Events
[|#LILAC14 – behind the #hashtag - Teach Digital Literacy] -[|@jonwhite82] [|The Plenary Talk as an Opportunity for Hands-on Activities] -[|@briankelly]

Example: Darwin Festival
http://www.darwinfestival.org.au http://www.darwinfestival.org.au/view-program.html http://twitter.com/darwinfestival http://www.youtube.com/DarwinFestival

Promote your event
[]

Unconferences
Unconference

Editing
[|Calendar] [|Co-Hosting] [|Conferencing] [|Grassroots] [|Green Events]

Recommended reading
[|Major Event Greening Guide: A practical guide to reducing the environmental impact of a major event] - It is important to start planning a greener event early; successfully implementing greening actions can require plenty of lead time. Another reason to start the planning process early is that an environmental strategy may be a minimum requirement to enter a bid process. It may also provide a compelling point of difference between competing bids. Given New Zealand’s geographic location, a good environmental plan could help counter concerns about the environmental impacts generated by participants travelling long distances to New Zealand. Decisions made at the early planning stage can significantly influence the types of environmental impacts that arise from the event. For example, decisions about an event’s location and venue can significantly affect the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and impacts associated with transport, energy and water use. Wherever possible, those responsible for staging events should consider the potential environmental impacts of different locations and venues before making their final choice.

[|It bears repeating: The best events are social beyond the walls] - I disagree that the only people who matter are your attendees and potential future attendees. I believe that locals matter. Far too many conferences are held in postcard settings and they treat the locals as scenery. The best events include locals - during the planning stage, the event itself and afterward. If the organizers or participants are perceived to be abusive, the event will draw criticism.

More events please that cross the digital/natural world divide and that link national/international visitors with the people who actually reside in the place!

Applications
[|CoveritLive] powers live events and coverage with social engagement for thousands of digital destinations around the world. Live is better.

Optimal Location http://www.ecography.org/blog/can-better-conference-location-planning-reduce-sciences-carbon-footprint

Lessons from Twitter
Use events to encourage city breaks. Only by visiting and experiencing 1st hand will perceptions be changed. http://twitter.com/#!/MariettedTH/status/107413690185302016

events model has moved away from pure funding to event leverage, focus on PR, media, trade hosting and domestic tourism. http://twitter.com/#!/MariettedTH/status/107413085228249088

Internet Governance Forum
[|Internet Governance Forum (IGF)], run by the IGF Secretariat. Its purpose is to support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with regard to convening a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue - the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The site provides an interactive, collaborative space where all stakeholders can air their views and exchange ideas. http://www.intgovforum.org http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/aboutigf

Remote Participation
Most onsite conferences ignore the trend that those not in the room play a critical role in the feedback and amplification loop. Cheers to the remote participants!

2012 IGF: Baku

 * [|Invitation]
 * [|Preparatory Process 2012]
 * [|Main Sessions]
 * [|Workshops]
 * [|Remote Participation]
 * [|Panellists]
 * [|Transcripts]
 * [|Resource Persons]
 * [|Dynamic Coalitions]
 * [|Open Fora]
 * [|Side Sessions]
 * [|Pre-events]
 * [|New Delegates Briefing Session]
 * [|2012/2013 Calendar]
 * Schedule
 * [|Host Country Website]
 * [|Frequently Asked Questions]
 * [|IGF 2012 Workshop survey]

Meetings

 * [|2011 IGF: Nairobi]
 * [|2010 IGF: Vilnius]
 * [|2009 IGF: Sharm El Sheikh]
 * [|2008 IGF: Hyderabad]
 * [|2007 IGF: Rio de Janeiro]
 * [|2006 IGF: Athens]

IFITT http://www.ifitt.org/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifitt/ https://twitter.com/IFITTorg https://www.facebook.com/groups/ifitt/#!/group.php?gid=8292984021&ref=ts

Wishlist
Presenters would upload handouts and presentations to Slideshare

Apps http://crowdmics.com/

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Misc
[|The environment. Do you practice what you preach?] About 10 years ago I implemented a strict code for accepting invitations to travel events abroad. I asked the event organizers to announce their events on my website and to share follow-up reports. I'd like to ask other eco travel speakers to do the same. Are the events in which we are speaking at any measure 'eco'?

I don't wish to be too harsh. I will travel across the oceans with my conscience aware of the carbon emissions. But if I can learn something, if I can encourage others to share something ... these are footsteps in the right direction.

Tom Walter writes: 'What is the ‘net’ environmental outcome of this travel experience? What (if anything) have I contributed to the place I’m visiting eg. teaching and learning outcomes, environmental awareness, investment back into communities we visit?'

Here's to preaching what we practice. Let's share with the world our stories of ecotourism, responsible travel and conscientious tourism and have fun while we're doing it.

