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Ctrl + Alt + Event
Ctrl+Alt+Event: Navigating the Future of Events with Practical Insights, and Real Solutions
We're not just talking tech; we're showcasing practical examples and delivering real solutions for the events industry.
Join us live, each week on Tuesdays at 3PM GMT on LinkedIn. Get ready for predictions backed by real-world scenarios, live Q&A solving your challenges, and a visual treat of data insights.
Ctrl + Alt + Event
From AI to Zapier: Essential Event Tech Terms for Eventprofs
The dynamic duo is back for the next episode! 🚀
Bogdan Maran and Merijn van Buuren are about to help you take the lead in the industry by providing you with all the foundational knowledge you need regarding event tech.
If you’ve ever wondered:
🤔 What are the most essential Event Tech Terms all event profs need to know?
🤔 What do these terms mean, and why should I even know them?
🤔 How can I apply them and take the lead in the industry?
Then you came to the right place!
In this episode, we've laid the foundation for you as event professionals regarding the most essential topics within event technology.
We're explaining the terms and applications of:
- AI & ML
- Integration & Automation
- (Big) data & analytics
- (Data) Privacy & Security
- Hybrid & Async events
- Event Technology Specialists
After providing the context, we discussed the 10 steps to take if you want to start implementing these terms and applications for your event today.
For those who would like to dive in deeper, we also shared 3 special gifts for you:
1. This week's presentation with additional information and explanations
2. Your own A-Z Event Tech Dictionary with 6000+ terms & Event Tech Chatbot
3. A free, 45-minute Event Tech Check-up to assess and define your event tech stack
Last, but not least, we announced the topic for next week's episode: Live Event Tech Assessment (your chance to get live feedback and input on your tech stack)
We're already looking forward to it!
🗓️ Weekly Rendezvous: Mark your calendar! "Ctrl+Alt+Event" will be live on LinkedIn every Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT to answer all your burning questions.
🔄 Host Rotation: Bogdan and Merijn will alternate hosting the live event each week, so make sure to follow them both to receive notifications.
🔗 Connect with Us: Bogdan Maran, Merijn van Buuren
👥 Get more involved: reserve your spot here
🎙️ Become a guest on our show: apply here
It's not just a podcast; it's a tech-forward experience you won't want to miss!
See you next Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT! 🎉✨
Welcome, welcome, indeed Welcome, to Control + Alt + Event, the show where we navigate the future of events with practical insights and real solutions. We're not just talking event, we're showcasing practical examples and delivering real solutions for the event industry. I'm here together with former photojournalist turned data storyteller, the man who has created custom platforms, data visualizations and an uncountable number of integrations. He's the founder of Visual Hive, a data driven AI marketing engine for marketers and events, and if you need help on video and data strategy, personalization and anything AI, he's the one to talk to. A pleasure to welcome you, Bogdan Maran.
Bogdan Maran:Hey, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here and just to reposite it with a lovely introduction for those who don't know you you are Merijn. You are a tech enthusiast by heart, founder of Event Mender, clearly a man on a mission to help the events industry embrace technology to its full potential. You have worked with over 100 event tech providers, a thousand, over a thousand event professionals and all types of event, and he's the person you need to get in touch if you need help with finding and implementing any of your event technology. So welcome, Merijn van Buuren. If I managed to pronounce that correctly at some point.
Merijn van Buuren:Almost almost, Merijn. The pine part. Let me remind you of that.
Bogdan Maran:The pine. I always forget about the pine.
Merijn van Buuren:Close call, though. Thanks, Bogdan, and thank you all for tuning in live and being here. If you happen to be listening to the recording of this episode, make sure to join us live next week, as we will be live each Tuesday at this time, which is 3pm GMT or 4pm Central European time, to get all your burning questions answered.
Bogdan Maran:That is absolutely true. We will also, if you listen to us on any of your preferred platforms, come to live and join the conversation, technically speaking. And today we will be talking about AI to Zapier, event technology, the soup of alphabets that we dive into. And the question is you came up with this idea and I really liked it, and it's especially of the format, and you said something yesterday about the knowledge gap. Why do we need to get to expand this digital dictionary? Why do we need to stay ahead of the curve as event professionals?
