At eVenues we like to stay on top of the best blogs about events, technology, and of course, event technology. There are a lot of posts out there and it can often be overwhelming. We dig through all of it and find those select few we believe deserve special mention. This month those posts are:

31 Social Media Marketing Posts Written With Event Pros in Mind

If you want to know about social media and how it applies to planning an event, you really have to look no further than this one incredible post. Did I mention they're all from the same blog? Thanks to Jenise Fryatt for creating such an incredible resource!

How to Get Press for Your Event Planning Business: A Conversation With 3 Editors

If you're serious about promoting your event planning business and you've only have time to read one blog post this month, make it this one. In it, Lara McCulloch picks the brains of editors from BizBash, Special Events Magazine, and Event Solutions magazine. There you are, everything event magazine editors want in one convenient blog post. Ignore at your own peril!

3 Wonderful Lists from PlannerWire

While it's not a rule set in stone, we usually like to keep our five picks to one post per blog per month. We noticed, however, that Keith Johnston put out not just one, but 3 lists of great tools for event planners this month. It seemed silly for us to list just one and ignore the other too. Please be sure to check out Keith's list of  WordPress Plugins, Email Marketing Tools, and Accounting Tools.

Of course, these tools are often used by folks other than event planners, but Keith does provide advice as to how an event planner should use each tool.

10 Brain Based Learning Laws That Trump Traditional Education

Midcourse Corrections has always been an invaluable resource not just for meeting planners, but also for people interested in cutting edge ideas in education. After all, one of the main reasons why people meet is to learn. This month Jeff Hurt doesn't disappoint by providing some fascinating "brain laws" which should help you get people more engaged at your event.

The Problem with Pecha Kucha

Liz King of Liz King Events has really stepped up blog up this year with a new panel of guest writers, all of whom are experts in event planning and related industries. While so many of the posts here are worth singling out, Kristy Casey Sanders has provided a fascinating look at a presentation style from Tokyo called Pecha Kucha. Essentially Pecha Kucha limits presenters to 20 seconds each for 20 slides. Is it here to stay, or is it a fad? Read on and see where you stand.

New here? You might want to check out some of our popular posts:

• The Most Creative Meeting Room Names in the U.S.
• 3 Unique Advantages Most Event Bloggers Fail to Leverage
•  5 Ways Psychological Research Can Make Your Meetings Better
• Feng Shui for Meeting and Conference Rooms

Photo by: Stew Dean

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Meetings can be a great way to generate new ideas and solve problems--if they're planned correctly. The problem with many meetings, and a possible reason for why they've built a reputation for being toxic time-sucks, is that the focus has for too long been about the meetings themselves, and not the people in the meetings.

Since meetings are all about people, we thought we'd dig into some of the latest psychological research out on what makes people better at creative problem solving, and how to integrate research findings into practical applications for your meeting plans.

Here are some of the suggestions we came up with:

1. Get Absurd

When the mind is exposed to absurdity (like non-sequitors or poems composed of made-up words) the brain goes into overdrive to find hidden patterns, to make sense of something that fundamentally makes no sense to begin with.

In one study (Proulx & Heine, 2009) a group of psychology students were asked to read a story called "The Country Dentist" based on Franz Kafka's  short story The Country Doctor. The students were separated into two groups. The first group was instructed to read an even more absurd version of the story complete with illustrations that didn't have anything to do with the words on the page, while the other group read a story that actually made more sense than Kafka's original story, complete with illustrations that matched the story scene for scene.

After reading the stories, both groups of students were then given lists with strings of letters (e.g. SDFBIMAAAANDO). Some of these strings had patterns, while some of these strings didn't. Because the students in the first group were forced to find hidden meanings in the strings that weren't there, their minds were "primed" or psychologically conditioned to find hidden patterns in the letter strings. Incredibly, not only did the students in the first group select more strings as having patterns than the second group, but they did so with greater accuracy as well.

Before a meeting or brainstorming session, consider giving everyone a "creativity warm-up" by having them read a nonsense poem like Jabberwocky, one of Kafka's stories, or watch some weird YouTube videos. Also, since the study participants were good at finding hidden patterns, this would be an especially good exercise for those working in fields like data analysis or business intelligence.

2. Use general verbs when presenting problems

If you organize a problem-solving session, chances are that the problem you're trying to solve has been solved before, either by you or by someone else. The problem is that when confronted with a new problem,  people often fail to recall solutions to similar past problems.

A study  done in 1995 (Clement et al, 1995) suggests the reason why people tend to do this is that they get so bogged down by the details of a problem that it seems  unrelated to any problem that might have been solved previously.

They fail to utilize what is called "analogic thinking," a process whereby people draw connections between two similar events (e.g. problem X is similar to problem Y, so we should use a similar solution). An example problem you might tackle in a meeting is "How can we encourage website visitors to stay on our site once they've added an item to their shopping cart?" Because this problem is too specific, it will hinder participants from recalling similar solutions employed in the past. If the problem was rephrased to something more broad like "Why do users leave a website?" oftentimes people come up with many more answers and solutions, many of which can be applicable to your more specific problem. Start broad, then narrow the focus down to specifics.

3. Have meeting participants recall a sad memory while smiling

Research shows that people who recall a sad memory while smiling or people who recall a happy memory while frowning will be more accepting of unconventional ideas (Huang & Gallinsky, 2001). This can be an excellent asset in a brainstorming session, where the objective is to build upon novel ideas, not shoot them down offhand.

In the study, the participants were presented with several words and categories and were asked to judge if the word belonged in each category or not. The subjects who did the sad memory/happy face exercise were much more likely to accept unconventional categorizations  (e.g. a camel is a vehicle, garlic is a vegetable, a telephone is a type of furniture) than those who didn't. The former group was able to think on a more expansive and broad level, while the latter thought thought on a more narrow level. Narrow thinking has its uses, but not in a brainstorm. Consider giving this exercise to your team to help pull them "out of the box".

