#EventProfs Chats Update

Happy 2014, event professionals!

So towards the middle of last year, I was lamenting the fact that the weekly #eventprofs twitter chats appeared to be abandoned.  I approached Adrian Segar (from conferencesthatwork.com, and a prior community manager), and Lara McCulloch (from ready2spark.com, and who is generally credited with starting the #eventprofs hashtag on Twitter).  I expressed my desire that the chats continue, and suggested that I become the temporary community manager until someone who had more time and drive for the project could be found.  I knew I didn't have a lot of time to devote to the project, but I figured that even a bad community manager was better than no community manager, and attempted to revive the chats.

Attendance was sparse, but a lot of people seemed to really like the idea of the chats and expressed a desire for them to continue.  Towards the end of 2013, I released a survey to gather data from folks on if, and how, they'd like the chats to continue.  My intention was to take that information and use it to guide the chats for 2014.  There's a lot of good information in the surveys, and I look forward to sharing that data with you.

Now, remember that part about not having a lot of time and "even a bad community manager..."

So I just wanted to let everyone know that I fully intend to bring back the chats, but a couple things have delayed the restart for 2014.  First off, our January at metroConnections was off the charts.  One of our biggest months ever, and definitely our largest January of all time.  This certainly seems to lend support to the data being reported that the meetings and events industry is rebounding from the recession!  Now, in the midst of that January, as I announced in a previous blog article, I've joined the team at Event Alley, and am now a co-host and producer of the Event Alley Show, a weekly live Internet broadcast focused on the meetings and events industry.  This has proven to be a lot of (rewarding!) work as well, as we completely rebranded and moved the show off of the audio-only BlogTalkRadio platform and on to live Hangouts on Air and YouTube.  Anyone who knows me knows that it has been a dream of mine for a while to be part of a show like this, and it's already been an amazing experience!

So, that's the update- still working on finding a good time and format for the #eventprofs chats, and still very open to your comments, and suggestions.  If you haven't already, please take a moment to fill out the survey.  Also please check out the #EventProfs wiki, which contains all the archives of the chats going back for quite some time.

Once things settle down, I'm planning on bringing back the chats officially!

Be well out there, folks!

-Brandt