Merijn van Buuren:Well, that's a very good question, but before we dive in a little overview of what we will be talking to you about today because this is the first topic, why do you even need to match that gap and make sure that you are aware of the event tech trends? But also, what are the most essential trends and tools? What do these terminologies mean, how do you apply them for your events and what benefits do they bring to you as an event professional? And, most importantly, how can you actually implement them or take the lead in the event industry by implementing them? Today, as you said, we're going to start with why this is even important In terms of event tech savviness, it is obviously crucial for you, as an event professional, to stay ahead of the industry and make sure your events are always cutting edge, and the more we dive into this digital age that we're in expanding your digital dictionary, as we like to call, it, is more and more essential to keep up with those latest trends, the innovations, and to make sure that your event is that cutting edge event that everyone is as excited for as people were for the Vision Pro, for instance, I think we went through all three points about what you're going to do today and just keep until the end.
Bogdan Maran:Keep bury with us until the end, because we have some three very lovely gifts that we can give you.
Merijn van Buuren:So, moving forward, maybe we can go to the next one in improving your event. It's mainly about expanding your digital dictionary and that allows you, as event professionals, to explore those new technologies and tools and to open up the possibilities to enhance event experiences, increase engagement and streamline those operations. And in order to do that, you need to know the right terminology to actually communicate in the right way. And that's where the comes in in terms of stakeholder communication. I think you also know a bit or two about the stakeholder communication. Wh y do you think it's important?
Bogdan Maran:The challenge here is that you've got a very traditional industry that is well, is well equipped to get to the point when it comes to setting up a live event, when it comes to setting up specific chairs, the specific setups, legislation and everything else, but when it comes to technology, we are lacking behind a lot, and that means that you are not able correctly to communicate with your suppliers. You're not able to correctly communicate with everything that happens above you. So it's crucial that you get to the point very quickly. You understand what you want and you understand what to ask for.
Merijn van Buuren:Yeah, no, it is indeed essential in that sense for your communication and obviously, the most, the best way to stand out and, as this beautiful meme says, like, you can be the competition if there isn't any. And by making sure that you are one of those event professionals that actually understands the technology to its fullest potential and being able to understand the capabilities for your event, you'll be able to integrate them and use them in a way that no one else does, which makes your event that one event that everyone is looking forward to. And obviously, today we would like to explain a bit more in terms of these most essential tech terms that you can use, so you can make sure to stand out and beat all the competition because there isn't any without further ado, here are the main topics.
Bogdan Maran:There is We'll talk towards the end about all the terms that we came up with and the tools that we're going to give you to navigate this, but we've picked up six that we think that are crucial at this point and it would be very nice if you put in the chat, because we have it here and we can look at it, even if I look a little bit over my shoulder but will any questions, any terminology that you want, any questions that you want to ask and you can go through them. But today we'll be talking about AI generally, integrations and automations, big data, privacy, security, hybrid, async, live and everything else in between, and a bit of a rant around the technologies event, specifically event technology especially from my side, at least, absolutely.
Merijn van Buuren:And, as you mentioned, we did quite some additional research to this specific session we're talking about today, and we came up with over 5,000 different tech terms and tools, but that was obviously a bit too much to dive into, unless you want to take a couple of days to listen to us.
Merijn van Buuren:So we looked at the common points where they overlap, and these six main topics that we'll be diving into today really cover all those aspects, at least the most important ones for you as an event professional to know, good to know for those that are listening in after this live and also for those listening in live. We will be making slides available with actually some additional explanation added to it. So the slides we'll be using today are more fun so you can actually focus on the conversation, focus on the chat. No need to constantly take notes everywhere, although make notes of those things that are most important for you, but know that the slides will also be available and actually with a lot of additional knowledge there for you. Just a quick heads up, but yeah, without further ado, let's dive into the first one AI and machine learning.
Bogdan Maran:I think we're going to have a home town. Yes, that is my home town. Ai is a lot of things, but since the new additions and everything exploding in mainstream with GPT is specifically open AI and chat, gpt and everything else. I think that my favorite part is that finally, my imaginary friends talk back, which is absolutely fun from that perspective. They don't really talk back as I would expect them to, but I'm training them, so you're going to get there. So going into a I as a term is not correct, because I is exactly like events. You know, you have b2b event, have b2c event, you have concerts, you have some it's, you have Trade shows, you have working networking tables, you have workshops. You have all these types of events that happen and is the same t hing with AI . It's basically a very general term that we've we've picked up very quickly because it's easy, is very good for marketing, it helps you transmit something. But usually, because we're going into this part of the conversation, usually it also hinders your expectations because you say I'm going to use a I, so what are you going to use? Face recognition? Are you going to use voice to text? Are you going to use live transcriptions with translations? What exactly are you going to use. So I, just as a very quick overview, and as marine said you have, you're going to go. You can download the slides with a little bit more details.
