A new player is trying to crack the event search vertical: Daybees. So far it works mostly for the UK but is planning to expand over to the USA in the next months.

From their website: This Beta version of Daybees is the first step towards realising our goal of creating the world’s most advanced vertical search engine, focussing specifically on events that can be added to a personalised online calendar.

Highlights from the article Seeking to Outdo Google in Searching for Events on the New York Times:

Daybees bills itself as “the world’s largest events search engine,” with a database of more than 1.5 million happenings of all kinds, whether Bon Jovi concerts or bake sales.

Daybees is one of the growing number of so-called vertical search engines, which aim to carve out a niche for themselves in the lucrative online search business, an area dominated by Google and coveted by other Internet giants like Microsoft and Facebook.

[...]

While companies like Ticketmaster operate online listings, these tend to be limited to events with which the companies have commercial arrangements. Daybees says it is independent, and gets no commissions — at least not yet — though it does offer links to Web sites that sell tickets.

On November 28th 2012 I’ll be running a workshop at EIBTM – the leading global event for the meetings, incentives, events and business travel industry – in Barcelona as part of the Corporate Programme track (link). I’ll present some of the most useful tools event organisers can use to create meaningful events and we will attempt to draft a few during the session. The following video presents the topics the workshop is going to deal with.

High quality content and powerful networking are still utterly important but participants are opting for events that provide a great overall experience and real value (be it new business, useful contacts, relevant content or an entertaining time).

How can we satisfy people with short attention spans who are constantly interrupted by the plethora of gadgets they carry with them? How can we compete with and differentiate from the dozens of events that have popped up in the last few years?

In this interactive workshop we’ll explore tools to create event experiences that are valuable both for the organization and the attendees and learn how to challenge business as usual from examples of the most innovative events around the world.

Plancast (web, mobile app), the social calendar for discovering/tracking/sharing events is back. After being acquired by the Active Network, Plancast has announced today a revamped web interface and a new mobile application with a set of new features. Now it also integrates with LinkedIn and Eventbrite, apart from Facebook and Twitter.

At the time, it was a pity to see Plancast fade out so it’s good to have it back. Time will tell if users will find it useful. The crowded interface is in contrast with what used to be a basic but useful service. Hopefully they now have a sustainable business model.

For more details check out the about page.

The new Plancast homepage is full of new features

This is a guest post by Gabriel Shalom, founder of the KS12 Creative Studio. Over the last couple of years, Gabriel and his team have been developing a new concept for creating storytelling videos for conferences and following their recent participation at the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) I invited him to present it on Conference Basics.

 See you at the finish line: capture the essence of your next event in a timely and authentic manner with a Video Sprint

Have you ever hired a video crew to make you one of these?

• Image Film – usually 3-5 minutes long, up-beat music, images of people smiling and laughing, eating and drinking, short snippets of keynote speakers making short funny remarks.
• Keynote Archive – an archive of each conference speaker’s presentation. These can vary greatly in quality, from a single camera tripod shot from far enough back in the audience to see the presenter’s slides, to a two-camera edit with closeups and full frame slide inserts.

Usually these videos receive a lukewarm reception online. With views often in the hundreds at best, the question of whether to produce this sort of content deserves to be asked.

“With these kinds of videos there is evidence that an event happened, that people attended, but there is just no story”

Introducing the Video Sprint

In the past two years, we’ve pioneered a storytelling process for producing event-based web videos which we call a Video Sprint. Our most successful Video Sprints have resulted upwards of 50 times the views of traditional event videos. This creates new opportunities for revenue and sponsorship, while also expanding the core audience for next year’s event. As an added bonus, sometimes these videos have gone on to have lives of their own as featured content in festivals, blogs and speaker tours.

So what’s the secret?