4. Cupcakes!

Not surprisingly, a good mood is another thing that research has shown to promote expansive thinking (Fredrickson, 2001). If you're planning a brainstorming session see what you can do to foster well-being with your meeting participants.

Despite objections from 9 out of 10 dentists, a surprise delivery of sugary treats just before a meeting can be a great way to put everyone in a good mood. Conversely, bad moods will tend to foster more narrow, analytic thinking. So when you're ready to shoot some holes in the idea list you've generated during a brainstorm, consider doing it on a miserable rainy day. 

5. Meet someplace new

The 106 Pine Wine Bar in Seattle, WA

In 2011 researchers did fMRI brain scans on subjects who experienced "novel" situations (Krebs et al, 2011). Interestingly enough, they found that the portion of the brain activated by novelty (the substantia nigra / ventral tegmental area or SN/VTA to be precise) also resulted in a dopamine release (the brain's pleasure or rewards mechanism). From these observations we can conclude that as humans our brains are conditioned to expect rewards in novel situations. Not only that, but because novelty is so closely associated to pleasure and reward, we are actually more motivated to think in novel way--especially when we encounter novelty.

If you're looking to get new ideas from a meeting, consider meeting somewhere where you haven't met before: An art gallery, or a beautiful hotel boardroom, or coworking space for example. Even a trip over to the nearest park can be enough to get new ideas to flow. If you're looking for more ideas for novel places to meet you can also check out eVenues local lists of meeting spaces. We have a pretty good selection of venues in Seattle, as well as in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and many other cities on the west coast. Shameless plug, yes...but we thought it was appropriate  

What are some other "people focused" ways that you can improve productivity in a meeting?

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Smile Photo by Bill Sodeman

Cupcake Photo by lamatin

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When I lived in Tokyo I had the opportunity to meet hundreds of professionals who ran behemoths like Sony, Toshiba, Honda, NEC and many others. As a corporate headhunter, my job was to learn about what they did, about who they were, and to convince them that they'd be better off working for one of the companies I represented.

As you may know, Japan can be seen as a stiff and formal country, governed by rules of etiquette that most Americans would find stifling. This was never more evident to me than during a business meeting. There are rules for everything: rules for the exchange of business cards, rules for where to sit, rules for bowing, rules for beginning a meeting, rules for ending a meeting, there are even grammar rules for formal business Japanese.

Americans can break the rules

The recruiting firm I worked for hired us Gaijin because we were exempt from those rules in many ways. We spoke English in our meetings not only because it was easier for us to communicate, but because we didn't have to use all the honorifics that Japanese people were obligated to use when talking to their social superiors.

Social superiors could be anyone, a customer, someone who had a higher ranking position within a company, or simply someone who happened to be older than us. As a recruiter who often found myself talking to country managers and CEOs, usually all three of those happened to be the case. Because English was the language we chose to conduct our meetings in, however, I wasn't obligated to use certain words that would put undue emphasis on a CEO's social superiority. We could meet as equals and negotiate deals without rules of etiquette getting in our way.

As an American, I got away with a lot. Not only did I not have to school myself on the intricacies of honorific language but I also didn't have to learn the various bows for the various situations which, according to many of my Japanese friends, we foreigners never get quite right. That said, there were some customs that, even as foreigners, we were obligated to adhere to:

Where to sit

I remember when I first sat down for an interview with the recruiting firm. I went into the room and took the chair nearest the door. I didn't think much of it, but when the office assistant came back to serve me a cup of tea, she politely informed me that I should take the seat farthest from the door.

Later I found out that as a guest in that office it was my right and privilege to sit in the seat facing the door. In feudal times, it was not unheard of for assassins to stick a blade through rice paper doors and impale a guest or two. This is why, to this day guests are expected to take the honor of sitting in the "safe" chair. I've tried looking this fact up, and couldn't find any evidence for it. Still, however, it makes for an interesting story.

Business Card Exchange

There were many subtleties to business card exchange that took a while to get the hang of. Since I was an American, the routine was to first shake hands, reach into a suit pocket and produce a business card holder, or meishi ire. We'd exchange cards holding them out with two hands, thumbs and forefingers on the bottom two corners. Since they were usually the guest and social superior, I would hold my business card a bit lower than theirs.

Business cards were not to be pocketed right away, but rather to be placed on the table in front of you. If you're meeting a group of people, this can be a useful way to remember people's names as well as keep track of who does what in the company. Although I'm now in the states, I still find this to be a useful little trick.

"Yes" and "No"

One thing that I found particularly frustrating was how Japanese businessmen often avoided saying no directly. If I presented an opportunity to them, they would often act as though they were very interested when, in fact, they were just being polite.

Our headhunting firm got around this hurdle by asking questions about about a prospect's interests, background and their work history. Once we knew pretty much knew everything there was to know about them, we had a good idea which one of our positions may be a good fit for their background and interests. We knew they would be interested in what we had to offer (and not feign interest out of politeness) because we spent time (sometimes even more than 20 minutes!) asking about their interests first.

In the States, people are much more direct about what they want and don't want, but that's not to say the same "mask of politeness" phenomenon doesn't happen here as well, albeit to a lesser extent. I have found that spending time knowing people's background and interests before asking for anything on my behalf has proven extremely useful.

What about you, what have you learned from meetings in other countries?

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If you haven't yet, be sure to check out some of our meeting spaces.

Photo by Danny Choo.