Diversity
http://www.ericgarland.co/2012/10/29/from-diversity-to-inclusion-the-model-of-a-great-conference/ http://pando.com/2013/12/06/to-make-conferences-more-diverse-look-beyond-white-men

Did it break new ground and surprise participants and organizers? Did the event welcome remote participants? Did the event acknowledge previous and parallel efforts in the field?
 * How should events be evaluated?**

Evaluating Events
• How does the event benefit participants? • How does the event benefit locals? • Does the event benefit those not in the room? • Is there an online survey to rate the event?

This way the event can avoid being an island in time and space

More misc break down boundaries between formal conference and communities that could participate.

face to face = kanohi te kanohi (maori)

Essay ([|also on Outbounding])
What sort of events do we find engaging?

While some call for boycotts of events they find distressing, what interests me the most is finding the events to which I'll pay any attention. Frankly, I do not understand how most travel events refuse to integrate livestreaming, basically holding a meeting behind closed doors. Certainly this technique had its role 20 years ago, but given the Internet, shouldn't we demanding a blended approach to the standard brick-and-mortar event?

Another item on my travel event wishlist is that organizers offer more than speakers addressing bland, albeit aspirational, topics. We need healthy debate and discussion. Far too many important topics are left unspoken, or spoken only during the coffee breaks in the corridors between sessions.

I'd also like to encourage more opportunities for self-organization. The events that tire me out the most are those with an agenda crammed from breakfast to late night. Where are the opportunities to create workshops or host informal gatherings? Recently I attended a planning meeting for the World Parks Congress and yes, it was mostly behind closed doors, though I was able to stream a few of the sessions live on my personal Ustream account. But what I truly enjoyed were the long hours we had for lunch that gave me the chance to say to participants that I would happily show them how Google hangouts work. Given the opportunity to be creative, to be clever, participants can use their free time for more than answering personal emails.

This past week I participated in a 3-day conference by way of New Zealand without leaving my home in Nevada. Watching NetHui online, I was able to see the plenaries and breakout sessions. There was an established hashtag and Google docs for collaborative notetaking. Please note that NetHui is not tourism-focused, but in my view, it should be the benchmark to which tourism events aspire.

There are plenty of ideas of how to make events more engaging. You probably have heaps more suggestions of what you'd like to see and anecdotes of what you've had enough of. Please share and together we might develop some ideas of how to make future events better for everyone.

Events ought to be more engaging and if the organizers are not up to providing livestreaming video, diy – do it yourself. Hacking an event does not have to be a criticism. Most organizers are simply up to their eyeballs with other tasks. If you offer to live tweet or livestream the video, remote participants thank you.

Thought Experiment #1
Apply this to events: [|Viewers Won’t Adopt Existing Series If They Can’t Easily Access All Past Episodes]


 * More**

The [|plenary talk] needs reinventing and you make a terrific case for the opportunity we have in the digital era to connect the speaker and audience.

I've attended too many conferences in which the organizers pretend not to notice that the audience is occupied with their own laptop computers and smartphones and giving the speaker perhaps half attention. Participants are polite enough, but it's obvious that the focus is elsewhere. I've just returned from a conference in which I had to instruct the communication experts that needed to visually remind participants of the event hashtag ... and that they needed to lead by example. Otherwise we are in a room where everyone is minding their own business and politely paying some attention to the speaker and meanwhile the opportunities for connection and learning are squandered.

What would I like to see? Lectures combined with livestreaming video AND the dedication of a Google doc where a transcription of the presentation could be made simultaneously. Bonus points for the events that organize a team of transcribers ahead of time and extra bonus points for the events that figure out a way to translate the transcription into other languages. Events that have an international audience or reach could make good use of live video, transcription and translation.

It will be interesting to see how these events compare in regards to live-streaming video and tweeting. We have good friends at both events and we plan to monitor their Twitter channels to bolster our awareness of tourism and conservation.

The question to be answered is 'has the penny dropped?' Do event organizers make it easy for participants in the brick-and-mortar convention centers to share with the world the goings on? Do event organizers know how to tap into the unseen participation from those online? Will the events have singing?

Last year's Indaba set the benchmark for hosting the Responsible Tourism in Cities Workshop streamed live around the world. The presentation Ron delivered - [|We Suck @ Collaboration] - was viewed in real-time by 200 people in the auditorium and since then has garnered 70,000+ views on Slideshare.

Other big time tourism conferences joined the party by offering live video, including November's World Travel Market and to a lesser degree the ITB in Berlin.

There's no single recipe here that [|traditional travel conferences can use to interact with online participants],so we look forward to the surprises ahead

Tentpole Event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent-pole_(entertainment)

Headlines
[|“White Men in Suits” and Sustainable Tourism – Challenges for the ITB and Suggested Solutions] - [|@oneplanetblog] [|Male speakers boycott all-male panels to protest lack of female representation]

Which tourism conferences have the best and worst gender diversity?

For speakers - what would be the reasons you would boycott a speaking gig?

For participants - what would be the reasons you would boycott a conference?

Event Management
[]

Questions
What are the deliverables? What are the desired outcomes? Are provocative questions asked? Are provocative questions answered? Are there ways to connect with locals? What sort of preview and recap are available?

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Embedded Tweets
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Artwork / Cue Yourself
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Videos
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