Intro: Great events create great brands, and it takes a village to put on an event that engages, excites and connects audiences to your brand. And we're that village. I'm Alyssa. I'm Paulina. And I'm Rachel. And you're listening to great  events, the podcast for all people interested in events and marketing.

Rachel: Hello everybody and what is going on in this wide wide world of events? My name is Rachel and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events. We have a stacked show today with my fellow co-host, Paulina Giusti and Felicia Asiedu, and a very special guest. This week I'm excited to announce our guest speaker Ryan Curtis Johnson, who is the Director of Communications with The Valuable 500. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan: Thank you, and thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. If you're happy, I'd like to just give a quick, audio description of myself. So I'm a white male. I'm wearing a cream top. I've got my gold glasses on. I've got brown eyes, and behind me is a green AstroTurf wall, and a sign that says All you need is love, which is not lit up at the moment.

Rachel: That's awesome. Thank you for that. That's really on topic for what we're just doing today and talking about accessibility. Ryan, why don't you just introduce yourself and what you do at The Valuable 500 and give our listeners a little bit of background about you.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm obviously Director of Communications at The Valuable 500, but The Valuable 500 is a global collective of 500 CEOs and their companies who are innovating together for disability inclusion. Disability inclusion includes everything from representation, C-suite storytelling, inclusive reporting, and also part of that inclusive reporting is digital accessibility as well. So the full spectrum of looking at disability inclusion within the workplace.

Rachel: Okay, awesome. Actually, that's a great segue to our kind of first question here and opening up the conversation, so obviously accessibility is very important, but, a lot of times it's not discussed as broadly as it should be. Let's talk about the importance of that  and why our listeners should be concerned with that and be taking accessibility to the next level at their events, their marketing programs, you know, not just in person but digitally as well.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. It's so important. I think that the really simple way of looking at this is it's the right thing to do, you know, consciously it's the right thing to do. So often a lot of things will come through in the sense that it costs too much money. You know, there's no budget to be able to provide this.

And so just a caveat to how I think we drive change and support that. One of the things that The Valuable 500 does is we say no to any event, any speaking opportunity that is not fully accessible. And fully accessible for us means that if it is a live event, regardless of whether the delegate or the person who may attend, if they're registered or not, depending if it's a public or a closed event, If the person turns up and they do have a disability, they are able to be able to attend that event because it is fully accessible.

And that's really important to have that opportunity and those facilities and requirements and accommodations in place. And I think anyone that's sort of saying we don't have the budget is pretty much penalizing an individual because of the fact of they have a disability and it's the same as really looking at it in the fact of if you didn't provide tea and coffee, it's the same as if you didn't provide a description as to what your product is you're trying to sell from a marketing perspective.

If you decided to take all of those things away, that is pretty much what you are then doing if you're not making it fully accessible. And digital accessibility is everything. So it's making sure your website, making sure your content, texts, and its documentation is remediated. It's looking at the coloring, the font of texts.

The list goes on. There are checklists. You can see them all on different websites. If I named them all, I'm not going just name one, but there are plenty of places that you can check and there are websites that you can go and you can actually insert your website link if it is a registration or something like that.

That then allows you to tell you how accessible it is, and you know, in some cases if it isn't accessible, there are lawsuits against that because of the fact that it isn't fitting with data protection.

Felicia: Yeah. Ryan, you touched on when you are talking about how my mind was thinking as you were talking, you know, there will be lots of organizers and marketers that are kind of like,  but how do I do it? And they're so worried about falling foul that they just almost clam up and they say, okay, well I did this, and you know, what do you think about asking questions as to how can I do this?

Ryan: Yeah, I think the key to this is making sure that you ask the questions in the sense of if you do not understand or fully believe that you are doing everything accessible. There are experts out there that do this day in and day out, so it's really important to understand that these places are, or these individuals know this inside out. So actually don't be afraid. And that's where, again, costs will come into play, into that scenario regarding this in the sense of people would say, oh, well we don't have the budget to then go and pay for that professional to come in and support us with that.

Well, that's where you need to really be smart with your budgets because you know, as event managers or as creatives or as any good procurement person would be able to do, there are ways to find money or cut back on other things, and if that means, I don't know, being pedantic, one less brownie, one less croissant. But it means that actually your event is fully accessible or it means one less motion graphic that's probably not going to really do much on your website, but actually it means your website is fully accessible that all readers, you know, and website readers that people may be utilizing are able to use your website completely.

Why wouldn't you do that? Because, you know, morally, again, to go back to what I said, it's the right thing to do. So I don't know why we wouldn't do that. So it's, I think a lot, there's a lot of nervousness around it, but also there's a lot of nervousness for, you know, people with disabilities in being willing to come forward and talk about their disability because one, they see a lack of representation within their organization.

They don't see it in the materiality. So when they're looking at the promotions or when they're trying to apply for jobs or they just don't see them talking about it, but then they see it talk being talked about on Mental Awareness Week or you know, global Accessibility Day, or you know, IDPD, which is the International Day of People with Disabilities.

They might see all that activity, but that's only on one day. And we need to see this continuously. And I think the key to it, which is, which is another thing to kind of go again. So I know we are talking about people with disabilities here, but it's accessibility for all, you know. We never know at some point with an aging population and the amount, disability can affect anybody at any time, and it's visible and it's non-visible disability. So we can't just constantly think about the event and the sense of is access into the venue okay. And everything like that. Because a person with a non-visible disability that you wouldn't see on the offsite doesn't need those elements maybe, but needs other elements in making sure that the text and the communications has been fully accessible for them to see. And that's the key to it really.

