And now we’ve found a way to make that dream a reality: our instant app creator makes it easier than ever for you, dearest event organizer and valued client, to create your own beautifully tailored app.

This is probably the biggest upgrade we’ve made to the Yasmo app since inventing real-time attendee discovery, and to celebrate, we’re giving it to you for free!

Don’t worry, we haven’t touched the front end. The app still looks as beautiful as it always did, it’s still highly intuitive, it’s still completely customizable, and it still has all the awesome features that have made it a hit with some of the world’s leading event organizers , including Informa ICBI, MCI, Bloomberg and the Intersection, to name just a few. Seeing people around you in real time? Check. Browsing delegate profiles and organizing face-to-face meetings? Check. Skinning it with your own brand or that of your sponsors? Check. Twitter and LinkedIn integration, live streaming, live polls and interactive floor plans? Check, check, check, check!

So, what have we changed? Well, we’ve completely rethought the back-end, cutting ourselves out of the process so that you have complete control over how your app looks and feels.

In practical terms, that means you no longer have to go through us to upload your event program, delegate lists, artwork, speaker presentations, floor plan, create a twitter hashtag, etc. It can all be done very easily – and quickly – through our online management system. And it can all be done until the very last minute…heck, you can even make changes during the event if you want to!

To benefit from our free trial, simply create an event organizer account, log in, and follow the step-by-step guide to start creating your app-happy heart out!

That doesn’t mean we’re disappearing though…our client support team is still very much at the ready, and if you have any technical questions, we’ll be happy to guide you through the process.

So there you go, we hope you enjoy our instant event app creator, and we look forward to your feedback. Don’t wait too long before you try it out though…the free trial will be for a limited amount of time only.

At Yasmo, we’ve worked with our fair share of event organizers, and we like to think we know what we’re talking about. So whether you have a tiny budget or a huge one, whether you’re looking for core features or an app with bells on it, whether you want one for the prestige, or to avoid being written-off as a digital dinosaur, here are the top five questions you should ask yourself before choosing the app that’s best for your event.

1. How tech-savvy is your audience? Let’s face it: almost everyone owns a smartphone nowadays, but not everyone knows how to use it properly. Figuring out how tech savvy your audience is will help define exactly which features you should deploy at your event. To take two extreme examples: if you’re catering to socially awkward Internet execs who sleep with their mobiles under the pillow, then you have to be prepared to provide them with an immersive experience that satisfies their social network addictions. And any tool that helps them get past their natural shyness to actually talk to people face-to-face rather than through a screen will make your conference a bigger success. If, on the other hand, your delegates are old-school B2B industry grandees with a lot of white hair who still read the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, then giving them anything more than a basic participant directory is probably going to be like casting pearls before swine.

There are many, many functionalities out there that will help enhance your event: browsable attendee profiles with photos, sending meeting requests, the ability to see who is in the same room as you in real time, interactive floor plans, asking live questions to speakers, video streaming, opinion polls, instant messaging, Twitter integration…you name it. Knowing your audience will allow you to pinpoint exactly what you can, and should offer.

2. How demanding are your sponsors? The events industry has changed. You can count yourself lucky in today’s environment if your sponsorship revenue has remained steady despite the economic crisis and competing requests for your benefactors’ money. The days are gone when a sponsor was satisfied simply with a big banner in the main auditorium and their logo on the events program. Nowadays they want more visibility for less…and yet what you need is more sponsors to make ends meet. Squaring that circle has led to everything from the coffee break to the dinner flowers getting their own patrons.

An app, in that sense, can be a boon for the cash-strapped organizer  because it provides an additional platform for sponsors. This can be as modest or as fancy as you want it to be, ranging from a simple wallpaper background, to more complex rotating banners, push notifications and on-screen promotional offerings, depending on the app you choose. The pitch to sponsors is simple: people are glued to their phone screens, and your company will be constantly in their face. One problem, however, is measurement, and the choice between a more or less robust system to track and analyze user data will depend on how hungry for stats your sponsor’s marketing department is.

