A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

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DEGREE PROJECT IN MEDIA TECHNOLOGY, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2016

A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

On the prospects for a business event

application of mutual value to attendees and organizers

ANNA MARIA STIPIC

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A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

On the prospects for a business event application of mutual value to attendees and organizers

En ny kanal för organisering och distribuering av företagsevent inom B2B

Om möjligheterna för en mobilapplikation för företagsevent som kan ge ett delat värde till både eventbesökare och eventar rangörer

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NNA

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ARIA

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TIPIC stipic@kth.se

Royal Institute of Technology Master Thesis Report in Media Technology 23 June 2016

Supervisor: Christopher Rosenqvist External supervisors at BBM: Terry Potter and M artin Mellgren Examiner: Haibo Li

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Abstract

In this networked society, where social media becomes a natural meeting place, the need for physical encounters is greater than ever. In the business world, business events are a way for people to satisfy this need while they at the same time get the opportunity to exchange skills, information and experiences with other colleagues, thus expanding their and their company’s competencies.

This report looks at how business events are distributed today and investigates the interest for a new channel where business events are collected which is of mutual value for business event organizers and attendees. In order to understand the needs of event organizers and attendees a survey has been conducted consisting of a questionnaire, interviews and a focus group, which helped pinpoint three relevant themes: discover, organize and connect. The themes were based on wishes left by the respondents, declaring that finding information about events were a difficult and time consuming procedure. They wanted an easier way to find interesting events and sorting out those that were of relevance to their jobs and surrounding areas. Similarly the organizers had noticed an increasingly competitive market making it difficult to reach customers. It was also observed by the organizers that people go to events to network, leading to the conclusion that one element of the service should be about connecting with colleagues, possible business partners and other interesting people.

As a result, a design proposal was presented in the form of a mockup of a mobile application interface where the themes were present as sections of a quick access menu. To conclude, the report discusses suggestions on how to proceed with the design proposal and makes recommendations on future research on the development of an app for business events.

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Sammanfattning

I ett samhälle som präglas av nätverkande och där sociala medier blivit en naturlig mötesplats, är behovet av fysiska möten större än någonsin. Företagsevent är ett sätt att fylla det behovet, samtidigt som man får möjlighet att utbyta kunskaper, information och erfarenheter med andra kollegor för att utveckla sin kompetens och därmed bli en större tillgång till företaget.

Denna rapport tittar på hur företagsevent distribueras idag och undersöker intresset för en ny digital kanal som samlar aktuella företagsevent och som är av gemensamma intressen för företagare och kunder. För att förstå organisatörernas och användarnas behov har en undersökning genomförts bestående av en enkät, intervjuer och en fokusgrupp. Resultatet av undersökningen visar på tre relevanta teman, upptäck (discover), organisera (organize) och nätverka (connect), som skulle fungera som stöttepelare för en ny kanal. Dessa teman har framkommit i och med att de tillfrågade ansåg att det var svårt och tidskrävande att leta upp information om nya företagsevent. De ville ha ett enklare sätt att upptäcka intressanta event och möjligheten att sortera ut de event som var relevanta i relation till yrkesområden och intressen. Samtidigt har eventarrangörerna märkt av en allt tuffare konkurrens på marknaden som gör det svårt att nå kunder. Observationen att nätverkande är en stor faktor när det kommer till varför man deltar i företagsevent ledde till slutsatsen att en del av tjänsten ska tillåta kontaktutbyte med kollegor och andra intressanta personer.

Slutligen presenteras ett konceptuellt designförslag i form av en mockup av en mobilapplikation där nämnda teman implementeras i varsina delar i en snabbåtkomstsmeny. Avslutningsvis diskuteras förslag på hur man kan gå vidare med designförslaget samt rekommendationer om fortsatt utveckling av en tjänst för företagsevent.

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1. Introduction

This introductory chapter addresses the scope of the thesis with a brief background and the main purpose and delimitations of the research .

The post-millennium era has been packed with technological innovation, and the rise of online communication offers endless possibilities for companies to widen their clientele and further spread their philosophy. In the world of business-to-business (B2B), hosting business events for exchanging skills, information and experiences is a good way of making and keeping customers satisfied. While such events are held in the form of seminars and conferences at a set venue, the distribution of them is more often found online. As the Internet is a complex environment it can be difficult to find the most ideal way of marketing a certain event and there is a need for an infrastructure that supports several important features that are demanded by both companies and their customers. Currently, tools that are commonly used for distributing business events are email subscriptions and digital newsletters.

However, the general workload related to email has increased since the introduction of the electronic communication tool and it is one of the factors as to why office workers are currently reporting the highest level of stress in history (Jerejian et al., 2013). Hence, sending emails could be seen as a problematic way of spreading information (Hair et al., 2007) and should, if possible, be replaced by a more ideal digital tool.

This master thesis has been made in collaboration with Bonnier Business Media (BBM), a large media company that reaches 440 000 decision makers (Mellgren, 2016) through its magazines and hosts approximately 200 business events each year. The company has been a stakeholder to the project and initiated the idea of a channel for collecting its own business events. It has been hosting a research space and provided means to the study in the form of data and employees and regular meetings have been held over the course of the research to keep an overview of the process.

1.1 Purpose

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the correlating trends of business event organizers and users and what problems they see in today’s event processes. By looking at features of existing services for event organizing and combining them with successful calendar functions, a new type of platform could be developed that would facilitate event planning for both business event hosts and attendees. It is central to find out whether there is a want or need from either end of the chain to improve existing alternatives. By collecting empirical data from business event organizers and attendees it is possible that an intersection can be revealed which will lead to a conceptual design proposal.

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1.2 Problem Definition

The main question for this research is the following:

What relevant trends and needs should be taken into consideration when creating a channel for business- to-business events of mutual value to attendees and organizers?