Paulina: I love that. I have a quick question. Well, Follow up question to it. So I think there's something about this, and Felicia and Rachel and I have talked about this countless times as we look at our event design process for programs, whether they're internal or or customer facing. But there's this kind of approach of a universal event design process, right?

Including it into, you know, just that same checklist that you would approach for your food and beverage considerations or your content considerations or production experience. There is this sort of mentality. I'm sure many people who are listening are saying, gosh, I wish I just had a checklist to start so that I could create a foundation and then be able to iterate off of that and get better and better with each event or each year.

And I think a number of us are thinking, okay, I've started with the onsite experience and thinking about the ADA offerings. I've thought about the digital experience and having,  you know, alt text for images and, applicable fonts and color schemes. What else beyond that? And I think part of where I'm going with this is I'm thinking about all of these things.

I'm doing all of these things. How am I meant to communicate that this is being done without appearing, like I'm doing it to check a box? I think that's something that a lot of people who are listening may be thinking, I don't want it to look like I'm promoting that I'm doing it for the wrong reasons, but I want to be doing this.

Ryan: Yeah, and I think that's, you know, when we come back to, it's a really interesting point because it's that kind of tippy toe scenario again. But I think if we go back to, you know, something that I often give example to the Black Lives Matter movement in the sense of this process is very similar in the sense of, people communicated that they did support the Black Lives Matter movement.

And then actually when people were investigated or looked into their organization, they hadn't been. And so it was talking a talk, but actually the action was very different. And I think it's really hard because do you want to over communicate? Do you not want to over communicate? But if people don't know, they're not going to tell you whether you are overcommunicating or not.

And so I think it's one of those things where you need to test the water. Most organizations, I would hope, have different committees or groups within, if they're a large organization. So I think it's stepping out to those, to speak to those individuals and say, we're doing this. We're driving this.

How is the best ways to do this? It's also pulling on the professionals within the organization. Your internal comms people, if you've got them in your organization, should be able to tell you what's the best way to communicate. And sometimes one model does not fit all. So it might feel like you've gotta repeat it a couple of times before it finally sticks.

And does that mean we need to put it on our Yammer, which is our internal sort of intranet? Do we put it in an email? Do we also push out some video content as well? But again, thinking about it when you're pushing it out, do it by setting an example as well. So if you're putting your video out, put your live captions on the bottom, not auto human generated caption, so it's word for word, making sure that your text is correct and it's not too condensed together because you are trying to cram everything in.

Its good spacing within it, clear text, not lots of fussiness around it with coloring and everything like that. So in some ways it's about keeping it simple. Keeping it simple, but making sure it does. And I think it's like anything, you could have a checklist and you could have, we've got 500 companies, they're all going to do it really differently, but it's sort of setting the parameters of this is what good looks like. And so by learning from what good looks like, that helps to push it out. And there's so many organizations that are doing it that are really, really kind of excelling on it. You know, a really good example at the moment that I can tell you about is AirBnB. So AirBnB put together a new category on their website.

So on their website, it's all pretty much online. And the website that they have. Obviously, if anyone isn't aware, AirBnB is an online platform that allows you to find accommodation that you can stay in. They created their category, which was an adaptive accommodation, which supports for digital, for people with disabilities and these homes are homes that are basically where people live who have a disability. So it would meet the needs of many other people who would like to travel. And some of the biggest barriers for people with disabilities is travel and the travel industry and accommodation and what accessibility really looks like.

Cause let's be honest, for some places, accessibility can be one thing and then they'll have a room, but they've only got two of those rooms out of all of those other areas. And actually the wheelchair doesn't fit. Or actually it doesn't accommodate the needs of that individual when they're utilizing it.

So AirBnB have created this category and they have seen an influx of people that have been utilizing this skill. And bear with me while I just get the figure for you because it's too impressive not for me to get it wrong. So I need to make sure I get it right for you.  But it's really impressive in the sense of, in the space of, I think the first, they, they only launched it sort of at the end of last year.

And basically the way in which it's worked, they launched the adaptive category and now homes over 1,100 listings around the world. And it says, with hosts earning over 5.5 million since the launch. Now, for me, if that doesn't show as a business or a brand that if you tap into this demographic, in this market, there is financial benefits for you as a business.

So if you are not considering or even thinking about it and you are not even showing that representation or delivering within that internal element,  Paulina, what you were saying, then you're really missing a trick. Because there is an expenditure of this income that is out there where people are willing to pay and there are, you know, whisperings of where some brands are considering, luckily to say they're not part of The Valuable 500 where they're considering reducing the amount of people with disabilities they may have on any of their services because of the fines that they are gaining due to the fact that they're not meeting good requirements. That says a lot, but it says a lot really that the fact that people understand that they know what good looks like and why it is needed and that they are even fined on that basis, but to hear of these stories is quite, you know, is quite sad.

And I think the key ideology, or if I was going to say, what is the magic solution to this? I don't believe there is a magic solution, but sometimes it feels like it's really simple. It's a workflow and you know, I would probably say I'm not the most digital person in the world, but I understand that when you are building a digital platform or a website, you have workflows of the way in which you want that individual to go through and that sort of customer experience or delegate experience, if it's an event registration, and the same happens in real time. So in a face-to-face scenario, you understand the way in which you want this conversation or that journey for that customer experience.

And there is a huge gap in the way in which that customer experience happens for a person with a disability and that is what we need to close and it feels really sort of simple when I say this. I have many conversations with different brands where I've sort of said it feels really easy, like there's just a knowledge gap here.

