Posted by John
Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:15:00 GMT
"The Congress for the New Urbanism is very excited to be using Zerista this year! Attendees have been impressed to find an event networking site that looks great and connects them with the colleagues they'll see at our conference. They're also using it to select and find sessions. It definitely surpassed our expectations." -CNU Communications Director
We recently completed a fun project working with a leading urban design conference in Denver. The Conference for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the nation's leading forum dedicated to advancing urbanism and promoting alternatives to sprawl.
We were excited to work on this project - not only because we support the general new urbanist principles, but also because we live and work in the types of communities that new urbanism seeks to encourage.
As background, New Urbanism is an urban design and development movement dedicated to implementing community-oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast to the prevailing system of formless sprawl. New Urbanist developments are walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces as detailed in the Charter of the New Urbanism.
The conference attracts more than 1,000 attendees from around the world who particiapte in several hundred planned activities throughout the week.
Some of the key challgenges faced by the conference organizer:
• Strengthen relationships between core stakeholders - attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Increase networking between attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Increase productivity at the conference
The solution included the following key components:
• Attendee, speaker and exhibitor directories with detailed info on all key stakeholders
• Online conversations for attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Personalized scheduling tools with ability to export MS Outlook, iCal and other calendar aps
The solution generated a significant ROI:
• 27% average increase in event networking due to Zerista (based on survey data)
• 10% average increase in overall event productivity due to Zerista (based on survey data)
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free comment below.
Posted in Conferences | Tags case, event, media, networking, new, social, study, urbanism | no comments
Posted by John
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:12:00 GMT
We are pleased to annouced that Zerista recently completed a round of funding led by Kickstart Seed Fund. Many thanks to all of you the helped us during the fundraising process! Read more here ...
Tags capital, company, fund, kickstart, news, raissing, round, seed, venture | no comments
Posted by John
Thu, 28 May 2009 23:09:00 GMT
"The Zerista application is the perfect dashboard for managing conference meetings, messages, while also prospecting......in the past, I would go to a meeting thinking I'm missing something. With your tool I feel like my prep time is well spent and assured I'm not missing a beat. Well done! Thanks again for the tool." -Exhibitor
“Just a note to say how much I am enjoying using Zerista. Thanks for providing this great tool! “ -Attendee
“Great tool. Really enjoying it!” -Attendee
As highlighted by the user quotes above, the Zerista application had a significant impact on the event experience for attendees and exhibitors. The event organizer's intent was to significantly improve the event ROI for attendees and exhibitors. Zerista played a key piece in achieving this objective.
Customer Needs:
• Increase meetings between attendees and exhibitors
• Increase networking between attendees
• Decrease the planning effort for attendees
Solution:
The Zerista team worked closely with the event producer to deliver a custom Social Event Site that delivered the following key features:
• Attendee directory and integrated networking tools
• Exhibitor directory and integrated networking tools
• 1:1 meeting scheduler
• Real-time event feed with aggregated social media content (youtube, flickr, etc.)
Return-on-Investment (ROI):
The solution generated a significant ROI that substantially exceeded expectations:
• More than 14,000 messages, meetings and contacts created
• More than 800 1:1 meetings scheduled
• Roughly 80% of exhibitors and 50% of attendees used the application
• Exhibitors scheduled 40% to 80% more meetings due to Zerista
Feel free to contact us with questions or comments.
Posted in Conferences, Features | Tags at, conferences, event, media, of, ROI, site, social | no comments
Posted by John
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:45:00 GMT
"The finished product looks fantastic, and the best part is people are already using it. We're really excited and hope that this rubs off on the membership and makes the event that much better." -Conference & Trade Show Organizer
We recently completed a successful project for a leading financial services conference and trade show. Given the turmoil in the financial services industry and resulting cutbacks in event attendance at financial services events, this client was focused on differentiating their event vs. competing events. Since attendees and exhibitors are reducing the number of events they attend, this client wanted to make sure that their event stands out and, as a result, remains the preferred event within their industry niche for attendees and exhibitors.
The client perceived the use of social networking as a key point for differentiation. This client took a multi-platform strategy that includes both general purpose social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and event-specific social networks (Zerista). They decided to use Zerista to meet a significant functionality gap within the general purpose platforms: in-depth event-specific social networking and scheduling functionality.
Key functionality provided by Zerista included the capabilities to:
- Search a complete attendee directory
- Schedule 1:1 meetings with other attendees
- See who else is attending specific sessions, keynotes, and workshops
- Build and export a personalized schedule and itinerary
The solution had a significant impact on the conference experience:
- More than 3,000 messages, contacts, and meetings were created within the solution
- More than 475 attendees created event-specific profiles to share with other attendees
- Strong positive feedback from users
To read more about this case study, please click here: Financial Services Case Study.
Posted in Conferences, Features, Events | Tags at, conferences, differentiation, event, events, financial, media, services, social, tradeshows | no comments
Posted by John
Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:16:00 GMT
Many event organizers that we work with are very concerned about their event's attendance. What's worked in the past is often no longer working. As a result, event organizers are working harder than ever at finding relevant content and expanding their audiences.