In order to fully answer this question the following sub questions will be addressed:

▪ What are the current practices when organizing business events?

▪ What possibilities do event organizers see regarding a new channel concerning B2B events?

▪ What are the main purposes for attending B2B events?

▪ What tools and functions for finding business events are the most important and relevant to users?

1.3 Delimitations

Creating a new platform is an extensive process which cannot be fully covered within this research. The life span of an event can be subcategorized in four different areas; organizing, distributing, exploring and evaluating. Organizing is centered on the process of coming up with an event and finding the material needed, such as speakers, venues and catering, to pursue it. Distributing and exploring both deals with promoting an event seen from a company or a customer view. Evaluating takes place in the hindsight of an event and is a significant part for both the host and the attendee. The scope for this thesis work is to cover the second and third areas, distributing and exploring. This means that organizing and evaluating of an event will not be covered. The research work will be limited to the experience of interviewees, both at the stakeholder company and other companies, and questionnaire respondents and focus group participants who are past attendees of the business events that are organized within BBM.

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2. Theoretical Background

This chapter addresses a brief background including theories of design strategy , a competitive analysis of the current market of event services as well as an exposition of how an event at the stakeholder company is executed . Information in this chapter comes from initial research as well as meetings and short interviews with employees of BBM.

2.1 Power Shift and Digital Disruption

According to Schmidt & Cohen (2010) connection technologies, such as mobile phones and other communication tools, are going to change the way authority is being perceived. With over five billion mobile phone users and over two billion Internet hubs, communication is occurring across borders forming virtual communities and empowering small voices. The authors call this space the interconnected estate and argue that those two tools can be used to make great change.

Similarly Kietzmann et al. (2011) say that the world is in the midst of a new communication landscape.

The rise of social media has employed highly interactive platforms via which individuals and communities can share, co-create, discuss and modify user-generated content. The power has been taken from companies marketing by the individuals and digital communities making their pinions heard through social media. The importance of being present among the customers makes it critical for large companies to understand these new platforms in order to keep their customers and broaden their audiences.

Kietzmann et al. present guidelines consisting of four C’s; cognize, congruity, curate and chase. First of all, a company must understand the social media landscape and recognize where the conversations about the company are being held. Congruity refers to the need to develop social media strategies that are congruent to the goals of the company. Since the company knows where its customers are, it must decide what use that information can give the company and why. When it comes to moderating the conversation a curator is needed. The gist of the third C is to make sure that the social media is continuously taken care of from the company’s side. Finally, chase is about always looking for new trends and being among the front runners. Companies must scan their environments in order to understand the velocity of conversations that could affect their position in the market (McCarthy et al., 2010 cited in Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 250).

2.2 Design Strategy for B2B Communities

Brooks et al. (2013) discuss design strategies for building online B2B communities and argue that designing a community is comparable to setting a stage for conversation and is a way of encouraging collaboration and teamwork among customers. By finding the right venue users will develop a sense of

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the opportunity to increase communication with the customer and by engaging them in continuous evaluation they will feel intrinsically rewarded.

It is critical to be aware of the social maturity of the customers, meaning having a sense of how willing the group is to participate in social forums. There will always be passive users of any social forum, but in order to have a successful venue there is a need for a certain amount of active users. There may be a significant difference in how familiar they are of some features and in what environments they feel secure depending on age, interests and previous experiences. If the audience consists of users who are more comfortable using older media such as email rather than Facebook, adding an email feature to the new platform might be an idea in order to progressively adapt their preferences and turn the whole group of users into a unison community. Another way of gaining activity is to have a reward-and- motivation system with levels based on activity. This feature would be appealing to people who are used to gamified environments from console playing but also for others, who are more or less competitive in their nature, if applied properly. When it comes to professional communities and B2B environments the privacy preferences of the audience is important to keep in mind. A more private or restricted community could possibly be necessary to gain the amount of trust needed for the platform, and the validation process of professional credentials needs to be reliable and trustworthy (Brooks et al., 2013).

2.3 Current Event Market

Today there is a number of calendar platforms specialized in distributing events for individuals, i.e.

business-to-consumer. Eventbrite.com¹ and Meetup.com² are examples of successful channels, with calendar functions, for hosting event invitations within different areas. Additionally, packages that includes tickets and registration management and a start-to-finish service with analytic features are common business ideas that are useful for closed events and for smaller businesses that only do a few conferences a year. Such services do not keep a collected calendar function for users to browse among different events, but are solely made for the event hosts’ benefit and to facilitate organizing issues.

Mobility is becoming important for the newer actors, having services such as checking in guests via tablets and keeping real time statistics of different factors such as correspondence tracking and seating charts. Tedx³, which is a license for hosting educational events under the Ted brand, has a color coding function which shows whether an event still has seats, is almost full or fully booked. This is a visual aid that is typically seen in venue booking websites.

1 www.eventbrite.com

2 www.meetup.com

3 https://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/tedx-program

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Consequently, there seems to be a missing market space for distributing business related events that combines calendar and browsing functions with aids for organizing and hosting and thus there are possibilities for creating a new service. The question has been raised by the hosting company of whether there is a want or need for filling that market space and how it could possibly be done.

2.4 Current event processes at BBM and two other event companies

The current process for creating an event at BBM is different depending on who the project leader is as it is not an established procedure. At first it is determined that an event will take place and what it will be about. For annual events the initial planning starts right after an event has been held but intense work cannot begin until three months before the next one. That is the time when speakers are contacted, venues are booked and partners are established. Each speaker requires a lot of preparation and research from the project group. Closer to the event check offs are done, and after an event comes evaluations. The project leader must also send out prizes and create slideshows with pictures from the event for the attendees.

BBM carries several different lists of subscribers and decision makers in different places that are updated manually. This means that contact information can be duplicated, inaccurate or in other ways faulty. In addition to this, events that are held under a specific brand, such as Resumé, will only be promoted to customers of said brand. Thus, events that discusses a broad theme may not be promoted to a broad enough audience leading to a mismatch between the host and the attendees.