Where staff and individuals, who may be delivering on whether it's front of house in an accommodation, a person turns out they don't tell you that they're disabled. Does that mean that that's the person's fault? No. They should be able to just turn up and gain the same experience as a person who doesn't possibly have a visible disability.

It's the shock factor that sometimes causes the individual to not deliver on the same customer experience as someone who turns up, who doesn't have a visible disability, would then experience something very differently. And I, it's understanding that workflow and really providing better training, better accommodation in the sense of how we then speak and deliver and communicate with individuals and having the assets, collateral, whatever it might be, guidebook, whatever you might need to, to deliver on this, to close that gap, and then that makes it accessible for all. That doesn't just make it accessible for people with disabilities. That just makes it accessible for all because someone could break their, their foot or their leg.

That means that you are disabled for that period of time when you cannot use your leg. During that period, and people with disabilities, they're just asking to be treated as everyone should be treated and have the privilege that everybody has the privileges and the opportunities to experience and why would we penalize anyone for that?

Felicia: Yeah, and I hear you mentioned knowledge gaps, communication, like Paulina and you were asking about, you know, do I over communicate because then I might be treated as a ah, typical saying you're doing it. Not really. I just happened to Google whilst we were, you know, chatting, accessible, what I put in was “accessible events checklist.”

Here's what's really funny. Obviously I'm based in the UK. I got University College London, University of Glasgow University and College Union. I got Cornell University. What's this about? It's like every single checklist that's come up as my first results are universities that are trying to educate people as to like, could you just consider this?

There's some pretty good checklists in there as well, but I was actually shocked to find it wasn't the Association of Event Organizers or event organizations themselves that were putting out knowledgeable information about what should we do about this. So sounds to me like there is a healthy gap, you know?

Ryan: But also as well, what's really interesting when you say that is,  we've all been there where we've seen everyone talk about sustainability, environmental, they're following the sustainability sustainable development goals, which is the union ones. I'm just going to break it down for you.

The SDG 10, which is one of the sustainable data, which most companies, most agencies are saying “We are affiliating. We are learning by this. We have this plastered on our website. We follow this as our guidelines to do good.” One of them is about inequalities, which is SDG 10. So if you are not thinking about accessibility, and I think that's where we get really kind of bogged down with the idea that sustainability is all about environmental.

It is, don't get me wrong, but it also is about inequalities, which means that if you are not delivering on the accessibility elements or showing clear representation or really supporting inequalities in anything you are doing, you are not actually following those goals that you've plastered all across your website to say that as a business, you align yourself to these.

Rachel: Or the goals are antiquated, right? Like they are only focused on people with wheelchairs, for example, and, and not the non-visible. I keep going back to your non-visible disabilities comment, because I think that that's where the gap is of the checklists that we have. You know, all event planners and event designers have this duty of care that we follow.

But we need to update it. We need to update it with these other non-visible disabilities. Like I've seen a lot of events lately, post signs outside of general session for epilepsy, and warnings of strobe lights and things like that, like more things like that on site. I think we need to think through.

Ryan: And also for neurodivergent people, quiet rooms, taking in, you know, time to reflect event. We’ll do a lot of that, which is great. Where they provide spaces, quiet spaces where people can come and they can go away just so that they can take some time. And in there, also in the quiet room is a live stream to the main room.

So, they're, they're still not missing out. They're still able to be part of it because what you don't want to do is you don't want to isolate and you don't want to segregate because what we're trying to do is we're trying to make it inclusive. We're not trying to sort of say, right, this is where you go and this is where everyone else goes.

Because that's where segregation comes into it. And if we really want it to be inclusive, which is what we're after here, then we need to make sure that it's, it's transparent. And that's where I think there was a lot of battle with virtual against live when we had the pandemic. And actually virtual is a really great opportunity, an option to make it fully accessible for those that have, you know, immune deficiencies, that being in a large space can cause huge implications, but they may completely appear to have a non-visible disability. So it would be like, well, why are you asking for that? I've seen you on calls. You, you look fine. And it's that pre-perception, that preconception.

And you know, we also have that preconception that people should tell us, you know, why? Why can't we just make it accessible like the lead by example? Rather than trying to sort of put the onus again on the person with a disability.

Felicia: I was going to say to that Ryan, though. I've been very grateful when people have offered information, and I wonder if there's a way that we can think about making it a safe space for people to offer information. So if there's a way that we can deliver, our planner side to kind of say, you know, and we can accommodate for a variety of, you know, disabilities or, you know, differences with people so that the person says, oh, fantastic. Glad to see you accommodating. I'm going to need this because some of the speakers that we've had, even at Connect last year, I had a speaker that asked us for the specs of the main stage, both from an audio perspective, a visual perspective, what would the lighting be like, how big would the screen be? Because she happened to have a neuro divergence,  we were more than happy to provide her with that information. But I'm happy that she was able to ask and I was really grateful that maybe she felt. That we were providing a space enough for her to say, can I just get those details? And we said, yeah, sure. Here you go. You know?

Ryan: You've got to create that culture. You've got to create that space where people feel like they are being valued and they're actually going to be, you know, accommodated and seen. I think it's really hard to get it right. I don't know, again, I don't know what the solution is to that, but if you create a culture, you know, and I would definitely say the younger generation, you know, they get very much given a bad rep for being, you know,  disruptors and being challenging towards certain, the status quo. Actually, they're the ones that are really kind of coming forward and owning the word disability because for a very long time it was a negative connotation. And actually what people, what we're seeing now with disability pride and the International Day of People With Disabilities and GAD is they're owning disability and they want to own disability and they are not afraid to own disability.

