Friday, April 24, 2009

Inside Meetings & Conferences

Execs explore alternative meeting venues

By Rosemary Cafasso, Special to Mass High Tech

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It may be a bad economy, but the shows must go on, and tech companies are adapting.

With decreasing marketing budgets and increasing pressure to stand out among competitors, Massachusetts technology companies are looking for alternative and inexpensive event venues to launch products and connect with customers. Several companies, for example, recently participated in Mass Innovation Nights at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham. The event showcased a range of technologies and tied in a social media component to give participants an online boost.  It is scheduled to be a monthly event series.

Technology companies were not charged to participate. Instead, they agree to “pay it forward,” as museum spokesperson Roberta Carlton put it, by getting the word out about the event via a blog, “tweet” or Facebook mention.

The price was right for Bill Bither, president and CEO of Atalasoft Inc., an imaging software company in Easthampton. “We are in bootstrap. We have to look at cost-effective ways to spread the word,” Bither said.

Another participant was IBM Corp., which demonstrated its Lotus Foundations Appliance Server for small businesses. Caleb Barlow, an integration executive at IBM in Westford, said IBM continues to host traditional customer events, but he added the company is assessing alternative venues as well.

“Obviously, there’s a pullback because of the economy,” Barlow said. “Many folks, including us, are looking at the traditional methodologies for getting information out and starting to question what are the other avenues.”

“Companies are trying to find really creative ways while also tightening their belts,” said Marcy Weeks, owner of Event Builders, a team of event managers headquartered in Moultonborough, N.H. “The event needs to take place, but it needs to happen for less money.”

Weeks said it isn’t difficult to find or create less expensive events. For example, because of the economy, “hotels are more flexible,” Weeks said, enabling companies to negotiate a better deal. But it also comes down to thinking about the simple things. For example, if a company is planning a client party while participating in a trade show, pick a nearby venue that everyone can walk to instead of spending money on transporting clients to a far-off location.

Some unlikely venues are becoming “in” places for tech events. For example, the Vilna Shul, a 90-year-old Jewish temple on Beacon Hill, is running a speaker series that has brought in such executives as Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai Technologies Inc. The facility has been run as a cultural center since 1985.

“It’s totally incongruous,” said Doug Levin, a board member at Vilna Shul who runs the speaker series, when asked how it works to host Internet technology panel discussions in the sanctuary. But, he noted that the Vilna Shul was always intended as a place “to be contemplative and to exchange ideas.” It works because “it isn’t a hotel room,” Levin added. “It isn’t a plastic place.”

Levin said the Vilna Shul would be available for companies to rent for meetings. “The pulpit is in the middle of the sanctuary,” Levin added. “You can talk to people in an almost revivalist way.”

Another nontraditional venue is the Boston Conference Center in Wenham. The facility is designed in particular for employee events because it includes acres of woods and a variety of sporting facilities. It has been slowly reducing its fees because of the economy, said Rick Solano, chairman of The Foundation for Continuing Education, which runs the center. “A couple of years ago, we’d get $5,000 as our minimum fee for a weekday event. Now it starts at $3,000.”

David Gormley, CEO at Adtech Systems Inc. in Sudbury, an audiovisual systems integrator, said his company held an employee event at the center and found it was an “ideal place” because it combined business with fun. Price is a factor, Gormley added. “We are a smaller privately owned company, so we can’t do the big banquet at a hotel and have the whole thing catered.”

In some cases, companies are using their customers’ facilities as alternative venues. Metatomix Inc., a Dedham-based company that sells software to the public sector, was planning a user conference in the Southeast earlier this year. It was zeroing in on the Atlanta area for the event because airfares were reasonable. As it searched for the right venue, one client, the Gwinnett County court system, offered up the auditorium at the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville, Ga., at no cost. The auditorium has stadium seating and could support high-end video presentations. “It ended up being a real big hit,” said Jon Pilkington, vice president of marketing.

Pilkington said the venue was comfortable for clients, and it gave regional customers a chance to meet without hefty travel expenses.

Yet there are times when companies find the traditional venue of a hotel conference room still works best. Sophos Inc., a maker of security software based in Burlington, held a customer event recently at the InterContinental Hotel in Boston. The company was hoping to reach a higher-end IT audience and felt this venue gave the appropriate business ambiance.

“It needs to be somewhat upscale,” said Chet Wisniewski, a security analyst at Sophos. “It worked really well, I’ve been doing a lot of these seminars and this was the best one I’ve worked at.”

Some unique meeting venues

The Vilna Shul
Location: Boston
Capacity: 350
Cost: For sponsored events, admission is free but donations are welcome.
Types of events: Speaker series has included executives from a range of technology companies.
What’s different: The only remaining immigrant-period synagogue in Boston. No longer an active temple, it has been a cultural center since 1985.

Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Location: Waltham
Capacity: Range of meeting options from small rooms that accommodate 20 to the full use of the museum, which accommodates up to 400.
Cost: Some events, such as Mass Innovation Nights, are free. Reserving the museum for events starts at $1,000.
Types of events: Mass Innovation Nights, Innovation Speaker Series, Boston Cyber Arts Festival.
What’s different: The facility is on the site of the first factory built in the U.S. On display are items ranging from Francis Cabot Lowell’s first loom to Lincoln Laboratories’ first computer.

Boston Conference Center
Location: Wenham
Capacity: Up to 300 people
Cost: Weekday rates start at $3,000 for a full-day corporate event.
Types of events: Corporate events, outings and meetings.
What’s different: Tucked away in the woods, the facility allows attendees to participate in many outdoor activities, from volleyball and bocce to fishing in a trout-stocked pond.

Rosemary Cafasso is a freelance writer in Franklin.