A startup which is organizing educational events in Stockholm, begins with having an internal discussion regarding what themes and ideas could be used. The team looks at advantages and disadvantages with a certain idea and try to dissect it to make sure that the company will be able to sell the event. When it comes to speakers and moderators an external company is hired for its expertise in creating successful setups. Another event company operating in Stockholm works with hosting business trips, promotional events and trade shows for its clients. When they come in contact with a new client they have meetings where they go over what the client is interested in doing and what would be most suitable. Sometimes the clients want to do something impossible and then there is a process of scaling down the idea, while at other times they are from the beginning open for suggestions from the event company.

A middle-sized event company, based in Stockholm with a solid customer base, often begins its process with a meeting with the client. The two parties discuss the goal of the event and what possibilities they have. It is normal that the visions of the parties are different and the final product then becomes as close to the customer’s wishes as possible but with certain realistic constraints when it comes to budget, venues and guest lists. As an agreement is made, planning immediately commences and concludes in a

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3. Related work

The third chapter presents research papers that are related to the scope of this repo rt and their findings.

3.1 Connected Learning, Coworking Spaces and Matchmaking

As our networked society continues to lead humans into networked individuals the need for social hubs for interacting is increasing, according to Bilandzic (2013). Public libraries make room for digital and physical coworking spaces while decreasing the number of bookshelves and telepresence is making the leap into the office space. Coworking spaces allows for people to work and engage in other interest- driven activities. Bilandzic uses a case study of a library completely free from books to design a solution for such a space. By using a self-invented approach of participatory action design research a deeper understanding of design challenges can be made. While the approach is not entirely suitable for this research, inspiration will be drawn from it when it comes to the networking aspect of business events.

The social need for interaction is also evident in the many matchmaking websites emerging on the Internet. Newer websites, specifically those that target marriage-minded people, uses a matchmaking algorithm to find potential partners to their users. While Wu et al. (2015) main focus is that such matchmaking sites faces is a dilemma between finding a good matchmaking algorithm and keeping their customers unsatisfied in order to keep making money, there are also discussions regarding the value of finding good matches. The authors mean that when there is a finite goal of finding the right match, there will not be enough incentive for creating a perfect algorithm, but when there is an uncertainty of whether this goal can be reached the creator has to keep the service effective enough for the users to stay with the service and the gain must be interesting enough that consumers are motivated to pay for it.

3.2 Tools for guiding users during events

Dey et al. (1999) have created a prototype for assisting conference attendees using computer wearables. The authors argues that conferences contain a lot of information and concurrent activity making the environment an interesting context for using an assistant of that kind. The prototype allows for the user to take notes and access a speaker’s presentation slides during a presentation. The user would also be able to take control of the projector view during discussion sessions and allowing for the whole room to see a certain presentation slide connected to a question which the user wants to ask. A more recent study presents the event tool Confer, initiated in 2013, which serves as a guide to help the user find interesting papers and meet people with similar interests during academic conferences by organizing a personalized schedule for the event (Zhang et al., 2016). In the program users can search for and mark interesting papers by adding them to a starred list. Once this list is long enough a personalized schedule for the conference will be generated as a suggestion to the user. The authors

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concluded the report by suggesting a future version should include a way of helping attendees to meet each other during the conference based on their special interests by similarly star personal profiles. The Confer tool is similar to the smartphone application MCKit, a conference organizer which was also presented in 2013. This app, which was specifically created for a certain conference, allows the user to add interesting activities of the conference to a built-in calendar. The networking aspect were recognized here as well, and it played an important part in the app in the form of a business card exchange. All of the conference attendees had a QR code on their guest badges containing the information typically found on a business card. Upon meeting an interesting person contact information could easily be exchanged by letting the app scan the QR code on the badge. Consequently users would then have an electronic storage for their business contacts which would make them easier to manage.

Social functions were implemented in the design and an awareness of having to find a balance between information availability and privacy was thereupon expressed (Zhan and Chiu, 2014).

These aforementioned papers indicates that there is an untouched space and an interest for developing certain aspects of the event industry. Due to the novel insights and knowledge provided within these papers, this research will offer an additional perspective on the subject as it is a study of the trends of an event platform specialized on business events that could have mutual value for both event organizers and attendees.

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4. Methodology

The following section presents the research method used to conduct the thesis project.

It describes the kind of data that was collected in order to answer the research question.

In order to design a prototype for B2B events it was critical to understand the current landscape of competitors and therefore a competitive analysis of the market was performed. Additionally a quantitative survey was conducted where a questionnaire was sent out to attendees of past business events in Stockholm. In coordination with Keitzmann et al. (2011) and their four C’s it was essential to find out where the users were present and in what direction the conversation was heading. Qualitative interviews were held with employees and decision-makers of event related companies to find out about organizational needs for a new channel, what current problems there were and what aspects that were working well. The empirical data of the questionnaire and interviews were matched together and compared to each other. The analysis lead up to the creation of a prototype which then served as an example of what a finished platform could look like. By inviting questionnaire respondents and employees of a BBM to two focus groups, a deeper understanding of the thoughts of the two user groups of the platform could be obtained.

4.1 Competitive Analysis

The purpose of making a competitive analysis was to see overall trends in the market, what industry leaders were doing and what types of products that were popular (Saffer, 2009). It was desired to find an unused market space with unsolved problems that could show that current options were insufficient Kim & Mauborgne (2005). A web search of keywords related to the subject resulted in a number of services whose properties, tools, advantages and disadvantages were subsequently compared to each other. By looking at existing services and their qualities it was made possible to position the product into a desired environment in order to make it successful for the organizers and valuable for its users.

The results of the analysis is presented in the theoretical background within this report.

