conference technology planning - updated for 2011

Most of the items I wrote in 2009 in my post about conference technology planning are still valid.  Nevertheless I have added a substantial amount of revised content, particularly related to Twitter and mobile devices.

Online

• Identify and promote a tag e.g. example2009
  
  • Make sure your tag is unique, avoids 1 vs. l and similar confusion, and is short
  • Short because you're also going to want it to be a Twitter hashtag e.g. #example2009
  • Consider registering your tag with various services (I don't know that this is a high priority - I believe a lot more in search-based tag discovery than search registration)
    - the service that Twitter uses is What the Trend, but there are some issues with your description being replaced by other updates

• Get a URL, ideally with the tag embedded e.g. example2009.exampleorganisation.org
• Consider creating an event blog, if relevant
• Consider creating an event wiki, if relevant
• Consider creating an event Twitter account, if relevant (use of hashtags may cover this better)
  - if Twitter is an important part of your communications and event, make sure to embed Twitter content (e.g. using a JavaScript widget) on the front page of your site
  - remember people may be joining the Twitter conversation at any time, so don't forget to periodically link to your actual event from your tweets - particularly at the start of each conference day
• Provide sharing buttons (perhaps with pre-written messages including the hashtag) on all pages of your site.

• Provide live video/webcast, live audio, or later podcasts of audio and video recordings
• The more rapidly you can get content online during and shortly after the event, the higher the impact it will have.

Think about lifespan of your online presence.  Do you have a plan for maintenance of the website, blog, wiki and Twitter account?  Ideally these should be part of an integrated comms presence, not just standalones.  For example, it's much better to have the blog on a main site e.g. blog.exampleorganisation.org than on a custom eventexample2011.org site.  If you create a custom domain for your site, someone has to keep renewing that domain... basically forever, unless you want the domain to expire and be taken over by someone else (usually it either turns into a placeholder page or an adult site, since domains are cheap to buy in bulk).

For whatever pages or sites or accounts you create, define the expectations up front: This page will be archived in a year, comments on this blog will close a month after the conference and it will go idle, etc.

Similarly, it's much better to be tweeting from @exampleorg with a hashtag, than to create a special @example2011 account that tweets for a while and then goes silent.  Not only are you losing all the followers associated with that account, at some point if the account is idle you may lose it entirely, and then you have the same problem of someone else taking it over.  (See Twitter Help Center - Inactive Account Policy for more information.)

Remember you are not the centre of the universe.  It's a web.  Find out what social media tools and sites the attendees use.  Be (respectfully) present in those environments and use those tools.  You may find e.g. a particular scientific site is the best place to share most of your information about an upcoming event, rather than creating your own elaborate site.

To reiterate: depending on your community, use the full arsenal of networks available to reach your desired audience.  This may be Facebook, but don't forget LinkedIn, Nature Network, and other sites that may be more aligned with your particular target demographic.  NOTE: This requires considerable care.  There is nothing more disliked in an existing community than an outsider "parachuting in" to promote a particular event / topic / agenda.  Make sure you know the etiquette (yes, there is such a thing online) and conventions of any site you use.

Be aware that post-event engagement is really hard.  I advise against investing heavily in your own custom event social networking site, or even a white-label event social networking site. Make it easy for people to connect to you, and make it easy (through hashtags and aggregation) for people to discover one another. They can do the rest on their own.  A mailing list and a hashtag can be a more effective way of keeping people in contact than a standalone social network site.

• Set up your event in Lanyrd, particularly if you anticipate a lot of Twitter use - this will let people connect with speakers, attendees, and content.
  - There are similar services, please feel free to comment if you have others you've found useful.  Lanyrd is the one I've seen the most recent Twitter buzz about.
• Create an Upcoming event
  • This will also give you a machine code that Flickr users can embed to get a nice "This photo taken at Example event" notice.
  • There is some risk that Upcoming will be shut down by Yahoo, so make sure it is only a secondary part of your online presence.
• Create a SlideShare event to store the presentations