And that is where they will come forward and we'll see that. But I just don’t know whether the working, you know, corporate world is still playing catch up. And that could be legacy because of comments. It could be, I feel like I've not been seen within my organization in the sense of representation, but I've also not heard the language used.

So one of the things is like at The Valuable 500, we've just pushed the five KPIs, which is part of our white paper and it's important for us to, get businesses to look at that and look at workforce representation, goals, training employee resource groups, which is the ERGs, but also digital accessibilities, and include them in their AGMs, include them in their sustainability reports in their end of month, end of year financial reports so the wording is seen, and I believe that that then trickles to make it feel like it's a safer space for people to come and express that. But I get what you mean. It's really hard. How do you plan an event, but to a certain extent, to set a good example, just do it. Just have live captions that are human generated.

Make sure, yeah, just like do good, like do you not want to do good? You know, it's morally right, like, I can't say it anymore. It's a really hard one.

Rachel: What is the gold standard? What are your dream accessibility features like if in a perfect world at an event, I know we could talk at the business level, but for an event specifically, like what are your dream features?

Ryan: I think it's just that it's really been thought through. So like it's the translation and the live captioning or having sign language in there. It's the use of the fact that it's recorded. So then obviously people who may not be able to digest all that information all in one go, they can come.

It's the fact that they're not segregated. So it's the fact that it's mixed in as an inclusive event. So it doesn't feel like, well, we've just put them all over here, people with disabilities, because they need to be separate. It's the fact that it feels like it's just part of the event. What I like is I like going when I feel like I look at things and, I think I recently went to Rome and I've learned so much in this space since working in it, and I wouldn't have probably thought twice about, accessibility or digital accessibility because of the space that I've worked in. And to go into the Colosseum, which is a very old building, let's be honest, but look at it and then get around this corner as we went in to go into the center of the Colosseum and see a lift. And the lift allows you to, so it's fully accessible to get out to the main area on the ground, but the lift allows you to go up to the next tier level. That to me is what it's all about because it's about the fact that anybody can now come and experience this. And yes, it's, these buildings were not made to be accessible because they are so old. It's like the Great Wall of China. It's not something that really should be walked on because it's crumbling and it's up.

But at the moment, there isn't a way for you to get on there if you did have any physical or visible disabilities or like if you needed wheelchair access, but also as well, you could be, you know, it's easier for you to access through a lift. So that to me is what, where, where it, it warms my heart because I just think, well, this is fully inclusive, it's accessible for all and that's what it's looks like.

And that's what I love about an event. You know, the moments I love is like when you've seen sort of the larger concerts and they've considered it with having a sign language person, and that person is living their best life, the way in which they're providing that commentary to those individuals.

And yes, they are to an area so that they can see it, but it feels like they're part of the experience. And you also feel like it, because if you are a scene in that vicinity, that person is showing that. So it just is so, it seems streamlined and it doesn't feel like an afterthought or a consideration or that you've actually gone and asked.

It's like everything has been thought through to make this fully accessible and make everyone feel like they're part of it. And it's probably, I would also say back to the point that you made, that the questions were asked, you know, is there anything I can feel? So that individual that you had on your panel, they will go away feeling like the person you genuinely cared. You cared about me being there and me being there and bringing my whole self and making sure I felt comfortable. And that's so important.

Felicia: I saw the most amazing TikTok. I know. You've just, that thing of it warms my heart. I know it's different cause it's more commercial, but Louis Capaldi on stage, so Louis Capaldi, big singer from I think Glasgow, he's probably going to be like, no. And just discovered he's got Tourettes. Which is not helpful when you're a singer on stage and you have to be able to get through your lines.

And he was singing and suddenly his ticks started to kick in and the entire audience just went with it. They just started singing his song for him like nothing had happened. It was just seamless and then when, as soon as his ticks finished, he's like, oh, okay, fair enough. Let's crack on. You know, it wasn't like, oh, let's stop the show everybody, because this is not supposed to happen. It's uncomfortable. And what you were saying about young people and that seamless experience, I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid now. Cause it's like, yeah, it's fine. He's got Tourettes. Great. Whatever.

Ryan: And that's what we need to see more of. We need to see things and brands that are on this wider stage, like L'Oreal recently launched the accessible packaging, which has got a qr code, so it describes everything. They also released a device where it allows you to be able to apply makeup, if you suffer with hand tremors, so it allows you to have, and so you can apply makeup, why wouldn't we allow someone to have that opportunity to do that?

We've got things like Sony creating cameras where it's a new retinal projection camera kit that helps people with visual impairments to see and capture the world around them so that they can do it. So it works with them. I mean, the list goes on with the various different things and places where people and brands of what they're doing with innovation. And that's what it is. It's innovation. But what's also interesting is where we are seeing in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers, media owners and TV sales houses and other key industry partners. So like Proctor and Gamble, are doing a reset bar in advertising and accessibility, which is basically hoping to progress where a hundred percent of advertising will be accessible with advertising accessibility across Europe, by 2025. I mean, that is huge and great, but we don't want to just see it in Europe. We want to see that across the globe. And I understand baby steps, baby steps, but you know, it's so important. It's a really important factor.

Paulina: I think something to this baby steps concept and for, you know, our respective audience listening, many of whom are event professionals, organizers, marketers right? Kind of going back to this, where do I start concept is,  events is where it can start for your organization, right? If you are not in perhaps a really progressive organization or association or company, you can lead the charge with how you design these experiences, which ultimately will reflect back to your corporate or company culture.

