One of the most anticipated sessions at the Virtual Edge Summit, now in its second year, was The State (and Future) of Virtual Events. With a whopping eight man panel, including the leaders of every major technology platform, the insight into the industry was unprecedented. I’ll attempt to boil down the key points from the one hour session here.
What Happened in 2009
Malcolm Lotzof of InXpo thinks that we overcame skepticism by educating potential buyers about what virtual events are, what they are used for and that they can work. This is a big step for an industry that is full of tire kickers.
Ben Chodor of Stream57 indicated that his customers have started to look at virtual meeting solutions as a “must have” – a change from 2008 where they were a “nice to have.”
However, Tom Weiser of CGS cautioned that there is a lot of education left to do because “this is still a concept that needs to be explained.” In fact, during my own conversations with Unisfair’s VP of Channels, Brent Arslaner, we both agreed that the term virtual “events” may be too narrow to describe the actual use of the technology. The points made on the panel underscored a popular notion amongst other speakers (including myself) that marketing objectives come first and are then followed by technology to solve the problems created by the objectives, whether that leads to an event scenario or otherwise.
Where We’re Going in 2010
As the technology matures due to massive inflows of capital, the technology will become more and more applicable to community building through “perpetual environments.” Paul Way of ON24 indicated that 2010 will bring a growing focus on community building as more companies adopt virtual event technology on an ongoing basis. There was also consensus that each technology would be focusing on integrating existing communities into their platforms, but none expanded upon that point into specifics.
All panelists agreed that the industry is growing at such a pace that the need for channel support will grow rapidly. Kevin Carbone of 6Connex was particularly vocal on this point, indicating that all of the technology makers have an obligation to train their channel partners to the best of their ability as the channel becomes an increasingly important part of their sales organization. This is great news for companies like Cramer, GPJ and Maritz, all present at the Summit.
SMB is a new market virtual event technology providers are hoping to tap in 2010. Stu Schmidt at Unisfair announced v9 of the Unisfair platform which adds in an unprecedented amount of self service tools for partners and event organizers to take advantage of, removing the service burden from Unisfair which will substantially reduce cost. That cost reduction, which was not specifically described, will put virtual event technology within reach of the small and medium sized businesses. Other platforms are moving in this direction as well indicating that the industry as a whole is moving very clearly toward product development and away from services, opening up that market to channel partners and independent consultants.
One final point, brought up by a comment from audience member Michael Westcott of Event Marketer, was about establishing industry standard measurements so that buyers can compare event successes across platforms. This may prove to be more of a problem for the buyers of virtual events because measurement objectives are so different from event to event based on event purpose. While the technology platforms may be able to establish benchmarks, and Unisfair is trying to do just that with its Engagement Index, it might be difficult to compare events like a college fair to a user conference because their purpose is so different and the expectation for engagement varies heavily.
Check out all of the sessions at the Virtual Edge Summit 2010 for free.
Tags: ben chodor, brant arslaner, inxpo, malcolm lotzof, michael doyle, stream57, stu schmidt, unisfair, virtual edge, Virtual Events, webcast, Webcasting