Bogdan Maran:I sit at the top of the top of a framework that starts at the bottom with deep learning, which happens for a while, quite a few years. You go down afterwards into neural networks that you might have seen when it comes to recommendation, and just for companies like grip. You go into machine learning and if you're into data and go into that a little bit later, you will know that that makes recommendations and you've used that even if you haven't realized about it make recommendations based on Previous data and among many other things like reasoning and Ensemble methods and anomaly detection and all these crazy words that you can find afterwards. And then you go into artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence, technically speaking, deals with the part of things like natural language processing and you've got intelligent robotics, you've got visual perception, you've got planning and scheduling, you've got speech recognition. So, technically speaking, if you played with any of the recent tools like chat, gpt, like me, journey everything around there it takes all the free levels of deep learning, neural networks and machine learning and take them to another level. So that's where we are With the AI side, but, more importantly, how can we use AI for events?
Bogdan Maran:Because, as we said, we have a lot of things. One of one of my simplest definitions and examples is AI is not going to take over our jobs. What I really hope, though, is going to take over the jobs of the top level in the industry that really don't do a lot of things, and let's the hardworking guys add value to the hard, hard working ladies and gentlemen who actually put together events. Ai is about adding value to you and your audiences, so it's all about from problem solving to planning and scheduling for yourself, to all the way to chatbots that help your attendees manage their events better. It's all about personalization. It's all about adding all these values to your events, and I think I can go on for a few hours here, but I'll try to shut up and let you put something in as well.
Merijn van Buuren:No, I think you're absolutely right and, as you say, like AI is here not to take our jobs.
Merijn van Buuren:I think we all familiar with the saying that the AI is not here to take your job, but the people that are using AI are there to take your job, and that's something that also emphasizes why it's important to understand this terminology and to make use of it to make yourself more efficient, to make your processes more efficient, to get more and better results, rather than to have to leave your job because someone else who did do it is taking over, because they can do twice as much as you can if if you're lacking behind. So that is indeed a very important point and, as you mentioned, there's a lot of applications for AI in events and it's up to you to understand, to Take a good look at your processes and where AI can really add help for you to be more optimized, to do more, to save yourself a lot of time. I think that that's the main point. I would add to one very quick thing, just as an example because you're very, very structured focus.
Bogdan Maran:We're trying to be very focused on examples and give you practical terms.
Bogdan Maran:So, from my perspective, in terms of using I extensively in an in one applied case, we do a lot of strategy and we do a lot of consultancy and helping event professionals get to a point where they need to get to, regardless if that means AI, data integrations or just using technology or just formulating a commercial plan.
Bogdan Maran:And with one of our clients, when we worked with a Dalton, be with that and be advisory which big shout out to to aid here Because we love him and what we did we are supposed to come up with we did a workshop. We took a deep dive into what we're doing and usually it takes us about two, seven to ten days to come up with a strategy that is very nicely done with a white paper and everything else. So we took that from ten days to about five days. So we've half that time with actually way more better documented the better documented arguments, bigger white paper and everything else and better visualization. It doesn't mean that they did it for us. It took me about three days initially just to train it, but other afterwards the output was was quite streamlined and very interesting.
Merijn van Buuren:Love that example and also a perfect segue to the next meme Spending ten minutes doing the test manually or spend ten hours writing code to automate it. Although if you do that task A lot of time, it is definitely worth taking a bit more time. In your case, three hours to then for each and every client, for each and every event that you're working with, save sometimes a few days in your example, and the same is true for integration and automation. I think we all are in some way or form familiar with one or the other, or maybe both of them, but I think it's also good to understand the differences between those two. As you know, integration is often seen as that first step towards creating a cohesive system or a landscape within, within which then automation can be used, more effectively implemented. So they complement each other, and that's why we also group them in this case. I am a big fan of both of them In terms of integration, we all know that event professionals every day they are looking for that all in one tool that no one has yet created or not perfected in that regards, and there's always something missing or lacking.
Merijn van Buuren:And how beautiful would it be if you can just find a way to still add that missing piece or those missing pieces to the puzzle.
Merijn van Buuren:And that's really where integration comes in Gives you the possibility to kind of mix and match, pick and choose the different features, different platforms that you like to use in your workflow, in your day to day life, and create a one tool that Really covers it all.
Merijn van Buuren:And then automation is kind of the cherry on top, where, within those systems, instead of you having to go from one system to the other or look in one system and then Put it in another one, automation can really automate all the different small tasks that are quite repetitive.