And so I think we're at a unique opportunity with our peers listening in to kind of take the reins, and take those steps to perhaps, you know, injecting some change at the company level. And I think a lot of it can, like I said, start with these events that we design and execute.

Felicia: Yeah. And Paulina, to that extent, I was going to say one thing. I absolutely love. I always say I love the fact that I work at Cvent because I get to use our tech. I'm very lucky other people have to pay for it. But I know that our developers are developing accessibility into the technology, which is so helpful, for me, for Paulina, for Rachel, and all of our customers because it means that there are certain things that we will have to, we will not stop thinking about. But you won't have to really think, okay, well, is that color on that color going to work? Because the tool will just tell you, this is not good, you know? And I think developing it into technology is a really great way to get a big change to happen quickly, because that way you're not relying on every single event planner to think about colors, which they don't necessarily know, you know?

Ryan: Or have the time. You know it, it's a lot to think about. But what I think is really interesting is that it's there, it's integrated from the offset. It's not an afterthought. The technology is there to support it and to help drive it. And that's what's really important. And that's what a lot of brands, I think are starting to wake up to now, to see that.

And I think going back to what you were saying, Paulina, in the sense of it's actually experience here. That's what events are all about. Events are about creating a great experience. Everyone should have and has the entitlement and should be allowed to experience it. So why would you not allow them to?

So it's about thinking again, the experience. That's what events are all about. But does everyone experience it? Because if not everyone is experiencing it, then really it's not. And I think that's where we're as an industry or where the events industry is so good because they're so good at creating those euphoria moments, that moment, that experience where it elevates, it makes people feel good.

And there's a great opportunity to sometimes send messages out as well. You get the world sometimes looking, you know, we've just had the coronation. We've had some big events happening here. The same happens over in the US. It happens across the globe at various different things. There is great opportunities to have woven that in without even thinking.

And yeah, it may feel like a tick process. Make sure that. Isn't that where we've had to come to with diversity to get that change? Isn't that where we've had to come to get women seen within various things? So when you go back to all of these different demographics, it's just a shame that it takes a crisis or an issue to get it sorted. So is there not an opportunity now where we can just go for it?

Rachel: Yeah. Well, wow, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We've learned a great deal. I think I even learned some stuff that we probably need to do for our events as well. I think you mentioned a lot of resources that people should educate themselves with. We'll make sure that any of those types of links will be available to our listeners. Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more?

Ryan: Yeah, so, another great way to find us is through our website. So, it's www.thevaluable500.com, and on there you can see all our members. So I always like to say to the events industry, if anyone is pushing back and they're a member of The Valuable 500, it's always good to see that when they're asking for certain things not to occur.

So yeah, that's where there's lots of news, there's some resources on there, which allow you to also,  you know, find out bits and pieces that are going on.

Rachel: Very good. Well, I think we can all do a better job of making sure our events are accessible, and thinking through all aspects of the event design. We want to make sure we're considering all attendees. But thanks again, Ryan, for joining us today.  For our listeners, if you have any other topics or people you'd like us to add, throughout the rest of the season, please send us a note on LinkedIn or at greatevents@cvent.com.

Thanks for tuning in to great events

Megan Martin (00:00):

People come to events for two reasons: networking, the social aspects, and then the content. They want to learn something. So when we are thinking about content, we're not just thinking talking heads, we're thinking value. So what are we going to deliver that's not Googleable, and what value does that bring them?

Alyssa Peltier (00:17):

Great events, create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites and connects audiences, well, that takes a village, and we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews (00:29):

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu (00:30):

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier (00:32):

And you are listening to great events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Cvent, recently engaged Matt Heinz, some of you might be familiar with Heinz Marketing, to play guest hosts on a series of conversations with marketers and experience makers. 

With more than 20 years of marketing, business development, and sales experience from a variety of organizations, also vertical industries and company sizes, Matt's career has really focused on delivering those measurable results, something that we talk about all the time here on Great Events.

He's had various positions at companies, some of the big ones to rattle off here, Microsoft, Boeing, the Seattle Mariners, and everything in between. Almost 20 years ago now, in 2007, Matt also began Heinz Marketing to help clients focus on their business and on market and customer opportunities to execute a plan, to scale that revenue, and to grow those customers.

So for this week's episode, Matt is going to talk to Megan Martin, a VP of Marketing and Innovation at EMC Meetings & Events. Here's a little sneak peek at this week's episode. Events aren't just about one day. They are content machines. Again, something we talk about all the time here at Great Events. But in this episode, you'll hear from Matt and Megan as they discuss their thoughts on how to squeeze every single drop of value from those events, turning those moments into things like podcasts, blogs, social clips, case studies, and more. Whether you're building brand or you're driving pipeline, this is how events feed your entire marketing mix. Enjoy.

Matt Heinz (02:19):

All right, welcome back to Cvent CONNECT. We're here on the show floor outside of the Innovation Pavilion, just having a great time talking to a lot of Cvent customers, people of the industry, people that just are living and breathing events on a regular basis. Very excited to have with us today for this session, Megan Martin. She's the VP of Marketing and Innovation at EMC Meetings & Events. Welcome.

Megan Martin (02:37):

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Matt Heinz (02:38):

How's the show been so far for you?

Megan Martin (02:40):

Amazing. EMC won an excellence award last night.

Matt Heinz (02:43):

Congratulations.

Megan Martin (02:43):

So we're running a high...

Matt Heinz (02:45):

That's amazing.

