EPISODE: 03

Mastering the craft of content creation to host more value-rich and high-engagement events

Whether you’re hosting a virtual event, a hybrid event, or an in-person event, content always remains the key to a value-rich attendee experience. You can have the best check-in tech, the most dexterously put-together event map, and a tonne of great exhibitors, but none of it would mean anything if the content you have to offer isn’t up to par. Great events are built on the foundation of strong content.

However, in the past couple of years there’s been a shift in how we consume event content and what attendees expect out of the events that they choose to attend. 

In this week’s episode of Fifteen Minutes With… Sophie Ahmed, GM - Hubilo On-site, is joined by Emma Hilditch, a strategic content designer and engagement specialist with decades of experience, to discuss the current content trends in the industry, what would the next generation of events look like, and the growing relevance of AI in content generation.

TRANSCRIPT

Sophie:  

Hello, and welcome to my next edition of our new fielddrive podcast, number three, and I'm delighted to be joined by Emma Hilditch, who is the founder and director of Subject Matters. Now, Subject Matters has been around for a long time. Emma has been working in the industry since the 90s, when she started at IIR, which, of course, was bought by Informa in 2005. She learned conference production in the trenches and is a genius at content. I have personally worked with Emma since about 2010, where she was also my conference producer. Then we went on to create the educational programme for VEI, the Virtual Events Institute, together during the pandemic. 

I'm delighted to be joined by Emma; she can give us a whole spectrum about what's going on in events in content right now, as well as everything. So, welcome, Emma.

Emma:

Hi, nice to be here.

Sophie:  

Thank you. Well, I'm going to kick off because I just mentioned you started in IIR in the 90s, and here you are, still at the top of your game, still churning out amazing content for a variety of event organisers. I know you've worked with Informa, Closer Still, and Strategy Institute. You're working on the E-commerce Expo and so many others. You must have seen it all. So what are the biggest changes you've seen over all of that period?

Emma:

The obvious thing is the plethora of content. When we first started, we had to do competitor analysis, and there were maybe one or two other events in the field at any one time. Now there are tonnes more. There are loads online, as you know, people travel internationally much more. Obviously, there's loads more content accessible via the internet. So I think that's the biggest challenge for us now, to stand out from the noise.

Sophie:

Yes, the attention span, everyone's got so much less of an attention span now, haven't they? It's sort of diminished a lot over the last two to three years.

Emma:

People do talk about that, definitely online and with virtual events. Anyone who's still doing a whole day of virtual events, I don't know what their attendance is, but that's probably quite challenging for their delegates. Obviously, there's loads of other ways to consume the online content. So even if it is on for a whole day, you don't have to watch the whole day; you can watch it when you want to, when it suits you, and that's a positive thing. But I don't know about attention spans. 

However, in some sectors where it's people's job to concentrate hard on something for a long time, I wouldn't necessarily say that the attention span has gone away. I just think you've got to be really much better at what you present and what you're giving your attendees. You've to give them exactly what they want, how they want it, with really strong content. I don't necessarily mean from a marketing point of view, in terms of great names of speakers, but you've got to have great speakers. If you've got a great session on the day, people do stick around, and they do ask those questions.

Sophie:

So what do you think, there's loads of topics around at the moment, isn't there, I see it all over LinkedIn, should you make a keynote no more than 10 minutes? What's the optimum length of time for an in-person event session? Do you think it's changing? Or do you think it, just as you say, depends on who the market is?

Emma:

Yes, I think it definitely depends on what the market is. We're doing a lot of stuff at the moment. So we set on the next generation of conference delegates, I'm guessing, like GenZ, which is literally between 11 and 26. So they are the next generation, mostly not delegates yet. Although, we've all got some in the workforce. Those people will have a different attention span. But where we are right now in most industries that I work in, most delegates are between 40 and 55. And I would say they still have a, I don't know what we would call like a reasonable attention span, but you can easily have an audience script for half an hour of a keynote, as long as the keynotes really good. It comes back to the content of the day. A lot of that is the actual speaker, an amazing TED speaker. It also comes down to the briefing in advance to make sure that it's relevant to the delegates in the room. 