We hear many questions about content - What topics are compelling this year? Should we stick to the tried-and-true or branch out to new topics? Which speakers will be a draw this year? Should we change our format?
Equally common are questions about building out the audience: How can we increase repeat attendance? How can we appeal to the younger members of our audience? What can we do to retain current exhibitors and attract new ones?
We've worked with a number of events that are growing - some of them significantly. When you step back and look at what they are doing differently than their peers, you see that the event organizers are addressing these questions creatively and early on in the planning cycle.
A great example of this kind of approach is outlined in Chris Brogan's excellent post The Art of Butts in Chairs.
Posted in Conferences, Features, Events | Tags attendance, audience, conference, content, exhibitors, networking | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by John
Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:19:00 GMT
Over the last 12 months, Twitter usage has accelerated at conferences, trade shows and other large events. Twitter, however, is starting to become a victim of its own popularity. With so many attendees using #event tags, the volume of twittering is start to overload attendees undermining its utility as a real-time communication platform. This is exactly what happened at SXSW this year. This points to a more general content organization and collaboration problem that needs to be solved. Stay tuned for more from Zerista on this!
Posted in Conferences, Features | Tags at, conferences, overolad, twitter | no comments
Posted by John
Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:49:00 GMT
In this economic enviornment, many are questioning the value of business conferences and tradeshows. In times like these, it is worthwhile to keep in mind that in-person meetings provide unique networking, informational and educational value. Bob Phibbs does a great job of summarizing some of the most important - and often-overlooked - reasons in 10 Reasons to Have That Conference and Use a Professional Speaker.
Bob's #1 reason - community - really resonates with us. By extending the conference community online before, during and after an event, we help the community form stronger and longer lasting ties.
Posted in Social Mapping, Conferences, Events | Tags community, conferences, for, networking, reasons, social | no comments
Posted by John
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:48:00 GMT
We recently worked with an academic association on their annual conference. One of the unique aspects of this conference was its international audience: more than 50% of the attendees were from outside of the United States. The conference attracted more than 1,000 attendees from over 30 countries, with significant representation from Europe, India, and China.
Given this global audience and the fact that our software is currently English-only, we were curious to see how well our software tools would be adopted. We shouldn't have been. In fact, we saw that international adoption was the key driver of activity within the community. Many of the most active users were from around the world. Within less than 48 hours, close to 20% of international attendees were already activety using the system.
There's a more general observiation here. For conferences with geographically dispersed audiences, web-based social event tools like Zerista's add a significant amount of value to attendees.
Posted in Conferences, Events, Politics | Tags case, conference, conferences, event, international, networking, on, pattern, recognition, social, software, studies | no comments
Posted by John
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:07:00 GMT
We recently completed a project for a leading clean alternative conference. The event organizer's key goals were increasing attendee loyalty and repeat attendance. We helped the organizer achieve these goals by enabling each attendee to get more value - both networking and informational value - from attending the conference. The Zerista software tools extended the event online, enabling each attendee to be more productive onsite.
The results were highly positive:
“Zerista was an excellent resource for our conference attendees. They could find out where things were happening, connect with each other before they'd even met, and start discussions about the conference proceedings in real time. It was an online destination that boosted the value of our conference far more than our static website ever did before.” -Event Organizer
“I really liked being able to see who else is attending the conference. I set up 3 meetings via the system – these were meetings that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened.” -Attendee
The Zerista software tools were broadly adopted and received overwhelmingly positive reviews. To read more about this case study, click here.
Posted in Social Mapping, Conferences, Events | Tags attendance, attendee, case, conferences, loyalty, rates, repeat, study | no comments
Posted by John
Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:30:00 GMT
One of the more entertaining projects that we've worked on recently is the Great American Beer Festival. The Beer Festival is an annual classic each fall in Denver and is rated as one of the 1,000 places to see before you die. Each year upwards of 40,000 attendees and 400 exhibiting brewers get together to sample the best beers in the country. We worked with the event orgnizer to provide online tools to make it easier for attendees to find brewers before and during the event.
One of the more challenging aspects of the project was to provide a user-friendly venue map interface that enabled attendees to quickly search and find exhibitors from within one browser window. 10,000s of attendees used the site and the project was viewed as highly successful. In the words of the event organizer:
"With Zerista, we were able to offer our 40,000+ attendees an easier way to plan and map out their event experience at the Great American Beer Festival. Our requirements included an interactive convention hall map that showed the location of more than 400 exhibitors and 50 events. Zerista rapidly delivered an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to a rather challenging mapping project. The Zerista team was great to work ith, and we're looking forward to working together again in the future.
Here's a screenshot of what we provided:
Posted in Social Mapping, Conferences, Events | Tags american, and, attendance, attendee, beer, driving, event, festival, gabf, great, loyalty, mapping, repeat, social, venue | no comments | no trackbacks