4.2 Questionnaire

With the help of a web-based tool from Netigate.se⁴, a set of questions regarding business events were created. For the complete list of questions, see appendix A. Likert scales were used throughout a majority of the questions. They are widely used for measuring opinions and evaluating user satisfaction and consist of a scale ranging from a negative to a positive opinion of a subject (Sharp et al., 2007). A scale from 1-7 was used; the uneven number allowed for the respondent to have a neutral option in the middle.

4 http://www.netigate.net/sv/

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The questionnaire was created in order to find out what event attendees wanted. From BBM lists of the company’s past event attendees were obtained and used as a source for reaching a selection of the intended target group. The questionnaire was initially sent out to 75 people via email to make sure that the language and setup was understandable and manageable. After being tested the questionnaire, which varied between open and closed questions, was sent out to 3031 people with a total of two email reminders over two weeks. 502 respondents finished the questionnaire which answered to 0.1 percent of the desired population of 440 000 decision makers in corporate Sweden. Despite the large number of receivers a number of open questions were necessary in order to get a broad view of their thoughts and reflections.

4.3 Interviews

Semi-structured interviews, which combined elements of structured and unstructured interviews (Sharp et al., 2007), were held with three people working at three different companies of varying size. At the two smaller ones, a new startup company and a medium-sized event business, interviews were held with the CEO of the company. The larger company was the media group BBM, where the interview was held with an event producer and project leader of the event department. A script with a set of questions were guiding the interviews but the interviewees were allowed to speak their minds and answer as fully or as briefly as they wished. A full list of the questions can be seen in appendix B.

4.4 Focus Groups

Two focus groups were held in order to pinpoint the wants and needs of the users, in addition to the questionnaire and interviews. Using the method of focus groups allowed for open questions with more elaborate responses than those conducted by the questionnaire (Sharp et al., 2007). The sessions were recorded using a condenser microphone with omni pick up in order to capture the exposition of each respondent. Each participant were given a non-disclosure agreement, a pen and a pack of Post-It notes.

The first group consisted of six participants, two women and four men, who had attended between five to ten events during the past six months. The second group consisted of six employees of BBM, one woman and five men, and those participants had attended between one to ten events during the past six months. The employees held different positions within IT, digital production and marketing, meaning their opinions and ideas would be valuable for the development of the research. Both sessions were moderated by two facilitators. The participants were seated opposite each other in order to encourage a discussion between each other rather than with the facilitators (Sharp et al., 2007).

Divided into two parts, the first segment consisted of discussion questions regarding the participants’

perspective of events. The questions were similar to those asked in the questionnaire but with the

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purpose of generating a discussion between the participants. The second segment had the participants answering a question printed on a paper which was placed in front of each of them. The question said:

What functions would you expect to find when visiting a new channel where business events were compiled?

□ Categories related to you industry

□ Personal log in function, with “my pages”

□ Possibility to provide written feedback to event coordinators and/or speakers for B2B events you have attended

□ Calendar over upcoming events during the next week

□ A personalized calendar for B2B events you have registered for

□ A personalized calendar for B2B events of interest.

□ Continuous recommendations on events that would suit your personal requirements

The participants were told to motivate and compare their choices to each other. After this they were asked to write down design ideas, possibilities, restrictions and spontaneous reactions regarding a channel for business events on Post-It notes. Both of these tasks were intended to create discussions and generate useful ideas for the research. The complete script for the focus groups can be viewed in appendix C.

4.5 Conceptual Design

Largely based on data from the questionnaire and the interviews a conceptual design proposal was created using Adobe Experience Design⁵. Learnings from the survey methods were the basis of a brainstorming session where Post-It notes were used as representations of concepts and ideas for a new service. This generated a list of activities needed for the design (Saffer, 2009). The design was initially created using pens and colored paper and approved by supervisors at the stakeholder company before being finalized in the digital design program.

The design was briefly presented to the second focus group consisting of employees of the stakeholder company and the group was asked to give a brief feedback about the elements of the design in order to confirm or dismiss certain features.

5 http://www.adobe.com/se/products/experience-design.html

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5. Results

The results section presents what was gathered from the performed survey. The chapter is structured after each method and the order it was performed.

Key findings of the different methods were the following:

▪ The response frequency of the questionnaire was 16.5 percent

▪ The customers wanted to use business events for networking and to expand their competencies

▪ Respondents wanted to attend more business events than they did today

▪ Lack of time was the main reason for not searching for business events

▪ The respondents saw opportunities for a new channel for business events

▪ Public information vs. privacy was an issue

▪ Focus group participants were open to sharing some information

▪ Search functions and cross-filtering functions were desired

▪ Personalized functionality was essential if the participants were to use a new channel

▪ Push notifications was a welcomed element

5.1 Questionnaire

A questionnaire was sent out to event attendants of past events hosted by three major magazines;

Veckans affärer, Dagens medicin and Resumé. Veckans affärer had 989 event attendants, Dagens medicin had 1469 event attendants, and Resumé had 573 event attendants, leading up to a total of 3031 people receiving a link to the questionnaire, see table one. Out of the 3031 people 502 responses, or 16.6 %, were received in total. The following results will only take the 502 respondents and their answers in consideration.

Table 1: The number of people who a) received the questionnaire, b) left before finishing and c) completed all the questions.

Veckans affärer Dagens medicin Resumé Total

a) Receivers 989 1469 573 3031

b) Respondents, did not finish 254 213 161 628

c) Respondents, did finish 213 163 126 502

Percentage 21.5 11.1 22.0 16.6

5.1.1 Attendance

The respondents were, upon evaluation, divided into two groups depending on how many events they had attended in the past six months. The first group consisted of respondents who had attended a maximum of three events and the other group consisted of respondents who had attended at least four events over the same period. In the first group over half of the respondents, 52 percent, felt that they went on too few business events, while only 33 percent felt the same way in the group with a more frequent attendance.

