Lee:
Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. I’m here today live at the EventTech Live conference with the one and only, Felicia Asiedu.
Felicia:
Yeah, you got it.
Lee:
Yes. I’m sorry. I instantly doubted myself. Felicia, not Alicia, is from Cvent. You’ve come today to talk about building community beyond the event. Before we do that, for the folks who don’t know you, could you give us a little bit of a backstory about yourself and what you do at Cvent?
Felicia:
Absolutely. I am the Marketing Director for Europe at Cvent. That means I take care of all things, including events. We do a lot of events every year. I think sometimes people think we work in tech, so we just sit in our dark rooms with our computers, but actually, we’re always out and about. I’m probably in charge of most of the events we have. Also digital marketing. We’ve gone back to old school and doing gifting now, all sorts. That’s me. I also run the Diverse Speaker Bureau on the side. It’s my side hustle. I learned recently that women call things side hustles, and we’re supposed to say they’re fully-fledged businesses, but I have a day job, so it remains my side hustle for now. But that’s where we place diverse speakers into conferences, workplace talks, anything.
Lee:
That’s fantastic. No, it’s brilliant. This is my main business, but I still feel like it’s a side hustle. Everything feels like a side hustle because we’re all just doing what we can. Well, like I said, we’re here to talk today about building community beyond the event. How do you see the role of a marketing director in nurturing community beyond the event itself?
Felicia:
So for marketers, I actually think we were ahead of the game with this. I think when we used to… I used to sit next to an event planner in my old role. And that event planner did seem, and I’m not going to dismiss any event planner here, but did seem like he was running from one event to another. So it was just like, Yeah, that one’s finished, boom. And I was like, Oh, what happened with the leads? Not my problem. That’s your problem. You’re a marketer. I’m the event person. Can you just sort it out? I think for marketers, we’ve always been about the cookie crumbs and what did they do first, then what did they do next. But still a little bit transactional. I think as time has gone on, we’ve learned that that journey that people are on, they can journey together. Actually, if you build something where there’s multiple people taking those actions together, they feel a little bit more like come alongside. And then they can talk about it and say, Oh, hey, did you see that thing? Oh, that was really cool. And are you going to that next thing?
Felicia:
Yeah, I’m going to be there. You’ll be there. Oh, you’ll go. And it just feels better for the attendees and the people on that journey.
Lee:
Well, I mean, I can often see within event companies, and I’m guilty of this with my own event, which was very often to essentially market to the list that we had, get the event done, and all breathe a sigh of relief afterwards. That was all done. You don’t have to worry about it for a few months until next year and then start the whole process again. But you have to rewarm everyone up and it’s not easy. Do you have any advice for people on how they might be able to engage with the community throughout the year?
Felicia:
Yeah. We call it as Cvent, a total event programme, and that is always giving someone the what’s next and what’s in it for me. So what’s in it for me, what’s next, and who’s going to be there. It’s almost like I equate this to when you’re going to an event and it’s your friends and you’re like, Well, who’s going? You want to know who’s going to be there so you know what company you’re going to be in. I think for the marketer and the event planner, if they work alongside each other closely, should be able to give people that schedule of like, Hey, come to this thing. But also after this thing, there’s that next thing and these types of people will be there so that you guys can discuss this thing. It’s not all about what I’m putting on necessarily, it’s about what you as a community might discuss amongst yourself. Within that total event programme, obviously the webinar, podcast like this, some type of collateral. Even with that collateral, I work with a good partner, ICE. They’re the in-house corporate event planner group, and they produce a report every year that then they get together and talk about.
Felicia:
And they talk about the report before it gets produced. They ask the people, What would you like to know about in the report? Oh, that’s interesting. And then you share the report, then they talk about it, and then they have follow-up meetings. It’s perfect.
Lee:
Well, like I said, keeps people warm. And what software are you using for those sorts of conversations? Is that the smaller events throughout the year? Or is this online software that provide, for example?
Felicia:
Yeah. I hate to tell you, we do it all.
Lee:
No, please tell Us all.
Felicia:
With Cvent, I think people think we’re just for the big conferences, but actually smaller meetings, quite fine. We integrate with Zoom as well. We integrate with most things like HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, whatever anyone’s using. Really, really easy to feed the data in to do that segmentation of lists to ensure you’re getting the right people at the right types of events. But yeah, we can run webinars on Cvent. Now we have Cvent webinar as a platform. We have Cvent Studio, which helps you to produce nice-looking webinars as well and interactive, so you get the gamification, Q&A, polling, all happens in one place. Because that’s one system of record, we can then know, we can look at all of our events in one place, whether it is a webinar, whether it is a small roundtable that we did in a hotel, or everything lives in one place. I can see all of that data together rather than disparate, What happened? We’re not sure. Trying to put it back together. But that really helps to build a picture and a story for people.