Megan Martin (02:45):

... from winning the big award last night, so we're having a great time.

Matt Heinz (02:48):

That is awesome. But there's so many things we can talk about in this session. I want to talk about content...

Megan Martin (02:52):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (02:53):

... which is at the heart of all events, but if you're at an event like Cvent CONNECT, there's content you're experiencing this week, but that's not the end of the content, and we're going to talk about how do you plan for the right content in the room, but also make sure you're getting a long tail of value for that content in so many different formats and opportunities. So we're going to get into that in a minute, but maybe let's start with you and just talk about what's your role at EMC?

Megan Martin (03:15):

Yeah, so I'm the VP of Marketing and Innovation, so obviously, the marketing side. I do all the marketing things for the agency. We're a full service event planning agency. I also do a lot of innovation and consulting with our clients. So as we know, event planners are super busy. They don't necessarily always have the time to look for the new tech or the new ways and the new processes.

So I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry, what's new, what's coming, what techs, what new formats can we introduce? So as our clients are trying to innovate, we can innovate with them and we can really be that consultative arm that they can lean on us and being like, how do we make this better, and we always have the solution for that.

Matt Heinz (03:56):

I mean, for the event profs watching and listening to this, they know that there are so many things that go into it. How good is the coffee? How close is the hotel to the convention center? Content is part of that.

Megan Martin (04:04):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (04:05):

But help me understand, for the best customers, for the best in class events, where does contents fit into the planning function?

Megan Martin (04:11):

Yeah, I think people come to events for two reason, networking, the social aspects and then the content. They want to learn something. So when we're thinking about content, we're not just thinking talking heads, we're thinking value. So what are we going to deliver that's not Googleable? We have to have those moments where someone's going to come and be able to consume a piece of content that they can't find anywhere else on the internet and what value does that bring them?

So we spend a lot of time looking at intent data with our clients. So we talk a lot about the funnel and trying to do content for different parts of the funnel. I think the funnel is dead. It's more of a playground. Ashley Faus just wrote a whole book about this that was very inspiring to me and she's spot on with it.

People are coming in at different areas. They're not coming in through a funnel. Maybe they're coming in sideways. They're not always going to buy, and so are they looking at content from, I just want to be an expert in this field and I need to learn more, so you're the expert and help me educate, or I want to know about your product, so give me product marketing things.

I think Cvent CONNECT does a pretty good job at that as well. There's things about marketing, there's sessions about sales, there's sessions about the product and how to use it more efficiently. So when we think content, we think intent and so, why are we producing this piece of content and how are we going to continue to use it? Who is the audience and what value are they going to gain from consuming it?

Matt Heinz (05:36):

Well, you mentioned the importance of data, the importance of intent data, and to be able to, even at a conference like this where you have thousands of people, how do you then customize that experience for those different roles, those different people here based on where they're at, either in that buying playground or in their customer journey?

Megan Martin (05:51):

Yeah, I think a lot of conferences organize their content based on topic areas instead of value or why. So if I'm coming to the conference just for networking, tell me all the ways and all the areas I need to go so that I can meet as many people as possible.

Matt Heinz (06:07):

That's right.

Megan Martin (06:07):

If I'm coming to learn because I need to be a better salesperson or I need to be better at using the Cvent platform, tell me all the sessions, not just in a singular track. So that's when we think about intent data that we're looking at and then the post follow up. So much of data creation has to think way before the event even starts. And so, a lot of our clients are creating run of shows for content just like they would the operational execution of the event.

So these sessions are going to produce this and we're going to have this outcome for them, and these people are in charge of that, or we want to capture this at this session. And so, there's almost like a run of show every single day of what they're capturing so they can look and say, "Oh, we noticed you had this session saved on your agenda, but you weren't able to make it. They didn't scan into the session. Here's a webinar. Here's a podcast recording. Here's a white paper on that topic that you missed."

Matt Heinz (07:03):

There's so much great content and experiences and moments at conferences like this that are valuable in the moment and then are sort of either lost or forgotten. We're onto the next session, we're onto the next conversation, and we lose that content. Why are we so bad at that, and how can companies and event marketers get better at creating the long tail for the content that they're enabling?

Megan Martin (07:22):

I mean, at the end of the day, the teams are just siloed. And so, a lot of the times, the event people are moving straight on to the next event. They're not necessarily thinking about repurposing that content. And marketing is following up on leads, working with sales, and how do we outreach to the attendees and not necessarily thinking about, "Wow, we just captured five days or four days worth of these sound bites and all the things."

If you have a plan in place before you even start the event, you know how to repurpose it for 6, 9, 12 months, and then you have this year round cycle where you're just hyping it up for the next year.

Matt Heinz (07:57):

That's right.

Megan Martin (07:57):

And you've fed that feed all year long.

Matt Heinz (08:00):

So can you give me an example of what that would look like? So yesterday morning, opening keynote, Reggie does 15, 20 minutes on stage and it's a broad swath of where he sees the industry going and not getting into products, but it's sort of more of the CEO perspective. As a content team sitting in the back of the room, how do you take that session, which is now a recorded video with transcripts? What do you do with that?

Megan Martin (08:22):

So for him, something like that, that's like a trends piece. So beyond the roadmap, that's a whole nother probably six months of content I could push on the Cvent roadmap that I talked about. Thinking about the industry trends, that can become a white paper, a LinkedIn carousel, we can push it out in six months. We can be like, "Oh, are these trends coming true? Are they still on track?" A year from now, we can say, "Oh, were we right? Did those trends happen?" But beyond the organizer, so Cvent producing, why aren't all of your ambassadors also?

