Elling Hamso Blog

I had occasion to visit Tallinn recently, and discovered something I hadn’t expected. I was connected all the time, my laptop I mean, to high speed internet access. At the airport, in the hotel, on the street, in shops, everywhere. I didn’t even have to accept terms and conditions, I was just connected. The Estonians seemed to take it for granted and told me that the ferry to Helsinki was connected, even the bus to St Petersburg, at least on their side of the border.

Several people told me with pride that Skype is being developed in Estonia, and they are a leading nation in developing applications for the internet.

When I asked the taxi driver if he would take a credit card, it was as if he didn’t understand what the alternative might be, except perhaps the mobile phone, which you and I know can be used as a means of paying money, the Estonians do it, all the time. By the way, I came from Frankfurt, where I had to make the taxidriver stop at a cash machine on the way to the airport.

That was when it struck me; this is a connected society, they could become the first ‘connected conference’ destination, a brand which to my knowledge is up for grabs.

The connected conference starts before and finishes after the physical meeting with blogs, wikis, tweets, networking communities, virtual meetings, online planning, webcasts and podcasts and more. The physical meeting is connected to participants, speakers, organisers and sponsors as well as the sources of information and experience that we are used to having at our fingertips.

The connected destination, its DMCs, venues, agencies and others, know all there is to know about being connected, they master all the latest technologies and don’t miss any new ideas. The connected destination is a leader not a follower, creating the market for its services.

I am not proposing to the Estonians or anyone else to take the leap just on faith, but I shall be surprised if some serious research and scenario planning doesn’t reveal an opportunity. And if being connected is part of the future of meetings, you might as well start now to build the brand, selling a better city wall than the city next door is a waste of breath anyway.

I watched yesterday a video interview Paul Bridle made with me in Torino recently, and I wasn't sure if I should have said that "ROI is a bit over-hyped". If the hype is what everybody is talking about, I want the ROI Methodology to be the hype of the day, thank you very much. But as the economy started bleeding and everyone I talk to reports event cuts and cancellations, I have had to re-think my pitch for ROI training and consultancy services, which is how I try to eek a living.

ROI is history in the sense that it is something you may measure after the event has happened. It will not secure the budget. But the ROI Methodology might well do that, it is not the same thing, the ROI and the ROI Methodology, please make a note of that. When meeting owners reduce event budgets or cancel the whole thing, they are making sound business decisions. I would do the same if someone asked me for money in a recession without a plausible explanation for how exactly the expenditure was going to affect the bottom line.It is not enough to say that we need more than ever to strengthen customer loyalty and inspire our workforce through meetings and events. This is just talk. Tell me rather precisely what you have figured out that our customers or employees should be doing differently from what they do today and exactly how the different items in the proposed programme and budget are designed to make them change behaviour.

This is the ROI Methodology in action as a planning tool. You must first to set Business Impact objectives, explaining how the event is directly connected to the bottom line. Then you have to set Application objectives, defining the behaviour by participants after the event which will create value to stakeholders. Then you have to look at every application objective for every category of participants at your event and ask yourself; “How do I make him do that?”. “Why is she not doing it already?” Maybe he or she needs some practical information, or a change of attitude, or maybe some improved personal realtionships.

This story about the inter-connected objectives between what you need participants to do afterwards and the way in which you plan to achieve that, is your best chance for getting the budget for the event you know needs to happen.