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A supplementary question was asked to those who replied that they went on too few events asking the respondent why they did not attend more events (figure one). Each respondent could pick at least one and a maximum of two alternatives in no particular order, meaning the total number of responses could range from 218-436. For this question the differences in results between the groups were insignificant and the top three options, in order, for both groups were:

1. Participation fees are too high (129 people)

2. It is difficult to find information about business events (74 people)

3. It is time consuming to find information about business events (65 people)

Figure 1: Chart for 218 respondents who wanted to attend more business events, showing the reasons as to why they did not.

The most prominent answer was that the participation fees were too high with 36 percent of all the respondents choosing that option. The cost for participating is, however, a problem which cannot be solved within the scope of this research and as it is an extraneous factor it will not be taken into account as major concern. Consequently, the main reasons for not attending more events were that it was difficult and time consuming to search for information about business events. It is notable that among the eighteen percent of the respondents choosing “other”, a significant amount indicated that a lack of time was the critical factor. Out of 63 free text responses, 55 included the words “time” or “high workload” while the other eight were either blank or cited other factors.

One of the questions that all of the respondents had to answer was “What were the main reasons for your latest attendance to a business event?”, see figure two. Once again, they could choose between one and two alternatives. Three reasons were significantly more popular than the rest;

64 65

129 4

13 9

74

Other It is time consuming to find information about business

events

Participation fees are too high Travel costs are too high There are not enough business events where I live or

work

My company will not allow me to attend It is difficult to find information about business events

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

What are the main reasons as to why you do not attend

more business events?

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1. To get new information within my line of business (273 people) 2. To network (185 people)

3. To expand my competencies (134 people)

The additional alternatives received few votes, with the option “other” being the lowest with 14 votes.

The open answers that the last option prompted were scattered and gave no analytical value.

Figure 2: Chart for all 502 respondents, showing the reasons as to why they attended their latest business events.

5.1.2 Methods for Receiving Event Information

A large number of the respondents claimed email subscriptions as their main source of information for business events. The follow-up question was constructed in such a way that the respondents chose their top alternatives, in order, and when looking at each respondents top three alternatives, email was the preferred method of receiving information about business events, as can be seen in figures three and four.

The second most popular option was to get information via social media and the third was through an app on the mobile, tablet or computer. An attempt at cross-segmenting, by grouping the respondents after what method of information they normally used and look at each group’s preferred alternatives, showed little variation from the preferences of the complete group of 502 respondents.

14

273 22

134 70

25

185 18

65

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Other To get new information within my line of business To do business To expand my competencies The keynote speakers were interesting To market my company To network My superior officers requested me to attend My own initiative

What were the main reasons for your latest attendance to a

business event?

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Figures 3 and 4: Charts showing how respondents usually received information about business events and how they would prefer to receive said information.

5.1.3 Other Comments

The final question opened up for discussions and generated comments that were overall positive towards a new channel for business events. “A ‘portal’ for event would be perfect” and “Build the app!”

were two of the respondents’ feedback. Some constructive suggestions were offered of wanting a tool that was not dependent on one’s work email as this changes with every switch of employment. “When you change your job, and thus your work email, you lose many invites. An app that isn’t dependent on your current work email would be appreciated.” Another respondent claimed that they wanted to see the whole spectra of events for the upcoming three to six months so that they could plan their personal calendar. Other respondents referred to social media being the most relevant place to advertise events.

“Social media is a good way of reaching out” said one respondent. “Go to social media, that’s where we are!” said another one. There were some respondents that did not see as much potential in a new channel. “I don’t think that events are enough top of mind to get its own channel”. Yet another respondent thought that they would not visit the app very often due to a busy work schedule, the same respondent continued “I only attend events if I get an interesting invitation.”

5.2 Interviews

Interviews were held with three people working at three different companies connected to business events. The interviews were built up in the same way but also left space for open reflections regarding the subject of research. The first interview was held with a CEO of a medium sized event company, from here on referenced to as Richard⁶. The second interview was with another CEO of a smaller company, from here on referenced to as Erlich. Finally a third interview was held with an employee of BBM, an event producer and project leader, from here on referenced to as Monica.

6 The written names of the interviewees are not their real names.

6 84 9

450 157

3

139 39

55

0 100 200 300 400 500 Other

Through event hosts' own webpages…

Through web pages specializing in…

Through email Through social media Via telephone Get tips from my colleagues or boss Through ads in magazines Through an app on my mobile, tablet…

How do you normally receive information about upcoming business events?

31

158 115

349 253 70

202 118

210

0 100 200 300 400

Other Through event hosts' own webpages…

Through web pages specializing in…

Through email Through social media Via telephone Get tips from my colleagues or boss Through ads in magazines Through an app on my mobile, tablet…

How would you prefer to receive information about upcoming business events?

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The smaller company consisted of only five employees but hosted several educational seminars and events. Ten of their events each year had at least 150 visitors while the other ones were held in a significantly smaller context. Erlich compared his company style to a matchmaking company. “We are matchmakers, we create forums for exchanging knowledge.” The middle sized event company claimed to host 120-150 events each year, while the biggest one, BBM, hosted 200 events each year. Richard mentioned that “Things that are important for our business is to do product launches, business trade shows and conferences because that is where we make money”.

