Being the editor of Medical Meetings and having written what seems like endless articles on the thorny issue of pharma funding, I had to check out this 2.25-hour session that used a system called Wizerize—yay, we got to play with iPads! Boo, we didn’t get to keep them after the session!

I’m not sure how others in the room might have felt, but I’m not sure the tool fit the needs of the session. Basically, the Idea Rally was a process that went something like this: Each table brainstormed a challenge, then came up with two or three proposals to meet the challenge. We then had to agree on one proposal, and spend the remaining 12 minutes of the 25 we were given to flesh it out on the iPad.

Then the entire room was given access to each table’s challenge and proposed solution, and every individual could then rank each idea on its relevance and value, and add comments to improve or critique the ideas. Then the proposals, now attached to rankings and comments, went back to the tables for further refinement. A final ranking of all the proposals was tallied in the system, and the top three ideas were recognized.

I liked the system and could see it working for some topics, but I think for this particular big hairy problem, it didn’t allow us to really dig in and get to more than superficial solutions, or first passes at ideas for solutions that may or may not be possible to carry out. Given the quality of the conversation at my table (and there were only three of us), I think we may have gotten more value out of just talking it out among the group, or some other format that would have let us maybe chunk down the topic to something that could reasonably be attacked during that timeframe, then setting us all to the task of solving it through discussion.

I know there were a few more ReThink sessions using Wizerize, notably one on the role of third party planners and new ways they can bring more value to the table rather than be stuck getting in a fee war in an increasingly commoditized meetings world, that may have been more conducive to the system. If anyone reading this participating in one of the other ReThinks, I’d love to know your thoughts (comment below or here’s my e-mail).

I recently read that some theaters in Boston are thinking about setting up special seating areas for patrons who feel compelled to let their Twitter followers in on every detail of a show as it happens.

Being a rather huge fan of live-tweeting meetings, I was kind of surprised at my first reaction to the idea—namely, horror. At first I thought, well sure, the whole point of going to a theatrical production is to get lost in the story, the sights and sounds, the experience of being there. Tweeting would pull you out of the experience, not to mention interfere with the enjoyment of those around you who’d rather not see your screen aglow and hear your thumbs a-clicking (the latter is the reason some theaters want separate sections for the tweet-obsessed). And the tweets quoted in the article aren’t exactly going to add much to anyone’s experience. To wit:

At the Palm Beach Opera this month, tweeters updated followers on the tragic love story between an American officer and a geisha in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.’’ “Cio-cio san is telling it like it is! #pbobutterfly,’’ one tweeter wrote. “Butterfly will die. Goosebumps. #pbobutterfly,’’ wrote another.

Hmm, scintillating and insightful—I can see how those tweets couldn’t wait an hour (sorry, couldn’t help getting a bit sarcastic).

But is this really all that different from live-tweeting a conference? Ideally, you should be caught up in the experience of the session as well (and, actually, I often am, and have to stop tweeting so I can just soak it all in). Does being both a participant and a simultaneous interpreter of the experience diminish it somehow? Is that only true for entertainment, and not for education?

Can anyone help me figure out why in my brain tweeting at a movie or Broadway show is unthinkable, but tweeting a conference is just fine? I can’t quite figure it out. And on an ancillary note, would it be useful for the non-tweeters to have special tweeting sections at conferences? I can see how the tapping could be distracting, but I’m not convinced it would be necessary.

Today I got a press release from a company that was making an “>interesting offer: If a conference organizer uses the company’s services in response to an attendee’s referral, the company is offering to reimburse that attendee up to $500 in registration fees as a “thank-you” bonus.

I have never heard of anyone in the conference space doing something like this, but, while it seems like it could be a bit unwieldy to manage if it really catches on, what a cool idea. Leave it to the social networking folks to come up with an attendee incentive to market their stuff. I just hope that those who take advantage of it really think this is a good service for their conference, and aren’t just in it for the free reg!

Or at least it gives you some serious tools to work with, on both strategic and tactical levels. It’s called 42 Rules for a Web Presence that Wins. It’s written by 15-year Web veteran Philippa Gamse (full disclosure: I’ve been a fan of hers for almost that long), and it’s slender size belies the hefty number of info nuggets it packs.

She broke up the 40 rules (the first and last are more introduction and wrapup) into four categories: Management-level issues; things to think about when setting strategy and tactics; how to create content that connects your organization with your site visitors/social media contacts; and how to go about measuring results. Each short chapter (rules are no more than two pages apiece) includes an aforementioned nugget of insight from Philippa and some real-world examples of how that insight plays out for actual people and organizations. She also has scattered throughout the book interviews with all manner of experts, from the meeting industry’s own John Foster of Foster, Jensen & Gully LLC, to Rob Siefker, who is the director of the Zappos Customer Loyalty Team.