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There are many ways that event planners can make their jobs run a bit smoother, and be more effective in their day-to-day jobs. Sometimes, these efficiencies can mean the difference between a successful event or losing a client. A great complement to an event planner's life is technology. There are a few startup companies that have recently been launched that should definitely be on the watch list for event planners. Here are the top 5 startups for event planners to watch (in no particular order):

1. GetPromotd is an event planner's dashboard that can help with automating event listings online. This makes the online promotion effort seamless for event planners, and they will be able to focus their energy on other important details such as planning the event itself. 2. Eved is a platform that brings event planners together with suppliers and vendors to allow for a competitive marketplace that is both efficient and convenient for users. This offers suppliers a way to gain a higher visibility with event planners, and helps event planners have a wider range of suppliers to choose from.

3. Smorepages helps event planners create beautiful online fliers for their events. Create a one page website with videos, share buttons, and, of course a button that goes straight to an Eventbrite signup page. 4. Pibster is a web service that helps promote products and services through a reverse online auction. The event is simple: post a product or service to Pibster and any time someone tweets about it the price of the product is reduced $1.50. Not only does this help promote your event, but it also encourages people to buy promotional tickets to your event before others snap them up.

5. Eventasaurus combines social networking, online promotion and event registration all in one. This offers the event planner the ability to kill three birds with one stone. To an event planner, efficiency is effectiveness.

6. (Bonus!) eVenues is a online marketplace that allows meeting planners to book small and medium sized venues for impromptu meetings. They've got boardrooms, conference rooms, galleries, theaters, even dojos and dance studios bookable by the hour or day. They're currently focused on creating a great selection of listings on the West coast and currently have choice event spaces in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles.

We'll probably be talking more in-depth about these great startups in the coming months. Until then, happy Tuesday!

Binoculars Portrait by Gerlos

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Feng Shui is an Asian tradition that uses energy as the foundation for understanding life forces to design living and work environments that promote harmony. It concentrates on promoting a positive energy flow while avoiding or neutralizing destructive energy flows. In literal terms, "feng" means wind and "shui" means water. In the Chinese culture, gentle wind and smooth water bring good health and good harvest. Harsh winds and stagnant water are associated with disease and famine.

While Feng Shui has often been criticized by skeptics as a pseudoscience, the basic principle behind it, that environment affects our well being, does have a wider level of acceptance. In 1984, for example, a researcher by the name or RS Ulrich conducted a study which found that post-op patients placed in recovery rooms facing windows recovered much faster than patients in recovery rooms facing a brick wall. If we take this and other studies like it into consideration, it does seem that our environment influences our level of well-being (and possibly our behavior) to some extent.

Although Feng Shui laws governing the placement of hexagonal mirrors and fountains seem a dubious, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that Feng Shui would still have some good ideas about the placement of tables, chairs and other pieces of furniture to create an optimum environment. This got us to wondering what Feng Shui had to say about the layouts of meeting and conference rooms. We did a little digging, and this is what we found out:

Where You Should Sit

Positions of power (1 = most powerful)

The position of power in any meeting and conference room, as far as Feng Shui is concerned, is in the rear of the room. The rear of the room presents a good view of the rest of the room, thereby putting you in a position of power. The location farthest from the door holds the most power, according to this ancient art. Sitting with your back against the wall while having a clear view of the door provides the optimum position for your desk or meeting table no matter what size room you're in. Not only does it put you and your employees in a position of power, it increases everyone's concentration, focus and productivity.

On a practical level, this makes sense. Sitting with your back to the door, a place where someone could approach you without you knowing it, has the potential to make anyone feel uneasy--especially in feudal Japan, where stabbings were known to happen through rice paper doors. Because of this, it's customary for guests in Japanese business meetings to be seated at the back of a room, facing the door. Ambushes and assassinations notwithstanding,  should you yourself conduct a meeting it might be good see what you can do to seat guests near the back of the room so that they can feel comfortable and secure.

Table and Chair Placement

As far as small boardrooms are concerned, Feng Shui suggests that you use a table that is proportional for the room size with all chairs facing the door. With a round table, leave the part directly in front of the door free of chairs so energy flows freely into the room. Arrange the chairs so each participant has enough room to move freely. Cramming the chairs together will increase negative energy and cause negative emotions such as frustration, claustrophobia and irritation, hindering productivity.

This seems like common sense. Chairs in front of the door make it awkward for people entering a room, and makes it especially uncomfortable for the person sitting in front of the door. Also, it's no secret that people like to have a little elbow room when sitting down at a table. These seem like sound recommendations, regardless of whether you believe in energy flow or not.

Large Event and Conference Spaces

In Feng Shui, a large  space increases positive energy by allowing participants more room to move, if the table and chairs are not too large for the room area. Good Feng Shui involves placing an oval or round wood table in the center of the room to "enhance positive energy requirements." Avoiding the sharp edges found in traditional L-shaped tables promotes new ideas and growth. Place chairs so all backs are against a wall to increase productivity, focus and communication.

 A round table dominates the center at Soker Studios in San Francisco

We think round tables make sense because you don't want want people edging around corners to talk to people. Indeed, most hotels banquet halls are set up with round tables as a default. As far as the chairs against the walls, this may be a good way to get people up and moving since they won't be tempted to sit down at a table.

Event Halls

For an event hall, Feng Shui believes that using full spectrum lighting gives the most natural appearance to promote the natural progression of new thoughts and ideas. Having audience members sit in comfortable chairs with enough room to take notes and take part in the discussion promotes positive energy. Presenters need to sit at an oval wooden table with their backs against the wall to let energy in and enhance communication and productivity.

The lighting suggestion seems like a no-brainer. After all, no-one enjoys the buzz or glare of fluorescent lights. Does this "promote the natural progression of new thoughts" though? Who knows? That might be an interesting topic for future researchers like RS Ulrich to study. As for the oval table for presenters...that seems a little odd. At least in our experience, presenters usually sit behind square tables and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that.