Lee:
That’s fantastic. That means me as the event organiser, I can use your products, I can run my own webinars, I can email my lists, I can arrange small mini meetings. I can do online roundtables. I can go out. Obviously, you do physical roundtables as well. Because I did buzz past your stand. Folks, if you’re watching on YouTube, I will try and make sure to put a picture of the Cvent stand up because it’s pretty impressive. We can actually see it from just over here. I did notice you have the wheel, the full circle end-to-end. This is not, of course, an advertorial for Cvent, but I was rather impressed.
Felicia:
I do like my wheel because I feel like it’s really difficult.
Lee:
Are you the inventor of this wheel?
Felicia:
I’m not the inventor of this wheel, but I change it every now and again. I change the colours or I try and make it a little bit more accessible. What I have done, if anyone heads over to the website, they’ll see the wheel now on the homepage. What I’ve done is I’ve got hover points so you can really try and understand what we do because we do so many things, so it’s helpful for people to be able to navigate and say, Oh, right, if it’s pre-event, it’s this. If it’s during, if it’s post, here’s what I should be Thinking about.
Lee:
Do you just go on there randomly now and again just to hover over and go, Look at this.
Felicia:
Look what we’ve done.
Lee:
Look at this legend. Nice one. So how do you balance the need for inclusivity and diversity when building these communities?
Felicia:
I don’t feel like they should be mutually exclusive. I do feel like maybe a year, maybe 18 months ago, we were having very—and I still see it now—having very specific diversity roundtables. I did one myself. I drew a group of predominantly Black women together at a hotel. We were discussing all the issues of the industry and whatnot. One person in that group said something that I was like, Oh, my gosh. I’ve heard it since. Why are we talking to ourselves about our own problems? I was like, Oh, my gosh, that’s so true. Because we’re just going to be this echo chamber of like, Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, you’re right. Lovely community to build. But I think what was more important and what we’ve done since is ensure that that community lives in amongst the wider event community and people are there to help tackle those challenges together, whether it is accessibility or diversity in events. Actually, I’ve found that by having the like-minded people get with people that aren’t necessarily like-minded, and I can see when eyes roll, trust me. People think I can’t see. I can see when you brought a diversity topic up and someone’s go, Oh, girl, here we go again.
Lee:
The internal eye roll. You can tell from someone’s face.
Felicia:
I can see honestly.
Lee:
Just a slight relaxation of your face, you’re like, I know what you’re doing. That’s exactly it.
Felicia:
I think it’s good. Those two groups of people need to be brought together. I don’t think it should be the right, let’s build the diversity community, let’s build the accessibility. It should just now be all one and the same. Everybody should have that interest. And those that aren’t interested should just be along for the ride anyway and learn something new.
Lee:
And then what’s the role of the Diverse Speaker Bureau? How do you work with speakers, etc, and event organisers?
Felicia:
So Diverse Speaker Bureau has two main goals: A, to ensure that people have access to diverse speakers, because I think one of the challenges that had come up is we don’t know where to find them, we’re not really sure what to do, and so we try to make it easier. So everybody on our books has a diversity. They’re not necessarily… You can’t necessarily see it. Sometimes it’s neurodiversity, but you should just feel confident that if you work with Diverse Speaker Bureau, you can assure that someone is going to join your panel or your show that has some diversity, so you can feel relaxed in that sense. And then the second thing is to empower those that didn’t think they could speak to speak. I’ve often wrangled people that have great personalities, and I’ve said, Hey, you should join our books, if they have some diversity, of course. They go, Me? I say, Yeah, because you’re cool and you’re fun and you’ve got something to say. And so it’s to try and get a different generation of speakers out there that aren’t the same and have something different to offer.
Lee:
Then quite often, I think people are in my own circumstance. I run an event and we were making sure that we had a diverse group of speakers. We were looking for men, we were looking for women, we were looking for everything we could possibly do. But I was worried that I was doing it for the wrong reasons and I felt a little bit guilty. Could you talk into that? Why would I feel that?
Felicia:
You feel that because it isn’t a norm at the moment to fill your panel with diverse speakers and people are doing it intentionally. And that’s okay for now. I think when we get to a point where it’s just a standard, you won’t feel that way anymore. You’ll just be like, Oh, I’ve got speakers. They’re all different. It just happens.
Lee:
Well, I’m thankfully really well connected, so it wasn’t very hard, but there was just this part of me as well, was, Am I might just be choosing this personnel because that ticks another box, i. E, the tokenism side of things? I think that’s what I was worried about.
Felicia:
If we’re really honest, there will be an element of that. But like I said, I remember when the whole Black Lives Matter thing happened and every advert on television had either a couple of colour or a mixed family. It still persists now, but it was overwhelming. And I think even as a person of colour, I was like, Okay, a lot of boxes have been ticked in a lot of offices. But hey, maybe that’s okay because as time has gone on, it’s diminished a little bit and it’s become a little bit more normalised. So now we’ve got a real diverse range of people on television, on Christmas ads, for example. I think because that push was done to change the mindset of like, Actually, this is okay, now we’ve mellowed and we’re in the right space where it’s a nice mix.