Merijn van Buuren:For instance, if someone registers for your event, then would be great. If it also happens to be placed in your series System, it automatically gets updated and then they get an automatic email. So, in that sense, all those small steps that previously you had to do step by step, one by one, now all of that is happening in the background, which allows you as an event professional to focus on Organizing the event. And here I think you again have a great example of working with one of your more recent clients, finding a way where they had a few different tools. I also was lucky enough to contribute a little bit to that project where they wanted to have different tools from CRM to their events registration system, to an event platform, to task management system, and integrate all of that. Maybe you can give it a bit more.
Bogdan Maran:Absolutely true. The beauty of it and where I think it integration and automation fits in is especially this example, because I think it's a very good example Is that is not just about the event technologies. They're not talking about just registration, for example, and your digital platform or something to that degree it's about. It's about Smoothness of operations. When we came in, the biggest problem was how can we make operations smoother? So how can we transmit, how can we make the flow from sales, so from the we're talking about a traitor here so from the sales point to actually delivering something fantastic for that Exhibitor and sponsor and for the attendees themselves. And I think we're talking about one, two, three, four, five, six different platforms, out of which one we've custom built because it was cheaper to to automate and to make it better From for the exhibitors and for the organizers as well. But all of those platforms talk to each other.
Bogdan Maran:So it's not fully automated, is not the magic one, because you can't do that, you have to do a little bit of manual wrangling, especially because events have a specific, every event has a specific requirement and that means that when you go to, when you go to something that is off the shelf and it's not custom built and extremely expensive, because custom builds can tend to be extremely expensive when you try to do everything it's. It helps you save literally hundreds of hours a year across all events portfolio. It helps on board your sponsors better. It helps you manage sales. It helps you do everything from the. It's fantastic to see that come alive, because you're just about to wrap it up next week and it's been absolutely joy to work on from that perspective.
Merijn van Buuren:It's a beautiful project. Fortunately, we're not naming any names today, but I'm sure people are interested. They can hook you up and get a bit more in detail in terms of examples of what tools they use and how they can actually implement it for themselves. And a big part within that integration and automation is also the flow of data, and that is then a great segue to our next topic, which is big data and analytics.
Bogdan Maran:Yeah this is your hometown it is absolutely spot on, because the challenges that we have at the moment and if we go back to the first point when it comes to AI, ai is nothing without data, let's be very clear about it. So it might help you take half a step forward, but without the data that you have, without customizing it with your data so I'm not saying about sharing your data, but having your own instances and training them with your perspective and context it doesn't mean anything. So the project we're talking about allowed us to go and say, okay, we've done all of this, you have all your data in one place. We have the point of truth, which is absolutely vital. But can we move now? Moving forward, Can we optimize even more? Can we look past everything that happened now? Can we predict revenue, for example? Can we look at better personalizations for your audience? That comes over and over? Can we build that community and can we go into it? And for me, data is again. We can go hours and hours of what big data means. You have event professionals. From my perspective is one of the biggest unchapped business intelligence solutions for B2B customers. So the amount of data that an event can output is absolutely huge.
Bogdan Maran:The challenge here is that you don't be scared when you compare yourself to Google, for example, because that's not the point. So, if you have your data and you have your point of truth, the magic of AI, the magic of integrations, the magic of everything will happen without doubt, and I think where it gets, where it will get you. If you look at big data from your perspective as an event organizer, you're looking at the first meme just be the only one, because you want to be on top of everything. You want to know everything. And I'll quote here for a friend, from somebody that I hold very dear, david Preston, who told me that at some point that look, companies should know better than event organizers of what's happening with their audience. So, if you're looking at a big company, david comes from the perspective of IBM working with their events across the world for a few years and managing their events across the world. And my counter argument as much as I agree with this up to this point, this is not true anymore, because when you're talking about big data, you're talking about scraping or social media, for example. That was one alleyway of doing that, but that's not going to happen in the next three to four years.
Bogdan Maran:We are going to be owners of our own data and what happens at an event that, in that bubble of time, gives you very accurate, very in-depth and better data that what would happen on a day-to-day basis online and how you should look at it is use the big data that is coming from outside.
Bogdan Maran:So use tools like Databricks and Google and get your data and help your partners get your data, but add to that that little bit of with commas of data that you get from the events is vital to structure everything else and you should keep a look at it.
