Author Archive

New Year’s Resolutions: Let’s Whip Some Apps by @djstomp

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

Wow, 2012 is almost over, can you believe that? Seems like things get harder everyday to keep up with.

Time for some New Year’s resolutions! And my theme in 2013 will be ‘Lean and Mean’!
A giant step for me as a notorious tech lover was to face the fact that sometimes tech makes things more complicated.
Because there are so much possibilities it’s easy to lose yourself in the fancy apps and features.

Time to bring in the vacuum cleaner and delete a lot of apps. For me that’s is in the field of ToDo lists, GTD systems and Feed readers.
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Posted in Event Professionals | 21 Comments »

Social Media: So Dead Easy!! by @djstomp

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

Some time ago a friend of mine, let’s call him John, asked me about Social Media. “What’s the point in using Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin? I’m on Linkedin, but I don’t see any added value in it”, he said. “Besides I don’t know how to use it and where to start.”

Because he’s a people’s kind of person, but suffers from severe technofobia I tried to explain that Social Media is just like real life social interaction, only extremely enlarged.

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Posted in Blogging, Event Professionals, Facebook, Social Media/Technology, Twitter | 24 Comments »

6 Ways to Make Your Event Campaigns More Miserable by @DJStomp

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

Wait, wait, did I just said miserable? Ohh, I meant measurable …….

To monitor and evaluate your marketing efforts, it’s very valuable to be able to determine the traffic sources to your website. Let me share with you some techniques you can use to distinguish between different sources and campaigns. That’ll help you to determine the effectiveness and ROI of the different sources.

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Posted in Event Professionals, QR Codes, Social Media/Technology | 21 Comments »

Innovate Your Events Through The Business Model Canvas by @djstomp

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

I really love the book ‘Business Model Generation‘ by Alex Osterwalder. It’s great to map out your business, and to keep track of how the different aspects of your business interact with eachother. I use the Business Model Canvas (BMC) for mapping out my start-up businesses and feel confident to say it’s great guidance to understand how your business actually works. It appears to me like very applicable on events. Especially because there is so much to do lately about ROI for events. The model forces you to make your value propositions transparent and thus more measurable.

So let’s take a walk through the model and see how it can be of any value to innovate your next event.

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Posted in Business Development, Corporate Events, Event Design, Event Planning, Event Professionals, Fundraising, Social Media Integrated Events, Special Events, Tradeshows, Weddings | 16 Comments »

7 Steps to Promote Your Event App by @djstomp

Monday, July 16th, 2012

So you’ve managed to create your first mobile eventapp, great! Although there’s still a lot of scepticism, your colleagues are very proud of your perseverance, and even the board notices your efforts and innovational spirit. You’re determined to prove their hesitation wrong. Mobile technology is the future isn’t it? After the event however, you got the shock of your life. The usage of the app is utterly disappointing, and you feel like your colleagues are laughing behind your back. How could this great innovation have turned into such a big disaster?

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Posted in Event Planning, Mobile Applications, Social Media Integrated Events, Social Media/Technology | 13 Comments »

Embrace Tweet-Ups – They Are Fun! by @djstomp

Monday, June 4th, 2012

Europe #Eventprofs Tweetup The nice thing about twitter is that you interact with people worldwide. Nice thing about meetups is that you can meet people face to face. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

If you organize large events, this will be an opportunity for a lot of visitors to meet up. The majority of the visitors will, let’s put it politely, show modest interest in the content part and are mostly interested in connecting to other visitors. Organizers are encouraged to facilitate ‘micro meetings’ within the event that will contribute to the event experience in a very positive way .

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Posted in Event Planning, Social Media/Technology, Twitter | 13 Comments »

Free WiFi at your event: a BAD idea! by @djstomp

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

CatWireless internet connection at events has increasingly become a primary need for participants – due to preventing roaming costs or poor 3G data network coverage. So when people see an open WiFi hotspot, they connect to it without realizing the possible dangers.

Let’s have a look at the potential risks of connecting to an open WiFi network. From the participants and organizer point of view.

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Posted in Corporate Events, Event Design, Event Planning, Event Professionals, Mobile Applications, Social Media Integrated Events, Social Media/Technology | 11 Comments »

7 steps to a More Mobile Mindset by @djstomp

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Mobile PhoneTechnology is fun! That’s if it’s used in the right way with the right intentions, isn’t it?

Let me start with a conversation that frequently happened back in 1993 when a friend called me on my phone (no mobile phones at that time).

Me hi, this is Derrick
Friend hey Derrick, it’s me
Me Heyyyyy, good to hear you, how’re you doing?!?!?!
Friend starts to talk, but I interrupt
Me I’m sorry, wait a second, I’m going to turn down the volume of the radio, it’s a little loud, be right back [put down the phone, walked to the radio, turned radio volume down, and walked back to the phone]
Yes, I’m back again .. so what were you telling me?
Friend continues to talk, and again I interrupt
Me Hate to interrupt your story, but you really should know you’re talking to my answering machine right now, ….. but you can leave a message for me after the beep ….. BEEP

The reactions ranged from friends nearly choking in their laugh to nearly choking me on their next visit …..

So far for this sidestep, let’s get back to the topic: technology is fun! And mobile is technology, so mobile is fun too. Let me help you with 7 steps to develop a more mobile mindset.

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Posted in Event Planning, Mobile Applications, Social Media Integrated Events, Social Media/Technology | 5 Comments »

7 Technology Tips to Make Events More Exciting by @DJStomp

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Derrick StompThere’s a lot of technology out there. Some well known, others more obscure. But they have one thing in common: they are drivers of change. Accompanied by discussions, often resistance and thus inspiring! Interesting part is that the present technology is ready to connect the virtual and real world better than ever. 

One thing to remember though: because implementing technology nearly always implicates human behaviour change, you may have to take into account the factors associated with that change. Be aware that people will be in different stages of adoption.

And what about yourself? In what phase of adoption are you? Are you aware of that too? Implementing new technology without proper knowledge of your customers is doomed to fail. A good start is to experiment with them on a small scale, low profile just to learn from them. Ask feedback from your customers to see if you’re connecting the right technology to the right people. And …. don’t just try to be cool, try to be useful….

Now that we know all this, let’s see if these technologies can help you make your event more exciting.

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Posted in Blogging, Event Planning, Mobile Applications, Online Communities, QR Codes, Social Media Integrated Events, Social Media Shortcuts, Social Media/Technology, Twitter, Virtual Events | 15 Comments »