Now ready for downloading...

The executive summary of the Social Tech Survey produced by Principled Innovation in partnership with Omnipress (written by Jeff De Cagna, Ben Martin and Lindy Dreyer) is now available for downloading. 

In this summary, you'll find how other associations are currently using social media tools (wikis, blogs, facebook... you name it). I won't get into it, just download your copy to learn more.

Executive summary of the Social Tech Survey

Coming in October, there will be a full report that really gets into the details.

A sneak preview from Lindy Dreyer indicates Marketing and Communications will most likely drive social media in an association.  

BTW - If you want to share your opinion on the future of conferences, I've created a "delivering knowledge" wiki and encourage association professionals, attendees, speakers and developers to all contribute.

With all this talk about paperless meetings, I was motivated to learn why conference leaders are calling their meetings "paperless" and if there is such a thing as a "paperless conference."

A lot of hours went into writing our white paper entitled, "Debunking the Myths of the Paperless Conference" which contains good insights from association leaders and conference managers.

My thoughts? Delivering educational conference materials online may be a great option that saves duplication and printing costs, but you might consider the tradeoffs before you go all digital. The best way to can make decisions about all paperless options is to analyze attendee habits and preferences.

Here are five questions (well, maybe 12) you need to ask before you go paperless:

1. What do your attendees truly want? If they want printed materials and an association offers only digital, will that frustrate them?
2. If online content is offered before your event, will attendees want to (or remember to) print out their desired handouts and bring them to the event? Will your speakers want their handouts posted before the event?
3. Will attendees want print stations so they can print out handouts before the sessions? This may be a costly solution that takes time to coordinate and staff to monitor since you have to have adequate stations to handle the rushes right before sessions.
4. Will attendees bring their laptops? If the answer is yes... Is the facility internet friendly? Wireless internet access at larger hotels or convention centers can cost $15 a day or more.
5. Do attendees actually use their laptops in a session for taking notes or are they going to create distractions (e.g., checking email) to the speaker and other attendees?

Interesting... Did you notice the number of times "attendees" is mentioned in those questions?

Please feel free to download this white paper on paperless conferences.

BTW - Lindy Dreyer, owner of Association Marketing Springboard blog, wrote a few articles on paperless meetings which may be of interest too.

As an innovation leader in the association marketplace, I am inviting you to participate in what I believe to be the first of its kind "wiki" specifically focused on the future of educational content that is collected and distributed from a conference or throughout an association.

My hope is to get the collective thoughts and ideas from suppliers, speakers, members and conference leaders on this topic. I have started the wiki by placing my thoughts around these various topics.

• Changes Here Now
• Value to Organizations, Speakers and Participants
• Open Peer Review
• On-Site and Post-Event Collaboration
• Multimedia
• Free vs. Paid for Content
• Print
• Social Media Solutions 

Once we get some synergies on these thoughts, the plan is to share this site widely with the Omnipress community. You are welcome to share it with your community through your normal communications.

Why, You Ask?

We intend this wiki to serve as a central place for all of us to share our ideas, and better yet, solutions. We discourage marketing pieces for any one company, including us (Omnipress).

We hope we all get some good ideas from each other, and start delivering knowledge from conferences in new, better, more innovative ways.

To ensure openness and apply reasonable and professional communication, we engaged a wiki vendor company to administrate (approve sign ups and content shared) our wiki -- www.DeliveringKnowledgeNow.com.

We ask for your full name, employer, and e-mail address when you register to ensure authenticity only. No one will use your information for any purpose.

I look forward to reading what you have to say about one or more of our industry topics.

The word is out there and by the looks of the Facebook group it should be quite a session! This "secret session" is NOT on the official ASAE program anywhere but I am told by sources close to it that the 4:30 pm Sunday, August 17th in the Amphitheater is for real.

The topic you ask? Well... none other than Social Media itself! From what I  know it is sort of "State of Social Media in Associations" type session. Andy Steggles is moderating and some info is available on Jeff De Cagna's blog.

Omnipress is going to record the session and make it available as soon as possible afterward in likely a variety of locations so stay tuned.

Word has it the results from a monster Social Media Survey will be made available at the session or from the survey co-sponsors as well.  

This should be good! See you in San Diego!! 