So what about all the influencers? What about your exhibitors? What about your sponsors? What about your attendees? They should be like, "Oh, I sat in this general session. Reggie said we should do this.

Matt Heinz (09:03):

That's right.

Megan Martin (09:05):

I'm seeing that in my business," and you have now all these other people talking about your event that you can then repurpose their content just like you're repurposing your own keynote from Reggie. So one 20-minute trends, keynote from Reggie yesterday, could turn into thousands of impressions if you include exhibitors, sponsors, attendees, influencers that were in that room.

Matt Heinz (09:27):

So if you're listening or watching this, you're thinking, "Boy, we just had our event," whether it was yesterday or last month, and you're like, "We haven't done any of that," the opportunity's still there.

Megan Martin (09:34):

Absolutely.

Matt Heinz (09:34):

You can take that content and we can still do all of these things.

Megan Martin (09:36):

Absolutely.

Matt Heinz (09:37):

Better yet if your conference is coming up in the next few weeks or months and you can plan for this.

Megan Martin (09:41):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (09:42):

So what are some of the keys to people and companies thinking and planning before the event even happens to be able to take advantage of this in the moment?

Megan Martin (09:49):

That's where there needs to be so much more collaboration between the sales marketing and events team, because a sales team is going to look at, "Okay, what are people saying and how do I leverage that as a sales enablement piece so that I can drive my pipeline, I can close sales." So sales are going to look at all of your content in one way. You should give it to them and tell them and say, "What out of this agenda, what out of these sessions, what do you need to know so we can capture it, so then we have sales enablement pieces for the next six months?"

Matt Heinz (10:18):

That's right.

Megan Martin (10:18):

And we know what our audience is thinking. Marketing's going to come in and be like, "Oh, that would be a great TikTok piece. That would be a great LinkedIn piece. Here's five takeaways. Here's what we heard Billy on the street style from the hallway conversations." Marketing's going to look at it from one lens. And then, your event people are going to look at it from a different lens as well of what areas were most active, what were people loving so we can continue to drive these personalized experiences.

So those are one agenda, three completely different perspectives, but they all need to be talking prior to even going on site because if you go in with a plan, you can execute and actually produce six months worth of content post-event rather than waiting until it's over and then having to think, "Okay, now you have so much data, you're overwhelmed, you're drowning in it, you're drowning in this content," and you're like, "We don't even know where to start." If you go in with that sort of run of show, as soon as it's done, you're executing and not having to create.

Matt Heinz (11:14):

Absolutely. So you go in with the plan, you go in with a run of show, and then the event happens, and then serendipity happens as well, right?

Megan Martin (11:21):

Of course.

Matt Heinz (11:21):

People walk by, you're like, "I want to get them on video," or something happens in an unexpected way, or we've got to run a show for this session right here. Some things that I knew that you've been working on that I wanted to make sure I ask you, but I'm already asking you a question. It wasn't on the run of show.

Megan Martin (11:32):

For sure.

Matt Heinz (11:33):

And so, how do you balance sort that planned effort to help make an event successful with opportunities for things that pop up?

Megan Martin (11:41):

Maybe that's just where you have to be flexible. I mean, we know that even from an event design standpoint, there's always going to be things that happen that you're not prepared for, but that's even more important to having a plan because if you're always trying to play catch up, everything is unexpected and serendipitous at that point where if you can structure it.

And you know going in, "Okay, we know we have people there. Oh, there's this great hallway conversation going on. We know we have a team in that area and they have a break right now, let's go capture some of that," or "We have a downtime, let's go get some more B-roll on the street conversations." It's just about being flexible and when you have a plan, you have the capacity to be more flexible.

Matt Heinz (12:25):

So clear opportunity to repurpose a lot of this into content that you can then reshare with your audience, with your customer. I think we now see a greater opportunity to make that a community element where it's not just us as brands publishing that out to our constituents, but getting them to communicate peer to peer. How do you take some of that content and the experiences in an event and use that to spark a community that creates and shares content with each other?

Megan Martin (12:47):

I think you have to encourage it. There's so many, when we think about fall leadership, anyone can do that now with platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and everybody wants to share their experience and to make it easy for them to do that, have the Instagram backdrop moment, give them the spaces to be their own content creator because when you make it easy for them to share their experience, people will do it.

And so, give them the tools, maybe have an area where they can record the video or give the testimonial and then they can easily share it out or even the pre-event of that, people want to go where their friends are going.

Matt Heinz (13:23):

That's right.

Megan Martin (13:24):

And having it easy where tools like Snowball, InGo, Gleanin where they can quickly share and being like, "I'm going to connect. Who's going to be there? Am I going to see my friends? What should I not miss this year?"

Matt Heinz (13:34):

One of the trade-offs of having the community start to create its own content is you lose a little control, right?

Megan Martin (13:38):

For sure.

Matt Heinz (13:38):

You lose a little control of the brand, the consistency. Where's the right balance between brand consistency and authenticity of content that's coming from peers?

Megan Martin (13:48):

I think that's where you have to be engaged. When we think about community and we think engagement, and if you're keeping a pulse on those ambassadors and you're commenting, liking, actively resharing their content, that kind of helps you keep a little bit of control because they know you're always around, you're watching. They want to hear it, and I think people will be more honest and you create more authenticity in that way that you can just keep the conversations flowing.

