Digital Marketing And Events 2.0 Draft Ver6

*Please make sure you use this document in conjunction with the companion PowerPoint deck here.

Digital Marketing and Events 2.0 The Evolution of Physical Conferences / Events in the era of Social Media and Web 2.0 aka How you can significantly increase engagement & reach through social & digital media AND physical events!

A draft discussion & best practices paper by

Martin Walsh Digital Marketing Director http://twitter.com/martinwalsh Last revised: 28 March 2009 Version 6.0

http://bit.ly/Vxmyc

Digital Marketing and Events 2.0 discussion document

Ver6.0 - Prepared by Martin Walsh Last Revised: 28 March 2009 2 | P a g e

Background Conferences like TechEd have not really changed their formats much in the last 10 years. They are still mostly about one-way communication: a person telling you his/her views on various topics and showing you slides or videos or demos about it. Your role as a delegate is to sit still, perhaps take some notes and hope that the speaker will inspire you with something you do not know already. These types of events could still be fun and useful socially, but generally speaking it is an inefficient way to communicate, inspire, create real learning and reach potential audiences. Why spend $1m on a physical event for only 3,000 attendees when you can invest the same or slightly more to reach 10 times that number? And, it is out of synch with all other forms of modern media in the internet and digital age, where two-way communication is critical and the users are active participants in creating experiences together with the conference producers. Here is a great blog post by Social Media guru Seth Godin which sums up the challenge:

The new standard for meetings and conferences If oil is $130 a barrel and if security adds two or three hours to a trip and if people are doing more and more business with those far afield... and if we need to bring together more people from more places when we get together... and if the alternatives, like video conferencing or threaded online conversations continue to get better and better, then... I think the standard for a great meeting or a terrific conference has changed. In other words, "I flew all the way here for this?" is going to be far more common than it used to be. If you think a great conference is one where the presenters read a script while showing the audience bullet points, you're wrong. Or if you leave little time for attendees to engage with others, or worse, if you don't provide the levers to make it more likely that others will engage with each other, you're wrong as well. Here's what someone expects if they come to see you on an in-person sales call: that you'll be prepared, focused, enthusiastic and willing to engage honestly about the next steps. If you can't do that, don't have the meeting. Here's what a speaker owes an audience that travels to engage in person: more than they could get by just reading the transcript. And here's what a conference organizer owes the attendees: surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and just possibly, excitement. I'm on a roll here, so let me add one more new standard: If you're a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn't make you come to the (expensive) office every day unless there's something there that makes it worth your trip. She needs to provide you with resources or interactions or energy you can't find at home or at Starbucks. And if she does invite you in, don't bother showing up if you're just going to sit quietly. I've worked in three companies that had lots of people and lots of cubes, and I spent the entire day walking around. I figured that was my job. The days where I sat down and did what looked like work were my least effective days. It's hard for me to see why you'd bother having someone come all the way to an office just to sit in a cube and type.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/the-new-standar.html



The new rule seems to be that if you're going to spend the time and the money to see someone face to face, be in their face. Interact or stay home!

Conferences 1.0 Most conferences today are organized like this:

1. The web site is used only for listing the program and the sponsors and signing up the delegates.

2. There is no list of delegates on the web site, so you cannot research and connect with interesting people prior to the conference.

3. As soon as the conference starts, the web site is dead. 4. In better 1.0 conferences the web site links to the presenter’s slide shows a week or two

after the conference, bit that is too late for most delegates. 5. There are no speaker videos on the web site, due to fear that videos make people want

enjoy them at home instead of paying to be at the conference. (Actually it works teh other way around, for example the TED conference made a huge success in 2006 when they dared to oppose this wisdom and started publishing all the speeches online.)

6. They drag on for 2-3 days with a dinner or a drinks “party” where the delegates hang out with their friends.

7. They are all about key-notes, a speaker presenting to the audience, top-down communication with no participation from the audience other than the usual awkward questions from people who want to show off.

8. They are huge, with thousands of delegates, making it very hard to make contact with new people, network and collaborate.

