Thank you to everyone who submitted a blog to the Eventprofs Blog Awards! We received over 40 submissions and have seen some fantastic event industry sites. Over the weekend the judging panel reviewed the submissions to ensure they were in the correct categories and met the award guidelines. Although there was a phenomenal list of blogs to choose from, the submissions were short-listed to a maximum of 7 per category. We would like to congratulate our nominees and thank everyone who participated.

And the Nominees are…

BEST INDUSTRY ADVANCEMENT BLOG

Events Man
McCurry’s Corner
PlusPoint
Smart Meetings Blog
SocialFishing
Trade Show Institute
Velvet Chainsaw’s Midcourse Corrections

BEST CORPORATE BLOG

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company – Muse
Shotgun Marketing Blog
Skyline Trade Show Tips
Sound n’ Sight
Splash: Refreshment for Your Small Staff Organization
Tradeshow Insight

BEST EYE CANDY BLOG

David Stark Sketchbook
Design Dawgs
Today’s Creative Blog
Zinke Design Weblog

BEST INSPIRATION BLOG

Dreamers Events
Grosh Backdrops Blog

BEST THOUGHT PROVOKING BLOG

ABCey Events: *Event Planning *Social Media* Technology
Conferences That Work
Corporate Incentive Travel
Event Industry Thoughts
Eventzilla
Howard Givner’s blog
Liz King Events

NEW KID ON THE BLOG
Engage
Event Lounge
Event Strategy Solutions
Jen’s Blog
Magic Moments Parties and Events
Mike Granek, CSEP
Rosa Garriga’s blog

BEST WEDDING BLOG

Landlocked Bride
A Big To Do Event: Inspiration and Education
Sensational Weddings
The French Bouquet Blog
Wedding Overdose

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

A new category has been added to the roster: The Eventprofs People’s Choice Award. This award will be given to the blog with the most overall votes – so, nominees, spread the word and get people voting!

How to vote

You should see a pop up on this page for voting. If you’ve closed it or if it didn’t appear, you can also click here to take survey. Voting closes at 9:00am EDT on September 9, 2010. The blog with the highest number of votes in each category will be announced as the winners.

Nominees, please click here to download 1) Your nominee badge, which you can place on your website and 2) A link to the survey so you can start promoting the awards right from your own site.

Tune in to see the winners

Don’t forget that the winners will be announced at Event Camp Twin Cities on September 9th, 2010 at 5:00 pm CST. For those who won’t be able to attend, I’m delighted to share that the event will be live streamed so you’ll be able to participate along with us!

Meet the Judging Panel

Cynthia Martyn, Ray Hansen, Samuel J. Smith, Christina Coster, Paul Salinger, Ruth Moyte and myself made up the 2010 Judging Panel.

Award Guidelines

• Blog must serve the event industry to be nominated
• A blog can only be nominated in one category
• Blogs must meet the category’s description (i.e. Category: Best Corporate Blog | Description: A rockstar corporate blog that knows how to connect, converse and add value to its clients)
• Blogs must provide a majority of original content to be considered for any category (i.e. aggregators of other blog’s information will not be considered for this year’s awards)

It’s that time of year again! The Eventprofs Blog Awards are back for their 2nd year and will celebrate our community and the thought-leaders who help to propel it forward.

I’m thrilled to share that the Awards will be presented this year at Event Camp Twin Cities, taking place in Minneapolis, MN on September 8th and 9th, 2010. The winners will be announced LIVE on the 9th at 5:00 pm CST for event professionals all across the globe to see.

Do you want to submit a blog?

Submissions are now open! Feel free to submit your own blog or another blog you can’t do without. Submit as many blogs as you’d like provided they serve the events community.

If the submission form does not appear above, please follow this link to the Awards Submission Form.

Please note: Judges and the administrator (Lara McCulloch-Carter) are not eligible to win the Eventprofs Blog Awards.
View 2009′s award winners

The Awards Process

Call for Submission

Submission are open until 9am EDT on August 20th, 2010

Nominations

All submissions will be reviewed by the judging panel. The panel will:

• ensure they fit the criteria for the #eventprofs blog awards
• are in the right category
• if required, re-categorize an entry

Nominees will be announced on August 23rd, 2010, then voting will be open

Voting closes on September 9th, 2010

Winners Announced

Winners will be announced LIVE at the Event Camp Twin Cities 2010 on September 9th, 2010 at 5:00 pm CST.

