Virtual Edge Conference

This is a look at the 2009 program.

Day One (2009 program)

Break Outs(9:00-9:45):

1.The ABC’s of Virtual Events, Meetings & Marketing – This is a session of an introductory nature that will cover all of the different types of virtual events and meetings that exist and show some examples. Think of this as Virtual Events 101, where all attendees get a Checklist for what they need to know about virtual events production, platforms, marketing and follow-up. (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers--basic level)
-Kelly Graham, Manager Virtual Events Team, Cisco Systems // Kenny Lauer Director, Digital Technologies George P. Johnson Company

2. Going Beyond Lead Generation – This is a session that will feature virtual event veterans that will explore issues that include but also go beyond lead generation activities and get to the heart of virtual marketing— building customer relationships. From strategy to technology, this session covers it all. (ideal for corporate and media virtual event and meeting producers-- mid-advanced level)
-Kim Smith, Chief Operation Officer, World 2 Worlds // Debbie McGrath, Founder & Chief Instigator, HR.com

Keynote(10:00-10:50):

Get the Virtual Edge! You can see it in the headlines: “Virtual Meetings Will Replace 2.1 Million Airline Seats Per Year by 2012”; “Cash Strapped Corporations Cut Down Their Executive Business Travels”; “TSEA Survey Confirms Reduced Booth Traffic”; “Study Confirms Explosive Growth for Virtual Events in 2009”…business for events and meetings is changing fast. At the same time that corporate travel is being cut, corporate marketing budgets are being slashed, and headcount is being reduced; the pressure to increase lead generation, customer acquisition and improve customer retention has never been greater! Find out why the shift to virtual is here to stay and how you and your company can profit.
-Sandy Carter, IBM VP, SOA, BPM and WebSphere Marketing // Paul Salinger, VP, Oracle

Break Outs (11:10-12:00):

1. Event & Marketing Professionals; Skills for Virtual Worlds – This session will provide event and marketing professionals the opportunity to see how they can adapt and reinvent themselves to harness and master virtual technologies and virtual marketing opportunities (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers--basic level).
-Dan Parks, CEO, Corporate Planners Unlimited, Inc. // Kevin Aires is Director, Digital Experience for George P. Johnson

2. Revenue Development Part I – This session will look at the issue of how virtual event producers can develop exhibit, sponsorship and custom revenue streams from participating companies. (ideal for corporate and media virtual event and meeting producers-- mid-advanced level) -Chris Sullivan, Vice President, Managing Director Everything Channel // Joshua Ostrega, Executive Vice President, iCongo, Inc.

Solution Provider 12:00 - 1:30

Solution Provider Program I (In-Depth Demo, Training, Meetings and Q&A) – The Solution Provider Program provides an opportunity to visit with top solution providers in the virtual event and virtual meeting space and get hands-on demos, in-depth answers to questions from experts, do some training or schedule one-on-one or team meetings.

Break Outs (1:30-2:10):

1. Defining & Creating Virtual Communities – This session will cover the different aspects of virtual communities and how to create and nurture your community (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels).
-Mark Yolton Senior Vice President, SAP Community Network, Global Ecosystem & Partner Group // Zain Naboulsi, MSDN Developer Evangelist, Microsoft.com // Mark Fein, Senior Director of Strategy, Immersa Marketing

2. Revenue Development Part II – Using virtual events to drive additional revenue for trade shows. The travel industry has historically not been promoting Virtual Trade Shows since the industry as a whole could lose substantial money. However, with the current state of the economy, the US Travel Association realized that the future is now and they needed to move forward. For U.S. Travel’s 2009 TravelCom show, PR Newswire coordinated an online event with them for their audiences who could not physically attend a major conference and will promoted it at the physical event. This is the first time they have done such a thing.

Though they still want attendees and exhibitors to physically attend the events (and trade shows at large), U.S. Travel IS evolving and recognizing that the virtual world can complement its onsite events and drive additional business and revenue related to its shows and its participants. It demonstrates that virtual meetings have come into the mainstream as even the travel industry has embraced the online component of events and sees how webcasting and offering a virtual version of an event can serve in a complimentary capacity to gain revenue from those who were not able to attend in person and to help drive interest for physically attending future events. (ideal for virtual corporate and media event and meeting producers-- mid-advanced level)

-Vicky Singer, VP, US Travel Association // Susan McPherson, Sr. VP of PR Newswire

Solution Provider Program 2:15 - 3:45

Solution Provider Program II (In-Depth Demo, Training, Meetings and Q&A) – The Solution Provider Program is an opportunity to visit with, learn and demo many of the technologies available to assist virtual event and meeting producers.

Break Outs (3:45-4:30):

1. Social Media Strategies – This session will look at various social networking strategies including structured and unstructured activities pre, during and post event to provide insight into what s working best at what stages during an event lifecycle (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels).
-Kenny Lauer Director, Digital Technologies George P. Johnson Company

2. Measurement, Tracking & ROI – This session will address all of the aspects of measuring virtual and mixed events and ultimately capturing ROI information for sponsors & exhibitors, the event producer and attendees of virtual events. (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels)
-John Jainschigg Director of Ziff Davis Enterprise's Internet and Community Laboratory // Dennis Shiao, Client Services Executive, InXpo // Stu Schmidt, Vice President, Global Sales & Services, Unisfair // Neal Thompson, Director of Strategic Technology Maritz Travel

Break Outs (4:30 - 5:00):

Meetings Going Virtual: Cisco’s Global Sales Meeting –
You have to begin by looking beyond just tactical execution and technology and start with the end goals (meeting objectives) in mind. You need to plan out the strategy and then translate it 'virtually' using the principles of live events. Get a look at how Cisco is taking their upcoming Global Sales Meeting virtual. The Cisco Global Sales Meeting is one of the industry’s largest and most sophisticated internal meetings and you get to see how they are doing it. (ideal for corporate event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels)

-Angie Smith, Manager-Operations, Cisco // Kenny Lauer, Director-Digital Technologies, George P. Johnson

The Business Opportunity of Digital Events for Media Properties, Associations and Institutions –
This session will focus on the revenues opportunities, required competencies and best practices for media properties, associations and other community creators who are looking to move into the world of digital events.