Before we discuss the possibilities, let’s consider this recent, widely reported moment with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook:

Welcome to Conference 2.0 Social media is putting an end to the passive role attendees traditionally play at business gatherings. By Dan Fost - March 11, 2008

AUSTIN, TEXAS (Fortune) -- We've all been there: the dull business conference. A half-empty room of half-asleep attendees answer their e-mail on laptops and BlackBerries, while some hapless speaker lumbers through a PowerPoint speech. That scenario is about to change, thanks to the growing ubiquity of social media. Consider author Sarah Lacy's disastrous interview of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival here. Lacy, a Business Week columnist and author of a forthcoming book on Zuckerberg and other Web 2.0 titans, drew the crowd's wrath by asking Zuckerberg too many questions about his age and his company's outrageous $15 billion valuation and not enough questions about issues more fundamental to how Facebook operates - things like trust, privacy, and accessibility to software developers. On top of that, Lacy interrupted Zuckerberg, seemed to flirt with him, and then grew hostile as the crowd turned against her. And did it ever turn. Many in the audience started posting their thoughts on Twitter, a service that broadcasts instant messages, and the ire built. The crowd began hooting and jeering, and finally, when she opened the mike to questions, the first person asked Zuckerberg: "Other than rough interviews, what are some of the biggest challenges Facebook faces?" Lacy turned to Zuckerberg, asked, "Has this been a rough interview?" and the audience member said, "I wasn't asking you, I was asking Mark." The crowd went wild.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/11/technology/fost_conference.fortune/index.htm



A bitter Lacy said she saw in the debacle "the downside of Web 2.0," but many others see it as a signature moment - for what it says about the coming wave of new media, for what it says about the way attendees can take over conferences, and even for the signals it sends about the still rising tide of people power that Web 2.0 has unleashed. There were many similar episodes at this year's SXSW, a conference packed with folks empowered by their own mini-media empires on Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Blip.tv, Twitter, Utterz and a host of other tech sites. Several attendees told of being in smaller panel discussions in which people either twittering or commenting in chat rooms run by social networker Meebo turned the conversation into a new direction. In one, "a revolution in the chat room tore apart the panel," according to Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang. One person finally stood and requested permission to ask a question. "They said 'No',"Owyang recalled, "and he said, 'The whole room is behind me. I'm going to ask it anyway'." When the panel, on "Social Media Metrics," started to drag, according to Dave Evans of Digital Voodoo, a social media consulting firm in Austin, "you could see the laptops flip up and see the twitters happening." The panelists saw they were not giving the information that the audience wanted, and refocused the presentation, Evans said. "It was a really interesting collision between the Twitter back-channel and the live, public-facing channel," Evans said. "We always say that the crowd is taking control in a marketing buzzword kind of way," Owyang said, "but now it's actually happening." This movement - call it Conference 2.0 - has been building for some time.

Events 2.0 – TechEd Possibilities A new class of powerful, inclusive, popular and engaging events which are liberated from the straightjacket of space-time by the convergence of new media technologies is ushering at our door: Events 2.0 are next evolution of TechEd. But let me explain myself better: Online (and offline) events should not be confined anymore by physical the space-time boundaries of when and where the event actually occurs. The convergence of new media communication and collaboration technologies like RSS, wikis, blogs, podcasts, streaming and on demand video, discussion forums, as well as social media outlets with more traditional information delivery channels like newsletters or mailing lists offers an opportunity for extremely rich, engaged and dynamic communities to be built around the core track topics and themes of events like TechEd. The best way to explain Events 2.0 is to start simple. Consider for example a physical conference for which a community site is built beforehand and in which participants, presenters and sponsors start interacting and actively engaging with each other way before the physical event starts. Think also of an event that while it takes place in a physical space it is also re-broadcast and made accessible in multiple ways, providing access and different levels of interaction to those attending live as well as to those at a distance. Imagine the breadth and richness of content options that can be created out of the many interactions which have been generated across the virtual event communities. Or the many possible compilations, playlists, and collections of user filtered and edited multimedia content that could be created after the event was over.



