Time, Time, Time is on my side, Yes it is...

So you’re a speaker and you are personally experiencing the single most critical change to our industry since it’s inception – an ELE!

That’s Extinction Level Event! Actually, there are two ELE’s. First, the meeting industry has been hit by the economy and the ‘political’ perception of meetings. Second, technology has just put into question, the need to be ‘present’ for meetings, with all the social networking (SN) technology gaining acceptance.

(For those of you with political ties, what did you think would happen when the president elect said, regarding AIG meeting executives, ‘They should be prosecuted for holding that meeting after taking TARP money.’ Battle congress if you wish, in the meantime, what will you do with your ‘free’ time.)

The answer is to Re-Tool yourself by jumping into the new technologies and social networking (SN)!

SN has hit our industry head-on, and SN is a different beast all together, that is impacting how speakers get business and how they conduct programs.

To ask your attendees to shut off their cell phones in your presentation is to be disconnected from reality. They are Twittering (http://www.twitter.com) while you are speaking. And if you’ve seen some blogs, tweets, and wiki’s, you’ll know that at ASAE, twittering was a death knell for some of the speakers because facts and information presented were incorrect and / or out of date and that fact was being ‘tweeted’ to other attendees in the presentation. ‘The speaker was informed of this while in their presentation, and to say they looked like a deer caught in the headlights was an understatement.’

Twitter is the first truly ‘many-to-many’ communication tool and it is an app (application) happy environment. Twitter is where geek meets Gatsby (popular cultural icon, i.e. communicator, speaker). Twitter will take you 60 – 100 dedicated hours to develop an understanding. Once you have an understanding, then you can determine how (or if) you can utilize it in your programs.

All kinds of communication is growing (new apps are developed daily) on Twitter. There are groups just for the meeting industry. Groups are identified in tweets by hashmarks (#). One group that meets Monday at 9pm EST is #eventprofs.

Facebook has just gone through an overhaul, which may or may not improve the experience. Established first as a SN place for teenagers, with an equal amount of bad press as good, it transitioned to powerful tool for professionals and industry, where you could build relationships in ways not possible by phone and email.

Linkedin, Wiki’s, Wiffiti’s, Blogs are all technology SN tools that have a groundswell. There are dozens more. You have to jump in. You’ll find Linkedin the easiest match to linear thinking and full of speakers to get started and find someone to help you get started with Twitter.
If your speaking schedule is ‘light’, then use the time to pick up your tech skills to address the communication revolution. Like the Rolling Stones song, time is on your side… if you put it to good use.