Good luck to all entrants!

What is #eventprofs?

Eventprofs is a community of smart and digital savvy event professionals from around the world who come together online and in person to discuss progressive topics relevant to our industry – all with the intent of improving our businesses and, in turn, the Events Industry.

When and how did #eventprofs begin?

Eventprofs was founded in February 2009 on Twitter. I started it because, at the time, there were a fantastic group of event professionals on Twitter having sporadic real-time conversations. But there was no way of planning and organizing those conversations. Although hashtags are a dime a dozen today, at the time there was only one other Twitter community using a hashtag. I created #eventprofs, shared it with key influencers within the events, meetings & tradeshow industries and scheduled a weekly 1-hour chat every Thursday at 9:00pm EST.

How has it evolved?

There was a small group of very passionate #eventprofs from the very beginning who deserve recognition as they were instrumental in the growth and development of the community. They have also been a great sounding board for me over the past year and a half. Special thanks to: @gregruby, @michaelmccurry, @jeffhurt, @jessicalevin, @greena_v, @samueljsmith, @pinkdeb and @spkrinteractive (to name a few). Thanks to this small group, #eventprofs has blossomed into a thriving community of thousands.

When I started the group, my intent was to make the community self-sufficient, not controlled, not closed, and without hierarchy. The result is that everyone, whether a newcomer or not, feels ownership in #eventprofs. This mindset has spawned members to create their own events within the community (like Event Camp), promote their businesses and blogs, create lasting partnerships and help spread the word about the community at conferences and events.

How can you learn more about #eventprofs?

I’ve created a number of ways that members can stay in touch with #eventprofs. First, it’s key to follow @eventprofs - the official account that informs members of upcoming chats and community news. There’s also the Facebook Group Page, the Wiki, and the Eventprofs Awards (an announcement on the awards will be released in the coming days).

If you’d like to participate in an upcoming chat:

1) Watch this video on how to participate in an #eventprofs chat

2) Mark your calendars with these upcoming #eventprofs chats

3) Feel free to listen first or jump right in!

4) I invite you to message me if you’re looking for a quick tutorial or simply want to ask questions.

Did you know?

Eventprofs was mentioned by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media in his The Twitter Book! You are a part of written history.

Most importantly…

Get involved. The success of #eventprofs is very much a part of each and every person who participates. From sharing articles to participating in chats to making friends – all of these activities help to grow the community.

I want to personally thank every person who has contributed. It’s made me so happy to see how far #eventprofs has come from its early days as simply a hashtag.

Ahh Twitter. Everyone has heard about it, yet it still sends ripples of fear and frustration through many. It remains seen as a tool for people to blast others with useless information about what they ate, what they’re doing and where they’re going. Since February of 2009 I’ve been trying to convince people about the power of Twitter and how it’s been used to build a community of thousands of Meetings & Event Professionals from around the world who share useful and timely information about our industry (aka #eventprofs). But alas, still many scoff because of that darned 7 letter word…Twitter.

Recently I saw a tweet from Michael McCurry about Paper.li. Paper.li basically takes links shared on twitter and organizes them by popularity and tags into a newspaper format. In a matter of seconds, Michael input the #eventprofs hashtag and out popped a real-time industry rag all about Meetings & Events. How exciting is that?! This should be a great solution for those people who want to stay up to date on the latest & greatest in our industry without having to go over to Twitter.

Click here to read the Eventprofs Newspaper.

Now, if you don’t want to have to remember to go over to this website all the time, simply click on the ‘notify me’ link and they’ll email you when the next paper is available. (Just keep in mind that this function will not work in Safari)

Happy reading!

Yes, it’s true! #eventprofs turns 1 today!! It’s been a truly incredible year and as I’ve watched the community grow from a small group of people on February 9, 2009 to a thriving community of thousands today, I can say that I’m truly proud and amazed. In celebration of our first birthday, I wanted to turn it over to you, the community, to share what #eventprofs has meant to you.

Share your thoughts

Feel free to comment on this post & let everyone know how the #eventprofs community has impacted you or your business.

Also, please join us this evening @ 9pm EST / 6pm PST for our weekly Twitter chat to share your stories. Click here for instructions on how to participate in a chat.

More info

Wow – and for a very comprehensive overview of #eventprofs’ history, see Samuel J Smith’s post.