There are four core principles that make our process different:

• A Video Sprint focuses on the big ideas. We collaborate with the community around an event, combining deep insights from the stage with the larger themes related to the event.
•  A Video Sprint is format-agnostic. We use social media as not only a distribution channel or method for engagement but also as an arena for collaborative production with the backchannel and hallway track.
• A Video Sprint sees an event as the peak of a cycle of attention. An event’s attention cycle begins weeks beforehand and continues afterwards.
• A Video Sprint has a clear finish line. We release our videos on a specific premiere date, within 24 hours after the event, or even at the event itself.

Examples

The Future of Money – http://ks12.net/portfolio/the-future-of-money/

What are young adults thinking about money and value? How can we create new systems of wealth generation and abundance? What does the future hold for banks and other financial institutions in the wake of massive peer to peer exchange? “The Future of Money” begins a conversation on these topics and invites your participation (twitter hashtag #FutureOfMoney) This video was created as part of a keynote presentation at the SIBOS Conference in Amsterdam, 25 October 2010. The interviews were conducted with participants in America, England, Sweden, Mexico, Germany and Thailand via video Skype calls from Berlin, Germany.

The Future of Art – http://ks12.net/portfolio/the-future-of-art/

What are the defining aesthetics of art in the networked era? How is mass collaboration changing notions of ownership in art? How does micropatronage change the way artists produce and distribute artwork? The Future of Art begins a conversation on these topics and invites your participation. This video was shot, edited and screened at the Transmediale festival 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

About the Author

Gabriel Shalom is the creative director of KS12, a creative studio for experimental storytelling. KS12 has worked with various brands, agencies, cultural organizations and events, including MINI, Meiré und Meiré, British Council Berlin, Transmediale. KS12 conducts video sprints at amazing events all over the world. KS12 is also available for workshops to help train your company or organization in experimental storytelling techniques. Based in Berlin, KS12 is a graduate of the Portland Incubator Experiment at Wieden + Kennedy. To follow along with KS12′s current Video Sprint about the Portland startup scene, see http://www.earlystage.videosprint.net

As an advisor to the South by Southwest Startup Accelerator Program I’m happy to announce that the application process is open! If you think you’re onto something big, are working on what will become the next Twitter or have just launched the beta of an amazing, then you should grab the stage you deserve… Apply now!

Take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your emerging technology product or service in front of industry leaders by participating in the 2013 SXSW Accelerator. This event takes place on March 11 and 12, 2013, as a part of the SXSW Interactive Festival, during which you can improve your product launch, attract venture capitalists, polish your elevator pitch, receive media exposure, build brand awareness, network, socialize and experience all that SXSW Interactive has to offer.

The deadline to register is Friday, November 9, less than a few months away, so apply now by visiting: http://sxsw.com/interactive/startupvillage/accelerator/enter

A few FAQ:

Launch date eligibility requirements

• A company’s product / service must have launched no earlier than March, 15, 2012.
• A company’s product / service must not be launched after June 15, 2013.
• Companies will be allowed to submit only one product / services to the SXSW Accelerator event. Companies who submit more than one product / services will not be eligible to participate in the SXSW Accelerator event.
• Founders of the applying startup must retain some portion of ownership in the company to be eligible to participate.
• Must not have raised over five million in funds from combined funding sources.

Is there an application fee? 

A non-refundable $200 entry fee is required from all applicants who would like to be considered for participation in the event. All Accelerator entrants will be given the chance to register to attend SXSW Interactive at the lowest early bird rate, if they are not chosen as an Accelerator finalist.

