Extended Events and Virtual Worlds

Of course a blog like this is an advocate of extended events and lately we've been talking to people about integrated events where the range of social media tools are brought to bear on an event. What would that look like?

• A conference would, like Bar Camp, be self-organising, a concept that doesn't have to scare the events industry. Pretty much every area of commerce has been affected by user-generated content and a conference should not be immune.

• A group blog so that speakers at an event can begin communicating before the events, and continue long after it. It would also serve as a point of interaction between speakers and attendees.

• A wiki capturing the essential learning outcomes from an event. The wiki is a source of additional advertising opportunities.

• A virtual space where sponsors could mount semi-permanent exhibitions in relation to the event and where people who can't make the dates or won't travel can attend as avatars.

• Continuity between annual conferences so that the business side of the who and what of the subject continue possibly as a social network.

The possibilities are powerful and were highlighted as long ago as 2005 by analyst Robin Good. Progress has been slow though. Any idea why?

Virtual Recruitment Fairs

"THE recruitment fair seems to have gone the way of the dodo, the zeppelin and the space hopper. Its moment seems to have passed," so says The Times on March 16th quoting BT among others who mourn its passing.

"....virtual fairs are steadily gaining ground," says The Times. "The London Business School now teams up with eight of the world’s other leading business schools for an annual two-day internet recruitment extravaganza where 44 recruiters meet more than 1,400 MBA students seeking summer internships and permanent posts."

Meanwhile the virtual assistant is growing in popularity indicating that in future the virtual may be the job choice. The first virtual assistant's fair is due up soon.

"Virtual Assistance, while still mostly unheard of by the general population, is an entrepreneurial career choice not only alive and well, but growing rapidly all over the world. Many of the industry’s leaders, who work tirelessly to increase awareness and educate small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) on the benefits of collaborating with Virtual Assistants (VAs), will meet in Toronto Canada May 2-4 of this year at the Forum on Virtual Assistance (FoVA). FoVA will be the first event of its kind ever to take place in Canada. "

That's due May 2.

The Event

Not strictly speaking a virtual event but the Virtul Worlds Conference. Less than a month away now. Here is the speaker list.

Those of us in the virtual worlds business have sensed the four or five months from November on have been very quiet - a factor many of us attributed to negative press for Second Life

Virtual management though are reporting significant investment during the last quarrter of 2007. ".... venture capital and media firms have invested more than $425 million dollars in 15 virtual worlds companies during the fourth quarter of 2007. Of the $425 million, $375 Million was invested in 13 companies and the remaining $50 million consisted of two acquisitions.

Fourth quarter numbers are up from $220 million having been invested in 23 virtual worlds-related companies in Q3 2007. In the third quarter Disney also announced its $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin. No comparable data is available for Q4 2006.

Investors during the Q4 2007 period include: Omnicom, Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures, Vickers Financial Group, DHX Media Ltd., Benchmark Capital, Canaan Partners, GrandBanks Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Ventures, Providence Equity Partners, Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners and Pequot Ventures, Gigamedia, Sony and Time Warner, Microsoft and BigFish Games."

The bulk of the money seems to be going into worlds targeting younger people and kids, soperhaps a reflection of SL's poor Autumn on that front.

RSS Hugger

We're in the process of signing up to rsshugger, the new feed registry. Rsshugger is run by Colin over at mixedmarketarts.com. It's our way of ensuring you can learn more about virtual events via the Rss feed.

Mixedmarketarts is an SEO and link building advisory. Looks good.

InXpo

It's great to see the speed with which virtual event initiatives are progressing. Chicago-based virtual event organiser InXpo is impressive because of the breadth of its offer in what is really a young industry. Here's some take on that:

".... a new Virtual Seminar Platform and a new Virtual Media Center to our existing Virtual Trade Show, Virtual Job Fair and Virtual Community platforms. In addition all products now feature a universal new 3D experience."

Well we all know about the 3-D experience but combining these elements is what a lot of us have been waiting for.

InXpo offers public and private events, the latter "focused on promotional selling where the shows host customers and suppliers are the attendees and exhibitors."

We picked up on a couple of interesting examples. the Wall St Journal is hosting a virtual careers air - what a great partner to have. Read about it here. And InXpo's own virtual meetings world. The pace is hotting up. We know of companies, regions, cities, Governments who don't believe virtual events are going to happen. It's wake up time.

Virtual expos

As firm believers in virtual exhibition, virtual events, expos, and congresses it was heartening to find that the editors over at entrepreneur.com have begun to share our views.

This is their example:

"Robin Cowie, president of WorldwideBrands.com, a Maitland, Florida, wholesale and drop-ship resources provider, went from attending virtual B2B e-commerce trade show eComXpo to hosting a booth at the show. "We treat it like a normal convention," says Cowie, 35, whose company reached more than $3 million in sales last year. "We have three staff members dedicated to it. They're constantly chatting and exchanging information during the show, and I don't have to pay for travel."

Our good friend Pete Dunkley over at Depo Consulting now has a column at Events:Review - on the subject of virtual events:

"One of the more common misconceptions about holding events in virtual worlds such as Second Life is that they always involve avatars [your character within the virtual world] presenting to avatars," says pete. He argues thre are many ways to get started.

Stream content into Second Life, stream content from SL into a conference or event. "Having a virtual audience raises the possibility of selling incremental advertising, sponsorship and the floor space for trade stalls for the virtual offshoot." Worth noting!