Matt Heinz (14:19):

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think one of the things that I'm hearing from you is that there's the content we create and then there's the content we inspire. Talk a little bit about what that means, and that's not just amongst the attendees and your customers and prospects, it's among the people at your very company and your partners, the people in your ecosystem that are there and inspired by that as well. What are some of the best practices and even sort of the triggers and the motivators to really inspire people to use your content as a launching point?

Megan Martin (14:44):

Sure. I mean, that's where thought leadership comes in. So back to your example of Reggie's keynote, why I could go easily on my platform now. I mean, this is what I heard the trends are in the industry. Here's what I agree with. Here's maybe what I'm questioning. And then, I can sort of spread that message even wider. I can inspire conversation. "What are you guys hearing? This is what Reggie said. Here's what I'm thinking. What's our community think? Are we way off base? What do we love? What do we hate about it?"

The beauty of the events industry, we all work on so many different kinds of events; consumer events, business events, executive dinners, huge conferences. We all bring a different perspective to it, but there's so much learning opportunity, because at the end of the day, it's all humans going to these events.

Matt Heinz (15:30):

Yes.

Megan Martin (15:31):

And so there's a lot of connectivity that I think we miss because we don't share more widely and openly and inspire people to think outside of their initial circle for inspiration.

Matt Heinz (15:42):

So we just got a few minutes left. I think there's sort of the common playbook of repurposing content. You've got your blog post, you've got your social media post, you've got converting into small video clips and email nurtures. I'm curious if there's a content format or type or tactic that you don't see very often used that is actually really powerful. 

I'll give you an example that I think is powerful that I've heard a lot of people starting to use now is behind-the-scenes content, like showing Reggie in the meeting, in the green room, showing some of the prep that people don't typically see. I mean, we see that in the media world, like bloopers and clips on beyond just the episodes of just the actors being real between takes, people dig that stuff.

Megan Martin (16:20):

Yes.

Matt Heinz (16:21):

Talk about that or any other sort of formats that you think are hidden gems.

Megan Martin (16:24):

I mean, that's definitely one. I mean, people want authentic. They want the bloopers, they want start doing that pre-content, like have your speakers being like, "Here's what I'm prepping for. What should I talk about in my session?" 

The one piece that I think is most underutilized is you have this captive audience at these events and then we don't do polling in our sessions. So if we started using interactive polls more in these sessions, I mean, that's great pieces of data that you can then dump into data tools. You can then validate Reggie's thoughts on the industry. Ask a couple questions at the beginning of every session and then, share that out and being like, "Here's what the audience at Cvent said, 80% is," blah, blah, blah, whatever the question might be. I don't think we utilize polling enough in the moment and to be able to use that post event or even pre-event.

Matt Heinz (17:15):

It's amazing to me when we're not at events, we work so hard and sometimes pulling teeth to get people to answer questions, and yet when you get a few hundred people in the room staring at you...

Megan Martin (17:24):

And we still don't ask the question.

Matt Heinz (17:24):

... and we don't ask the questions. I love that they brought that up because that's a huge opportunity. We've been talking a lot about best practices for content repurposing. I love a good best practice, but I also love a good dumpster fire. So if I were to talk about dumpster fires or cautionary tales, things people might not think about on their own unless they have experienced the pain of it themselves, what have you seen that maybe stands out?

Megan Martin (17:43):

I mean, immediately my brain goes back to fire festival stuff. And so, there's a balance between being authentic and sharing behind the scenes, but then if things are not going well, being very careful about sharing those behind the scenes moments and things can go viral very quickly for all the wrong reasons.

Megan Martin (18:06):

But keeping in mind, it's how you respond to those things more so.

Megan Martin (18:10):

Eventually, something's going to go viral and people are going to have conversations about something that goes wrong. I mean, there's dumpster fires everywhere. It's more on then how you respond to that and take it with grace. And I think a lot of people who own some of those dumpster fires, end up coming out on the better end where you're like, "Man, we f'd up. We own that and here's what we're going to do to do better tomorrow, the next day, next year," whatever it may be.

Matt Heinz (18:33):

I think there's something to be said. I think there is a line there for sure. I think there's also be said for creating some empathy with your audience and letting them see like, "Listen, we all live in glass houses, man. This is never all perfect..."

Megan Martin (18:43):

Exactly.

Matt Heinz (18:43):

... in terms of having this get done." So yeah, as we wrap up here, I'm curious, as you see this moving forward, we've got AI playing a bigger role in creating the data for us to be able to leverage events. We're seeing more of a hybrid format where an event here may tie into a pre or post virtual event and then other channels. How is that going to impact our content opportunities in the next couple of years?

Megan Martin (19:03):

I mean, AI is streamlining a lot of the processes. Like, look, I will die on this hill that AI is one of the best things ever happened to the events industry. I mean, people are going to be craving more human to human interaction, and I think our jobs just got way more important. 

And when AI is used properly, it can streamline and make things a lot more efficient, which gives us back the space and the time to be creative and kind of push the boundaries of what we're capable of doing, because we have tools like AI that are doing a lot of the mundane, tedious work that sucks up a lot of our time. We can now automate all of those things to give ourselves that creative space to create better experiences, create better content, and push what kind of content we're putting out there because we don't have to answer 300 emails in a day anymore.

Matt Heinz (19:52):

That's right. That's right. Love it. Megan Martin from EMC, thank you so much for joining us today.

Megan Martin (19:56):

Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Matt Heinz (19:54):

Thank you.

Alyssa Peltier (20:00):

Thanks for hanging out with us on great events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews (20:10):

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you, discover great events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu (20:20):

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content updates and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews (20:27):

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu (20:37):

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier (20:47):

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.