I just participated in a few livestreamed breakout sessions from EventCamp 2010 New York. One of which was a session run by Samuel J Smith which used what’s called a fishbowl technique to promote discussion around his topic: Integrating Social Media Onsite at Events. I learned a great deal from watching this session remotely and give Samuel big kudos for taking a leap and doing something unconventional.

The Fishbowl Set Up

The fishbowl in action at Event Camp 2010

Having sat through far too many sessions that use conventional classroom style room set ups, I found this more collaborative set up quite refreshing. For those of you who have not seen fishbowl dialogue in action, it is much like it sounds…a circle of 5-8 chairs are placed in the center of the room facing each other (this would be the fishbowl) and 2-8 (depending on the size of your audience) rows of chairs are set up to radiate out of the fishbowl.

People who volunteer or are selected to sit in the fishbowl have a dialogue or provide points of view on a selected topic. One of the fishbowl chairs is always left empty – this way if anyone from the audience wants to join the discussion they seat themselves at the empty chair (and someone else gets up to free up a chair). The idea is the moderation is kept to a minimum and the constantly changing fishbowl participants drive the dialogue.

I found this technique to be a great way to tap into the intelligence of the audience and build content for a subject around the needs, challenges and experiences of that crowd (at least the ones who participated in the fishbowl).

Learnings from outside of the fishbowl

Get the audience warmed up

We all know that audience interaction can be tough to achieve. There are natural extroverts who have no problem standing up and making a point, but there are others who get shivers of fear at the thought of even putting up their hand. Sitting in a fishbowl can be very intimidating, so it’s not for everyone. But I do think there’s an opportunity to warm up the audience before the fishbowl begins. Get people on their feet and interacting.

Set parameters upfront

To build off of the last point, there are some individuals who gravitate to the spotlight. Some of them can tend to go on and on and on and on and on and on about a point (It should be noted that this did not happen at EventCamp). Setting some upfront parameters may be helpful to ensure people stay on topic, don’t hog the mic and interact professionally.

A side note: My husband is one of those guys who is a best man or MC at every wedding we attend. Most of our friends are West Indian and let’s just say that the speeches portion of the reception can be…er…a bit long winded. He regularly warns wedding guests that if their speeches go on too long, he may come out to cut them short. His schtick? A pair of briefs (i.e. underwear). When someone drones on with the speech he pulls out the briefs and flashes them to the speaker and the audience. It gets the audience re-engaged and gets the speaker to wrap up. Case closed.

Choose a controversial subject

There was some great dialogue, but one of the most enjoyable parts of Samuel Smith’s session was when Clinton Bonner decided to take the ‘devil’s advocate’ position on a topic. It got participants fired up (in a good way) and created some great points on both sides of the argument.

Instead of picking an all encompassing subject, why not pick a controversial statement like: “why social media should never be used for events” . It gives people permission to pick sides and get passionate about their points of view.

Online engagement

A goal, whenever live streaming a session, is to involve the online audience as much as possible. The fishbowl made it very difficult to engage the online viewers since (stating the obvious here) we couldn’t physically sit in the empty seat. I do, however, think there’s an opportunity to allow online viewers to have a seat in the fishbowl by way of video stream. I’d love to get an a/v professional to weigh in on this (in the comments section) to see if you have any recommendation on how this could work.

Fishbowl introductions

As an online viewer, since there were so many people moving in and out of the fishbowl, it was a bit hard to keep up with who was speaking. I’d recommending asking anyone who speaks to introduce them self and their twitter handle.

I really enjoyed this session and plan on using the technique and some of my learnings from all of you in some of my upcoming seminars. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Sam!

What do you think?

Did you watch the fishbowl? What did you think? Can you see yourself incorporating this into any of your events?

I attended AdBall – a Fashion Fetish Event – last night. It was a bacchanalian gala held to signal the end of Advertising Week 2010. I was generously invited by the men of 5th Element Events (one of our Blog Sponsors) and, with camera in tow, set out to let my hair down after a long week of travel and training.

It was a great night out, one of my most enjoyable in a while. Highlights included watching a man take off his pants for a photo op (yes, it’s true), listening to artist Anjulie, who tore it up for the crowd, the great food, and of course the swag bag! Some photos from the event can be seen below.

Here’s a YouTube video of the talented Anjulie performing her song Rain, which was featured on The Hills.