Applicants must be within one of the six categories

1. Entertainment and Gaming Technologies – This category pertains to applications and technologies for film, music, television, and gaming, as well as new and hybrid forms of entertainment that are reinventing the ways in which we relax, unwind, and have fun
2. Mobile Technologies – This category pertains to applications and  those technologies related to that which allows users to connect by portable devices such as tablets, phones and other connected devices.
3. Innovative Web Technologies – This category pertains to applications and technologies that have the ambition to change the Web as we know it. Right now we’re seeing lots of innovation in real-time search, augmented reality, the “Web Wide World”, artificial intelligence and the Semantic Web, recommendations technologies, personalization technologies, and “big data”. But that’s just the beginning
4. Social Technologies – This category pertains to applications and technologies that help people connect. With this category we’re looking for new and interesting uses, cases, as well as technologies that push the boundaries of how we find, follow and share information with others
5. Health Technologies – This category is about patient-centric health applications and technologies that connect patients, families, physicians, pharmacists, care providers (hospital, clinics) and benefit providers-aka the care team-to share timely, relevant health data and drive better outcomes at affordable and sustainable cost levels.
6. News Technologies – This category pertains to applications and technologies to support the dissemination of news and information for communities, both on the content side or on the underlying business model side (for example advertising). This could include technologies related to data, text, documents, mapping, engagement, among other areas.

What is SXSW?

If you’re in the tech world and have never heard about SXSW, well… where have you been? Watch the video below for an idea of what this great event is all about.

Disclaimer: I’m an advisor of the 2013 SXSW Accelerator. I do get a complimentary ticket to participate of SXSW 2013 but I receive no other kind of economic compensation and I don’t have any role in the selection or voting of the finalists. Contact me if you need more information about the competition.

A couple of weeks ago I took part of the launch of a new [paper] notebook in Tokyo, a collaboration between Evernote – the digital application that helps you to “remember everything” – and the legendary stationery producer Moleskine. The Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine allows to bridge the gap between physical creation of content (writing or sketching on paper) and digital archiving and search of content (on the Evernote apps).

This product could be particularly useful for conference attendees that like to take down notes with pen and paper as they can then transfer or share the notes for future consultation.

Read on to discover the  features of the Evernote Smart Notebook

• Special Pages – pages can be  ruled or squared and they have a special dotted paper pattern that was optimized for the Evernote app to straighten up and correct the skew of the photo
• Page Camera – a new camera function (momentarily only available for iOS devices like the iPhone and the iPad) designed for capturing photos of physical pages and documents. Page Camera also automatically improves the contrast of the page and removes any shadows (they suggest you use the device’s flash when taking the photo to improve the results). The Page Camera functions works with all documents, not just the Evernote Smart Notebook
• Smart Stickers - a set of multi-color stickers that will be recognized by Evernote when applied to a page you’ve taken a photo of. The notes with the stickers are automatically added to a specific notebook on Evernote
• Premium Access -as an extra benefit, each Moleskine notebook offers a code that can be used to obtain a 3-month access to Evernote Premium

• Take a photo of your notes as soon as possible, ideally before you leave the place where the photo was taken. This way, Evernote will add the date and location where the note was taken, making it easier to search in the future.
• Evernote can recognize handwriting within a certain range, so Libin suggests you put a bit of an extra effort to write the title and maybe related tags of your note as tidy as possible, so they will be recognized by the app and you’ll be able to search them as keywords in the future.
• You can associate a Smart Sticker to a shared Evernote notebook. When you’ll add it to a page, it will be automatically shared with all the people that have access to that specific Evernote notebook (e.g. you could share tips for an upcoming trip with a family member or notes taken during a meeting with your colleagues

Phil Libin from Evernote introducing the Evernote Smart Notebook at Loft in Yurakucho, Tokyo

Icon by Benedikte Vanderweeën

Iget this question quite often these days, so here is a list of what I consider some of the best events to attend from now and until the end of 2012 related to Technology, Mobile, Design, Innovation, Storytelling and Make/DIY culture.

Do you have a conference to recommend? Please do it in the comments below!

(You can follow more events selected by Conference Basics on our public Google Calendar)

September

7/Sept dConstruct [Brighton, UK]

dConstruct 2012 is a gathering of smart and entertaining people poking at the intersection of technology and culture. The theme of this year’s dConstruct is “Playing With The Future”. Prepare to be entertained on topics ranging from playfulness and creativity to digital preservation and science fiction.dConstruct remains the ideal conference for web designers and developers. The presentations may not contain any practical tips you can take back to work on Monday morning but you will gain insights into the direction our digital technology is taking. You might just find yourself showing up at work on Monday morning with an altered perspective on the world.

