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Here's good news for event organizers: Facebook can't compete.
There's science to back it up.
Edward Glaeser, in his book Triumph of the City, cites a University of Michigan study in which researchers organized groups of people and asked them to play a game requiring cooperation. The researchers organized one set of groups that played the game face to face; and another set of groups that played by communicating electronically.
The face-to-face groups thrived; the e-groups collapsed.
Togetherness magnifies people’s strengths, Glaeser concludes.
That's why companies located in the geographic center of their industries are more productive; why workers who live in cities see their wages grow faster than others'; and why inventors are inspired by other inventors who live in the same community. And it's why, far from failing in the Internet Era, cities are blossoming.
"Humans communicate best when they are physically brought togther," Glaeser says.
Wired columnist Jonah Lehrer points to a second study by Harvard Medical School that asked whether physical proximity affects the quality of scientific research.
The researchers analyzed 35,000 peer-reviewed papers, mapping the location of every co-author. The results showed that, when co-authors were located close together, their papers tended to be of the highest quality (as measured by the number of subsequent citations).
"For whatever reason, electronic interactions are not (at least not yet) a substitute for the real world," writes Lehrer.
"Our most important new ideas typically don’t arrive on a screen. Rather, they emerge from idle conversation, from too many people sharing the same space."
Virtual events may be sexy, but they're no match for their face-to-face cousins, says Margit Weisgal, executive director of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association, in the latest edition of BtoB.
"Webinars, virtual events, Twitter and Facebook status updates all have their value," she writes. "But getting in front of someone, face-to-face, in-person, creates an immediacy of interaction, a responsiveness of active dialogue that cannot be replaced with technological tools."
Not only is the immediacy of face-to-face irreplacable, Weisgal argues, but so is another crucial aspect of real-world encounters: serendipity.
Unlike live events, "virtual events don't allow you to connect with others in spontaneous ways," she writes, because they "demand that you purposefully 'sign in,' search out and interact with 'avatars' through the use of a keyboard."
Weisgal cites adman Spencer Jarrett, who made her case succinctly when he told Business Week, “Asking if virtual meetings will replace live meetings is like asking if singles chat rooms will replace real dating.”
Disclaimer: Trade Show Exhibitors Association is a client of mine.
The best days of e-mail marketing are behind and that's given good old-fashioned direct mail a chance at a second life.
According to David James, president of Bethesda List Center, the quantity of postal mailing lists rented by his firm increased 20 percent during the second half of 2010, as compared to the first half of the year.
The surge comes as the result of “a wonderful opportunity for direct mail marketers,” he says.
Direct mail has all but disappeared from in-boxes during the past decade.
“The disappearance of direct mail from in-boxes has created a huge void that marketers should take advantage of,” David says. “It’s almost a novelty to get a piece of direct mail nowadays and that scarcity is creating an unprecedented boost in response rates. All marketers should think hard about testing postal right now.”
The surge in the volume of direct mail marketing has prompted David and me to co-author a new how-to primer, The 3-Minute Guide to Direct Mail.
If you feel the need to become better acquainted with direct mail fundamentals, our new primer's for you.
Want more good news?
The new primer is absolutely free.
Feel free to share it with colleagues!
My buddy Gary Slack is about to launch Bizy, a new Website offering small businesses the same bargains on business products and services you'd find on consumer goods and services on Groupon.
Businesses can procure things like payroll services, janitorial services, trucks and vans, meeting rooms and retreat facilities, smartphones and more.
The projected average savings will be 50 percent.
Gary heads the Chicago-based B2B marketing firm Slack & Company, which helped launch eBay Business.
So he knows what he's doing.
When launched, the site will serve Chicagoans, although most of the deals offered will come from national companies. It will roll out beyond Chicago afterwards.
Bizy will be a great way for B2B sellers to introduce themselves to large numbers of buyers.
Good luck, Gary!
BNET columnist Steve Tobak provides a peek inside Apple in his article "10 Ways to Think Different."
"Apple’s culture is like a genetic mutation of the corporate America genome," Tobak writes. "A mutation that should be studied and replicated wherever possible."
One way Apple thinks different?
It "gets" marketing.
"Marketing is the one great weakness of the technology industry. For some reason, high-tech CEOs don’t get it, understand it, or value it as they should."
By that, Tobak means the company devotes real resources to dreaming up better mousetraps. "Apple spends a great deal of effort divining the next big thing—figuring out what people want—even when they don’t know it themselves."
Apple also "gets" highly orchestrated marcom.
"Few companies truly get communications and PR the way Apple does," Tobak writes.
"A big part of its formula for creating a buzz like no other company is its famous secretiveness. Considering the sheer number of people, companies, and news outlets that would give anything for a tip, virtually nothing leaks until Apple’s ready to spill it."
Got marketing?