5.2.1 The Business Event Market

The interviewees were asked to describe their view of what the market looked like today and if it was changing in any way. Erlich talked about the competition and said that there were many companies that pop up out of nowhere: “Some of them go out of business and others become successful and start making money”. He continued by saying that his company was lucky enough to have a wide selection of competencies and people who have been working in different industries for years. He noted that his employees were very driven. “It can be difficult to be forceful if you do not know how to do things the right way”. Richard said that the requirements were much higher today and that the business had become much more competitive. Although he thinks that the overall turnover is the same, there are more companies competing over the same revenue. “Ten years ago the event business was hyped and companies could spend money on a teambuilding trip without knowing what they paid for. Today they know more, and they demand a motivation as to why a certain solution has a higher cost.” Monica was of a similar opinion and thought that the pace was faster today. She thought that there were too many events at her company and felt that she never could get the time to reflect upon her work. An observation that Monica had made during her time in the event business was that the guests want to network to a bigger extent than before. “Networking is the big thing today”. Richard mentioned that

“sometimes sales managers or even CMOs at companies come to us with the desire to create a massive party for their employees who are distinctly older and with other types of interests than them”.

Sometimes the event company knows its customers and their lines of business better than they do. “We see and hear more than they do because we are working everywhere”. There are occasions where a customer have no idea what to do and then the company comes with suggestions. Another case could be long time customers who book a meeting only to say “we already told our staff that we are doing an event with you so you can just do what you usually do”.

Richard believed that the business would become more quantifiable and innovative in the future. “In order to stand out among other event and advertising companies we talk about creating brand emotion.

[B]rand emotion can build relations inside of a company or between a company and its clients”. His

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would mean that his company was on the trail for success. Erlich talked about building loyalty. He mentioned that his company had a loyal network of speakers for its events but that the same was needed between clients and sponsors as well. “That loyalty is difficult to build between us and the attendees of events. Brand awareness needs to be considered and the customers need to be reached not only during, but before and after an event.”

5.2.2 Promoting Events

At Erlich’s company events are promoted through Google Adwords and social media advertisements.

“Since we are a startup we do not have an unlimited amount of money to put on marketing. We work a lot in different digital networks on Linkedin and Facebook which is somewhat effective” he said but continued by noting that it is difficult to differentiate the company and its events enough. The company uses three different networks; partners, speakers and attendees, where the partners also serve as a means of promoting the company and its events. “They can either pay to participate on an event or do an activity with the attendees and in exchange they get publicity and hot leads” he continued. He found it important to work with content marketing, but he did not think there is an optimal channel for a company operating within several lines of business. “It is difficult to find a channel that is broad enough”.

The events at BBM were promoted via the company’s own channels such as websites and prints of their magazines. However the most effective way to promote the events were via email subscriptions and newsletters. Monica stressed that events were used as a way of promoting the magazines, which are the company’s products, but are additionally held to generate profit on their own as well. “We have seminars and event that we try to make as attractive as possible. We try to make the customers want to attend and want to hang with us”. Furthermore she noted that “People like getting a physical mail invite, but it is too expensive and takes too much time”.

Richard was concerned about the difficulties in selling events because he saw it as selling an emotion and noted that “it is difficult because it isn’t quantifiable”. The company leaned on social media and the word of mouth to promote itself. “Sales are very relationship driven, the customers have to feel the mood of the event during our sales pitches and during the whole process”. Monica concurred “it is difficult to keep customers, they are very busy and many competitors are fighting over them. It is very competitive”. A big challenge for the media group is that companies start to make their own events.

“Since being a big media company doesn’t have the same powerful ring to it today they are starting to feel like they do not need us. I think we need to find another way to reach them”.

5.2.3 Is There Space For a New Channel?

On the question of whether events were an upwards trend or not Richard answered: “Events are essential, you have to have events if you want to build your brand. It is an important live channel, but in

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the future events will be more than traditional networking evenings”. Erlich was unsure about the future status for events. “Above all, it is a very competitive market. I think it is growing a bit but there is also a kind of cannibalism”.

“Personally I think that events will be held in a different form than today” Monica speculated and made a remark that she found the current situation too crowded. “People have a need to meet each other and exchange ideas and thoughts, but I think it will be a different kind of setup. My bet is on more exclusive meetups in more intimate contexts”. Monica concluded the discussion with saying that she wished for a new system where things did not have to be done manually. She said that she would like to have an easier way of tracking and keeping in contact with attendees. “It would be nice if you could maintain them with information and make them excited about the event and make the actual event the

“grand finale”. It would be a way of giving them more value.” She continued that such a system should also contain an information bank of speakers and venues. “That would be brilliant”.

5.3 Focus Groups

5.3.1 Learning in Combination with Networking

In an attempt to further investigate the thoughts of business event attendees and organizers, two focus groups were held. Having the same setup, one group consisted of questionnaire respondents who had been invited through the form, and the other group consisted of employees of BBM. Figure five illustrates the setting of the sessions. The focus groups began with a semi-structured discussion moderated by two facilitators and continued with a section where the participants were asked to rank a set of features for the platform and write down their thoughts regarding a new platform or service for business events.

The networking aspect was brought up as the most important thing about business events by two of the participants. The physical encounter between people, whether you are selling or presenting something or if you are networking, was acknowledged as fundamental and the idea of meeting people from other stages in their life was appealing. “There are different generations, so you avoid staying in your old swamp and get a chance follow the new trends”. One participant said that the importance, and difficulty, for event organizers is to attract people. One participant in the second group goes to events to represent his company and if he were to pay for an event it would need to have a lot of interesting information and business benefits. “I also go to networking events, but more seldom, because I do not feel that they provide any value for me”.

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Figure 5: Set up of the focus group.

Both groups agreed that business events are good for keeping up to date with the industry and that they are an efficient way to learn new things. It was compared to a university for adults where you can get new ideas and meet new people. One participant said that he always learns something new from an event and always meet someone surprisingly interesting, perhaps without the intention of doing so.

Consequently, he had never left an event empty-handed. However another person opposed this and said that it had happened that an event had left him a bit unsatisfied, probably because the invitation was poorly or insufficiently constructed. In the second group a participant continuously do not learn anything because he is almost always on a similar level of expertise as the speakers. Yet another participant broke in: “During event evaluations there is a classic question about prior expectations for the event. I always answer that I had no expectations and they were all met”!