It is in the ability to merge and synergize the tremendous potential of new media communication, participant collaboration, user generated content, social media and community creation technologies alongside the attraction and interest generated by the live event guests that the potential and power of Events 2.0 really lies. Events 2.0 Overview Live events are a great opportunity to market, showcase, demo, present and introduce new ideas, as well as new products and technologies and directly engage with our customers. But, we also know how complex it is to organize the logistics and how skilled the team running the show must be. Given all this investment in organization and resources, how significant would be the additional cost of extending the event into the virtual space by leveraging, in a synergistic, organic and well planned fashion all of the most relevant new media technologies to enable a community and generate and foster a groundswell of conversations around the event. Consider the infinite number of revenue options and engagement opportunities that can be born out of commoditizing the conference and creating a hot passionate and lively community that generates all kinds of relevant content around any given theme. Imagine how fantastic it would be if participants could engage their favourite speakers before the actual conference and with their own questions and contributions, shape the topic and discussions for the live event. What are Events 2.0? Events 2.0 or "extended events" are a yet-to-be-realized form of conference that extends well beyond the physical event boundaries, into time (before, during and after the event) and through multiple digital and social media formats. Events 2.0 are events which are planned and carried out in a continuous experience that merges offline physical events and online conversations. In other words: Events 2.0 are typical conferences, social events or physical gatherings of some kind that extend their lifetime, reach and value by extending their active engagement potential with their participants by intelligently integrating community tools, content delivery and distribution channels, social media marketing, live and asynchronous collaboration tools before, during and long after the actual event has taken place. How could we transform a traditional 2-3 day conference into an "extended-event" that provides greater engagement and value to participants and presenters as well as providing us with broader and longer term reach, engagement and dialogue with our customers, extra opportunities for sponsorship and sales as well as greater opportunities for quality business networking among all of the stakeholders and participants? How can a physical conference take advantage of all the new media communication channels, collaboration and social media tools to extend its lifespan, reach and engagement well beyond the physical event itself while generating an engaged and passionate community around itself? As digital marketing and websites now begin to utilize more effective inside-out strategies (syndicating our content and messages) vs only using outside-in strategies (trying to drive traffic to our website) how can we leverage and fully exploit the channels where customers already are?



Another example is to consider that 93% of Microsoft’s revenue is derived through Partners. How can Microsoft create individual customized partner hubs of TechEd so that our hundreds of thousands of Partners can effectively ‘host’ their own virtual TechEd events for their own customers on their own websites? These Partners could embed live and on demand videos and specific calls-to-action relevant to their own company, industry and competencies and importantly their customers and/or prospects. The same principles could be applied to media partners, technology partners and even OEM partners.

Listen Utility

EntertainmentRelevant

to Inside Out marketing



How We Can Playoptimizing reach across the 4 syndication distribution pillars

Syndication Distribution

•Paid Placement

• Integration into editorial

content

•Sales partners websites:

ISVs, OEMs, VARs,

Retailers

•MVP Community

•Product sites

•Audience Sites

•WW sites

•Social embed: social

networks, blogs

•Persistent widgets (direct

to customer)

•RSS Feeds

Professional Media Partners

MS.COM Social / Customer

Syndication provides a menu opportunities to achieve business goals

• Broadcast our product & technology solution content other messaging and offers on hundreds of websites simultaneously

• US Small Business Summit phase one achieved a record number of viewers (583K in just 3 days)

Goal: Drive Reach

• Learn/Try/Buy/Subscribe call to actions are added alongside the video content

• Ability to match CTA with the relevant content to increase conversion

Goal: Push Product Offers

• Through video testimonials and commercials

• Through customers and partners sharing their success stories

Goal: Change Perception

• Through Product Demos

• Through Tips/Tricks segments

Goal: Educate Customers

• Talk to our customers, learn their pain points, offer product and solutions info through live chat

Goal: Engage Customers

Here are some starting ideas to consider: 1) Before the Event

Open a blog, an RSS feed, a Twitter Account and provide a video intro for the event. Start providing, value-rich information about the event in a periodic, consistent and systematic way.

Create a story around the preparation for the event and around the people involved in it. Find a key character to narrate the story and keep audience on top of the latest happenings.



Open a forum / online community where discussion and relevant issues for the event can take off right now.

Complement forum topics with a distributed video commenting platform like Seesmic which can allow a forum like experience which is not text-based but video based. Video commenting can be very good for engaging in lively, passionate discussions as well as in brainstorming sessions or analysis/focus groups.

Inject some social media components allowing the community to energise and cross-fertilize itself. Let people discover each other’s profiles and interests (opt-in), provide feedback on the most followed discussion items and provide ways for users to contribute relevant pointers and links.

Integrate a presentation publishing platform like Slideshare for all participants to use, and promote relevant and related presentations to the topics of the event.

Create a set of manually edited newsradars (topic specific hand-edited news channels gathering the best news and stories from a range of sources), generated by moderators or community members and focusing on the very specific themes of the conference itself.

Use Virtual Earth to showcase the origins of all the participants both physical and virtual.

Market the event by using a mailing list and by developing a meaningful story that builds up momentum up to the event launch.

Create visual navigable spaces by using tools like Virtual Earth or Microsoft Photosynth allowing the participants to enhance the discovery of the physical event physical surroundings, hotels, bar, cafes, nearby social venues.

