Punching through the Mask

My horoscope was dead on yesterday.

"As soon as you start thinking that you might, indeed, know it all, circumstances will conspire to set you straight."

Circumstances conspire against us all.

Just count the bromides about "conquering adversity" on your LinkedIn home page this morning and you'll know.

When you produce creative work, you need to wear a creative's mask, as director Sidney Lumet says in Making Movies.

"Creative work is very hard, and some sort of self-deception is necessary simply in order to begin. To start, you have to believe that it's going to turn out well. And so often it doesn't. I've talked to novelists, conductors and painters about this. Unfailingly, they all admitted that self-deception was important to them. Perhaps a better word is 'belief.' But I tend to be a bit more cynical about it, so I use 'self-deception.' The dangers are obvious. All good work is self-revelation. When you've deceived yourself, you wind up feeling very foolish indeed."

Setbacks punch through the mask. They sting, because they scream Fraud!

Mama said there'll be days like this.

3 Tips for Better Event Photography and Video

Michael J. Hatch contributed today's post. He is Director of Sales for Oscar & Associates, an event photography and video production company specialized in conferences, exhibitions and corporate events nationwide.

Pictures Will be Worth 10 Thousand Words… Tomorrow

Don’t just go through the motions of contracting a photographer and telling them you want "three days' of candids and posed photos." There’s more to it than that.

Provide the photographer answers to these questions: What is the theme of your event? What are its goals? And—most importantly—what are the goals of next year’s event? Promoting tomorrow's event may be the primary reason you're capturing images today.

Ask for Bold, Unique and Creative

Most photographers are creative people. It’s one reason they chose the profession. Your photographer will love you for asking for bold, unique and creative shots.

If you tell a photographer you simply want candids and posed shots, that’s all you’ll get. Your photos will look just like all the photos you'd ever find on any event organizer's website.

Ask in addition to candids and posed shots for close-ups, shots on angles, backlit shots, overhead shots, and foot-level shots.

Georgia O’Keefe said it best about her famous giant florals: “If I painted them like all the Old Masters' still-lifes, no one would have ever paid much attention.”

Videos Will be Worth a 100 Thousand Words

Look at YouTube, websites, blogs and emails: event organizers are using videos, because videos are infinitely more engaging, believable and shared.

Capture video testimonials with attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and speakers. Ask for videos of the live action on your show floor, keynote sessions, educational sessions, receptions and evening events. 

And if you want “bold, unique and creative” results, ask for aerial videos, both indoor and out. Drones make aerial videos more affordable than ever.

Going Virile

Ad exec Madonna Badger's new video We are #WomenNotObjects, which asks marketers to stop eroticizing females, is hot, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Ms. Badger's beef is only one among many voiced by women in advertising, including the 21,000 sister mad women who comprise the 3% Conference.

3% Conference founder Kat Gordon told Forbes the issues surround "lack of."

"Lack of support for motherhood, lack of mentorship, lack of awareness that femaleness is an asset to connecting to the consumer marketplace today, lack of celebration of female work due to gender bias of award juries, lack of women negotiating their first agency salary and every one thereafter," Badger said.

Female event marketers are also flexing their muscles.

AWE, the Association for Women in Events, has opened its doors in Washington, DC, according to TSNN.

Plan 9

Attention ad planners: 9 seconds is the perfect period to expose a digital ad, according to a study by Sled.

The ad-platform provider found customers' brand awareness increased twice as much as it did when they viewed an ad for other lengths of time.

But that may be an eternity, in Earthlings' time.

According to Sled, customers viewed ads run recently by BioPharmX a mere 4.1 seconds, on average. 

And according to MediaPost, customers viewed recent ads from the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau for only 4.8 seconds.

Back to the drawing board.

How to Write a Killer Abstract for Your Next Presentation

Marketer Tony Compton contributed today's post. He is the founder and managing director of communication coaching consultancy GettingPresence.

When you’re scheduled to give a presentation, chances are you’ll have to provide a session abstract that titles your talk and describes your session.

Session abstracts enable readers to evaluate an event in advance, playing a vital role in helping them determine if the event is worth the investment in attendance.

On site, abstracts compete for attendees, as they choose which sessions to attend when multiple presentations are being given.

Unfortunately, far too many session abstracts are poorly written. Writing one is an afterthought to most presenters, and is usually delegated to a marketing manager who isn’t the presenter and who's largely unfamiliar with the presenter's content.

Writing concise and compelling abstracts for your presentations will give you a clear competitive advantage.

My recommendation is to write your abstract as a condensed case study:

• Title your session with the solution to a common business challenge; for example, “Increasing Customer Retention by 30% with Predictive Analytics." 

• When writing the session description, state a common problem your audience faces; summarize your strategy behind solution-development; and itemize supporting tools you have used to help solve the problem.

• Close by hinting at the payoff of the work, using several bullet points that quantitatively highlight results.

Remember, too, that audiences see through thinly-veiled sales pitches, and their session descriptions. Always keep in mind what the audience will learn from your presentation, and your session abstract will be a winner.