5.3.2 Information Sources

When asked about what channel they used to receive information about events one participant immediately listed email subscriptions as his only choice. He reckoned that about ten percent of the invitations were interesting for him and that he probably missed information that emerged in other channels. Another participant said that “I find LinkedIn to be a good source, there are different discussion groups and pages that post info regarding events” upon which the first participant recalled that he was also a member in a discussion forum at LinkedIn where events were sometimes posted. The posters of such groups were often seen as relatively trustworthy dispatchers of ads regarding events or job offerings. The other participants listed social media as their primary channel, but one of them confessed that email subscriptions were good as they contain information “presented right in front of

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my nose”. Digital magazines were sources of information about trends in general and could sometimes have interesting information about current and upcoming events. The group agreed that they received too much information and that it was all about finding the diamond in the rough. In order for them to be interested there needs to be a balance between different factors such as the content, program and cost. It is essential that the event offers knowledge or possibilities that they cannot find in their daily job tasks. “You have to prioritize and check if you have enough time to put off for the event” said one participant and another one added “If I can and want to attend I sign up directly, otherwise it just won’t happen”. The participants felt that a lot of things are happening all the time and since there is no good channel for these types of events they do miss a great portion of interesting events. In both groups the question of how much email the participants received was raised, upon which a majority answered “too much”. The numbers varied between 30-100 emails per day and the respondents all confessed that they did not read everything but trusted their own discernment of sorting out the junk.

All the participants had similar procedures for making a decision about attending a business event. By looking at speakers and content they figure out if an event will be interesting and relevant for them.

One of the participants explained that he often knows about the speakers and what they stand for beforehand and therefore easily can make a decision based on that. It happens that the participants go to business events that are not explicitly connected to their job title, but which offers personal concern and personal networking.

5.3.3 Requested Elements of a New Channel

During the second part of the session, which had a bigger focus on elements and functions that would be important in a new event channel, the participants chose three options each from the printed paper.

“Continuous recommendations on events that would suit your personal requirements” was the most popular option as all the participants had this in their top three. Other alternatives included calendar functions and categorizing possibilities. These thoughts were also reflected in the following Post-It exercise where they, again individually, wrote down freebased suggestions and thoughts. A selection of the Post-It notes read:

▪ Categories

▪ A general overview of upcoming events

▪ A view of the most popular and highest ranked events

▪ Information about how many tickets are left

▪ Pictures from past events

▪ Grouped, and the ability to filter, in different categories

▪ Cross-filtering to narrow down events

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▪ Calendar function

▪ Simple to use

▪ Portal

▪ Geo-based

▪ Personal and customized feed

▪ Must be optional to be visible for others

▪ Hesitant about information being public

During the rest of the sessions several of these themes as well as others were discussed among the participants.

Networking

A reflection regarding what should be included was about attendance. “It might be more important [in order to get] a good event that event attendants are interesting, for the sake of networking. I would love, I’ve never seen it before, to see who is attending”. The participant clarified that by receiving an attendance list, the networking would be easier. Another participant was of the same opinion: “I helps if you want to network or if you want to get a sense of the event by seeing what type of people will be attending. To see the guests’ name, company and position would be very useful”. One of the participants worried about salespeople calling about different things because of his company position. “I am very careful with giving out that kind of information, but I can understand that people in a different position would see a purpose in sharing that information”.

Privacy issues

The participants were generally concerned about giving up their personal information for public use and felt that it was important to let attendees choose what to make public and not as well as make it obvious to whom it would be viewable. One person said that she wanted to decide for herself. “I don’t want it to always show if I am attending an event, but I do not mind showing it sometimes”. Another one, however, was very open with sharing information and said that he would not mind having most of his information exposed to others, as it would be very good for networking and for event organizers to get a better target group adaption. Another one claimed that the handling of user data is very sensitive and felt that it was important that the service would not sell that data to the highest bidder. She continued to say that the more relevant a channel could be, the better it could work as a networking tool. An advantage would be that you can see who else is attending. If you see someone you know or are interested in meeting it may persuade you to attend, or the other way around. The woman in the second group had a comparable view of privacy versus availability: “It would be nice to be able to see if old friends, classmates or coworkers are attending. I find it only positive.”

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Broad Selection of Events with Segmenting Possibilities

A participant expressed his wish to go to events not directly related to organizations or interests within his line of work. He explained that he held a position in the market communication field which covered a wider area than those events he was currently invited to. “I could imagine that there are many interesting events for the financial departments of companies that are touching upon communication, but I don’t get information about it because I am not an economist”. The possibility to then segment, find and save relevant events was requested by one participant. He wanted to be able to make a rough selection of events that may not target his exact profile but which were still interesting, so that he could later decide if he could fit it in his schedule or not. Filtering and cross filtering were mentioned by two participants as desired functions connected to that. Additionally the group wanted a function for sorting out the most popular events and see rankings (on recurring events). One participant wanted to be able to follow venues, such as Kulturhuset, in addition to people and companies.

Calendar Function

An issue that was stressed several times during the session was about having a calendar function and to see an overview of upcoming events. “I feel as if the function of a personalized calendar without having to sign up for the event is missing in existing services” a participant commented.

“It would be great if I could be able to create a personalized calendar that I could share with others and in turn I could be able to see the feed of a coworker” was one suggestion that came up during the discussion. Another participant chimed in: “Oh, then the boss of a department could make a feed for his whole department”. They agreed that it would be interesting and useful to be able to add events to one’s team if you are a manager or in charge of further education for a department.