2) During the Event

Enable a live reporting platform for any qualified participant or media representative who wants to use it so they can report about specific sessions. Tools like CoverItLive provide all of the features an in-session reporter may ever need. Consider opening up a limited number of seats for voluntary official reporters for each session and monetize the sponsorship opportunity they create content for the website, social channels and syndication.

Support and make it easy for all participants to access live audio and video streaming tools to enable wide and comprehensive real-time capture of all of the event happenings from as many different viewpoints as possible. From the live sessions to the informal networking in the allies. Think Crowdsourcing.

Let participants engage amongst themselves and with the presenters during the live sessions by creating dedicated Twitter channels and groups for real-time discussion and feedback. Infuse and integrate two way dialogue channels into the sessions like PollEverywhere. Using PollAnywhere, dynamic polls, questions and feedback can be asked of the physical and virtual audiences and results can be sent via SMS or the web and be displayed in real-time within the PowerPoint presentations.

Utilize more traditional and well established real-time communication tools like text chat and IRC channels and even TweetGrid. These technologies can still go a long way in providing effective real-time conversation back channels for each live presentation during and



immediately after the event. Why not hold a physical and virtual panel for discussion at the end of each session which could utilize all back channels.

Offer the opportunity to premium participants (MSDN/TechNet subscribers or paid subscribers) and/or to the press to sit down and video interview, alongside other prominent news reporters and bloggers the key personalities presenting at the conference.

Leverage Friendfeed social aggregation or Twitter Aggregation capabilities to provide a parallel information distribution channel for key event related personalities and events.

Create thematic newsradars (topic specific news channels), Tag Clouds and Tweet Clouds on the specific topics covered throughout the conference. Newsradars can provide immediate value to an extended event by providing a comprehensive digest of the most relevant news and issues on any topic.

Provide conferencing spaces for live events to have parallel venues available to presenters and participants before and after the live session. Also consider modeling the live event sessions around the opportunity to be both live and at a distance by engaging and responding appropriately to both audiences. Allow participants to promote and deliver complementary keynotes, panels and sessions in a barcamp-like spirit on a set of virtual stages or hubs dedicated to them.

Hire editors and moderators to create and maintain key wiki guides on every key session / track taking place at the event. Parallel events, other contributions and related sessions, live discussions, related resources and user contributed materials should all be easily reached by maintaining a well organized and always up-to-date set of wiki pages.

Create environments both online and physically at the event which allow presenters and participants to upload and share their own images, video, audio and text from their mobile phones, video and still cameras to the website. People can then watch as it fuses into a collective expression of the event.

3) After the Event

Keep the conversation going. Maintain the most active forums, discussion and conversational areas and aggregate all of the related content into highly focused channels. Look at it this way: any event, when transformed into an Event 2.0 is an opportunity to put in movement a series of mechanisms that can create / generate a number of highly valuable content and engagement channels. These shouldn't be seen as useless and expensive-to-maintain content marketing channels but ultimately as revenue and engagement-generating dynamic user communities bonded together by one of the themes / personalities / issues which the event has brought forward.

Develop and design with our most loyal community participants our next year’s event, starting from the very discussions we have kept open. Let our newly developed communities design and shape our next conference by participating in the identification of topics, speakers, events and format improvements which they want to see happen. What a great way to bond more with an event audience and to crowdsource its insight and desires to improve our offering.

Showcase all of the event videos, key presentations, photos and Crowdsourced content and conversations. Make it as easy and simple to access, embed and share all of this content in a



variety of formats: Streaming video, on demand downloadable clips, podcasts, SlideShare presentations, photos, text transcription, premium options as packaged downloads or even DVD’s with special selected content. Consider utilizing more advanced presentation delivery tools like UStream, Live Meeting or others to allow participants to create synched mashup’s of live video recordings with the actual slideshow presentations delivered.

Integrate social conversational components into each content item. Make it easy for people to add comments, tags and to start new discussion threads under each show / presentation. Allow each session to become a smaller pivot point for social aggregation, communication and networking.

Facilitate the user-generated creation of image photo-albums about the event. Beyond the typical tag reference, used in these situations, allowing everyone uploading to public image sharing sites to make their own pictures and videos associated with the event. Reward individual participants who create multimedia photo-albums on specific themes and topics by using some of the many great visual story-telling tools like Scrapblog, Smilebox, VMix, OneTrueMedia, Mixercast, Vuvox, Flektor and or equivalent Microsoft platforms.

