We just got back from several conferences around the social media space. CommunityNext was a developer-centric event that allowed for many interactions and trading of best practices with several top Facebook developers. GraphingSocial was a slightly larger gathering that brought together an impressive list of speakers including Reid Hoffman, Michael Arrington, Danny Sullivan and others. It was a great opportunity to network, see some of the latest Facebook applications, and just generally talk shop with investors and developers in the social media space. Sometimes at these events it's so easy to get lost in the shuffle, that it is tough to talk with the people you want to talk to. We did, however, have what we determined to be a strategic advantage: Eye Candy
Here's how it went down:
Step 1: Several weeks before event ~ Randomly sign up for booth and to be a conference sponsor without really having a plan other than "A booth seems like a good idea. We can talk to people. And stuff."
Step 2: 7 days and 3 minutes before event ~ Contemplate whether "Hungry Machine Hula Hoops" send the right message.
Step 3: 7 days and 2 minutes before event ~ Return to fetal position in corner
Step 4: 3 days before event ~ Eureka! An idea is born. Everybody loves Twittervision and everybody loves money - let's combine the two!
Step 5: 2 days before the event ~ Begin building application that shows the geographic distribution of impressions and clicks within the Hungry Machine ad network (pic below)
Step 6: 1 day before event ~ Take break from building application because In & Out Burger is just too damn good.
Step 7: Later in that day ~ Eat 3rd double double
Step 8: Day of event ~ Deploy application; set up Apple 30 inch monitor that seems to emit a radioactive hue. Notice third arm grow out of small child as he passes monitor
Step 9: Booth now open for business! Potential clients, partners and just plain interesting folks start to roll in. They cannot resist the lure that is a 30 inch monitor with people's heads popping up on a world map.
In all seriousness, the above process was only slightly embellished, but really did serve a purpose in how successful and how much we got out of the GraphingSocial conference. Having an initial, built-in talking point is a great way to break the ice with people you are interested in talking with, and generally helps reveal someone's area of interest within the first minute or two of conversation. We would not have had nearly as successful of a conference without a little extra pizzazz.
