In a move to promote more social events, Meetup today announced "Meetup Everywhere" - a new portal for organizations to sponsor and initiate worldwide meetups. Within hours of launching, several sponsored meet ups from Seth Godin, Groupon, and others had worldwide meet up movements.

We happen to meet with Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup yesterday at TechCrunch to talk about the demand for social events...and venues. According to Scott Heiferman, there are nearly 50K Meetups each week! Youzzaa...that's a lot of get togethers!

Congrats, Scott & Meetup on the launch!

TechCrunch DISRUPT kicked off today in New York City, running thru Wednesday night. This is the first TechCrunch conference to venture East and has a lot of New Yorkers wondering if this will become the norm, since there's been lots of conferences that have both lived and died in New York City!

eVenues is here to compete in the StartUp Alley. We received a FREE ticket after winning The Funded's Founder Showcase event last week in Silicon Valley. The most interesting point about DISRUPT is the actual venue where the event is being held. It's being held in the old Meryl Lynch trading building, 80,000 square feet once used by their traders. It's a little eary...these floors used to hummm...just like the movie with Boilerroom with life and activity. Now, it's sparse and bare...until TechCrunch (Heather) found it and turned it into a national event venue.

Now that's what we at eVenues like to hear and see! The reuse and repurpose of a space for the better-ment of the economy and industry! So far the conference is working in this space, with breakout rooms for VCs (once trading manager offices), eating/networking areas, and long cooridors shoot-out areas.

Stay tuned for more news updates!

April 21, 2010 article in MI Reporter

R7M Executive editor Jessica Heasley traveled to Microsoft headquarters on a mission to find out how one of the industry’s oldest tactical events departments changed its course to become a strategic powerhouse. Here, an exclusive interview with general manager-events and studios Jeff Singsaas and director-event marketing Kati Quigley on the evolution of event marketing.

http://vimeo.com/9191807 

Coffee shop chains are beginning to "smell the coffee" (NPI). There seems to be a movement developing in busy coffee houses across the land where shops are beginning to ban "laptop loiters" who are preventing customers from pulling up a chair while they drink their jo. Granted, some of the loiters are probably legitimate customers, but many have long overstayed their welcome. Who knows where this will lead, but New York is beginning to get tough. Does anyone know where I might find a room?

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/trends/new_york_coffee_shops_hate_on_laptops_123679.asp

In a recent article by Connie Bochieri of ProMedia.Travel, Think Globally For Strategic Meetings Management: But Implement Locally to Achieve Service, Savings, sends a much needed affirmation and message to all professionals that stop spending the bank on conferences/events and start playing it smart. It's too bad a national crisis took everyone to realize this.

"The lessons learned from corporate travel globalization include implementing the process components that created the most efficiency and yielded savings and service enhancements, similar to the evolution of global corporate card data capture, TMC consolidated reporting and online booking strategies."

There's always both good and bad that fall out of these revolations. In this situation, the good is the more innovation we will see come from technology/service companies scrambling to keep their firms going and find any loose dollars being spent from the recovery. Of course, the bad is less spending and weaker economies in key markets.

http://www.procurement.travel/news.php?cid=strategic-meetings-management-savings.Mar-09.3

Season's Greetings 2008!

My blog is still seldom read, but I keep posting...hopefully they will come. For this post, I couldn't help but catch some interesting news out of New York City about the trends in community work-spaces that are popping up all over the place. Interesting read, which could make some aggressive co-working landlords rich - http://www.observer.com/mobile/article/80324.

However, it made me want to comment. With the recent market downturn and massive layoffs, we could soon see more entrepreneurs jamming the Starbucks that we may never get to sit down again. Co-working facilities are a nice solution. You can pay a medium sum per month and get a desk and chair, wifi, cup of jo', and hopefully some good company and/or new friends. You supply your phone and laptop. If there was ever a time where this shared work space concept might work, it's now...as we entrepreneurs all need to stick together. We will be watching this trend closely in the New Year. Here's to a successful 2009!

Good luck to all...and to all a good night!

Team eVenues