• Use an aggregator to pull in all the tagged and hashtagged activity
  - I'd be interested in recommendations for easy aggregation solutions.  This is a key way to expose content to people who are comfortable with the web, but may not necessarily use Twitter or other tools.
• Consider appropriate tools for shared conference liveblogging.
  - Wikis are usually not a good choice due to edit conflicts.
  - Google Docs can support multiple simultaneous editors.
  - Etherpad  is no longer supported by Google but you can run your own server or use various online versions, which can support multiple simultaneous edits.
  - There are also dedicated tools such as CoverItLive and ScribbleLive that allow liveblogging with moderated questions and Twitter integration.  These work best I think when there is a single reporter in charge of the liveblog, writing notes and fielding questions.  They're primarily Flash-based, so there can be some complexity when used with mobile devices - I also don't know how well the resulting content is indexed by Google (if at all).
• Another part of recording the event is of course the hashtagged tweets themselves that are generated - but this is tricky as tweets very quickly no longer show up in Twitter search (unlike Google, in Twitter search old material simply doesn't show up after a while) and Twitter has changed its rules for online archiving sites.  I think the best you can do is either run local archive software (using e.g. the Twapperkeeper codebase, or run the desktop version of Archivist).  Be aware that you still may not capture all the tweets, but you should get most of them.

• Do some very basic usability for your site: Highlight the dates and location.  Put your contact information (email, phone number, Twitter) up front in a prominent location.  Highlight submission deadlines, registration information (including costs), accomodations. 
• In particular often conference websites have terrible maps.  This is easy to fix.  Use Google Maps and Google Earth integration to highlight your venue and surrounding attractions
  • Since it may he hard for people to use a satellite map to recognise your venue, also consider photos of the exterior of your venue (geotagged in Flickr or PhotoSynth panorama are both good ways to show off the venue) as well as Google Street View and Microsoft Virtual Earth Birds Eye view (if they are available for your location).
• Make it easy for people to get website information into their mobile devices - that means online calendars that can be imported into Google Calendar, Outlook, and iPhone calendar - there's actually a standard format you can use, called iCalendar.  Importable contact info, maps, directions etc. are also very useful.
• Make sure your site is usable on small mobile devices (e.g. iPhones).  You may want to provide a more traditional stripped-down mobile site as well, depending on audience and location (many people in many countries don't have smart phones, but can still view basic mobile sites on their phones).

There's a great list of tools that can help you capture and analyse your event available from the Event Amplifier blog - Curating and Re-Using Amplified Conference Discussions.

We Grow Media also has useful thoughts on How to Extend the Value of In-Person Events with Social Media.

UPDATE 2011-03-16: Lorcan Dempsey wrote on March 14, 2011 about the Amplified Event with a specific focus on remote participation in events.  ENDUPDATE

A note: there can be confusion between a tag and a hashtag.  Usually for a blog you will have a tag that goes in the metadata, e.g. example2011.  Usually on Twitter for various reasons of searching and convention, it will be a hashtag instead #example2011.  Sometimes people forget the hash on Twitter, and sometimes people add it when tagging their blogs.

Offline

• State the event tag and your expectations of audience technology use at the start of each day (something like "be respectful" will probably cover it)
• Prepare presenters who may not be used to live coverage by their audience, for example see How to Present While People are Twittering
  • Also consider having the presenters suggest a single unified location for live coverage - see FriendFeed thread on this topic
• If you plan to record audio or video, check out well in advance what the venue can provide
  • And make sure you get permission from presenters in advance
• Consider using QR Code on badges, either for contact information or to connect to people's websites/blogs/twitter.  Consider adding Twitter accounts to badges (they're short).  Remember to have a small amount of information on badges, in LARGE FONT.  No one wants to lean in and squint to read someone's name.