Push Notifications Based on User Interests

Having relevant information given depending on a previous selection for preferences and interests came up as a suggestion. “It would be interesting to be added to some sort of list and have information about relevant events sent out to me”. One participant added that there was a difference on what you would want the notifications to say depending on if you have chosen to receive the information or not. “I would like some kind of personalized offer if I hadn’t made the choice to receive the notification”. A reason for using a service like this would be that you are not supposed to miss anything, said another. Users should not feel that they need any complimentary services. “Push notifications or email is essential for me if I am going to use the service. I will not log on of my own accord” said one person. When you choose to subscribe to something, for example a YouTube channel, it is because you find something interesting about it. “When you get a notification about a new video from that channel you’re glad”. A person in the second group asked a rhetorical question “How much time should you have to spend on finding new

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Other Topics

It was also suggested to let attendees give suggestions for future, recurring, events. Giving feedback after an event was briefly discussed. The participants want to be able to give short feedback without hassle after an event. “If an event is nearly fully booked, meaning it is popular, that is something I would like to know about” said one participant and the others agreed on this. The second group talked about the importance to personalize and that the service had to adapt itself to the user’s wants and needs. “If I am to get push notifications, they need to be relevant to my interests and I want to be able to choose how often I get them.

The participants discussed an issue from the perspective of event organizers. A problem could be that two competing organizations would not want to be seen in the same categories. “I think, though, that each company want to collect their own customers” said one person while another thought that it could instead be a useful tool for event organizers. When they would want to organize a new event they could easily see other things that are currently popular that could compete with their event. If there is a seminar regarding a certain subject, they can avoid having their own seminar during that same week or period of time.

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6. Design Proposal

The following chapter presents the p rocess leading up to a design proposal along with selected design views that are of importance. The design is presented mainly from the perspective of event attendees but is based upon results from both attendees and organizers.

6.1 Brainstorming

Based on results from the questionnaire and the interviews a conceptual design proposal was constructed in the form of a smartphone application. A brainstorming session was conducted where Post-It notes were used to pinpoint themes and elements of importance (figure six) resulting in a task analysis for the design proposal. Activities that were added to the list included having the first page in a tableau format for an easy and accessible overview of upcoming events and categorization of events (the full activity list is accessible in appendix D). It was noted from the questionnaire that users attended events for the purposes of learning new things and expand their competencies as well as to network.

By looking at the results conducted from the questionnaire it was evident that people found it too difficult and time consuming to look for interesting business events. The gist of this observation was that it would have to be easy to find relevant information in order for the service to fill any current needs. The results echoed that users were accustomed to having information served right in front of them in the form of email subscriptions and social media feeds. Consequently, it would be preferable

Figure 6: Post-It notes were used during a brainstorming session to pinpoint the most important aspects of the design proposal

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to let the users be presented with event information without them having to put much effort into it themselves. It was found that the users wished to receive information via email, social media or an application, thus a design process with a mobile focus was commenced.

6.2 Concept

Following the analysis some low-fidelity, conceptual imagery (figure seven) were created in order to get a sense of what an application could look like. The consensus was that the design should be easy to use and accessible. Since the questionnaire respondents were depreciative of event research being too time

consuming, they should be able to quickly log on to the app on their way to work or simply get push notifications when interesting events were announced.

Three themes were found to be central during the research, namely: discover, network and organize.

The design has a quick access menu in the bottom of the screen with four buttons for discover, organize, network and settings respectively. The top of the screen is reserved for headlines as well as a search button while the remaining part of the screen holds the chosen content.

6.2.1 Discover

Upon logging in the user is met with the Discover view, represented by the icon in the bottom left. The view is divided up in three tabs, all of which contain lists of business events that would be suitable for the user. The first tab (figure eight) is called For Me and is based on the interests, topics and categories

Figure 7: Low-fidelity model of the design with selected imagery.

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that the user has previously picked out during a registration process. Each event have basic information in the feed such as hashtags and contacts who are interested in said event.

The second tab, My Network (figure nine), is based on what events that the contacts in the user’s network are interested in. It looks similar to the first tab but has a slightly larger emphasis on which contacts are linked to the event. The third tab in the Discover view is called Trending and is based on trending topics right now (figure ten). The design differs a little bit as each topic has its own miniature feed rather than one long feed like the previous tabs. The dotted icons in the middle of each event indicates more options and upon clicking on them the user gets alternatives on how to manage the chosen event. This is visualized in appendix E and the associated figures sixteen, seventeen and eighteen.

Figures 8, 9 and 10: Three different views for discovering new events based on the user, its network or trending events in general.

6.2.2 Organize

The second icon from the left on the quick access menu is reserved for organizing. Interesting events can be saved to a personal list where they can be accessed again later. By clicking on an event the user is taken to the main page of said event where detailed information is presented (figure twelve). The user can, among other actions, see what company is the host or choose to read about the event program and speakers, seen in figure thirteen. On the event page the user can also choose to share the event using external applications. An event can be added directly from a list by clicking on the dotted icon in the middle and then clicking the plus icon, or from its main page by clicking on the plus icon in the middle of the page. This is illustrated with green circles in figures eleven and twelve.

A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

On the prospects for a business event

application of mutual value to attendees and organizers

ANNA MARIA STIPIC

A new channel for organizing and distributing business events within B2B

En ny kanal för organisering och distribuering av företagsevent inom B2B

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Abstract

Sammanfattning

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Problem Definition

1.3 Delimitations

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 Power Shift and Digital Disruption

2.2 Design Strategy for B2B Communities

2.3 Current Event Market

2.4 Current event processes at BBM and two other event companies

3. Related work

3.1 Connected Learning, Coworking Spaces and Matchmaking

3.2 Tools for guiding users during events

4. Methodology

4.1 Competitive Analysis

4.2 Questionnaire

4.3 Interviews

4.4 Focus Groups

4.5 Conceptual Design

5. Results

5.1 Questionnaire

What are the main reasons as to why you do not attend

more business events?

What were the main reasons for your latest attendance to a

business event?

5.2 Interviews

5.3 Focus Groups

6. Design Proposal

6.1 Brainstorming

6.2 Concept