3. What kind of ‘community’ do you want to build? The new buzzword in the events industry (and, well, in every other sector) is community building. You’re just not ‘happening’ if you don’t have a vibrant online community around your event. Everyone’s talking about it, but then again, very few people seem to know exactly what it means, or what the point is, and what you tend to see is a lot of puff and announcements that don’t amount to much. There are a good few ways to create a community. One is using well-known marketing channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter to get your target audience to engage and share information about the conference. Another is to build your own social network around the event. Some apps can help with that by allowing attendees to connect and communicate with each other, and by providing access to event material. Users will love it because they won’t have to worry about missing out on any meeting opportunities, or losing valuable business cards or speaker presentations.

Let’s be honest though, user experience is only one part of the equation. In our view, you want your community to help you do three things: attract delegates to your event, help you get the word out about how great your event is, and – particularly if you organize recurring events or conference series – you want the community to help you cross-sell and bring repeat business. These should be firm objectives when choosing your app.

4. How integrated do you want to be? A subset of this question is: how big is your budget? If you have existing systems, processes, CRMs and databases, then you’re likely to want your event app to work seamlessly with all of that to avoid duplicates, loss of data, etc. One of the best ways to do this is to develop your own app, so that it is completely integrated into your existing systems. The issue here is that this requires technical skills, time, and more than anything, deep pockets. Believe us, there is A LOT that can go wrong when building an app, and you really need to dedicate the resources to avoid a counter-productive result that leaves your users frustrated, and your much-vaunted “vibrant community” looking like a ghost town.

We’re not going to repeat here the long list of well-known advantages to using off-the-shelf technology such as the lower budget requirements, the immunity to technological advances and the avoidance of maintenance costs. What we will say though, is that you need to choose your app carefully to make sure it is compatible with all your existing tools.

5. And finally: think ease of use! Seriously, this is the single most important piece of advice we could give you. You can have all the killer features in the world on your app, and they just won’t get used if the user interface is too complex. Getting this right is quite multi-layered too. Going back to our first tip about knowing your audience: the grandees won’t have much patience for these new fangled tools, so even if your app just gives them a list of other attendees to look at, make sure it is straightforward!

For the more demanding Internet execs, you need to think about how the app is going to sync with their twitter feed, phone calendar, Facebook profile, etc. You should assess ease of use from the moment a delegate logs in: is the sign-up form too long? Can delegates login using credentials from other social networks like LinkedIn? And you should stress test the various functionalities (how easily can attendees add contacts? Will that sync with their phone book? Can they use the app whether they are an iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry user?)

More than anything, you need to make your own life as easy as possible. The best app isn’t necessarily the most technologically complex, but rather the one that best takes your needs into account, such as easily uploading delegate lists and making last minute changes to the conference program. Before you sign on the dotted line, we recommend that you give any third-party app a thorough test run to make sure you are comfortable with it.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our short compilation of tips, and if you’ve made it this far, we’d like to reward you by putting our money where our mouth is and offer you a free trial of our application. See more information here, or if you’ve had enough of reading and just want to get started already, then sign up here, and see how easily you can build the beautiful, customized events app you’ve always dreamed of. All in just a few clicks!

What happens when you bring together some of the world’s biggest authorities in innovation and an audience thirsty to learn and contribute, at Google’s headquarters? A massively influential ‘brain storm’ on social innovation – that’s what happens!

Success was a huge topic at the Intersection, as this gathering of brainiacs is called. “You have to stand out to succeed. You have to build upon a network, a platform, and create a movement,” explained Reid Hoffman, President and founder of LinkedIn. “You grasp the moment and adapt to what the trends are, to what the world really needs,” added Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter.

The biggest questions was what to do with success…and the person who expressed it best was Barry Zito, SF Giants superstar: “what’s next, what do I do after reaching a high?” And his answer: you help, you enlighten, you educate, you “intersect” with people to achieve even greater goals, to defeat insurmountable problems…to incur social change”.

This was exactly the Intersection’s message to everyone, for everyone to be part of that change, to ‘have a say’ and use their success to contribute, to avoid keeping ideas to themselves because they are too shy.

One of the most powerful concepts at the Intersection, was the “click moment”, presented by author Frans Johansson. He argues that even though success is in large part down to luck, that luck can be manipulated to create opportunities.

At Yasmo, we loved the intersection: it blew our minds, and it also comforted us in the knowledge that our app is going precisely in the right direction. In fact, we like to think that we contributed a lot to the brain storm.