We helped MPI go green with the Inspiration Journal and we find many other associations and events feeling the pressure to go green. Although there are many different ways to green your meeting, I'll focus on a topic we are close to... printed session handouts.

Here are three ways you can green your session handouts:

1. Hybrid Your Handouts

Instead of providing printed handouts (bound or corner stapled), place your handouts on a CD or online. You'll want to make sure your digital handouts are organized (by topic, by speaker and in program order) and can be accessed through a professionally designed interface. Search capabilities are imporant as well if you have a fair amount of content. The  move away from paper may irritate some attendees so you'll want the digital version to "Wow" them. Allowing registered attendees to download handouts in advance is also a growing trend.

Then provide a Conference Learning Journal which includes the agenda of sessions, conference maps, speaker index/biographies. You may also want to include a short abstract or summary of the session to help attendees plan which sessions to attend. To round out the Journal, add about 30 to 40 blank pages for note taking. this is a great on site tool and attendees love them. Sponsors like them to so why not have them pay for it! The MPI Inspiration Journal (if you went to Vegas you received one of these!) is another great example of how we helped MPI go green.

2. Be Paper Smart

You don't have to stop printing to go green! You can still provide on-site handouts, but do so in a green manner.

• Limit speakers to a pre-defined page count and 3-up slides versus unlimited pages
• Have speakers provide learning objectives, a session outline, a synopsis of their talk... something meaningful other than slides with bullet points
• If you choose an online presence for you content post supporting materials (articles, worksheets, forms, etc) online. This keeps people engaged with your organization after the event as well.

These are great ways to cut down on the paper (lower cost, green) and still make for a positive learning experience (happy attendees).

Our "Tips for Better Session Handouts" might be a good place to start. 

3. Take a Minimalist Approach!

First, think about layout and amount of content. Never print slides less than 3-up per page and always print two-sided.

Look at the materials:

• Paper - Move from 100% virgin paper to recycled paper that contain 30% PCW. You'll be surprised by how inexpensive recycled paper really is these days.
• Binding - If you use a coil binding, make sure your plastic contains recycled materials. Avoid 3-ring binders: as they contain hard to recycle materials such as the metal rings and plastic binder covers. Because of this, these binders usually end up in landfills.
• Inks - Soy-based inks and toner from digital printing equipment contain low VOCs which is better for the environment than standard inks.
  

Download our 15 Green Printing Tips for more ideas or give us a call. The bottom line is DO NOT PANIC! Going green can be easy and rewarding. 

Cheers!

When I first started at Omnipress in 1995, our clients would send us hard copy originals, and we were strictly black ink on white paper (remember the movie "Pleasantville" ?).

Fast forward to 2008: our association clients send digital files for short-run color printing (under 1000 quantity) of their educational materials (bound session handouts, printed programs, conference binders, etc).

Color printing is more affordable than ever, but plenty of people have done research on why color sells. My sources come from a variety of web sites such as "The Persuasive Properties of Colour" and How to Use Color to Sell, Cahners Publishing Company.

• Quality - 92% believe color presents an image of impressive quality
• Impact - 90% believe customers remember presentations and documents better when color is used
• Learning - 80% of what we assimilate through the senses, is visual
• Readership - Color improves readership as much as 40% 
• Emphasis - Participants read color ads up to 42% more often than the same ads in black in white.
  

While printing an entire book in full color is still more expensive than b/w printing, a short-run of 1,000 copies of a 100-page workbook is a prime candidate for color.

From our files... The top uses of color printing for educational materials by Omnipress association clients:

1. Final programs - All pages printed in color. Organizing tracks and sessions (color coding)
2. Color coded program-at-a-glance pages
3. Pocket or badge schedule at-a-glance
4. VIP, committee or highlight pages of honorary members
5. Pages containing advertisements (our clients are charging more for color ads, helping to offset printing costs). And being a company that sponsors association industry events, we prefer our logo in color.
6. Reference or learning books where color is used to distinguish elements of a chart or graphic (e.g., EKGs or CT scans)
7. Book covers including inside cover pages
8. Advance programs or flyers - anything that is marketing piece!

BTW - My favorite color is red - I'm not sure why since my car is gray, my house is green, I have a ton of blue shirts in my closet and I always seem to choose a black shirt to dress up my jeans.