Hey I'm speaking at the MTO Summit!

Tarsus Advon’s MTO Summit, scheduled Nov. 9-10 at the Hilton Alexandria Hotel in Alexandria, Va., has announced a stellar lineup of industry thought leaders as speakers and sessions designed to engage show organizers and suppliers in the event industry.

“We are excited with the content, speakers and sponsor participation for the upcoming MTO Summit” said Stephen Nold, founder of the MTO Summit and president of Tarsus Advon. “With the theme ‘Technology: It’s Time to Execute’ our audience will be told to quit thinking about strategic technology design and challenged to start implementing.”

Nold said attendees will not find any “social media basics” sessions since “we are beyond teaching how to create a Facebook account.”

The day before the MTO Summit kicks off, the Marketing Challenges Workshop will be led by Warwick Davies - Principal of The Event Mechanic!, who was responsible for internationally recognizable event brands such as the Macworld Conference and Expo, LinuxWorld Conference and Expo and the Customer Relationship Management Conference and Exposition worldwide.

According to Davies, the session was born from the idea that there are challenges of marketing given the economy and the plethora of technology options available to optimize, automate and streamline many event business functions, including marketing.

He added that what’s missing in event marketing is engagement. “The days of pressing a button and sending hundreds of thousands of e-mails blindly to a database that may not know or care about you are if not gone, will soon be past as open rates plummet,” Davies said. “Given that event marketers have more work and pressure to deliver quality relevant audiences than ever, would it possible to boil down the biggest marketing event challenges into understandable and actionable solutions in a half a day? I think it can.”

The following day will be packed with informative sessions, including an opening keynote by Dax Callner, vice president of Innovation Team of Momentum Worldwide. Callner will discuss how to effectively implement digital media strategies and discuss the realities of ROI of social marketing. He'll be sharing case studies from Dell, American Express and other top brands.

There are even more sessions on tap:

* “Disruption and the Evolution of Meetings” - will explore dynamic architecture for face-to-face meetings that harnesses the power of the community, supports the technologies that make collaboration possible, and disrupts traditional thinking. Panelists include Shawn O’Keefe, Interactive Festival Producer at South by Southwest, and Toby Daniels, co-founder and CEO at Crowdcentric.

* “Executing With Technology” – will look at how companies have integrated technology effectively into their events as part of the Show Manager Track. Panelists include Steve Lazarus, lead strategist for IBM, Mark Fissell, director of new product development for Gartner Events and Jaime Romero, vice president of AxialMarket.

* “Key Tools to Developing Trade Show and Marketing Communications Strategies” – will discuss what technology framework exhibitors should consider in the design of their trade show floor technology as part of the Exhibitor Track. The session will be led by Chris Justice, CEO of Sparksight.

* “What Do We Sell” – will be led by trade show industry experts Chris Brown, who oversees The NAB Show, and Shawn Pierce, who leads the housing and reg division for Experient. The session will address - should our industry start questioning many of the foundation principles upon which the exhibition business models have been built?

After a full day of sessions, the evening will feature the launch of the first-ever TSNN Event Excellence Awards at which five awards will be given for three growing shows, an industry icon and a technology innovation award.

To register or for more information on the MTO Summit or TSNN Event Excellence Awards please visit www.mtosummit.com.

For sponsorship possibilities, contact Chris Anderson – TSNN manager of business development, at canderson@tsnn.com or 512-992-6297.

MTO Summit

In 2008, Tarsus Advon launched MTO Summit, a series of executive level conferences which bring together the buyers and supplies of technology in the events industry. The goal of MTO Summit is to bring an extension of MeetingTechOnline website into reality with a face-to-face networking event. These nationwide conferences educate association executives, show producers and management on technology in the events industry, and introduce technology suppliers who are changing the way technology is used. For more information and to register for the MTO Summit go to: www.mtosummit.com

About Tarsus Advon

Based in Austin, Tarsus Advon oversees online publications and community portals that provide technology information and education for the event and tradeshow industry. Tarsus Advon also conducts research with show organizers, technology suppliers, and industry experts. Qualitative and quantitative data are respectively gathered though primary sources and survey analysis. Events are designed to educate event and exhibition professionals about the latest trends and developments in technology. Tarsus Group acquired Tarsus Advon in 2010

TSNN Press Contact:
Arlene Shows
ashows(at)tarsus(dot)com
603-925-1160

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Open sourcing your event

Love this article as a concept from: Eventmanagerblog.com

Open sourcing your event. A featured interview with Harrison Owen
December 12, 2007 By Julius Solaris

It is a great honor for this blog to host Harrison Owen as a part of the featured interviews section.