• If you can set up the venue so that presenters have a screen in front of them where they can see what slide is up, that helps a lot (otherwise various things happen, including presenters are looking over their shoulders, or they forget to advance the slides) - it's also particularly helpful if you have a panel presenting, as otherwise the panel has to basically turn their backs on the audience in order to see the slides
  - it's true that presenters can usually see their laptop but this creates other problems - they point at the laptop screen instead of the actual big screen, they look down at the laptop rather than out at the audience, and they tend to be constrained to stand right in front of the laptop - it's much better if you have a large display screen positioned at the front of the audience
• Be prepared for laptop swaps and last minute presentations on memory keys (or ask everyone to use a standard laptop and send their presentations in advance, in which case, good luck).
• When there are laptop swaps be prepared for some delay as people figure out how to get the laptop display output and the projector in sync.
• If there are going to be people using Mac laptops to present (and there often are), make sure you have one of each of the many many different Mac laptop display connectors available (people always forget their display adapters).
• Be aware many presenters are not great at using PowerPoint and don't necessarily know either how to start it into presentation mode or how to easily advance slides (the spacebar, seriously, just hit the spacebar).  Have someone available to help if they accidentally exit or end up trying to use the mouse menu to advance slides or something.
• Even better, get a little handheld slide advancer, I really like the Kensington 33374.
• If you have a wireless mike, show them how to turn it on, and show them where to put the controller (an inside suit pocket works well for men, or clipped to their belt).  I once did an entire presentation holding the wireless mike controller in my hand since I didn't know where to put it.
• Provide a laser pointer and show them how to use it (the aforementioned Kensington has a built-in one).
• Have extra batteries for everything - mikes, pointers, mice etc.
• Provide a water pitcher and glasses on a table where they're unlikely to spill.  Amongst other reasons, plastic water bottles suck environmentally.
• Provide a space for paper notes (yes, people do sometimes still like to have notes, even if just as a crutch).
• In general, try to either do speaker prep in advance, or set the expectation that the speaker to speaker transition will take a minute or two, even if things are (inevitably) running late.  There's nothing more unnerving as a speaker than being rushed to start your presentation, fiddling with display settings, your wireless mike, etc. all while worrying the clock is ticking.
• Also, when the speaker leaves the stage, make sure they take everything with them that is theirs, and nothing that isn't (I have a tendency to forget my wireless clicker, while walking back into the audience still wearing my live wireless mike).

• Stable WiFi (a somewhat mythical creature I have yet to see) with all procedures in place (e.g. passwords or accounts if the venue requires them).  Make the official SSID (the network identifier) very clear to everyone.  You may also want to mention good wifi security practices - at least mention to people that anything they send that is not encrypted can be read by anyone else on the network.
  - I don't know if new 3G hotspot devices (including the iPhone 4) will make for a better WiFi conference experience, or will just generate interference and confusion.
• Lots and lots of power outlets
• Consider having device charging stations (perhaps sponsored, if you're having a sponsored event) - the three main types of charger cables to have available are USB mini, USB micro, and iPhone/iPad.
• Big LCD or plasma screens are now available at many venues and, paired with e.g. a netbook, can make great places to display timely notices, event photos, and Twitter walls.
• I'm of the opinion that running the Twitter wall e.g. on the main projector(s) between speakers is good (it gives people something to look at while you're getting set up, for one thing, making it less of a rushed experience) but I recommend against Twitter walls during a presentation - particularly if the speaker can't see the screen, but even if they can.  It's just too distracting, and it's a bit unnerving for the speaker not knowing what may come up.
• All of the Twitter walls I've used are problematic - some use tiny fonts, or low contrast, and almost all the Flash-based ones eventually crash.  Also remember to turn off screensaver mode or the Twitterwall will disappear after a while.
  - The one I like best so far is Visible Tweets but there are many options.  Twitterfall and Twitterfountain also provide interesting tweet displays.
• Be aware that anything that is a pure unmoderated hashtag/tag pull, whether a twitterwall or a photowall or whatever, presents the opportunity for inappropriate or awkward material - either from people at the event, or from outside hashtag spammers or tag collisions with other topics.

Other guides:

* Walt Crawford has some fantastic information about conferences in http://citesandinsights.info/civ7i7.pdf
* Some thoughts on the "amplified conference" on Wikipedia, based on ideas from from Lorcan Dempsey, Brian Kelly and others

Thanks to @macjudith for asking the questions that prompted this updated post.

Previously:
My July 8, 2006 posting conference tag goodness with HitchHikr has links at the bottom to my examination of this topic spanning back to 2004.  (This blog was started as a place to put conference notes, so thinking about conference support is in some sense part of its DNA.)