Create user-generated video compilations of the most interesting sessions and topics by making it easy for participants to edit playlists of the video clips they are interested in. From YouTube playlists to Magnify or Splashcast powerful features, there are a growing number of tools that do just this.

We should send all attendees or registered participants an event email follow up asking them to rate the event and or individual sessions. If a person’s rating falls below a certain threshold then when the survey result is submitted it could trigger an automatic email along the lines of, “We are sorry to hear TechEd 2009 was not all you expected to be. We would like to offer you $50 off next year’ event we would appreciate your feedback or suggestions to help make TechEd event better.” Now imagine the CPE benefit from a personal follow up like this! It is also another opportunity to keep the dialogue and conversation alive by highlighting the online resources.

Events 2.0 Benefits If our vision for Events 2.0 is correct, these are going to be outstanding marketing, branding, engagement and advertising channels, giving extended life to any physical event while hugely increasing its reach and profit potential. Here are some of the immediately apparent benefits that Events 2.0 can bring to any company managing, organizing or designing the delivery of live events like typical conferences and seminars:

a) Larger audiences: As all participants don't need to attend on a specific date/time, potential for participation is increased tremendously. Interested parties can access event recordings after the event at their leisure. For physical events this provides a significant extension of the reach and the possibility of scaling the number of participants.

b) Extension of communication and marketing reach: As a significantly larger number of

people can attend, participate, subscribe and listen to extended events, so does the reach of our messages, brands, sponsorship and products and technologies. All of the extended channels offer huge opportunities for highly targeted, contextual, non-intrusive marketing and lead generation opportunities.



c) Greater opportunity for engagement and individual dialogue: Participants both in the live event as well as in the extended post-event conversations have more opportunities to engage panelists, experts, speakers and companies/products being mentioned or showcased. Through the use of RSS newsfeeds, Twitter, wikis, blogs and discussion forums, event tracks can be kept alive for an indefinite period of time before the event starts and long after the actual event is over. Multiple "vertical-communities" are created offering valuable high profile demographic niches with specific interests and characteristics.

d) Participatory design and delivery. Yes, grassroots Events 2.0 design is here: Who's going to

grab it first? Participants can now become co-creators, contributors, editors, individual re-sellers and publishing houses for any event. If only we allowed them to! Who is to say that events need to be designed solely by Microsoft representatives? Couldn't emancipated participants do a better job of it? Sure they could. Who better than our customers know what they want to buy, listen to and watch and attend? Why take the risk of discovering all this at event time?

e) Great ROI, expanded profit, increased engagement, extended sales and leads generation

marketplaces: Events 2.0 offer great opportunities to increase event profit-margins by extending marketing and sales opportunities, dialogue and engagement, without a need for expensive physical space and hugely expensive event-related logistical costs. Events 2.0 is grounded in an extended communication framework not on additional costs for physical infrastructures. Events 2.0 enables major cost-savings matched by the potential for higher quality output when the organizing team is able to fully realize the direct involvement of participants in the design and delivery of the event.

f) Greater opportunities for monetization: Events 2.0 garners the attention of lots of valuable

participants on specific topics and issues. Events 2.0 can also generate huge quantities of valuable content which can be edited, compiled, annotated and packaged for digital delivery in an infinite number of formats thereby contributing to a groundswell around Microsoft and its products, technologies, solutions and brands. Such content can be exploited and monetized in multiple and overlapping ways by, for example:

Selling web-based conferencing and presentation space to small companies and individuals who want to run parallel extended sessions within the conference framework and official activities

Providing paid access to private video conferencing rooms a-la OoVoo for media and premium customers wanting to video interview your event key guests

Providing paid (or MSDN/TechNet subscriber only) access to high quality (HD) recorded / downloadable sections.

Selling sponsorship space (internally or externally) on all distributed content formats (RSS, wiki, social community, etc.).

Offering paid subscription (or MSDN/TechNet subscriber only) access to very-narrow content channels including user created topic-specific RSS feeds / Twitter feeds tapping on all content generated by the event.

Creating premium content offerings for MSDN/TechNet subscribers including case studies, analysis and report data by selecting, aggregating and editing most valuable content extracted from the live event.



Paid (or MSDN/TechNet subscriber only) access to higher quality full screen video of live events as well as to individual downloads and video compilations created around key themes and topics.