10-12/Sept TechCrunch Disrupt [San Francisco, USA]

TechCrunch Disrupt is one of the most anticipated technology conferences of the year. This September 8-12, TechCrunch will be bringing Disrupt back to San Francisco to reveal an all new slate of outstanding startups, influential speakers, guests, and more to the stage. The TechCrunch Disrupt conference is a beast of many moving parts, all of which you can find in the video and details below.

17-18/Sept PICNIC Festival [Amsterdam, The Netherlands]

PICNIC Festival 2012 will be an international gathering of approximately 3500 professionals representing business, technology, government and non profit, education and the creative industries.The Festival will be an active learning environment where companies and organizations can understand this ‘new ownership’ shift. At the Festival, they can question assumptions and then improve and re-imagine by developing new ideas, concepts and prototypes.The goal is to discover opportunities for transformation: processes, cultures, products, services, models and experiences.

2012 theme - New Ownership: the shift from top down to bottom up

20-23/Sept The Do Lectures [Campovida, USA]

The idea is a simple one— that people who Do things can inspire the rest of us to go and Do things, too. So each year we invite a set of people down here to come and tell us what they Do. They can be small Do’s or big Do’s or just extraordinary Do’s. But when you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart.

23-25/Sept Clinton Global Initiative [New York, USA]

Theme: Designing for Impact. The 2012 Annual Meeting will explore how the Clinton Global Initiative community can utilize our abundance of global capacity to invent better tools, build more effective interventions, and work creatively and collaboratively to design a future worth pursuing.

28/Sept TEDxTransmedia [Rome, Italy]

TEDxTransmedia 2012 – WEkids: Dreamers, Geeks, Mindshifters – will present TED Talks that strive to inspire new ways of media thinking. In three sessions, Dreamers, Geeks, Mindshifters, we hope to awaken the unconscious optimism, energy, passion and free-thinking of the inner child in us all.TEDxTransmedia 2012 invites pioneers, trailblazers, innovators and speakers of all ages, to share the stage with ideas, and stories of success and failure, that will help us learn new ways to tell stories across multiple media platforms.

28/Sept Mind the Product [London, UK]

MindtheProduct 2012 is the first conference of its kind – bringing together product management leaders from around the world to explore the intersection of design, technology and business – the business of building great products.

October

7-10/Oct Health 2.0 [San Francisco, USA]

At the 6th Annual Fall Conference you will see the very latest technologies in Health 2.0, and we’ll maintain our tradition of hosting leading thinkers and fascinating conversation. This fall, new technologies will be presented in contextual environments woven around a developing narrative which illustrates the transformation occurring in the space. Change doesn’t come easily and a true, universal transformation requires the analysis, connection and redefinition of categories across all parts of the system. We’ll dive deeper into these issues with topics like big data analysis, personalized medicine, price transparency and keynotes from Health Futurist Joe Flower and Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. Over two days we will progressively illuminate on stage, through mini-environments and discussion, that Health 2.0 is everywhere – it touches how we live, how we eat, how we interact with providers, patients and more.

10/Oct Next Service Design [Berlin, Germany]

We think that Service Design is going to be one of the hottest topics within the next year. That’s why we’ve decided to dedicate a whole conference to it.

16-17/Oct GigaOM Structure [Amsterdam, The Netherlands]

In its five years, the Structure conference stands at the epicenter of the cloud computing revolution. In this, our first European event, we invite both innovators and the most pragmatic practitioners from Europe and Silicon Valley to engage in debate, learning and sharing over two days.

17-18/Oct Dublin Web Summit [Dublin, Ireland]

The founders of Twitter, YouTube, Skype and over 100 international entrepreneurs, investors and influencers having spoken over the last two years, with thousands of attendees joining from around the world. In those two short years, the Dublin Web Summit has grown from a small conference to the second largest tech conference in Europe. This year it might even become Europe’s largest tech onference. We’ll have to wait and see!In 2011, over 1,500 attendees joined us from 45 countries across the world. This year over 3,000 will join us, and we hope from even more countries than ever before. The Web Summit runs over two days and caters to both seasoned tech company CEOs and executives, and those from more traditional businesses.

