Cool New Marketing Technologies: Caught and Served

Posts Tagged ‘virtual event’

Virtual Events for Pharma #VEP11 – How to Create Impact and Maintain Compliance

By Greg Jones

If you’ve ever wanted to check out a virtual event live, here is your chance. Starting at 12:30 pm today, We are hosting “Virtual Events for Pharma #VEP11 – How to Create Impact and Maintain Compliance.” Here is a description of the event:

The life sciences industry is in the midst of a virtual revolution. No longer are national and global meetings constrained by venue or geography. Today, life science professionals can gain access to industry expertise, content, and news with the click of a mouse through a virtual engagement platform. Learn how your company can leverage this new trend to dramatically increase your reach to both external and internal audiences while also ensuring compliance with the requirements of our industry.”

We are using the Unisfair platform, and have a number of experts lined up to talk including:
-Taren Grom, Editor-in-Chief, PharmaVOICE
-Derrick Wood, SVP, Creative Services, Cramer
-Peggy Robinson, Directory of Strategic Alliances, Veridex (J&J Co.)
-Brent Arslaner, Vice President, Unisfair

If you plan on attending, the twitter hashtag is #VEP11
If you are interested in the subject matter, the virtual event platform as a solution, or just getting your networking on, come check it out. The keynote starts at 12:45 pm.

/end shameless plug

Virtual Event Evolution – what will happen next

By Steve Gogolak

Fellow Virtual Event blogger Dennis Shiao has taken a fantastic step toward innovation by suggesting in a recent post that the community come together to develop a “wish list” of sorts for what virtual event platform companies should consider on their product road maps.   After Dennis twisted my arm (not really), I jumped in and contributed to the thoughts already laid out by he and Miguel Arias over at Imaste.  Check out our thoughts on the wiki Dennis created.

So here’s a good chance for you to weigh in down in the comments.  Perhaps consider answering one of these questions:

  • What do you hate most about virtual event technology?
  • What one current feature, if removed, would cause the world to end?
  • What is the one piece of technology you want inside virtual event platforms that isn’t there yet?

Will having a virtual event hurt my face to face event attendance?

By Steve Gogolak

Do Not Enter

I’ll be perfectly honest with you, there is very little data available about online events hurting or helping face to face attendance.  I get asked this question all the time and, based on the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen, it seems like virtual events either have either no impact or a positive impact on face to face attendance.  Here are a few things to consider:

  1. If your company’s travel budget has been restricted and you can no longer travel to the annual *whatever* event, you simply can’t go.  Period.   This is still a reality, even as we pull out of the recession.
  2. To the participants, virtual events still don’t demonstrate an equivalent value to a face to face event.  They come darn close if you really invest yourself, but if you’re authorized to travel, chances are you’re going to rather than sit in front of the computer.

To sum up those two points: if you can go, you will; if you can’t go, you hope there is an online alternative.

Looking for further evidence, I decided to ask both my Twitter and LinkedIn network what they all thought.  Silence on twitter, as expected of a complex question.  LinkedIn had some insight to share, however.  Here are a few highlights:

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