Resources Required Events 2.0 are as challenging and complex to plan, organize and maintain as is a physical event. The key issue with Events 2.0 is that traditional event organizers are not too familiar with the new conversational marketing strategies and techniques and do not have the skills and experience required to manage such an event. Events 2.0 require many talented individuals with real experience in managing user-generated content, in moderating forums and in motivating communities of interest to engage with the selected issues, and in particular:

1. Having a talented Events 2.0 communication strategist. Someone who can aptly envision, plan and coordinate the unfolding of a multi-channel event as an integrated whole.

2. Employing a skilled and experienced editorial team. Creating ongoing discussion topics, news

radars, webcasts, interviews and podcasts, blogs, tweets, wikis and live chats requires skilled individuals who live and breathe the online world.

3. Selecting tools and technologies that are accessible to everyone. Having communication,

presentation and collaboration tools that are both easy-to-use and accessible by all types of Internet users is a critical and essential requirement.

Yes, to be done right a typical Event 2.0 setup is likely going to require a dedicated newsroom working to support these many, diverse tasks. In addition, emphasis must be given to mapping, planning and defining the key objectives and communications framework from the very beginning. This will result in a much safer probability for success.

Conclusion Traditional events are going to transform themselves into ongoing conversation streams. They can be as popular and successful as the topics and people participating and moderating them are, and as credible and authoritative as the depth and value of the conversations they are able to generate. Events 2.0 are a natural, spontaneous evolution of traditional physical events and they are characterized by the effective integration of communication and collaboration media with social community technologies to create an extended and ongoing groundswell of news as well as lively conversation channels. These will start long before the actual physical event takes place and which can go on indefinitely after it. Events 2.0 offers great benefits in terms of the creation end energizing of communities, user generated content, engagement and interaction, social and business networking, online reach and marketing and monetization opportunities by extending the topics and focus of the physical event into the digital world via the use of social, conversational and information-distribution technologies.



Events 2.0 represents the new "engagement marketing" frontier and those who will master how to design, manage and deliver such rich multimedia and dialogue based experiences will likely be remembered as the pioneers of a whole new way of creating and delivering live events. Even though most of the tools that would be needed to set-up an effective Event 2.0 have been out there for a while now, the true challenge is not only in integrating these into a coherent whole but having individuals who can see this vision, transform it into a plan and execute it. This is certainly more challenging and complex than bringing together the typical tech conference. But the success and rewards would be significant. What it takes to make Events 2.0 happen is a greater appreciation of this new approach by those who organize and finance events. Events 2.0 requires stakeholders and organizers to first understand what it takes to start, maintain and continually energize these multiple channels of dialogue and conversations. They must appreciate the value of creating topic-focused communities that are highly engaged. These are not easy tasks but the train is already leaving the station with or without us.



Appendix – Case Study Microsoft confidential (please do not forward outside of Microsoft).

MICROSOFT SMALL BUSINESS SUMMIT LIVE (Phase 1) RESULTS:

On October 14th - 16th 2008, the Microsoft – CMG SB Digital Web Marketing team broadcast the

fourth LIVE annual Microsoft Small Business Summit (Phase 1). The team will rebroadcast the

Summit in Q3 (Phase 2).

The Summit is a key engine in driving results and scale against the Small Business segment and

validating Web syndication 2.0 as predictable scale engine for Microsoft.

The number of live viewers more than doubled compared to the FY08 March Summit, while the cost

per viewer decreased by 51%.

SUMMIT OBJECTIVES:

Use our syndication model to reach 1M BDMs (Phase 1&2) wherever and whenever they are on the web.

Expose BDMs to the Microsoft business and technology products and solutions.

Convert over 100K viewers (Phase 1&2) to the Learn/Try/Buy pipeline through clicks on products, services and CTA offers.

Connect business customers with SBSC partners.



PHASE 1 TOP LINE RESULTS: LIVE BROADCASTS COMPARED: March FY08 Vs. October FY09

March FY08 (4 days) October FY09 (3 days) % change

Video Viewers 247,625 583,203* + 135%

Viewers per day 61,906 194,401 + 214%

CTA Clicks (Learn/try buy) 10,227 11,559 + 13%

Product Demo Viewers 32,167 88,737 + 175%

Cost per viewer $ 3.028 $1.483 - 51%

Cost Per HVA (CTAs+demos+

commercials +tips/tricks) $ 17.69 $ 8.62 - 51%

*on target to reach 1M goal of summit video viewer during Live and rebroadcast (scheduled rerun in Q3)

THE IMPACT ON OUR BUSINESS

During the event, Small Business BDMs engaged in over 100K high value Learn/Try/Buy activities

aligned against our business goals. As in the past, Vista, Office, Server and Dynamics GP achieved

the highest share.