Color Psychology

Finally, in Feng Shui color plays a key role in stimulating ideas and promoting positive energy for all room sizes. Walls painted either a soft green or terracotta will energize conversation of people in the room and encourage new thoughts and ideas.

Do blue lights really affect mood?

While there is still not enough research to support it, there does appear to be a correlation between mood/energy and color. The city of Glasgow, for example, installed blue street lights and witnessed a decrease in crime in the areas illuminated with the new blue lights. Studies have also shown that colors do effect moods, but that how colors effect people's moods seem to vary widely on the person. So should you go with soft green or terracotta? Possibly, but we think that table and chair placement is likely more important than color.

What do you think? Do you think it's worth the trouble to take Feng Shui technques into consideration when choosing a venue or planning an event, or would it be too much trouble? Is it all pseudoscience, or might Feng Shui have a basis in human psychology? We'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

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If you're looking for event spaces or meeting rooms on the West Coast, be sure to check out our Seattle event spaces as well as our spaces in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Lantern Photo by Eddie Van 3000

Note: In my efforts to include all the useful tips for event bloggers I could think of, before I knew it this post came to over 2400 words! Please consider bookmarking this post as a resource you can refer to whenever you're stumped for ways to get your event blog going. Also, please consider following us on twitter and our Meeting and Event Tips facebook page for more useful info as it comes.  Enjoy! --Kenji

If you're promoting an event or conference, chances are you've heard that having a website and blog can be a great way to drive awareness and (hopefully) registrations. There are plenty of  great guides out there on SEO, social media and blogging.  The question is: where do you start?

The answer is simple: Start with your strengths. If you're blogging to promote an event, you have advantages over other bloggers that are not only easy to leverage, but can jump start your traffic and drive event sign-ups.

Advantage #1: Video Content from Speakers

Before you get carried away with social media strategies or SEO techniques know this: 80% of a blog's success is dependent on its content. If you're running an event blog, chances are that you'll have access to videos of speakers giving talks at past events, and what can be better than exclusive video content from experts? Posting these videos on your blog can be an excellent way to build traffic and links back to your website. When you do, ensure that you consider these tactics:

Self-Host Your Video Content

While it's certainly easy to host your videos on YouTube or Vimeo and then embed them directly on your site, you may want to consider hosting your videos on your own site.

Why do this? Well, let's say you're running a blog for an annual wombat trainer's conference. You have an excellent video by a world renowned zookeeper on the proper diet for wombats. If you upload this video to YouTube and then embed the video on your blog, Google will determine that the original source of the video was YouTube and will thus rank youtube.com higher than your site in the Search Results for the keyword: "Wombat Diet Video." This shouldn't be the case.

If you expect a lot of people to be searching for videos on wombat nutrition, then it would behoove you to host the video on your own site. One great tool for doing this is Wistia, a platform that allows you to host your videos on your own domain. Not only does it do that, but it provides transcription services so that you can post the full transcript of the talk or presentation directly to your blog. Search engines are smart, but they're still not smart enough to determine just how relevant to wombats your video really is. The text transcripts below the video can be a great way to help the nudge search engines in the right direction.

Wistia's starter package runs for $23 a month so it isn't cheap. If you plan to have a lot of event related video content on your site, however, I highly recommend checking them out.

Optimize Your Video for the Web

When filming, camera operators and video editors don't always take into account the fact that their videos will be seen on laptops and mobile devices. Although wide angle shots can be good to establish the size of a venue, remember that on an iPhone screen the speaker will probably be less than 10 pixels high. Make sure the camera stays in close to a speaker.

Save Your Best Content for VIPs

While you might be tempted to  publish all your video content on your blog, it's important to ask yourself one question: Are you converting? Are you adding more subscribers to your newsletters or getting more people to sign up for your event?

If you're getting thousands of visitors to your site and the answer is "no," you may want to think of ways you can limit access to premium content as a way to drive more conversions. Think about reserving your best content for a select group of people like your newsletter subscribers, members of your organization, or people who have signed up for your upcoming event. It's actually quite easy to do this. Wordpress, for example allows you to specify whether links are public, private or even password protected so that you can effectively control who is able to see what content.

Finally, if all you want is to get more traffic, consider using  a service like Pay with a Tweet. Pay with a tweet is a very simple service that limits access of content to those who have tweeted about it, thus driving traffic and awareness.

Advantage #2: Guest Posts From Speakers

You may not be an authority on wombats, but the speakers attending your wombat conference probably are. Be sure to leverage that authority by asking your speakers to write guest posts for your blog.

Rel=Author

If you have a lot of famous wombat experts contributing guest posts, you may want to consider using the rel = author markup on your blog. Let's say that George Georgeson is the world's foremost expert on wombats. George happens to be speaking at your conference and not only that he has agreed to write a guest post on your event's blog. The post title is "How to Train a Baby Wombat" which, in this hypothetical situation, also happens to be a high traffic keyword.

Since your blog is new and doesn't have many links, your post about training baby wombats may not rank very high for such a competitive keyword.  Because of this, your post probably wouldn't get too many clickthroughs. But since you've been savvy enough to implement rel=author on your page, what do you know...George Georgeson's face appears next to your article on the search engine results page.

It would look something like this:

Any wombat enthusiast would be able to recognize George's face right away and would most likely click the article written by him before the others, even though they might be ranked higher. Implementing rel=author on a blog requires having a page on your blog with a list of contributors as well as requiring each of your contributors to have a Google+ account. For more detailed instructions on how to implement rel=author, please check out this resource.

