For those of you who I don’t stay in constant contact with, these are some thoughts I’ve put together that (I hope) adequately summarize my position on some recent happenings in the Atlanta social media scene.
In late July, I realized that there was no Atlanta chapter of Ignite, an event started by people from O’Reilly and MAKE Magazine. I set out to organize the event. On September 3, we had 18 speakers and about 240 attendees. It was a decent first event, and feedback was mostly positive. I’ll be organizing another one in either February or April of 2010. Keep an eye out and join us next time if you couldn’t make it out the first time!
What’s this BackNoise thing?
BackNoise is a website where people can post whatever they want anonymously. It’s a great place for honest feedback, snarky comments, and yes, people post personal attacks there too. That’s just what people do – if there’s not a website they can post on, they’re going to say something in the bathroom to their buddy, drop an email to a fellow attendee, or IM a friend and whine about how bored they are.
BackNoise just puts this feedback in the open. This is EXTREMELY useful to event organizers. It’s a tool they should know about. It provides great feedback – even if nuggets of truth have to be extracted from the snark. But you have to have thick skin. And ya know what? If you don’t have thick skin, get out of the event organizing business.
Planning a successful event is tough to do. I’d say IgniteATL was barely passable, if passable at all. There were huge, gaping holes that need addressing before I’m willing to put on another IgniteATL.
Event organizers have to, have to, have to:
- Know their audience. This means marketing to the right people, selecting the right program of speakers/events for that audience, setting expectations with audience members, and making sure your speakers execute along the lines of the expectations you’ve set. This applies to content, food/drink availability, bathroom breaks, afterparty information, etc.
- Communicate pertinent information about the audience to the speakers. Give the speakers time to craft their message for the audience that’s in front of them. None of the speakers want to come off poorly and your job is to empower them to communicate what the audience is interested in.
- Understand how the audience is going to provide feedback. This could be through emails, surveys, discussion, twitter, facebook, or BackNoise. Yes, it’s the organizer’s responsibility to understand what tools are usually used by his/her audience and respond appropriately.
- Respond positively to the feedback. You can either take anonymous feedback personally and get offended or you can mine the nuggets of truth, discard the snark/personal attacks/crap, and strive to iterate next time. In all feedback there is something to be learned. And it’s rarely that “This person just sucks and I’m discarding them as an individual.” (That said, there are people like that.)
How should event organizers respond to anonymous feedback?
All in all, anytime you put yourself out in the public eye, you’re going to get feedback. Whether it’s positive or negative is dependent on how well you manage and meet expectations. If you’re getting negative feedback, focus on providing more value. Don’t attack others for providing better feedback anonymously than they would with their names attached. The bottom line with human beings is that they’re more likely to be honest anonymously because they don’t have to deal with any associated politics that come from speaking their voice in public, if any. Labeling those that are staying anonymous as cowards or “weak losers” doesn’t do anything but alienate your audience.
My advice for any event organizer: take a step back after your event. Let the entirety of feedback roll in. Decide how to make things better next time. Respond to detractors if necessary. Manage your reputation. Move on.
Moving Forward
My issue is with people who condemn anonymous feedback and engines like BackNoise. BackNoise is a tool. It will be used for some good and some evil. All tools are used this way.
More anonymous feedback means more good events in Atlanta, if the organizers of said events take snarky feedback with a grain of salt. More better events is good. That means that yes, some events are going to hopefully be pared back. It is my opinion that there are probably too many events going in Atlanta these days. And yes, I’m planning adding to that. But (I hope) they’ll be solid events.
Let’s stop whining about how people are rude and insensitive. That’s just how people are. Stop taking things personally and learn how to harness the additional feedback. With BackNoise, that means it’s in real-time and you have little time to react. Learn how to react – it’s part of the game now and real-time, anonymous feedback is not going away anytime soon. If Keith McGreggor took BackNoise offline tomorrow, something else would pop up and you likely wouldn’t be able to see it, let alone have a chance to better your event and respond to it next time.
Take care out there. Remember that everything you do is in public and will generate both positive and negative feedback. That includes this blog post – so comment below ;)
Colin
The opinions above are mine alone and are not meant to represent my employers’ or associates’ opinions in any way.