Consider this: we gave the 325 people at the conference a powerful platform to “intersect”, and they responded incredibly well: there were 86 live questions asked to the speakers and panelists through the Yasmo app, 96 people used Yasmo to vote for the best Award Finalist and 76 more posted ideas for the next Intersection event in 2014. The attendees made the most of Yasmo: as a loud speaker to “stand out”, and as an ice-breaker to share their ideas and “have their say”.

And most important of all, we helped generate many “click moments” by creating a community around the Intersection, which attendees used to make connections and pursue the dialogue. 270 contact requests were made and accepted through Yasmo. That’s how we allow attendees to manipulate luck: no need to for them to wander around and hope to meet the right person for their ideas and projects; thanks to Yasmo, they just browsed through the profiles of people around them and walked straight up to the ones that interested them most.

We are very honored to have been chosen to offer the platform for such discussions of exponential change and we at Yasmo have set our hearts and ‘brains’ from day one to facilitate this goal ☺.

Here’s a few quotes that we got from some of the Intersectionalists feedback:

‘It was a fabulous app and i can’t wait to see it used in conferences in more events. A better way of getting everyone involved in the event conversation.’

‘Thought it was great & really liked the live questions and being able to ‘connect’ live.’

‘Excellent resource for this event. It should be included in all events as a common tool used.’

‘Good conference networking tool. It made you feel more connected and provided good supplemental info on speakers and participants.’

“Organizers used a smartphone app called Yasmo – created by a San-Francisco based start-up — for the event, which made it possible to [...] “intersect” with every registered intersectionalist, from A to Zito.”

Read the full article here.

Here at Yasmo HQ we’re all very, very excited about the latest big event to be using our app. It’s called the Intersection, it’s taking place at the Googleplex on the 19th of January and it’s going to spin your head with it’s cliché-busting discussions!

The Intersection isn’t your run-of-mill networking event. It has vision, it has social purpose, and it brings together some incredibly high-profile people to reflect upon innovation and social change. And even though some of our own personal tech heroes – such as Twitter’s Evan Williams and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman – will be there, it isn’t just focused on tech, far from it. Its aim is to bring together innovators from a large variety of fields – sports, art, academia, business – and “intersect” them together to push the boundaries of reflection.

What’s more, we’ll be releasing some new ground-breaking features for the Yasmo app during the event, which will be introduced by Yasmo’s founder & Chieftess – Areti Kampyli. She’ll be accompanied by our newly appointed Advisor to the CEO -Laurence Akiyoshi. Laurence is one of the most innovative and disruptive thought leaders in the tech space, working with the executive teams of giants like McAfee, Cisco and LinkedIn, amongst others, so it’s an honor that he has joined our ranks.

      

And seriously, the Brazilians are masters at making you feel at ease. The set up was beautiful: imagine a futuristic speak-easy with soft lights and live jazz in the background. It created a perfect atmosphere for some relaxed business networking over breakfast. And just as everyone started settling in, a tribal bongo player broke the spell, reminding everyone that they were actually here to learn about the future of event management in the digital age (the bongo player was there to remind us what communication was about in the good old days…)

Under the banner “Eventos 3.0”, our own Chieftess, Areti Kampyli, kicked off the conference by talking about what makes a successful event app, and how it can facilitate business networking. She also ran through the main features of the Yasmo app, which for this occasion had been completely branded with MCI’s gorgeous designs. And because MCI had centred this event around the future of event technology, they made sure to use all our best features, from in-app tweeting to live streaming, as well as our core ice-breaker feature which allows people to discover each other via their mobiles and then meet each other face-to-face.

Without wanting to blow our own trumpet too much, it went down a storm. The thing about Brazil is that even though it has one of the world’s largest social media adoption rates, it is still pretty new to the use of digital networking for business purposes. But that is changing fast, and the speed at which the country is catching up is astounding.

That was followed by a series of thought-provoking presentations on sustainability, corporate gifting, global trends in the events industry, and an expert panel from some of São Paulo’s most prestigious meeting venues, including the iconic Hotel Unique, where the conference was being held.

We rolled out at about 3pm, slightly disoriented by the fact that it was still daylight outside, given that Eventos 3.0 ended in a nightclub atmosphere, with a group of flash mob dancers leading delegates in a surprise boogie. It was the first time our event app was used at a conference in Brazil, and given how fun that was, we hope there will be many more to come!