Advantage #3: Your event/conference is already well known

Listen for your event name or brand

It's quite possible that your conference is already well known by folks who happen to be influential online. It's important that you find out who these influencers are, and what they're saying about you. My favorite tools to keep track of online conversations are:

SocialMention: SocialMention is a great tool to keep track of who's saying what about your brand. If you enter "West Coast Wombat Conference" into the search box, for example, the tool will return nearly all tweets and blog posts and some facebook posts that mention the conference. I check SocialMention for eVenues at least once a day so that I can follow up on anything said about us, either positive or negative.

Topsy: Topsy is one of the most accurate ways to track tweets about a blog post you've recently published. To track the tweets all you have to do is type http://topsy.com/www.yourdomain.com/your-blog-post-url and you'll have a handy, up to date look of how your blog post is doing. Here's an example of how one of our recent blog posts did on Topsy

Google Alerts: Although you'll usually be able to monitor most mentions of your brand using the above two tools, Google alerts can be a good way to be notified of new blog posts that mention your brand, especially if you don't have time to check social listening tools every day. Just go to Google Alerts, and type in any keywords relevant to your brand and you'll be notified of any new blog posts about your event.

Listening, of course, isn't just a one way street. It's important to respond immediately to any mention, whether it's positive or negative. It's amazing how many brands and companies fail to do this. If someone says something good about your wombat conference, thank them and perhaps provide them with a discount code for the ticket (Eventbrite allows you to set this up pretty easily).

If, on the other hand, someone tweets something negative about your conference, it's also important to address this just as quickly. See if you can get in touch with whoever tweeted about you and see if you can resolve the issue by moving it over to a private email conversation.

Finally, if someone writes a blog post endorsing your event, go further than just sending them a quick "thank you" email.  Make sure you get the best links possible too.

Most likely a blogger will link to your website with the official name of the event or conference, something like "West Coast Wombat Conference 2012" While this is an OK link, it could be much better. After all, the keyphrase mentioned above is so specific that you'll probably rank #1 for that phrase on Google without any links. Not only that, but the only people who would use that keyphrase in their searches would know about your conference to begin with.

It'd be much better if you got a link to your home page with something more generic like "Wombat Conference." Links like these are signals to the search engines that your blog and website is relevant for that keyword. The more links like this that you get, the higher you'll rank in searches for people looking for wombat conferences, but don't necessarily know about your wombat conference. Since these bloggers are already endorsing your event with a link, it shouldn't be a problem to get the wording of the link to be changed slightly.

Use Social Bookmarking Sites to Promote Your Content

While it would be nice to just create great content and expect people to visit your website, that sadly isn't the case. You need your content to be shared and tweeted by as many people as possible--not only because it brings more exposure to your event blog, but also because tweets and shares are becoming an increasingly important signal of quality to search engines like Google.

It's quite possible that your wombat conference is already well known among wombat enthusiasts. But even if 2012 is the very first year of your conference and no one has heard of it before, that doesn't mean that the online wombat community won't want to help you out to promote your great content, if indeed it truly is great.

The first place to go when looking for the right influencers to share your content is followerwonk. Followerwonk is a twitter bio search engine that finds the most influential twitter accounts in a certain field. If, for example, you want to reach out to wombat trainers on the west coast, do a keyword search for "wombat trainer" on followerwonk and limit your search to major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. Once you've found these people, engage with them. Follow them on twitter, comment on their blogs and tweet and share their content.

Utilize Online Communities

Building a respectable network on Twitter, however, can take some time. Even though you may have tried to reach out to these "Twitterati," they may be too busy to even notice you. This is where online communities and forums come in.

One of my favorite places to share content is reddit. Reddit is a social news sharing site that has over 2 billion (!) visits per month. People post links to their favorite content, and depending on how many votes that content receives, it has a chance to get featured on the front page, potentially driving hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site.

The trick to reddit is to find the appropriate subreddit that represents a group who would be interested in your content. Subreddits are basically what they sound like: mini-versions of reddit focused on a single topic. There are subreddits for cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, as well as subreddits for music, architecture, cats, and believe it or not, wombats.

Subreddits can be a very powerful way to deliver content to the right audience. An article I had written about secret spots in Seattle, for example, reached the #1 spot on the Seattle subreddit and sent thousands of visitors to the eVenues blog. It was at least a good third of the Seattle subreddit's 12,000 subscribers.

It's very possible, however, that the subreddit which covers your conference's topic won't have many subscribers. At this writing, there are only 7 subscribers to the wombat subreddit. This doesn't mean, however, that you can't post your content on a subreddit that focuses on a tangentially related topic. George Georgeson's article on how to train a baby wombat, for example, could probably do well on a subreddit like pets.

Along with reddit, there are other major social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. Each of these sites serve very different content and different audiences, and it's important to know what's appropriate for each. A guide on choosing wedding dresses, for example would probably do better on Pinterest because the audience is mostly women. Funny list posts, on the other hand, might do much better on Digg or StumbleUpon.

Furthermore, there are many niche social bookmarking sites that might better serve your audience. Hacker News, for example, is almost exclusively focused on programming, entrepreneurship and startups. BizSugar, on the other hand, is better suited for those running small businesses. DesignBump is almost exclusively for designers while Tip'd is focused mostly on finance topics. Know which sites give you the best ROI in terms of traffic and conversions and do your best to develop your presence in each space.

Finally, it's important not to post content that is solely self-promotional. Be sure that your content is useful, interesting or entertaining and is a match for your audience. Also, don't post content until you've "lived" in those online communities for a while and get a feel for what succeeds with each one. When you do, you'll be able to tailor your content precisely for those communities. If you do all that, you're bound to succeed.

What about you? What advice do you have for event bloggers on leveraging their advantages?

