It is easy to be proud of the role eMeetingsOnline has played in creating this event, but it reinforces the responsibility we have to produce a solid event management software solution, to be responsive and effective in our technical support, and to back up our customers in the trenches. What technology failures have you faced while in the heat of the battle?

New webinars to enhance your efficiency.

eMeetingsOnline is announcing a new series of FREE Webinars designed to help you maximize your proficiency in using your EMO subscription.  Webinars will be scheduled monthly with the first session planned for next week, the third week of October.

Date: Wednesday, October 28th

Time: 1:30 PM EST

Speaker:

Russ Hood

This weeks webinar: Building EMO Reporting Expertise.

If you want to improve your speed and build your skill in using the full functionality of EMO’s standard, custom and ad hoc reporting capability, don’t miss the first Webinar, “Building EMO Reporting Expertise”.

Space is limited so make your reservation to attend now by clicking on the link below.

Webinar Registration

You won’t want to miss this Webinar:

1. Get new ideas on using standard reporting creatively to evaluate your meetings and monitor information across meetings.

2. Learn how to add your custom reports to your private standard report inventory.

3. Become proficient with the powerful ad hoc reporting tools and generate your meeting information the way you want to see it.

4. Schedule automatic distribution of status reports to management to cut your routine report generating tasks.

If there are others in your organization that would benefit from this Webinar, please be sure to forward the link along! ]]> http://www.emeetingsonline.com/?feed=rss2&p=861 0 http://www.emeetingsonline.com/?p=857 http://www.emeetingsonline.com/?p=857#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:52:19 +0000 jfellows http://www.emeetingsonline.com/?p=857 It sounds a little strange but Jack Schaufele, president and CEO of eMeetingsOnline, knows the name of our customers dogs.  And cats. And kids.

This may require a little explanation.

You see, Jack gets involved when a customer REALLY needs help.  At 3:00AM on the day an event is going live and the meeting planner needs a special report in 15 minutes, Jack gets involved.  When meeting registration is opening and the event manager needs style sheet assistance for their event registration website, Jack gets involved.

As the lead developer of eMeetingsOnline Jack knows the software intimately, when an meeting manager is in trouble Jack is sometimes the person most able to provide a solution.  Jack has spent nights and early mornings walking customers through website design issues, custom report issues, and general “how can I do this more effectively” issues, and while resolving these issues Jack learns a lot about our customers.   And this matters, it matters a lot.

Event and meeting management is not a rigid product.  Managing meetings requires skill at improvisation, adaptation, and above all the ability to bring order to chaos.   Every client has very specific requirements, every event manager has business processes specifically designed to meet the needs of each client.  No one does it the same.  This is where Jack and eMeetingsOnline come in.  We have a great product that meets most of the needs of our customers and most of the needs of their clients, but in this industry there are always curve balls.  We help the event planner stay ahead of those curve balls.  Whether the solution is a small tweak to the software or a completely new feature, meeting planners know they can call us and we will help them adapt and manage the chaos.  Even if that means calling our president and CEO out of bed.

Can your software do that?

According to Corbin Ball, using an online event registration software can increase efficiency by 90%* by:

• automating the data collection process
• streamlining the payment process
• automatically sending confirmations
• improving customer service (available 24/7)
• Improving accuracy (the attendees do the data inputting)

In addition to saving time and improving accuracy, eMeetingsOnline online event registration allows meeting managers to generate reports both on a meeting specific basis and across all meetings, providing insight into business function and profitability.  This business intelligence leads to better decisions and more efficient operations and cannot be duplicated when using spreadsheets to manage events.  The efficiency and improved business processes realized through online event registration make it a solution every event planner should consider.

Learn more about eMeetingsOnline online event registration.

*(http://www.iccaworld.com/nlps/story.cfm?ID=260&NLID=3980)

Imagination is a skill that, like all other skills, requires we use it for it to remain robust.  Unfortunately most of the tasks we perform on a daily basis are so automated and organized as to require an absolute lack of imagination or thinking.  In contrast, those who live in much poorer countries rely on imagination and innovation on a daily basis just to perform basic functions.  A website called Africa Gadget (http://www.afrigadget.com/) documents the amazing imagination and ingenuity possessed by individuals forced to be imaginative every day as a matter of survival.  I encourage you go to the website and be inspired, be encouraged by seeing ingenuity in action, and hopefully bring a small piece of that imagination to your life and business.

At eMeetingsOnline we find our inspiration from the meeting and event managers we work with every day.  Like those in less developed countries, event planners are forced to find creative solutions to complex problems with limited resources, especially when onsite at an event and a vendor has not come through.  As our customers innovate in the fly they continually bring us suggestions for features they would like to see that keep us thinking creatively.  Thank you to all our customers for keeping our event management software a robust solution!