Weeeell, close enough anyway. SuperInvestor U.S., which will be using the Yasmo app, will take place at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of San Francisco. That doesn’t mean we won’t be spending a lot of time in Sand Hill Road though, the Valley’s mecca of venture capital, especially as we are lucky enough to have one of the best guides in town: Scott Ritchie, who just joined Yasmo Live as our VP of Partnerships and Business Development.

We could have done worse: Scott is a tech veteran who has been instrumental in helping some pretty prominent start-ups make it to the big time. He started with Commerce One, helping the company set up international joint ventures, raise capital and recruit country management teams, living through its hyper-successful IPO in 1999. Then he was VP for Business Development at Clickmarks which raised US$ 27 Million before being bought by Semotus Solutions in 2005. Not bad, eh? He’s also the co-founder of PixSense, a mobile app tech darling based…you guessed it, in the Valley.

We’ve raised just over US$ 350,000 to date, and looking for some serious Series A to develop the app further, adding new functionalities and branching out from conferences to any place-based communities: universities, corporations, your local neighbourhood…wherever you might be!

Well, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but watch this space. And if you happen to be in SF next week, give us a shout!

Last week, Place Vendôme, in the heart of Paris, was filled with illuminations from its luxury boutique windows, winter holiday decorations and the charming glow of brasseries. A few meters away, down the idyllic Rue de Castiglione, the Westin Hotel was also alight with the screens of hundreds of Blackberries, iPads, and iPhones, all belonging to private equity investors using Yasmo Live.

They were attending Informa’s SuperInvestor conference, which gathers the world’s top private equity investors, to discuss partnerships, emerging markets and solutions for the unique issues facing their industry.

SuperInvestor is indeed super charged. On day one, its 800 attendees were averaging 20 discussions and panels per day. On day 3, Louis, cappuccino “artiste” at the conference bar reported serving 388 caffeinated beverages before lunch time.

We won’t pretend the conference wasn’t a tense affair. We are still weathering one of the worst financial crises in modern times, and Guy Hands, Terra Firma’s iconic leader, summed the mood up well when he explained to a packed audience how desperately the industry needs those who actively take risks and create innovative solutions for real world problems.

It wasn’t surprising in that context that delegates were generally impressed with our app, and with having the entire conference at their fingertips. The PE types to like to be plugged in after all!

This was the first of several investment conferences that Informa ICBI has appointed us to handle around the world. So watch this space to see how we are helping financial professionals around the world network themselves out of the recession!

]]> http://www.yasmolive.com/media/?feed=rss2&p=177 0 http://www.yasmolive.com/media/?p=194 http://www.yasmolive.com/media/?p=194#comments Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:27:06 +0000 areti http://www.yasmolive.com/media/?p=194 Another event, another global capital. We might be in a recession, but that hasn’t slowed London down on the innovation front: when London Launch advertises its Live exhibition as “super high tech” it really isn’t kidding. In fact, London Launch was created three years ago with the specific goal of revolutionising the events industry, no less, so we felt quite privileged when they hired us to be a part of their flagship conference.

The concept is simple: simply take apart everything you thought you knew about organising events, and super-charge each element with cutting-edge technology. The result is as beautiful as it is efficient: traditional stands are replaced with digital 3D canvases, marketing collateral is entirely virtual and, of course, networking is put on steroids thanks to the most innovative of all conference apps: yours truly.

LondonLaunch:Live is an event for event professionals, and there is no doubt that it perfectly captures the industry zeitgeist: technology is making quantum leaps, fast moving from the status of nice-to-have to NEED-to-have. In short, the lovely people at London Launch are our type of guys: bold, hungry and perfectly in tune with the era. Our partnership with them is over the long term, so watch this space!

Following months of intense collaboration with some of our main clients, we have completely revamped the app, to make it slicker and much more user friendly. The result, for one, is that it looks beautiful on all platforms, even on Blackberry which is notorious for its small screen and low-res display. It also makes life a whole lot easier, synching with Outlook and your mobile’s calendar and enabling push notifications so that you never forget any of the meetings set up through Yasmo ever again. We have also reworked the ad-display system, with rotating banners that give our commercial partners a gorgeous, fully immersive advertising platform that adds to the overall aesthetics of the app, without damaging the user experience.

Ubiquity pretty much does what it says on the tin, allowing you to network before, during, and after events, wherever you are and whatever device you’re using. It’s also our biggest innovation to date and our pride and joy. Download it now for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android.