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P.S. If you have yet to book a venue do check our listings out. We have a great list of Seattle meeting spaces as well as spaces in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

If you have any questions about this guide please feel free to email me at kenji [at] evenues dot com.

Whether it's a small off-site corporate meeting, a networking event or party, or the total annihilation of most life on Earth, we here at eVenues believe that there is the perfect space for every occasion.

While we officially do not believe the world will end in 2012, we do like to be prepared. What with the speculations of deadly superflu viruses that threaten to destroy humankind, asteroids, zombies, nuclear holocausts, robot slave rebellions, and apocalyptic demons summoned by evil wizards, there's plenty to be concerned about. Do not fear. Our crack research team went out and found the best venues available should the world end.

Here they are:

A Room of Requirement

Considering that it's a room that furnishes itself with whatever you need (except in-house catering), rooms of requirement are an excellent choice should you be confronted with an armies of evil wizards or a run of the mill zombie horde. Each room of requirement comes fully equipped with essentials like fanged frisbees--just what you need should the world be overrun by unspeakable evils.

What’s that you say? Magical rooms of requirement don’t exist? Then why is there a listing on eVenues?

A Biker Shop

This really is the best place to be if you’re anticipating a nuclear holocaust. We all know that when the world turns into a desolate, dusty wasteland the only thing that’s going to save you is a baddass leather jacket and aviator glasses. A good biker shop should be replete with these essentials. While the evenues staff knows all and sees all, we have selfishly reserved all the biker shops for ourselves. We’ll let you know if we have any spares.

Chuck Norris' House

Martian invasion? Meh. Chuck Norris has already been to Mars, that’s why there’s no signs of life.

Overpopulation? This is only a problem if Chuck Norris gets tired of allowing so many people to live.

Since Chuck Norris’ house comes equipped with ICBMs, laser gun turrets, and reinforced titanium walls, we believe that this could be the safest place in the world...granted that Chuck doesn’t feel like roundhouse kicking you to the face. Get on his good side by liking this facebook page, and you’re set.

eVenues does not have any rooms in Chuck Norris’ house listed, but we do have dojos rentable by the hour. While it’s not quite the same as Chuck Norris, at least you’ll have an army of badass black belts to protect you in the case of an impending zombie or motorcycle bandit gang attack.

Note: There’s is a 50% chance that the apocalypse will be caused by Chuck Norris. In that case, you’re out of luck.

A Warehouse Full of Exploding Barrels

We don’t know why, but whenever heroes in action movies shoot a barrel it will usually set off an explosion. Since the explosions never seem to injure the heroes themselves, we feel that this would be an ideal venue for you to rent out in the event of a zombie apocalypse. eVenues does have barrel rooms for rent, but to the best of our knowledge these barrels do not explode when you shoot them (we respectfully ask that you do not try).

Martha Stewart's Kitchen

Martha Stewart's Kitchen is perfect in every way, from the shelf of Chinese teapots to the Russian honeys strategically placed above a phone and walkie talkie, to the doggie wardrobe and toy repository--this place shouldn’t exist. Since nothing on the planet could be so perfect, we are convinced that the kitchen is actually part of a parallel universe. Should any catastrophic event should befall the planet,  this could very well be the safest place (not) on Earth.

 What about you? Please leave your suggestions for the 2012 apocalypse in the comments below.

Photo Credits:

Zombie Apocalypse Public Service announcement photo by: Dr. Stephen Dann

Photo of Toxic Barrels By: Aidan Morgan

Martha Stewart Photo By: David Shankbone 

Research on Chuck Norris provided by the fine folks at chucknorrisfacts.com.

Not to brag, but eVenues knows a thing or two about cool spots in Seattle. We've searched and scoured to create a list of unique Seattle gathering & meeting rooms - bookable by the hour or day - for our customers. In the course of the search, we've found a few secret spaces as well. Since you're reading this blog, we know that you're one of the cool kids. So we thought we'd share some of Seattle's best secret spaces just with you (and possibly all your friends on twitter and facebook).

Here they are. Don't tell anyone

5. The Cougar Room at Vito's

Vito's is a bar that originally opened in 1953, and with its seats of studded red leather, its mirrored walls flaked with tacky faux gold, it looks like a place straight out of Goodfellas. It's a place that you'd expect to be coated floor to ceiling with tobacco stains, but since it was recently remodeled after the new smoking laws, Vito's has a bit of surreal cleanliness to it.

Someone had told one of our staff that Vito's had a banquet hall with a stuffed cougar--something our staff member had never noticed was there despite the fact that he had frequented Vito’s several times. His reaction to this was: "What banquet hall doesn't have a stuffed cougar?" He realized, however, that his friend was referring literally to a mountain cat. He went searching for it a week afterwards and this is what he saw:

According to the restaurant's website, the cougar room had served as a boardroom for gangsters and politicians. Now, it's available for birthday parties and similar events. Reservations are required.

Oh, and just so you know, the Cougar's name is Barbara.

Recommended For:  "Gangsters and Molls" theme parties, Monopoly tournaments
Not Recommended For: Ailurophobics Anonymous meetings.

4. Bathtub Gin & Co.

Sometimes a place can be so hidden that you'd almost think the owners didn't want it to be found. The Bathtub Gin Company is located in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, a part of town which may have more watering holes per block than any other in the city. While most of these bars line the streets in plain sight, spilling their music and drunk and fratty patrons out onto the sidewalks the entrance to Bathtub Gin, in contrast, is hidden in a nearby alley away from the the raucous crowds with nothing to advertise it but a simple stainless steel plaque on a brick wall.

The interior is chill, cool, classy and candelit with a loungy area downstairs and an intimate bar upstairs. We could go on about the place but if the fact that IT IS A HIDDEN BAR IN A DARK ALLEY doesn't have you sold, then why are you reading this? 