Bogdan Maran:And, of course, a bit of a rant, data visualization, which is one of my favorite parts not necessarily the data management and the strategy and visualization and storytelling. That's kind of my thing is data visualization doesn't mean how many times you scan a people individually in and out. It's about what they do, how they behave, how you look at it and so on. And one of the things that I think started our conversations a long time ago was I was fascinated how you use data with Event Mender to actually structure the event platform so event organizers can come. So event organizers can come and have a better understanding of what they're talking about, and I think that's a small step in terms of big data, but it's absolutely crucial and it highlights exactly why a small amount of very good data can have a huge impact over big data points across the system Absolutely.
Merijn van Buuren:It's the difference to comparing pairs to apples or apples to apples, which the latter is obviously the one you want, especially for your event, if you want to make that informed decision and understand how you can improve on your event, which parts you maybe should let go of in the future and which parts you should double down on. And again, their quality of data that you also mentioned in the AI. It is essential and lucky for us. We just spoke about the automation part. When you bring that into the data, then you can look at real time data and you can make on the spot decisions.
Merijn van Buuren:And I think that is also where there's so much potential still for the event industry to be able to say at the day of the event, like, listen, this is going well, but this is not, and we can improve. On the day rather than a week after the event, look at the data and be like, oh, we should have done this better, which is still good information, but if you can change it on the day of the event, that's what really makes an impact and that's what your attendees will notice, and then next year they won't be like, oh, yeah, but this part of the event wasn't great. They were like well, it started not, but man, were they able to turn it around? And that's how you wow them, and that's how they come back for more next year?
Bogdan Maran:Absolutely. And just to segue to the next one, do the next bit At this point. The tools available to store and manage your data so I'm talking about the collection, data preparation and even data visualization, because data analysis and storytelling it's something slightly different Are everywhere and are very good, so you don't have to have your own server somewhere in a room to have it to have your data secure.
Merijn van Buuren:And that is kind of the next topic in terms of your data, not only is very important, but I can be extremely it's important to look at security, but we are in a better place now technologically to do that, and I'll let you take this one, because this is up your alleyway yeah, absolutely and I think both data privacy and security are things that are top of mind, or should be top of mind at least, especially if you're working in the in the EU, but, generally speaking, all over the world, people are getting more and more aware of their own privacy, the fact that everything that's free you pay for with your data, what is happening with that data, and even if you pay for something like for an event, probably will still happen that your information ends up with the ex-example. There's, for instance, or the event in that regards, for you as an event professional, to understand privacy, as in the focus on the rights of individuals regarding their personal information and how that data is collected, but also the security of it. As you mentioned, there are a lot of tools that obviously cover that, and it's not that you have to bake in and code the security all by yourself, but understanding especially if you're working with governmental organizations that have a very high standard in terms of the data security that the tools you are working with Also covered their standards and you don't have to know the exact details of how it works, but just knowing that they comply to a specific ISO, an ISO term, or I see, Bob, it's important that you own your data and have easy access to it, absolutely, and that's also something where you, as an event professional, have an essential role into deciding which platforms to work with. For instance, we are now hosting this event. It's also an event on LinkedIn. We are not the owner of the data. Linkedin is owner of the data. If you are working with specific tools, it's good to know who has ownership of that data. Is the event platform that I'm using gonna sell my data to some big company, or is it actually all owned? Are all my attendees safe?
Merijn van Buuren:And that is something that builds trust, something that's very important in our industry, obviously, and to make sure that participants feel at ease, especially if you're working in a specific niche category where you have high standards for data and privacy and security, it's important for you to Understand the basics. You don't have to know everything again, it's way too much of a rabbit hole to dive deep into but just understanding some of the terms, like your website needs to be secure, you need to have an SSL certificate. You don't have to know how it works, you just have to know that you need to have it so you get that nice lock on your browser. So people feel Confident when they are searching for your website and they come to it and they don't get a pop up. Hey, this site is not secure. To give you an example, and talking about tools, I think we are flying through the time, so we'll just yes to the next one. We will be decided.