25-26/Oct WIRED Conference [London, UK]

This year’s event looks set to top last year already and will be jam-packed with stimulating content, networking and inspiring talks from people reshaping our world. Delegates will be immersed in a creative and innovative atmosphere of collaborative discovery and knowledge sharing, all brought to you directly by the team at WIRED, the world’s leading magazine for those at the cutting edge of ideas, technology, culture and business.

My review of the 2011 edition.

November

6-7/Nov Health 2.0 [Berlin, Germany]

Since 2007, the Health 2.0 Conference has been the leading showcase of cutting-edge innovation transforming the health care system. Not your typical stodgy conference, Health 2.0 brings a fresh approach to the space and is the leader in health care technology today. We bring together the best minds, resources and technology for compelling panels, discussions and product demonstrations. In addition to our flagship event held in San Francisco each fall, we also host an annual “Spring Fling” event and multiple international conferences, including Paris, India and Berlin.

14-16/Nov MLOVE Japan [Tokyo & Kamakura, Japan] <— Disclaimer, I’m the director of MLOVE Japan

Japan is the Future of Mobile, Now. MLOVE is inviting leaders and innovators from Japan, Europe and the USA to discuss the powerful potential of mobile to act as a catalyst for community, positive change and inspiration. Set in the beautiful city of Kamakura, a former capital of Japan, with a rich architectural heritage and many historically significant Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, some of them over 1,200 years old, global mobile industry executives, entrepreneurs and developers will mix with architects, scientists, musicians and social entrepreneurs to share and develop experiences in a highly interactive format and learn from each other about the opportunities that mobile presents today.

14-16/Nov Monaco Media Forum [Monte Carlo, Monaco]

The Monaco Media Forum brings together leaders of new and traditional media for two and a half days of high-level discussions about the future of online, broadcast and print communications. Aggressively global in outlook, the invitation-only gathering focuses on emerging opportunities in media technology, distribution and content, with special emphasis on advertising, marketing & finance. Now in its seventh year, MMF is a unique meeting place for architects and builders of the next-generation media landscape.Please note that participation in MMF is restricted to members of the Les Amis du Monaco Media Forum, an invitation-only non-profit group.

December

3-4/Dec The Lean Startup Conference [San Francisco, USA]

The Lean Startup Conference  brings together innovators from startups and established companies alike to share lessons for building profitable lean organizations.

4-6/Dec Le Web [Paris, France]

A unique experience: over the years, the LeWeb program has featured such industry luminaries and international leaders as Eric Schmidt, Sean Parker, Karl Lagerfeld, Jack Dorsey, Xavier Niel, Philippe Starck, and Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan to name a few. A global footprint: LeWeb brings together the most influential audience in the internet ecosystem from all over the world.3500 participants from 76 countries gathered in Paris on Dec 2011 for LeWeb’11 and more than 1300 from 50 countries attended the 1st London edition last June. A platform for your success: entrepreneurs, sponsors, venture capitalists, visionaries… connect at LeWeb and shape the future of your business.

I had the chance of meeting Ze Frank (web, twitter) a couple of times, back in 2010 and 2011. Last time I interviewed him on some of his public speaking tips (read article). Now, he just published this hilarious but also very practical video that distills in a “how to” [non blinking] style his best advice. I will surely take these into account when I prepare for my next speech.

By the way, Ze suggests that you don’t imagine that your audience is naked to fight your nervousness, a quite popular tip for first time speakers.

(and why not, maybe even email this video to your event’s speakers)

A couple of months ago I started a workshop with 16 event organizers from a top international organization by asking the question “If you had a magic wand*, what would you like to obtain with your event?”. Surprisingly, most answers were a variation of “I would like the participants to be happy”, “I want to change the world [with this event]“, “I want people to be smiling”. “I want to provide hope and solutions”.