Recommended For: A quiet night amongst friends
Not Recommended For: Jagermeister Chugging Contests

3. The Knee High Stocking Company

Another similarly hidden spot is the Knee High Stocking Company. From the outside, Knee High is completely devoid of any flashy signs or neon lights. In fact, it looks like the entrance to an apartment building.

The door is always locked, so you'll need to ring the doorbell in order for the hostess to let you inside. The door opens and a classy lady (technical term) escorts you through the dark velvet curtains into a room that's so-1920, it almost reaches the level of self-parody. There's something about the warm and cozy atmosphere here, however, that melts away the Seattle freeze that some have experienced here, making your night out here almost feel like a private dinner party among old friends.

Recommended For: First dates, A party for out-of-towners
Not recommended For: Raves, Riverdance rehearsals

Photos used with permission from Kenn Wilson of cocktalia.com.

2. The Hideout

Here's a place that lives up to its name. If you look for it, you can find the name of the establishment etched almost imperceptibly on the one of the black glass doors. You won't know what kind of place it is until you open the door and walk in.

Their cocktails have character (Their "Andy Warhol" is a Manhattan + a Polaroid photo of yourself). The people are friendly and welcoming, and its wonderfully eclectic art collection is one of the best we've seen in the city. In addition to this, the Hideout may be one of the only bars on the planet to have:

Its own quarterly art publication: The Vital 5 Review. Draw a picture and drop it in the submission box. Wait a few months and see if your booze inspired art made the cut.

A vending machine for art: nuff 'said

"Discreet Theater": Actors are paid free booze to come on select nights and add character to the place.

Recommended For: Black turtleneck parties, Drunk pictionary parties
Not Recommended For: Anti-Sarcasm League Meetups

1. The Needle and Thread

Like many of the best "secret" places, the Needle and Thread is anything but secret. In fact, it made GQ's list of top cocktail bars in the country (#25). What's so "secret" about the Needle and Thread, then?

Well, for one thing, the entrance to the Needle and Thread is above another place called Tavern Law, a classy joint with top notch kitchen, plenty of bar space, and inviting leather sofas. It seems like standard stuff, but there is one little oddity: the bank vault door on the wall. There's an antique phone on the wall beside it. Pick it up when it rings and the vault door opens. You then go up the narrow wood staircase (past pictures of some naughty girls), and you'll find yourself in a intimate little room where you're served cocktails based on your mood. It's not to miss.

Recommended For: Super exclusive poker games
Not Recommended For: Hula hoop enthusiast gatherings, firewalking ceremonies, pillow fight tournaments

Photos used with permission from Pete Andrijeski of seattlebars.org

Honorable Mentions/Suggestions From Readers: Was there something on this list that we missed? Please feel free to email our community manager (kenji at evenues dot com) and we'll be sure to put it up!

Hi there! If you're new here and like this article consider following us on twitter and our Meeting and Event Tips facebook page to keep up with our new content.

At eVenues, offices often come to us to list conference rooms and board rooms that they don't happen to be using to rent out by the hour. We love to do this, but the problem is that these rooms usually don't have a name other than, well, "Conference Room". Considering how many conference rooms we have on the site, it might be handy (not to mention fun) to be a little creative with your room names.

Some other reasons to be creative about room names (other than saving the eVenues staff extra work naming your rooms on our site ):

• People don't get confused about who is using what room when.
• Creative room names increase employee morale. They make your office feel unique--a place set apart from the rest of cubicle nation. Bonus points if you have your employees name the rooms, they'll get a sense that they've contributed to making the place home
• You get to "show off" a bit of your company culture to visitors of your office.

Need some inspiration? Here's a list of the most creative Room names that we've found, listed in order of room names that have the most interesting backstory.

1.  Übermind HQ in Seattle, WA

Room Names: Bunker, Pylon, Hive, Orbital, Spire, Armory, Forge, Nexus, Lair

Backstory: Übermind is a an interactive agency that creates mobile apps for large corporate clients. The name of the company is based on a character (The Overmind) from the popular video game StarCraft. As if the name alone wasn't enough to establish geek cred for the developers and designers they were looking to hire they went one step further and named each of the rooms after building names from the game. Each of the rooms have custom decals (designed by the staff to look like the buildings in the game)  to identify them.

Check out the complete album of  pictures here.

2. SoftLayer HQ in Dallas, TX

Room Names: SLales, CBNO, Geneous, Unicorn, Automation, Innovation, 204A, SLacker, Pink, 3Bars, SLayer, Funky Truck, 05-05-05, Muenster, Midway, SharkByte.

Backstory:  SoftLayer is dedicated server hosting company. Although these names don't really seem to be particularly fun or ingenious, they really are. Each of these names have significance in the companies history. "Pink", for example, is the name of the CFOs conference room (a CFO who often wears pink). 204A was the original building name of the room but they decided not to name it in respect of the lawyer hating ghost that they believe might reside there. Each of the names tells a story, and really gives you a sense of the company culture--a true stroke of genius.

For more about why they had chosen the room names, check out their blog post about it here.

3. SEOmoz HQ in Seattle, WA

Room names: Batcave, Hall of Justice, Thunderdome, Death Star, Mos Eisley Cantina, Spider Skull Island.

BackStory: SEOMoz is a company that creates SEO Software. True to the "fun" tenet of their TAGFEE (Transparent and Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, Exceptional) ideals they've labeled their meeting rooms after famous comic book/sci-fi lairs.

Check out the other pictures on this post here.

(Hat-tip from Adam Philipp of AEON Law)

4. Square HQ in San Francisco, CA

Room Names: Heroes Square, Liberty Square, Lafayette Square, Dam Square, etc.