Merijn van Buuren:We decided not particularly to dive into virtual, because we've all heard a lot about virtual, but obviously hybrid and asynchronous events Are very much what's top of mind for event professionals these days, and these platforms obviously have a lot to do with All the topics we've mentioned before. What are they integrate with AI, whether they help you to automate or integrate with your current, with your current system, for instance, but also the data they produce and how they visualize it, how you can take action on it. The privacy and security, like All these topics kind of trickle in this one together, because you, as an event professional, you wanna make sure to cater to your audience and obviously not everyone is waiting for a virtual event. A lot of people, if they cannot be there I keep repeating myself, obviously, but let's say, you broke your leg or there's a storm or whatever reason. You cannot be there in person. You still wanna be part of that event and, depending on your audience, you can decide to either go with in this case we decided to be To do hybrid, as the simultaneous event that means that both your virtual and your in person attendees are present at the same time doesn't mean they have the exact same Program, or it doesn't have to mean that they have the exact same program but they will be attending at the same time, which allows you to find ways to bridge those audiences together and to create mutual experiences and, in that sense, expand your reach for your event.
Merijn van Buuren:But asynchronous is just as good as an option. If you have an audience that doesn't need to be there, that isn't really there to feel the rush of the in person audience, but you just wanna trickle down some content, some ways to interact with them during the year during a longer period of time, then asynchronous is the way for you to go. And obviously there we have a lot of event tech terms as well. I know both. Then you've done also a lot of events or experience a lot in this direction.
Bogdan Maran:What, for you, makes hybrid and asynchronous events essential looking at time I think I have to be quick to that on that but it's it's relatively simple is the way everybody else outside events, everything. You don't have to be in that place, you don't have to be at work, you don't have to that. Do that. So, if you, if you only keep the live event, which is a unique and specific experience, you don't have too much, too many chances of success. If you're focusing on content specifically, for example, because most people go to events for content, educational and education. In this very simple, take a big event like money 2020 they have 15 stages. Nobody can physically be at that on all those stages. So, when it comes to hybrid and I think it means that either I can go for coffee and listen to a chat without having to be there or I listen to it while I commute, because I might be there just for a day, but I can then engage with it afterwards and go on my website and go and find that. But keep in mind, you have to make it interactive, you have to make it work for them. So my, my concept is always meet your audience where it is. If they need two minutes while they go with the dogs outside to see something. Meet them there. If they need an hour while they relax to listen to something. Give them an hour, but make sure that it's targeted and it adds value to them and it saves them the most important thing that they have, which is type why. That's why hybrid and I think, are important. Time is the most valuable resource they have. Save it and you'll get there. Gain their trust.
Bogdan Maran:And the example I think we talked about was a little slightly different because it was in the middle of pandemic and it was one of my favorite still events I've been on and we had the. We had a relatively small event, only 70 people, but they were supposed to be live in a room technically speaking, multiple rooms and network and create connections and pitch certain ideas further to be funded. So they need to make friends, basically, and pandemic hit and they couldn't anymore. So we had, I think, 70 plus people around there on all parts of the globe on all different time zones, so the somebody should interact at 5am, somebody GMT, somebody was at 2pm GMT because that's when their work was done and we go back to everything in terms of data implementation, integrations, and we didn't have AI at that point, but still we've managed to make a platform out of about nine different solutions.
Bogdan Maran:That managed to take the role, and it was about being asynchronous, about communicating about me and you being in completely different time zones but still working together. So we had this huge mirror board where people were actually putting ideas and commenting on them, and it was asynchronous and they could access documents. At the end of the day, everything was. We looked at data and looked at how people actually integrated with it, how people used it, when they use it, and it went on for two weeks. So we had to adapt every single day to see how we can improve this looking at data.
Merijn van Buuren:I think it's a great example and, to Kathryn's point, like I appreciate, easy to find recordings as well.
Merijn van Buuren:I think on demand is a huge part both of simultaneous, where you simultaneously look at it together with the in person, and the online participants after the event ended, as in asynchronous events. It's quite an important element, especially for those that are really interested in the topic, but there were, as you mentioned, 10, 20 sessions going on at the same time. You cannot duplicate yourself. Maybe in the future there will be technology to do that, but at the moment we can't. I see we are indeed flying through time, which is great, but we have one more, because I think the bottom line of this is there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to your event, and one of the things we were discussing about is the need for event professionals to also find ways to not put all that weight on their own shoulders and work together with people like you and me who love to work with technology, and that's why we wanted to dive quickly into event technology specialists as well.
Bogdan Maran:That's my rant. Surely, keep it under 30 seconds. The reason behind the rant is very simple. I've actually seen a few jobs online and we've had this conversation a couple of days between the two of us that advertising event technology specialist exactly within these terms I don't mind the terms and I know we have this new term called CEO, which is chief events officer, which deals with the execs and higher tiers and the CEOs and how to bring the economical part into the economical conversation within an organization, which is crucial.