HIGHLIGHTS:

12 hours of broadcast video featuring over 50 guests in 48 8-10 minute segments. Guests included business experts, technology evangelists, and successful small business owners, providing a mix of expert advice, technology solutions, practical tips, and inspiration.



12 live product demos from Vista, Office(1) (2), Server, Dynamics GP, BPOS, Volume Licensing and many more

(see the full list on MSCOM/video).

Microsoft Vice President Bob McDowell joined as a guest to tell the inside story on Windows Vista—what went right, what went wrong, and lessons learned.

Over 370 paid sites simultaneously hosted the Summit live: samples include, CNNMoney, Allbusiness, WSJ, BizJournals, SBSC sites, MSCOM/Smallbusiness, MSCOM/Vista SB, and many more.

“Long tail” syndication test through Tremor Network, broadcasting the Summit live across 367 sites

Chat test that connected 202 BDMs with ~12 SBSC.

Twitter test led by PR during the live event to extend PR reach.

Ready To Go campaign: ‘Summit in a Box’: 257 campaign executions/SBSC partners engaged, and 1460 of Campaign Components Downloaded

Strong response rate to CTAs on major sites - 4.18%

Summit PR news reached an estimated 11.3 Million people leading up to the event and also cultivated an engaged online community (Twitter) during the broadcast. (Please see attached for full PR summery.)

Piloted international syndication of the Summit with SBC Canada.

LOWLIGHTS:

Low 0.33% response rate on Tremor Network (367 sites) *Tremor Media was a pilot and the low response rate is under investigation.

Day one media deployment was slow

Streaming servers hiccups on day one and three (estimated affect ~5%)

Chat room - Technical issues on day one

4 publisher sites opted out (Linkedin, Yahoo, TheStreet, Reuters) due to concerns with the user experience, as the player ad is conceptually new.

3 YEAR LIVE SUMMIT REACH TREND:

As in FY08, we are planning to re-broadcast the Summit in Q3.

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/a732241e-cd3e-4d99-94d6-8465c46efe76

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/286507af-e41c-4281-884d-34e291a10670

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/ba6faac7-b9fa-4fa2-a5e1-325d71bef478

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/5dfb8cc3-5d5c-443c-82ba-e955cad63765

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/8cefe323-e32c-42e1-aa93-1b16a58d709a

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/9c4fe5e0-d8b5-41cd-8c96-61737777b9df

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/5f352ca3-5dec-41ae-97b6-2f9353cc6dcb

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/channels/smallbusiness/search?phrase=summit&sf=ActiveStartDate

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/3112ce43-c923-4fa3-8490-77496e72bbca



SYNDICATION RESULTS DURING LIVE PROGRAM:

Note: *Pending final confirmation after impression reconciliation and final reporting.

Ready-to-Go Results (RTG) with MS Partners: (see full report attached)

Mar

FY08

Sept

FY09

Oct

FY09

TOTAL

Partners Engaged/

Executions

170 90 167 257

Summit Syndication

Code Used (from RTG only)

80 33 96 129

# of Campaign

Components Downloaded

828 456 1,004 1,460

Customers Reached 55,188 61,363 121,188 182,551

SUMMIT CONTENT: This year’s Summit provided 12 hours of LIVE, interactive broadcasts plus 24 hours of encore presentation over

three days. Formatted as a TV talk-show, the Summit delivered 48 content segments focused on the business

and technology needs of small business owners, 12 of which showed the problem-solving power of Microsoft

products and services, including Vista, Office, Server, Dynamics GP, BPOS, Volume Licensing, Response Point,

and Office Live and Office Accounting. We also featured external and internal experts—including John Jantsch

on marketing, Michael Santarcangelo on security, Nell Merlino on women’s entrepreneurship, Stephanie Frank

on motivational strategy, Steven Rogers on finance, and Rieva Lesonsky on general small business issues-- to

help small businesses with sales and marketing; productivity, mobility, and security; financial management;

http://www.sbsummit.com/guests



and startup. Finally, we interviewed more than a dozen successful small business owners, who provided both

inspiration and practical tips on how to succeed even during an economic slowdown.

TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM:

This technically and logistically complex project required the collaboration of many colleagues, partners, and

vendors. Our TV producers and hosts delivered 4 hours of high-quality live TV programs each day of the 3-day

Summit. The broadcast was streamed live from MS Studios to our video player, which was syndicated through

Atlas Rich Media to over 400 sites.