Backstory: Square is a company that creates a square shaped device that allows people to accept credit card payments using a smartphone. It only seems natural that they’ve named their conference room after famous “Squares” in the world. 

5. Red Nova Labs in Westwood, KS

Room Names: Endeavor(Pictured Above), Armstrong, Gemini, Mercury, Discovery, Atlantis, Voyager, Lovell, Glenn
Bathroom Names: George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy 

Backstory: Red Nova Labs is a web development and marketing agency. The company got its name from a red nova, a stellar explosion thought to be caused by the merger of two stars. Thus it seemed only natural for the rooms around the building have been named after space explorers, scientists and vehicles. Not only do the room names reflect the company name, but the red and white company colors are ubiquitous throughout the space.

You can see more pictures of the space here. 

6. Poggled in Chicago, IL

Room Names: "It's 5:00 Somewhere" and "Stay Thirsty My Friend"

Backstory: Poggled is a company that focuses on nightlife and deals on bar tabs. Extra points for the "most interesting man" poster in the "Stay Thirsty" room.

7. Microsoft N.E.R.D in Cambridge, MA

Room Names: In-sane, In-Continent, In-Famous, In-Capable.

Backstory: N.E.R.D stands for the New England Research and Development center, and it's pretty much the center of operations for Microsoft on the East coast. Their room theme, if you haven't figured it out, are words that sound funny with the prefix "in-"

(Hat-tip from Cy Kormaee, COO at cimls.com)

8. BlueGrace Logistics, Riverview, FL

Room Names:"Imagine"(Conference Room), "Wonderwall" (Training Room with dry erase board paint on walls), Comfortably Numb (Break Room), "S. Carter" (Meeting Room), "Hypnotize" (Meeting Room), "Make it Rain" (Sprinkler Room), Techno (Networking Room), "Electric Avenue" (Electric Room), "Cleaning out my Closet" (Storage Closet)

Other Creative Room Names:

Cisco HQ San Jose, CA
Room Names (Building C):  Free Parking, Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens, etc.
Room Names (Another Building): Barney, Fred, Wilma, Betty, etc.

Cisco also apparently has a "beer building" where all the conference rooms are named after beers. We think this is very cool.

SPARC, Charleston, SC

Room Names: Bacon Fort/Awesome Chuck Norris (these two have a removable wall to make Chuck Norris) Agile, Buttercup, Wolverine 

Tableau Software, Seattle WA
Room Names: Cezanne, Picasso (Famous Artists). Each room has a picture of a signature painting from the artist.

Dell HQ, Austin TX
Room Names: Capitals of the world.

(Hat tip from Naysawn Naderi, founder of ArtSumo)

AEON Law Offices, Seattle WA

Room Names: Gondor, The Shire

My Web Grocer, Winooski VT

The Situation Room – reserved for very important executive meetings
The Cave – this room is in the middle of the office, kind of dark with no windows or natural light
The Cooler – looks like the inside of a cooler, blue with many windows
The Fishbowl – as above, this looks like the inside of a fishbowl, green with lots of windows

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If you know of other places with creative names please our community manager Kenji Crosland know (kenji -at- evenues dot com). We’ll be sure to mention you with a link on this post. Also, send pictures too if you have them! 

Note: Some items in these lists we found through one non-official source only, so if we made a mistake, please let us know! 

Out of town and don't have a meeting room to use? Be sure to check out our meeting rooms in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Stormtrooper Photo by Ha-Wee

 

At eVenues we like to stay on top of the best blogs about events, technology, and of course, event technology. We tweet and share the best blog posts we find but there always are a select few posts that we believe deserve special mention. This week those posts are:

Will International Meetings and Events Industry Prosper in 2012? - Business Travel Destinations

We here at eVenues like optimism (we're a startup after all!). What we like even more is optimism backed up with numbers. While business travel faced a lot of challenges last year due to the economy, this year is starting to look up. In this post business travel expert Rob Hard goes one step further than hearsay and rah rah fluff, and provides real world examples for why 2012 should be a prosperous year.

Why Your Conference Rots: It Is Just Like School - Midcourse Corrections

When attendees sit silently in their seats listening passively to an hours and hours of presentations, talks and lectures, it doesn't matter how good or useful your content is. You have a "rotten" conference on your hands. Jeff Hurt of Velvet Chainsaw points out that the reason your conference rots is because you use outdated methods used in traditional education. Not only does he point out the problem, but he offers some useful solutions. A must read.

Why I’m the world’s worst virtual attendee. And how that can help you plan better hybrid events. - Plan Your Meetings

It's hard to make a hybrid meeting successful--especially on the "virtual" side of it. In this tongue-in-cheek post Kristi Casey Sanders offers a portrait of the worst possible virtual attendee--herself! When planning your own hybrid event, keep attendees like Kristi in mind. How would you keep someone like her engaged?

Why Business Best Practices Are Evil - Open Forum

A thought provoking post by SocialFish's Maddie Grant about how focusing too much on best practices may leave you blind to business opportunities.

Event Tech Checklist Helps Planners Meet Attendee Needs - Engage365

From live streaming talks to event specific twitter hashtags, technology is rapidly changing the way we meet. A consequence of this, however, is that event suppliers are having trouble keeping up with the technology needs of meeting planners. In order to solve this problem, James Spellos and Corbin Ball created TechSpec, a list of guidelines that both event planners and suppliers can refer to so that they're on the same page. In this post Jenise Fryatt interviews Spellos about TechSpec--what it is and the reason for its inception.

 

Did you see a great post that we missed? Let us know! Contact our Community Manager Kenji Crosland at kenji -at- evenues dot com.

Photo by: Michael Ruiz