Bogdan Maran:But if you don't have a strong base, that CEO won't be able to deliver those results. So an event technology specialist is not the individual who creates the forms in C-Vent or in Bizabo or in IDLume or in any form like that. It's the individual who needs to understand your KPIs, your business objectives, your engagement objectives and go back with their knowledge about the industry and the technology not just the event technology but everything else and make sure that those work and identify those tools that will make your event unique, operationally fluid and making a lot of money in the same time. Yeah, that's my answer.
Merijn van Buuren:Yeah, absolutely Sure. No, I like it straight to the point and it's a lot more about just the technology itself. It's really making sure everything comes together. And that's a good segue to the next slide, where we talk about how to implement these kind of tools today. And, as you mentioned, there's a lot of small steps that work to that bigger goal. And if you want to try to take that big step while you all know the letter, I think you'll be standing on the bottom of the letter and we obviously want you to be able to climb to the top of it. And that's why we came up with kind of these 10 steps or nine actually, but the 10th one you can kind of implement at any point where you get stuck, to make sure you can already start implementing these technologies and understand the technologies better. And it all starts with you, your event goals and outcomes you have in mind to then understand your audience, do some research and evaluate different tools.
Merijn van Buuren:Again, at each of every one of these steps there's someone that can help you, whether that's one of us or any of the other event technology professionals. We have a large network, so if you're looking for a specific question, don't hesitate to reach out, because it's important to have those three first steps so you can actually plan ahead, set it up the right way, test it a few times, train your team before you actually start preparing your attendees, running the event, and then eventually collect feedback, analyze and improve and kind of start back up on the top again. And yeah, again, we are here to help you wherever you feel the need. If you have a question, put it in the chat, but also don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn or send us an email, whatever you like. We're here to help you make the most out of your technology so you can again, as we said in the beginning, come ahead with your events and stay on top, so kind of rushing through it. But we have three nice gifts for you today.
Merijn van Buuren:Yeah, let's dive in. Let's unpack the first one. For everyone who is struggling with it, it feels overwhelming. You know you have some technologies there, but how can you improve on them? Are they the right one for you? How can you implement them in your event tech formats? We understand there's a lot of questions that touch up on the topics we talked about today, but that go a bit deeper, and that's why we're offering for you a free 45 minutes assessment with us, either with Bogdan or me, where we dive into your specific situation. Not sure if you want to add a specific.
Bogdan Maran:Look, you and us are awesome, equals awesome. It's. Every event is special. That's why we do this, so we can go through the details, understand where you are and give you at least the direction or some actionable thoughts. It's not just about let's talk and give you, but the idea of this is to go in and do something actionable.
Merijn van Buuren:All right, yes, you're right. When you're passionate about something, you always run out of time, Kathryn. And thank you, Andrew. Andrew, we really are happy to go through them and more than happy to go through them in more detail. Another one we spoke about the fact that we just went through those 5000 different terms to get to this presentation. Well, we actually decided why not do something with the data? And we collected all of that data, all the different terms and an explanation, and giving them to you. You can either scan the QR code or go to bit. ly/TechTermsAtoZ
Bogdan Maran:I think we can show it a little bit, because a couple of minutes won't destroy our site. We didn't expect to be on time, like last time. The bar was way too high to finish up on the door that we had.
Merijn van Buuren:But we had a few. We'll have to keep it short, but it's good to show them.
Bogdan Maran:Absolutely. We actually had a little bit of data visualization. It's not the point now, we'll show it next time, but if I find my page. So basically, if you go to the link in the QR code or share that on LinkedIn, you'll find all the 6,406 terms with explanations on this page. You can use the search bar.
Bogdan Maran:But way nicer is we used a chatbot called Bob E, which I strongly recommend. We like doing this and talking about the technology term, so we use a chatbot. We use the no code platform called Noodle. We use a lot of things that you'll find here, but you can even have a conversation with this chatbot. So, for example, you can ask for a term or you can ask for a specific case study.
Bogdan Maran:I'll give you this example very quickly In terms of what would you like to know, where you'd like to go, so you can start engaging with the chatbot and let us watch you, let us let us what you think. We will work on this to add more features as we go forward. And it actually works. I was panicking there for a second, but my London internet actually caught up with me. I'm very happy. So, yeah, it's have a chat, have a play with it, have a tool that it's specifically trained with, the, with over one million two hundred points of data if you want to know exactly or Slightly more than that, so it's hopefully quite nice. It's something that you're quite proud, and, yeah, back to back to the gifts.