The loquacity of those attending my workshop ended though when I made my following question: “In your organization, who is responsible for the participant’s happiness? Who is the Chief Happiness Officer?”.

Silence.  If “happiness” was such an important outcome for an event (in this case they ranged between big conferences, seminars, workshops and training sessions), how come no one was responsible for it?

It’s Not About “Ha-Ha” Happiness

We’re not talking about making people laugh or having speakers telling funny jokes (though it sometimes helps).

In fact, Happiness is defined as “a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy” (source: Wikipedia). Countries like Buthan have put into practice a Gross National Happiness (GNH) index that measures a mix of quality of life, social progress and economic status in a more holistic way that a purely economic indicator like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

We’re talking about events – be them about business, hobbies or a simple school meeting – which are designed to create or reinforce a happy environment where people feel comfortable, stimulated, protected, entertained, safe, are encouraged to meet their goals and connect with others.

Designing For Happiness

I don’t have a specific formula for this but the first step is always to care.

• Care about your attendees, care about your speakers, care about the staff, care about everyone involved in the event in a specific way.
• Identify why people attend, what they expect to obtain from the event and what are their aspirations. Design the experience to help them achieve this.
• Provide value. Relentlessly focus on providing value throughout the whole  event – from digital communications before the event takes place to follow up communications after it happened.
• Design for the human interface. Design for the real needs of people, not to satisfy some fancy – but short lived-  fad.
• Ask them what makes them happy. It might feel as an out-of-place question in a registration form but the insights you can gain by just asking are immense.

You probably don’t need a formally appointed “Chief Happiness Officer” but if no one takes care of that responsibility, it’s difficult to craft an experience that produces/allows/encourages/supports happiness. It’s the event manager’s role to take care of this.

* I learned the power of starting a creative process by asking “What would you do if you had a magic wand?” from BJ Fogg, who runs the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford, at one of his Persuasion Boot Camps.

There seems to be a problem –and thus an opportunity for someone to solve it– regarding fundraising for charities by selling tickets using existing ticketing tools like JustGiving or Eventbrite.

It all started with a rant on Twitter  by Eze Vidra (Google+, Twitter, Linkedin), Head of the Google Campus in London, whogets to organize several of these kinds of events (not necessarily for Google) :

Why does it have to be so hard to organize an event for charity? getting frustrated with Eventbrite, Justgiving and existing tools.

— Eze Vidra (@ediggs) July 25, 2012

I asked Eze to provide a few more details so he emailed me his concerns, which I reproduce below (I did a slight editing to improve readability):

In a nutshell, once the money goes [into a ticketing tool like] JustGiving, it’s not going back. That’s great for the donation front but it’s hard to separate the costs, which for events like this are quite significant.

Here are the problems:

• Eventbrite waived their own fees, but there is still a payment fee of £5 at least for [Credit Card] processing
• JustGiving just passes the money to the charity, but you can’t separate the cost from the donation
• It’s hard to set up a ‘group’ page in Justgiving – so managing a group of people donating to the same cause isn’t very straightforward
• The charities are thinly streched and can’t provide much support
• The platforms are for profit businesses that take a cut from every transaction
• There’s no great solution for promotion, communication, raising money AS A GROUP and not as individuals (think The Gifts Project that was acquired by eBay for chairty instead of shopping)
• How can you pay two groups – the logistical organizer of the race and the charity?

Right now, my only solution is SPONSORS, will pay the organizer all the costs. PARTICIPANTS will raise money that goes directly to charity. Hard to get sponsors, and manage the whole transaction process.

As Eze tweeted later, “The net needs a new product aimed at charity events and group/social donation…” so if you work at a ticketing company or were thinking of developing something, it seems that there’s a need for such a tool.

Do you have any suggestions or solutions to this? Please add them in the comments or Tweet them to @ediggs (Eze’s Twitter account) and/or @ConfBasics