But the next generation, GenZ, I don't know, the jury's out. I think there's a lot of research, and we're talking to a lot of people, and it comes up a lot in discussions. What will the next generation of delegates really want? What will they like? I'm guessing they will less want to come to conferences than we do. They're less interested in pressing the flesh; they don't want to necessarily meet in person, can't quite see the point. Sit around on their phones anyway, even in a room where we might be. They're definitely the ones that don't want to go back to the office and I guess that is also reflected in the conference room, it'll be new and exciting for them. 

Sophie: 

Exactly! I guess it's going to be around experience as well, isn't it? But I was just thinking, with the real rise of event tech over the last two or three years, particularly digital, virtual online events, we can really understand attendee behaviours. We can really understand how many sessions, how long did they stay, what did they do, who did do they interacted with. Now less so in person. We still haven't quite got to that bit within personnel, but we are getting a bit better. There's lots of tech around. As you know, Hubilo just acquired fielddrive, and we are trying to do a lot more around the data and analytics piece because it's so important to give the organiser - this is what happened, this is how many people came in, this is how long they stayed, these are the sessions they went to. We also do session scanning. So now, as a content leader like yourself, what is so good about session scanning? And what is so good about all this data and analytics that we're now starting to get?

Emma: 

Yes, so it's really amazing. Just to link to my last point about GenZ. So, we're planning an event which is going to take place in July, and it is a mixture of different ages and different types of people. So we thought we'll give people options. There's one big room, and then people have got options of where they clock themselves. So there are some beanbags at the front, and there are some nice tables and chairs for people who like to sit at a desk. And then, at the back, there are more posts and tables, and you can move around depending on the time of day, what you feel like; you can put yourself in a different place. 

I think fielddrive would be able to track that. You would be able to know who was sitting where so that would be obviously really interesting. 

For the future of the event, scanning people and tracking people in and out of sessions is really helpful. So even if it's for the next annual event, it is still useful information that you get because you get all the details of the people. You get obvious things like which were more popular? Was it to do with the time of day? Or is it to do with the topic? Also, you can contact those people because you've got a relationship with them because they attended your session. You can contact them in various ways. But me, I like to talk to people. 

So you can contact people, and you can really find out what works, what doesn't, and why? So obviously, if you haven't got that, we don't know who's in every session. It's really important at a multisession event.

Sophie:

It's really useful to know who to invite back, what content sessions, or even where to monetise. Because some of the sessions we used to do together, they were free to attend. Some weren't; ILSS was a paid-for one, as we remember. But when you've got this data and analytics, we can use it to make money and to have new revenue streams and monetise, can't we? Maybe we could even charge for that content, or afterwards, we could host it on demand and charge for it or use it gated for demand gen or so on.

Emma:

Absolutely! You can make it a part of your subscription package that you have access to it at various price points. But for me, the best use of it is that you've then created a relationship. It's a relationship that is GDPR compliant, and you can speak to those people.

Sophie:  

Yes, that's really interesting! We're seeing new ways in delegate tracking, aren't we? Visitor tracking, visitor flow management, tenure tracking, how are they behaving, facial sentiment analysis to understand how they're behaving in the hall, when they're near certain booths and sessions, and all of that. But when we think about when we used to work together, what we would have done with that data for our future event design, our future content strategy, all of that would have been really useful, wouldn't it?

Emma:

Yes, I think it is really useful going forward because that's one of the things that we found out with the huge explosion in virtual events. Before, if people were in the room and sitting facing the front, or even if they weren't facing the front, then we counted that as delegate engagement. Obviously, they could have been on the phone, could have been asleep. We've seen that more than once; they could have been anywhere in their heads. Is that real delegate engagement? Whereas virtually, we were able to track that much more closely, and now it's great that we're seeing an emergence of tools on the back of that to track delegate engagement in person. Like we are watching you, don't fall asleep.

Sophie:

It is much better now, isn't it? It is much better. I'm excited about that piece, actually, understanding the behaviour more and all of that and looking at the ways it can add value to the organiser, the sponsor, the exhibitor, and the attendees. 

So, what about sustainability? This is coming up a lot, isn't it? I spoke to Allie earlier this week. She was talking about when they choose venues and how it has to be sustainable. The whole green RFP, you've got to prove sustainability. What are you hearing about that?