Merijn van Buuren:Yeah, back to the third gift. I kind of hinted to this one already in during the presentation. Obviously, the slides we use today had quite some visuals but not really in depth explanation. So we created a slide deck that has every term that we spoke about and, within that term, the five most essential terms within that topic or category that you need to know, with a small explanation why it is essential to have it as an event professional, just to give you a bit more context so you can go to that at your own time as synchronous or do it together with an event for a small simultaneously. That's great and obviously, if you have any questions about that or anything else, then feel free to reach out to us as well. I know we are out of time, but but let's take one, two minutes.
Merijn van Buuren:Obviously this one is a is an essential one as well. We do record this session. It will actually be available on the podcast channels. It will. From tomorrow onward it will be on YouTube as well, so Just search for control out event and you'll be able to find the channel there. But on all the podcast platforms we are there as well and we'll cut up some of these topics so you can see some bites sized content here and there as well. Who knows, we might be on Tiktok anytime soon. We are recording this. For those that requested it or that cannot find it, I will send it to you as a DM, or, if you haven't asked for it, just send us a message. We're happy to share you the recordings so you can go through it at your own time and obviously make sure to also schedule that event tech check up so we can walk through that together.
Bogdan Maran:If there are no questions, then, then I think we can believe we can and thank you very much for being here taking. It's quite a pleasure to see people engaging and we are quite excited and that's where we are talking a lot and we get a little bit sweaty if we press the wrong button or if my screen crashes and I cannot see where the slides are to press the next one. But we do have a question from Kathryn what tech do you use to do this live? We use restream. It's one of my favorite. I've managed to convince Merijn to to use this one. I think he's more accustomed to stream yard. There are quite similar technically speaking. I like I like this one just because I'm more used to it technically, I think.
Merijn van Buuren:I used to use riverside dot FM. Well, thank you, Kathryn, very happy to hear that, Kathryn.
Bogdan Maran:Thank you very much.
Merijn van Buuren:That means the world to us. I used to use riverside dot FM before this, but unfortunately they don't support overlays which allow us to have the control event logo here, for instance, or our names, which for us was a deal breaker and that's why we went with restream. In case you're wondering, it's a beautiful tool. Definitely check it out. Well, actually, if we can go back to the slide one more day, because I would love to watch one, I forgot about this.
Merijn van Buuren:I would love to give people a quick heads up for next week, because besides the fact that you can do an event tech check up with us, we're actually going to do live event tech assessments. So you can come to us next week Tuesday. If you have a specific question about your event tech stack or you want us to have a look at your event tech stack, we can do that together in that particular call. Obviously, it will help if you send us a message beforehand so we can prepare a few things. But, no sweat. We can also do it on the go whilst we are live. So feel free to send us a message. Make sure you are there, obviously next week to either submit your own event tech stack and your own event tech challenges or to listen to other people and how they are solving it, so you can expand your knowledge. Yeah, it's the same time as this week, 3pm GMT or 4pm CET.
Bogdan Maran:We did miss a question from Bob. But Bob, we can, we need to. From Bob to the but we need to, we need to buy your coffee and go through that because I think in another episode specifically dealing with data collection, on using third parties, and how much do you need to explain to us and this probably two episodes, if I'm not sure.
Merijn van Buuren:We'll make sure to put that as a specific episode actually on the timeline. But also you, Bob, can just you know with this specific question, you can get an event tech check up and we'll be happy to walk you through that as well.
Bogdan Maran:Definitely, and thank you for putting our podcast on the on the list, by the way, just yeah, if you want to see content from events, go follow Bob Toovey. You'll see what he does. He does amazing stuff.
Merijn van Buuren:Absolutely Event Planner News for all your lists of all the YouTube videos that are being posted, all the event podcast that ever existed. You name it. They have it all there, so make sure to check them out. Coffee sounds good, guys. Well, I hope we see each other soon in London. Indeed, with that, let's not keep people any longer. Yeah, I think. Yeah, just thanks everyone for being here and any any last word from your side of.
Bogdan Maran:I'm beyond excited we're doing that and thank you for the support doing this. And thank you for the support and just give us some feedback. Any questions? Pop us a message by us, as in scan the QR code and come and talk to us, even if it's not something that you have any pressing questions about. Just want to have a health check and see where you are and where you're heading. See you next Tuesday at 3pm GMT and 4pm for Central European Time.
Merijn van Buuren:Absolutely. Happy Days. Have a good day. We're looking forward to the next one. Cheers everyone and thank you for joining.