Harrison has worked on virtually every continent with organizations ranging from small villages to large corporations and NGOs. His major concern has been to assist organizations as they negotiate a transforming world. In some cases his role has been little more than holding the hands of the anxious. In other situations his function was more overt, assisting organizations in the sometimes painful process of self-understanding and renewal. In all situations the organizational mythology and culture was the focal point, and the power of self-organization the ultimate driver.

For what concerns events Harrison Owen is the voice of Open Space Technology which he has theorized and discussed in his masterpiece Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide which I invite you to read if you approaching the world of Barcamps, Unconferences or simply if you want to add a flare of Open Source concepts to your event.

Let’s see what Harrison has told us.

- What is the role (if there is one) of event coordinators in Open Space Technology (OST) events?

Pretty much the same as in all other events – taking care of space, logistics, and meals. But it is a lot simpler because the meeting basically runs itself (self-organization) and the participants take responsibility for their needs and actions. Even with very large gatherings (1000-2000+) this is true. In a curious way, the real trick is NOT to do stuff.

- What are the first steps we should take to integrate OST practices in our next event?

The very first step is to really make sure that you actually want to use Open Space. Open Space is marvelous when you have highly complex issues and a great diversity of participants. It is absolutely the wrong thing if the sponsor wants to remain in control of what is going on, both in terms of the happenings during the gathering and the final results. Control resides with the participants who will decide what they want to talk about, how they want to do that – and the conclusions that result will be theirs. This may sound like total chaos and pandemonium but the experience is that the people will take charge of what they care about and the results can be almost mind-blowing. For example a group of engineers at Boeing re-designed the manufacturing process for making doors on their airplanes. They did this in two days when everybody “knew” that doing something like this could take several years. Not every Open Space produces results like that, but after 20 years and several 100,000 iterations in 134 countries it has become quite clear that the Boeing experience is not unique.

- Three attributes of the perfect OST event

I hate to say it, but every Open Space is perfect J And the common attributes are 1) High Learning – folks regularly think impossible thoughts and come up with unthinkable solutions. 2) High Play – everything takes place in a playful, albeit respectful environment. Even when the central issue is deadly serious (as with Palestinians and Israelis working on the issues of war and peace) – it is quite common to hear laughter breaking out followed by hugs. 3) Appropriate structure and control – the level of structure and control in the typical Open Space event is so complex that no planning committee would even dare suggest it, but that structure and control is all emergent. It comes from the people themselves. In a gathering of 2108 German Psychiatrists, the participants created 236 concurrent sessions which all ran over the course of a single day and each session produced a written report. That is complex structure and control! 4) Genuine Community – One of the curious things about Open Space is that even mortal enemies (literally people who have been killing each other) will treat each other with respect, and most often end up liking each other (hugs).


- Why a sponsor would like to support an OST event?

The predisposing conditions for an Open Space are as follows: 1) A real business issue, however you might define “business – that people really care about. 2) Enormous complexity in terms of that issue such that no single person or even a very smart group could possibly get their arms around it. 3) Great diversity of the participants in terms of points of view, disciplines, economic status, education etc. 4) Lot of passion and conflict. 5) A Decision time of yesterday – in short this is an issue that needs to be dealt with NOW!

- What is the role of volunteers in OST?

If by “volunteers” you mean people that help out, but don’t participate – that role is minimal to non-existent. Everybody there should care to be there – and if they don’t care about the issue, no reason for them to come. And if they are there, and do care – the will take care of just about everything. Seems to work every time.