Emma:

What we're hearing about sustainability? That you do need to prove the value of travelling to an event. I'm hearing a lot about the carbon footprint of delegates in terms of their travel. So proving the value of the trip is one of the key metrics. There is definitely value in face-to-face, and more and more people are realising that now after the excitement of being virtual during the pandemic. So, there are definitely metrics to measure that. There's an organisation called ISLA. They can answer all questions around sustainability in terms of events. But that, I think, is the biggest thing. 

Obviously, you can slightly do, I don't know if I should say, a bit tinkering around the edges, like is the foods supplied locally? I mean, in London, how local can it be? There are a lot of old venues all over the world, nice old venues that we like to use, that are not that carbon clean. I guess there's just a bigger picture, isn't there? It's all, in terms of decarbonisation of buildings and cities, that's really in the hands of the event organisers.

Sophie:

No, event organisers, we've got enough to contend with, haven't we, without also being responsible for that. But it will become more and more and more, won't it? But you're working with so many different organisers at the moment, I know before the call you were telling me about what you're doing with the E-commerce Expo and what one of the sponsors said to you this week. What are the themes and patterns you're seeing from your events currently?

Emma:

So this came up again recently. Somebody said to me as though it was just like a complete revelation to them. My main job is talking to potential delegates, asking them about their jobs, and then from what they tell me, I write a conference programme. So I make a conference programme that is based on what people have told me. I speak to loads of different delegates all day and in lots of different markets because I've got lots of different clients. And somebody told me recently, we've got a really big issue with recruitment and retention. I literally laughed. I was like, you can just put that in every single conference programme. So yes, that's a really massive one, recruitment and retention. But we know that it's supposed to be a kind of Brexit thing, but it's all over the world, its literally all over the world. So I think that's a big trend that I'm seeing in terms of topics. But in terms of event organising, I don't feel like we've drifted back. I think we've made a conscious decision to go back to in-person because as events people, and that includes the people who like to attend events, we like to be face-to-face and we like to be at events. Honestly, all the events that I've attended in the last 12 months, everybody's been so excited to be back. I think that buzz is going to last. That E-commerce Expo, the first in-person one, was in last September for the first time in three years. Now I'm doing the research and putting the programme together for 2023, and everybody's still really excited about being back together again and in person. I don't know how long that's going to last but hopefully, long enough for my career. It's going to last for a little while. Although you can have me back on here in two years and it might all be dead again. But I really don't think so. I think the pandemic really taught us that we love to be at events.

Sophie:

Yes, we all love events, don't we? It really brings people together, and you make lifelong friendships from it, as we know. So, give us, in a couple of sentences, what you're most excited about now, if you look ahead to the next two or three years with in-person events?

Emma :

As a content person, I'm very excited about AI-generated content. I feel like for me, in my career, at the age I am, it's probably the most significant piece of tech or new tech, that's come out. I'm self-training myself as a prompt engineer. I think anyone in my position who isn't doing that is kind of mad. But for those who are responsible for the content, it's so useful. Everyone talks about ChatGPT but there's loads of other platforms that you can use. We definitely still need to talk to people; co-creation with delegates is the key. That's how you get the best programmers and speakers; you learn enough to brief people properly so that it works really well on the day. It's how you stand out from the crowd, by having the best programmes, because they're really tailored. So like co-creation is important. 

But after you've done that research bit, and talked to the delegates, and you've really got under the skin of that, and you know what they want, the next bit is down to you. Then that's the creative part of the process, that AI can really help with. I feel like it's already really helped me, and I'm just at the early stages of learning about prompting. So that's the thing that I'm most excited about. I'm not worried that my job is going to be made redundant. You can't just type in, write a conference programme for the E-commerce Expo and get one. So, I think AI is going to make the output of content specialists such as myself much better. And obviously, it will make us much quicker, and that's good for everyone.

Sophie:

It's there to enable, not to take away. And we always said that through the pandemic about digital events, digital events are there to enable not take away. They should be adding in more extra value.

Emma:  

It's an enhancement. Yes, absolutely.

Sophie:

Well, sadly, we've come to the end of our time, but I'm going to get you on a webinar, Emma. And we'll do this again because we could be sitting here picking your brains for hours. But I really appreciate your time today and coming on.

Emma:

Brilliant. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Sophie:

Nice to see you. Bye. Bye.