February, 2010Archive for

FREE is a Dirty Word

I’m convinced that the most offensive word in the event business is “FREE”, specifically when it refers to free admission for an event. Unless you’re new to capitalism, I think you’d agree that the word “free,” more often than not, communicates a lack of value. Whether or not an event can handle a zero-dollar ticket is often beside the point. What is, in fact, being communicated when no monetary commitment is required for an event is that expectations should be low. When someone registers or ...
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Great Tech Event

I used to be a preacher. Bet you didn't know that. Okay, preacher is a strong word but I was once a Youth Pastor (an evangelical version of a priest without the collar, and in my case, very little training and an unhealthy addiction to ping-pong and foosball). Being a man of the cloth was a ton of work but the hardest thing was the preaching (aka teaching). It wasn't the public speaking - I loved that part. It was the content. Preparing a sermon, talk, or lesson that had a personal and/or spirit...
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My Favourite Event Biz Blog

I get asked this question a lot: Are there any good event planning blogs out there? My answer is short: Yes, there's one. Okay, clearly that's not true--it can't be. The event business, like nearly every other industry, is flooded with blogs, discussion forums, and the like; but the reality is that I haven't come across many that I feel are helpful, interesting, or well written. I have not searched the Web exhaustively but the one that stands out to me as the best event industry blog is EventMan...
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Event for Creatives

As you probably already know, Eileen and I host an annual creative conference here in Vancouver (annual is a strong word, last year was the first). Well, it went super-duper and we're doing it again. Here's the date announcement from CREATIVEMIX.ca: Big news! CREATIVEMIX is coming back for another round! Thursday, November 4th. Remember that. Write that down. Tell other people. Now, you’re probably wondering what’s happening and who’s speaking . . . well, we can’t tell you that. There’s a ...
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