·Business models: How do you maximize revenue?
·Marketing: How do you bring and retain attendees?
·Content: What types of content work best in a virtual space?
·Sales: How do you package/sell to prospective sponsors?
·Culture: How do you migrate your organization to a digital event mindset?
·Skills: What organization skills are critical for success?
(ideal for association and media event producers, marketers—all levels)
-Robert Rosenbloom, CEO & Founder PlatformQ

Networking Reception (5:00-6:00)

Day Two (2009 program)

Break Outs (9:00-9:45):

1. Overcoming 3 Roadblocks to Successful Virtual Events – Strategic View of Virtual Events from an Face to Face Event Industry veteran. The Kenwood Group has been producing compelling events and media for over 30 years. Dan Pinkham (or Pam Rourke Levy TBD) presents his insights into overcoming institutional obstacles to virtual event success.

-Roadblock #1: Technology Dominance. Never let technology alone define the experience.
-Roadblock #2: The Law of Corporate Silos. Why do we still consider virtual and face to face meetings as mutually exclusive?
-Roadblock #3: The Law of Audience Distraction. Give your audience one opportunity to click away, and they will.
(ideal for corporate event and meeting producers, marketers--basic level).
-Pam Rorke Levy, Creative Director/Writer, Kenwood Group

2. Voice, Video, IM & Chats – This session will look at the pros and cons of various networking and communication tools available for virtual events and meetings (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers—all levels).
-Martha Schwartz, VP Group Sales, InformationWeek and the Business Technology Network for TechWeb, a division of United Business Media

Keynote (10:00-10:50):

The Future of Virtual Events
After the recession ends – general session with panel of experts; topic to cover the future direction and trends with virtual events and meetings. This is a thought provoking session, where top virtual event experts talk about the future of the virtual event industry and offerings. What will the industry look like two and three years from now. Will virtual events permanently replace some face-to-face meetings? Will virtual events become a core part of the marketing mix? What will the costs structure look like? What will the UI look like? How big could this industry become and who will be the players? (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels).

-Chris Collins, Director of Enterprise Systems, Linden Lab // Malcolm L. Lotzof, Chief Executive Officer InXpo // Jim Parker, President and CEO of Digitell, Inc. // Ben Chodor, President of Stream57 // Chris Meyer, Senior Vice President and General Manager, George P. Johnson // Stuart Bowen Senior Director of Virtual Events, ON24 // Stu Schmidt, Vice President, Global Sales & Services for Unisfair

Break out (11:10-12:00):

1. Audience Acquisition Strategies – This session will provide strategies to boost attendance at virtual tradeshows & expos. (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels)

-Staci Clark, Marketing Strategy Manager Cisco Systems Jason Mitchell, Director, Product Management, WingateWeb

2. Virtual Worlds for Business – Get an overview of virtual worlds for business and a look at Virtual World environments as sales tools and an interface for customer interactions. We're starting to see the beginning of that trend with a virtual world experience created by Sun Microsystems to showcase their datacenter consolidation story and the Sun Services product offerings that map to it. By re-creating traditional datacenters -- and new cutting edge designs that make enormous strides in how enterprises manage cooling and power in a datacenter environment -- Sun has been able to leverage virtual world environments to uniquely communicate product value propositions in differentiated ways to customers and prospects. This session will discuss how the experience came together, and the early feedback on how it's shaping up in customer and prospect interactions. (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels)
-Mary Smaragdis, Manager, Sun // Chris Collins, Director of Enterprise Systems Linden Lab

Solution Provider 12:00 - 1:30

Break out (1:30-2:10 ):

1. Content Development & Format/Experience Strategies – This session will provide content creation, formatting, production and virtual attendee experience strategies and techniques to keep attendees engaged longer and visiting more frequently (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers--all levels).
-Dannette Veal, New Media Strategy Manager, Cisco // Vance McCarthy, Producer, IDevNews Virtual Events

2. Match the Right Technology to an Event – This session will look at the state of the art in webcasts, slidecasts, bannercasts, emailcasts, and cool virtual meeting and marketing tools. It will help you align the technology to meet the business purpose of the event. (ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers—all levels)
-Tim Clark, CEO FactPoint Group // Ben Chodor, CEO Stream57 // Neal Thompson, Director of Strategic Technology Maritz Travel

Solution Provider Program 2:15 - 3:00

Workshop (3:00-4:45):

Building a Virtual Event: Methodology for Virtual Event Excellence: – A special workshop ideal for corporate and media event and meeting producers, marketers and others interested in learning how to build a virtual event. You will walk away with a methodology that can be directly applied to your virtual event planning.
-Kenny Lauer Director, Digital Technologies George P. Johnson Company // Brent Arslaner, Vice President of Marketing & Channels, Unisfair