Just a few of the many aha moments I had in reading this book:
• Beware the Web designer! Their job is to make the site look good, but they don’t necessarily know your audience, your goals, and what is and isn’t currently working with your site. There’s an example in that chapter (Rule 14) of what can happen when designers run amok that’ll make your hair curl.

• Create a strategy for every single page of your site (Rule 20). Key quote: “You should always be aware of the paths you’d like visitors to take, and provide appropriate links and clickable calls to action that consistently move them forward.” That clickable calls to action thing is so important, and yet so often we forget to give people a hint on how to keep moving through the site to register for the meeting, or book the hotel, or, in our case, read another related article. Then we moan about bounce rates. Doh!

• Sometimes it’s OK to have high bounce rates. This is something I’ve always suspected, but it’s good to see it in print. You may have a segment of your audience that is supposed to just be “one and done,” and that’s just fine. Just be sure to keep Rule 20 in mind for those you want to have stick around, explore, and open their wallets.

• Another thing that really rang for me is similar to the figuring out your why I was pondering this morning. Once you figure that out, or at least what you offer that your audience can’t get from anyone but you, let visitors know early and often. Philippa offers a great suggestion from brand strategist Vickie Sullivan on how to formulate that value: “We (the business) combine A with B, so you (the customer) get C. And the more unrelated A and B are, the more compelling the value proposition will be.” For example, in Phillipa’s case, Sullivan says, “[Philippa] combines strategic advice for a compelling web presence with return on investment, so you get an online brand with emotional appeal that drives revenue, too.” Which pretty much sums up the book as well.

I haven’t had the chance to watch it, but I hear this free webinar of highlights from the book is pretty good, too. I’m going to keep both handy next time we head into a site redesign.

If you’ve ever struggled over when, how, and if you should charge for your content, Dan Loomis has put together another really useful post on the Big Ideas blog outlining how you don’t need to pick just one way of pricing content for, in the case of associations, members and nonmembers.

He advocates for what he calls a “hybrid content strategy” that includes a mix of free-to-all content (older evergreen info, teasers for premium content, etc.); free or discounted premium content just for members; premium content for conference attendee eyes only (such as conference content for 90 days post-con); and some fee-only content that anyone can buy.

This is his second post on this topic lately, and I like this one even more than the last one.

I’m downloading this one now: Jets, the travel app that fills you in on where the best seats are on your flight (and the worst). Kind of like SeatGuru for your iPhone.

You may be getting a good handle on how to manage hybrid meetings, but what about special events? I would imagine it’s pretty tough to bring a sense of the experience of a flash mob or a chef challenge to those not actually at the event. But some are doing it—here’s how, courtesy of Special Events.

Dan Loomis at the Great Ideas blog takes on the controversial issue of whether an association’s online content should be for free or for a fee (remember the big debate when MPI decided to charge for the online versions of its conference sessions a few years back?).

Rather than take a side, though, he points to the benefits of both, and instead gives a pretty useful set of questions to ask before you decide, and some more resources to help guide your policymaking. Good stuff.

Can you even imagine how cool this must have been in person if it’s this amazing on video?

Thanks to @JeffHurt and Conference Basics for the pointers.

And this time, they’re not from me! Enjoy.

Adrian Segar on possible fixes for hybrid technology glitches/time delays (with some good responses in the comments as well)

CeCe Salomon-Lee on three technologies that may (or may not) be ready for prime time at more hybrid events.

Brandt Krueger from the sponsorship perspective. I hope he’s wrong, that others do understand just how cool the #ECTC11 sponsors are for being willing and able to go all out supporting something as audacious as this conference (and how well they performed their parts in the event). Stuff happens, folks.

Jenise Fryatt: If You’re Not Breaking Things, You’re Not Experimenting . I particularly love this part, which falls under the heading of Why Progress is So Difficult:

“We event industry professionals are perfectionists. Because we’ve seen proof that experimentation does lead to innovation, we’ll pay lip-service to its value all day long. But when it actually comes to failing publicly, do we have the guts to follow through and support such efforts?”

EventCamp Twin Cities did, and I for one applaud them for it. Our industry associations have been doing some interesting things, too, but they (especially those who serve my market niche, continuing medical education providers) tend to stay away from the bleeding edge because, well, they don’t want to get cut. I understand the urge to wait until all the kinks have been worked out.

But I’m glad there are people like ECTC11 organizers Samuel Smith and Ray Hansen out there breaking the eggs so we can all eat a really good hybrid meeting omelet. Thanks, and don’t let the critics get you down. It went about 95 percent right for this participant, which is pretty high in my experience.

Update: Here’s another one, from Corinne Kessel, a fellow EventCamp newbie who talks about her experience in the Vancouver pod. I love this quote: “I am thrilled to have been a part of such a radical attempt at event innovation. Things failed. But so much was learned.”

Update 2: Cameron Toth has rounded up a few more, plus photos and videos.