There is a heated debate in tech circles over template driven software versus highly customizable software.  The arguments for template driven products are that they are easy to use and users are able to get up and running quickly, arguments against are they are too generic to meet the needs of diverse business processes.  Conversely, customizable software adapts to the business processes already in place but is too complex for easy adoption.  At eMeetingsOnline, we believe event planners should not have to choose between ease of use and flexibility.

Managing events your way, with ease

eMeetingsOnline meeting management software makes use of template driven elements where speed and ease of use matters most and allows for highly customizable options where business processes and brand management are imperative.  When building an event registration website using eMeetingsOnline, our software allows users to drop in standard elements like personal information, session registration, and online payment sections simply by selecting the modules from a dropdown box.  However, each section selected for inclusion also includes areas available for personalized fonts, custom data headers, and custom code for personalization and functionality.  The result is a perfect blend of ability to quickly and easily create an event registration website with the ability to highlight your brand through customized appearance and functionality.

Event Management Software structured for speed, designed to be flexible

eMeetingsOnline event management software is highly adaptable to the meeting planners existing business processes.  Standardized fields are easy to navigate and well defined based on over 20 years of event management software design.  Fields are available to allow mapping event data to accounting software data for reporting purposes, in depth housing management tools allow for managing down the smallest detail to combat attrition, and over 300 prebuilt reports allow event managers to quickly access the data they need.  However, when flexibility is imperative, we also offer over 58 customizable fields so event managers can track and collect the information relevant to a specific event.  We allow for the creation of an unlimited number of attendee types, allowing event managers to provide unique registration, fees, and packages to a wide range of attendees.  eMeetingsOnline includes SAP’s Business Objects business intelligence reporting platform, allowing event managers the ability to optimize business performance, creating custom reports that provide mission critical data for making decisions, even allowing reports to be scheduled to deliver the data automatically via email.

Flexible event management and easy event management are not mutually exclusive

At eMeetingsOnline we agree that ease of use and flexibility are mission critical elements of successful event management software.  We have chosen to view this not as a constraint, but as an opportunity to offer event managers a software solution that meets their needs, a software solution that adapts to the complexities of an all city trade show, a corporate reward event, or a university educational seminar.  eMeetingsOnline is the event management software solution that fits the requirements of the wildly variable world of event and meeting planning.

Indication that senior sales and marketing executives value the crucial role for meetings and events play in their marketing mix provides good news for event planners and suppliers of meeting registration software.

The EventView 2009: North America report published in February 2009 and produced through collaboration among the Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Foundation, the Event Marketing Institute (EMI) and George P. Johnson (GPJ) shows results that are encouraging to the meeting planner and event registration software providers. The report was compiled with input from 300 senior sales and marketing executives shows a belief that “among all marketing channels, meetings and events are the discipline that can be leveraged now to best drive ROI, and accelerate and deepen brand relationships”.

“This first report reveals that face-to-face marketing activities are playing an integral role within the marketing mix, heightened in part by a downtrodden economy in which corporate marketers rely on every marketing dollar to deliver an increased and measurable impact.”
“This first report of the 2009 series shows that CMOs and senior marketers believe events are the most effective medium to engage customers and move them to purchasing behavior,” said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI. “While we’ve seen event marketing mature as an effective marketing channel for several years, the benefits become heightened in an uncertain economy. Marketing decision-makers have clearly taken notice.”
“Key findings in EventView 2009: North America include:
•    53 percent of respondents chose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships with target audiences
•    26 percent of respondents chose event marketing as the marketing discipline that drives the greatest ROI, a four percent increase from the 2008 results
•    29 percent of respondents say they will transition from event marketing to experience marketing (integrated live and online experiences that drive deep brand interaction through highly-relevant storytelling and brand immersion) in the next 12 months – 33 percent say they have already transitioned
•    Among North American respondents, companies that integrate measurement into their programs and track results are more than twice as likely to receive increases in their marketing budget than those that do not measure”
In an environment where both corporate budget tightening and US government rhetoric have driven concern about expenditures on meeting and conference attendance, it is encouraging to note that the value of direct, face-to-face contact with the meeting sponsor’s constituency is not duplicated by other media  in terms of ROI. In-house event planners, independent event planners and event registration software providers can use this data with their clients to support the importance of continuing their meeting investments.
The full EventView 2009: North America report are available for free download at www.mpiweb.org, www.eventmarketinginstitute.org and www.gpj.com.