The Summit broadcast was synchronized to the second with our call to actions (CTAs) based on the content of

the Summit segments. The end result was the world’s biggest virtual small-business summit, and an event

where viewers could see and interact via chat, phone, and email from anywhere in the world.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK HIGHLIGHTS:

Partner Feedback: “ I got 6 server leads in 1 day from the Summit chat room” Kevin Royalty, SBSC (Kevin is a Server expert who presented during the Summit and later joined the chat.)

“The Small Business Summit is a great idea/resource. The format is great. The hosts do a great job of keeping it interesting and the content is very relevant to small business owners. I hope to see Microsoft do more of these in the future.” -Gary Grabowski TriLogic Corporation “Thanks for letting us “host” this event…it has lead to three client discussions this week! -Greg Sartz General Networks, Inc.



“The Summit looked great on our home page we had banners linking to our Small Business Server page where we had the streaming video (the large viewer) with all the information and screen shots of SBS 2008. Just imagine it…! -John S Simpson Advanced Business Concepts, Inc.

FROM THE CHAT: Overall, SBSCs and BDMs provided each other with helpful information and advice, and most conversations were around the Summit topics. All together, the chat resulted in more than 3,000 lines of transcripts, which we are still reviewing. Here is a snippet from day one:

14/10/2008 12:10:28 I have learned so much from this B2B chat. It's like IM blogging. Mr. Wibbels' is giving good blog advice.

14/10/2008 12:11:44 I started a blog for our firm in January, SMB TechConnect, that is a topical discussion on issues affecting the small to midsized business centered around technology

14/10/2008 12:12:24 The key that has made it get noticed is that it's not TechSpeak. I use my style as a writer and make it fun!

14/10/2008 12:13:25 Me, too.

14/10/2008 12:13:37 Right on. Speaking on the blog like you are speaking to your best friend make all teh difference

14/10/2008 12:14:50 Money savers for your product is a good topic in this economic crunch.

14/10/2008 12:15:23 That's very interesting! Blog about something a potential prospect or current customer would find interesting... You just gave me a really good idea!

14/10/2008 12:24:21 Consistent message today -- be known for one thing, don't be all things to all people.

14/10/2008 12:56:58 If you already have a website with another provider, how do you get into Microsoft office live?

14/10/2008 12:58:27 There are instructions to redelegate your domain...it is very simiple if I did it anyone can. I believe I did a search on FAQ and found step by step directions

14/10/2008 12:58:53 Thanks.



Who is Martin Walsh? Martin is the Producer of the critically acclaimed and award winning The Battle of Long Tan documentary and from 2005 to late 2009 he was the Head of Digital Marketing at Microsoft defining, developing and executing Microsoft’s B2C and B2B global digital marketing and social influence marketing strategies & disciplines. Prior to Microsoft, Martin successfully led and grew the ecommerce division of a large Australian media & entertainment company from less than AUD$22 million in annual sales to more $AUD700 million in annual sales. Martin has worked in senior marketing roles across radio, film, music, games, entertainment and the technology industries for companies such as News Corporation, Village Roadshow / PBL, Austereo, Telstra, BMG (Bertelsmann), Sydney 2000 Olympics, Tabcorp & Microsoft. He specialises in B2C & B2B digital & traditional marketing, social influence marketing, social CRM, search engine marketing and online analytics. Martin has also advised organisations such as Australian Rugby Union, Cricket Australia, UNHCR, film distributors, games publishers, media and government on how to engage with consumers, commercially exploit their content and enhance their digital marketing capability & strategies. In parallel to Martin’s professional marketing career, he established Red Dune Films in early 2004 and acquired the film, documentary & story rights to the Battle of Long Tan from the seven Australian Long Tan combat commanders. In 2006 he produced the ASTRA award winning & TV Week Logie award nominated Battle of Long Tan documentary for The History Channel (FOXTEL) which was narrated by Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation, Avatar & Clash of The Titans). Born In Melbourne but now living in Sydney, Martin originally began his career as an Actor before serving with Australian Army Special Forces - 2 Commando Company, 1st Commando Regiment and then studying innovation at Swinburne University earning a Master’s Degree and Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Contact: Email: [email protected] Twitter: http://twitter.com/martinwalsh Mobile: +61 (0)438 417 143

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVMeTg4stM

http://www.reddunefilms.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVMeTg4stM

mailto:[email protected]

http://twitter.com/martinwalsh