Virtual Events: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Just returned from COLLABORATE in Orlando where I had a sit-down interview with IOUG President, Ian Abramson and Carol McGury of Smith Bucklin, the management company for the IOUG (Smith Bucklin manages a number of user groups in the IT market including IDUG, Encompass and SHARE). This year, for the first time, the IOUG ran a companion “virtual event” in conjunction with COLLABORATE, offering 40 virtual sessions to members unable to attend the conference. Companies sending at least one member of their team to the live event in Orlando were granted a license enabling an unlimited number of their IT teams the opportunity to attend the virtual event. Virtual event members were able to attend these sessions “live” and were able to interact with questions/comments with a representative of the virtual attendees present at each session.

Shortly after returning from COLLABORATE, we received word that the upcoming SAPPHIRE conference (the big SAP user conference), also in Orlando this week, was offering a limited virtual event as well. The revenue model did not accompany the news we received, but given that the event is SAP-sponsored, I would guess that the capture of registrant data and the added reach driven by the virtual event is enough of a payback for what appears to be a limited test program at this time.

Several weeks back, Embarcadero Technologies launched a three day all-virtual event named “Datarage” which basically played the role of an online user conference. This was the first year the company produced this event and they reported outstanding attendance. We saw quite a bit of interest in the event among our readers of the Five Minute Briefing: Data Integration newsletter and opt-into-third party email subscribers from Database Trends and Applications magazine who received invitations to attend. For smaller and mid-sized companies that may not be able to generate the critical mass of attendance required to produce a live user conference, we found this approach and its success intriguing.

Just recently I spoke with Michael Doyle, a former associate and research customer of ours at VirtualEdge.org. Michael is a veteran of the conference business in IT, having worked with Interex (the old HP user group) and the conference Online Market World. Virtual Edge.org is putting on a live event at the Santa Clara Convention Center later this month (May 28-29) named “Virtual Edge 2009”. While the scope of the conference and exhibit embraces commonly used marketing techniques like webcasts, it also embraces virtual trade shows, web conferences and virtual marketing. You can find more information at their web site, http://www.virtualedge.org/ For those of us unable to attend, we wish there was a virtual component to this one, but if you are located in the Bay area and have a potential application or need for a virtual event, this is a live event you may want to check out. And just recently, I had a lengthy conversation with an old colleague from CMP, Eric Biener, who has developed virtual events for the big business publisher, Neilsen Media, which has mainstream, non-IT franchises in a wide range of important markets. Check out the American Business Media’s interview with Eric on the topic of virtual events here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCID9X6_Wo

With the economy showing signs of bottoming out and live event providers still hoping to find light at the end of the long downward trend in trade show attendance, there may be the temptation for some providers to wait just a little longer before recalibrating their conference or user group strategy. That is a mistake. Now is the time to jump in, test the virtual event concept and plan for a future of virtual events or co-located virtual/live events. If you don’t, the competition certainly will.