Lee:
I guess I’m old as well, but what it’s doing is it’s actually normalising, isn’t it, for the next generation? My children are looking at the events that I put on and they are seeing a diverse mix of people, and that’s normal for them, as opposed to when perhaps I was and it was just a whitewash.
Felicia:
100%.
Lee:
Or just all blokes, etc, and now we can….
Felicia:
Well, and I wouldn’t say it’s old because I still find myself speaking back to that topic of communities. When I am in a mix of people, I feel like I’m in a community. I really do. At an event, if I see every different type of person, an event sometimes can feel like a small village, and it should do. It should feel like you’ve got the baker, the butcher. It should feel like you’ve got one of every kind, just to mix up and be normal. And I do still go to events now where I am the only woman. Sometimes only black women happens a lot more than you’d think. I wouldn’t say I don’t feel welcome because that’s too far, but I don’t feel like I’m at ease and I don’t feel like I am in a community that would keep me. Because I’m outspoken, I have said to certain of these gentlemen that I’ve been amongst, I’ve been like, Are you going to remember me the next time you see me or are you just going to walk straight past me? Because that’s happened too. I do make a point of it just to get them to snap out of it.
Felicia:
Stop talking to your mates. Talk to someone else.
Lee:
That’s wonderful.
Felicia:
It’s what it is.
Lee:
It is what it is. I can’t put myself in that picture, so you sharing this story is actually very helpful because I would go into that room and I would think the thing of it. I’m just in amongst lots of other people. And so often I just forget I take for granted essentially how- It’s easy. Yeah, easy it is, as opposed to for many other people who do struggle. Thank you very much for opening up there and sharing that experience as well. In your experience, can you recall a specific event or a moment that really highlighted the importance of building that community in an event context?
Felicia:
I think events that do it really well are events that have the best intentions of the attendees at heart. I’ll be clear by saying things like I mentioned Fast Forward 15 a lot when I’m on stage because it is a very pure organisation. And what Fast Forward 15 does run by Fay Sharpe, is that they bring together mentors and mentees for a year-long programme of mentorship, but they have events dispersed. And one of the main challenges every year for the mentees is to run an event that is for charity on a shoestring. So it’s almost like being on The Apprentice or something like that. You’ve got no money, but you’ve got to go run an event. And I think what they do, what they have done is they’ve built up over the years, a community of suppliers, vendors, a community of Well wishers, a community of mentors, a community of mentees. They’re all in the events industry in some way, shape or form, and it’s become very organic. So people just want to help them. People just want to go to the event. They’re like, Buy a ticket. Okay, fine. Buy a raffle ticket. Great, I’ll do it.
Felicia:
And it’s that goodwill that has been built up over time. Now, they’re not corporate, but corporates are learning how to do that, how to build goodwill. And if they have the best intentions of the attendees at heart, I think they win. Whereas if it’s all about what I’m selling, what I’m doing, it doesn’t. And again, I don’t want to toot Cvent’s horn, but when we.
Lee:
Toot away.
Felicia:
I’ll toot a little bit. But when I put together Cvent Connect Europe, which we just had recently, I’m always thinking like, What’s going to push the innovation of content? What’s going to delight them for the opening? And this year we did Joyful Joyful from Sister Act as the opening, but we just changed the lyrics. And it’s fun and people are just like, Do you know what? I felt really uplifted. I was like, Because it’s for you. I didn’t do that opening for me. We got a community choir. It’s all in the name. How awesome. Because we could have spent a lot of money on that opening. But I was like, Why? What are we really doing here? We want to give something to community. We want to give something to our attendees.
Felicia:
Let’s bring them together. Why not? And everyone was just smiling and the best time.
Lee:
I’ll toot my own horn. I actually did a podcast recording maybe two or three years ago where she was all talking about outcome-driven events and what the attendees outcome above anything else. No matter what my outcomes are as the event organiser or as maybe sponsors or exhibitors, etc, the most important people are the attendees who are going to come year on year, who are going to be a part of your community, be it that you’re emailing them, be it you’ve got them in a Facebook group, be that they’re using this EventTech or anything like that. Really important that we put our attendees first. Felicia, thank you so much for your time. No worries. This has been wonderful. What’s your impression so far of the event?
Felicia:
I’m so intrigued because I think our industry sometimes takes a bit of a kicking. I’m really glad to see that there are people that are just here and showcasing technology at its best. Event technology is only growing. I love the fact that Event Tech Live has grown. It’s in Vegas and we went there as well. I think it’s showing a strength of industry. I’m intrigued to see what people are doing. I’ll be perusing over the next couple of days.
Lee:
Well, that is an epic sign back. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Enjoy the rest of the day.
Felicia:
You too.
Lee:
Cheerio.
