The Data Dilemma: What Does Google Know That the Event Industry Doesn’t?
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The Data Dilemma: What Does Google Know That the Event Industry Doesn’t?
- 2. The event industry has some problems with data: There is too much of it, it is spread across multiple databases, and it’s not standardized.
- 3. Eric Ly, founder and CEO of Presdo (and a Co-founder of LinkedIn where he previously served as the company’s first CTO) believes the event industry has only just begun to understand the value of the data accumulated through the normal course of operating an event—not to mention the mounting business intelligence from mobile apps, beacons, and other devices. “There are many in the industry who are interested in data and want to do more with it, but we are just at the beginning of understanding what the value of data is. There’s a lot of data being collected, but no one is making actionable use of that data,”
- 4. It’s Not Going to Be Easy Organizers use multiple platforms that create data— registration, membership, marketing automation, and mobile, to name a few—and each system organizes data differently. In order to leverage data, event producers first have to be able to manage it. Therein lies a major challenge. “Because attendees touch multiple databases as they interact with the event, it’s hard to track the activities of one single individual across the entire event lifecycle.”
- 5. It’s Not Going to Be Easy The APIs (offered by existing software companies) that allow new applications to interoperate with legacy platforms are very limited in the events industry. There are structural barriers that prohibit the harvesting and integration of data from multiple sources too.
- 6. It’s Not Going to Be Easy When APIs are “open,” as in other industries, Ly says, “it’s easier for customers to link systems together in order to extract valuable insights.”
- 7. It’s Not Going to Be Easy Another obstacle preventing organizers from leveraging data is the attendee himself. “The registration process is broken. Attendees give false information just to get through it. We need to collect good data about people that attend events and relieve them of having to fill out a registration form for every event.”
- 8. Events could be contenders Outside the event industry, organizations like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn mine data to create exciting new products and services, thereby attracting more users. “Uber is a killer example of how a company can leverage data to bring about a very compelling user experience,” Ly says. Event organizers can do the same. “The promise of event data is to provide ways to connect the right buyers and sellers together and ultimately bring more value to events, attracting even more participants to events.”
- 9. A Collective Roadmap In order to move to the next level of the data discussion— true implementation and placement of the event industry on par with other forward-thinking industries and movements—change has to come from all stakeholders. For example, while APIs represent a way for platforms to communicate, it’s one that the developers control and some event software providers aren’t as open to the idea as others.
- 10. A Collective Roadmap Ly strongly believes that open-data standards, a common language that that no one company owns and that platforms could share, would make the integration of multiple systems that much more viable. They would enable event organizers to manage data more easily and give software providers an opportunity to compete more vigorously and offer better solutions.
- 11. A Collective Roadmap Event organizers themselves, including the ones that have yet to develop a strategic plan for data, have to take more initiative. “Change of this magnitude takes leadership by the events that are the most innovative and for them to show the rest of the industry how it can be done.”
- 12. A Collective Roadmap “Certain things are going to break and it’s a hard thing to have to experience, but in trying we learn the key techniques that will make these efforts successful. The ones who experiment and learn the lessons first will be the ones who benefit the most.”
- 13. A Collective Roadmap Moving forward on data may require the event industry to address some of the issues that are holding it back: legacy systems and processes, an aversion to risk, a lack of sustained investment in new technologies. “Without experimentation, reaching a new level of opportunity will be slow.”
- 14. Events aren’t that unusual The discussions taking place in the event industry today are not that much different than those Ly was having with his LinkedIn colleagues a decade ago. “Ten years ago we were talking theoretically about what we could do with data. It turned out that there were many valuable businesses that LinkedIn could build with data. Now, [in the event industry] there are similar discussions about what can be done to leverage data to create even more value,” he says.
- 15. Events aren’t that unusual Eric Ly’s outlook, forged from his role in arguably one of the most successful business startups of all time and a career steeped in the innovation of Silicon Valley, is positive. “The potential for the industry to leverage data is not that different than the potential to leverage data in other industries, and it’s happening in every industry. There’s a huge opportunity to leverage data to grow the business by 10 times to 100 times.”