Ben Muscolino:

Events are an incredible touch point for associations and for any organization running events, because there is no fresher piece of data than the data that they gave you at that moment when they registered for that event or when they showed up for that event. And if you track that and ensure that in a uniformed way, it becomes very usable as well. That context, that personalization is so easy to do when you're just very intentional about actually using some of the data that you're gathering.

Alyssa Peltier:

Great events create great brands. But pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier:

And you are listening to Great Events. The podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Hello, everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name's Alyssa and I'm one of your regular hosts here at Great Events. Now, today's episode will focus on a conversation many of you are grappling with in today's events landscape which is, how in the heck am I going to cater to the five different generations of attendees, all of whom want things done and delivered according to their preferences and personalized to them as an individual? Now in 2025, as is true for all event organizers, association event leaders are particularly on the hook for getting this right. And truly delivering on one of those core value propositions, which is to connect members through events designed to educate and build relationships. So how can association event organizers rise to this challenge of designing the right experience that mirrors the needs of multiple member segments within budget and also without going crazy?

Today's conversation will be facilitated by a very special guest host and also fellow Cvent-er, Elizabeth Wu (Powell), and she's going to help answer those very questions. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Elizabeth, our in-house solutions manager for our association and nonprofit clients. Now, whether that's working with sales, client services, tech, or engaging with our customers, she carries the torch for bringing Cvent's event tech solutions to over 4,400 customers who reside from those nonprofit and association spaces. She's also walked in their shoes being a former nonprofit event planner herself.

I'd also like to introduce a very special guest from one of Cvent's Alliance partners, Ben Muscolino, CEO, president, and founder of several technology solutions from the association space. Some of you may be familiar with Breezio, AMS Geek, Data Sangria to name a few. He's also been a member of ASAE for 15 years now and comes to great events, ready to share his wealth of knowledge. And working directly with associations and their technology needs. Now, with that, take it away, Elizabeth and Ben.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Thanks for that introduction, Alyssa. 2025 is the year associations have an incredible opportunity to deliver on their value propositions. We join associations because we want to gather, network, learn, galvanize. Maybe even do a little legislation on the hill. The power of bringing people and organizations together is because they see the value in what the association offering.

But we're seeing associations enter this pivotal place. In fact, a lot of event organizers or institutions that are running events are running into this challenge where now, we've got five generations to cater to. Many events just end up being a corporate expense and many contacts, but associations have to get these right when it comes to their budget and member expectations. So it's a little challenging to do this effectively when you're trying to talk to five different groups.

And that's a summary in itself. If you look at your membership data, there's probably several different ways to segment it by event preference or learning track. So how can you do this effectively? You've got to be building systems and processes internally and your tech stack needs to be set up right. You want to be gathering the right data and act on it quickly.

And so, that's where our guest today comes in. Ben is going to share his expertise on how associations should be integrating their tech stack and looking at their data in 2025. We're going to get into all the ins and outs of all the cool things you can do, but we're definitely going to take it at a high level too. Ben, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and share your relationship with the association industry?

Ben Muscolino:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's really exciting. Not only am I a big event guy, right? I'm a big tech guy. I love the association space. I always say that working on the for-profit side of the nonprofit market is such a privilege and we just get to help people to all these solutions. And a lot of that comes back to data these days, so I'm totally pumped to talk to you about this today.

Yeah. A little background on me. I've been in the space about 18 years now. I used to sell PRGR Software at a little company called Vocus that was publicly traded, that rolled in decision. I think it's even rolled up somewhere else now. But I was selling PRGR software to associations there and I worked for an AMS company. As I worked my way through that, I found my passion for consulting. Working in small market sales to large market sales to director of client services and in charge of strategic initiatives and I just fell in love with that moment that you solve the problem for the association.

And so, I've been an AMS consultant for about 11 years now. That went quick. Helping associations solve problems around their data and technology and a big passion of mine within that consulting team has always been building integrations, creating connectivity, which is a funny coincidence because I took over as CEO of Breezio in 2019 as well which all it is is just a community platform that works in the association market.

And so, with AMS Geek as the consulting, Data Sangria as the integration platform that we deliver through AMS Geek and Breezio, I think I'm a walking metaphor for what we do. And that is connecting people, connecting data, and allowing people to find value in those things. So yeah, been in the space a long time and it's really a pleasure to be a technology leader in the space, because there's so much going on, there's so many problems to solve, and there's so much to learn from vendors, from associations. And data is the currency these days, right? We have to figure out how to leverage these things.

I guess last to mention my background in the space I run, a podcast called The Association podcast. And there's such a great community over there too with Association Strong and Association Chad and Association Thrive and Reboot IT. Like there's a community of podcasters over there too, right? And we meet up at events which is the theme of some of the data we're going to be talking about today. So for me, it's just a pleasure to be here. I've taken a lot of pleasure in the almost two decades in the space and even working with Stephen quite a bit over the years.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. We're excited to have you on here too. And for our listeners, usually, the events field attracts creative types, operational minds. They're in the trenches. They like things that they can see, touch, hear. So when we start talking about event data and integration, then the further we get into the technical side of it, really intimidating. And so, I am just excited that you're going to be able to bring both your association knowledge and your tech expertise with really being in the trenches with how associations can be leveraging their integrations and data. But also, be able to explain it in a way that is really making sense to myself and our audience here.

I love to start off by asking a high level question and just that, why should associations care about their event data? Beyond obviously some of the basics like registration and general things that they're reporting on their events, what are some of the things that you would say associations need to care about the most when it comes to their event data?

Ben Muscolino:

Yeah. There's a few ways to look at it. Events are an incredible touch point for associations and for any organization running events. Because there is no fresher piece of data than the data that they gave you at that moment when they registered for that event or when they showed up for that event, whether it's a changed email or a title change or a new zip code where they live. And then, you start to find preferences of people. And if you track that and store that in a uniformed way, it becomes very usable as well in the association's opinion. They want a lot of information from that member, right? Here's a big membership application.

And there's been this big back and forth for many years like, how do we lower the barrier of entry but get what we want to fill out a 360 degree profile and create a living profile for this association? And I think that events are an incredible tool to complement the membership application and allows you to pare that down a little bit. Lower the barrier of entry for them to join and then start to leverage things like connected event technology to say, "Well, we didn't want to overload them when they filled out the membership application. But every event we go to, let's get a little bit more data that we may have wanted to put on the membership application. But was it really needed for them to join?" If not, maybe leave it off and start to consider how you layer that into event touch points and event registrations to gather other bits of information to build out your member's profile. Instead of clobbering them over the head with some cumbersome membership application.

And so, in terms of filling out profiles and gathering data, events are an incredibly powerful tool for that. But the fact that they registered for an event, whether it's your national conference or it's a chapter event or something like that, it allows you to start evaluating their level of engagement in the organization, their buy-in.

If you're a trade association, how engaged are the people that are under the organizational member that you have? So that you can gauge, who are the champions that are making it more likely for this organization to renew with us? Or can we trend that individuals are more likely or less likely to renew with us based on how engaged they've been showing up to an event, virtual or otherwise? It says something.

They're raising their hand. They're saying, "I'm going to be here for this. I'm going to show up. I'm going to be involved. I want to be part of the community." And even the little things, right? How do you leverage the fact that they registered in a personalization way? When we talk about data personalization with our content management systems, our email marketing tools, and you want to market differently to people that have already registered for the event to let them know, "Hey, we just want to keep you up-to-date on what's coming." Versus people that haven't registered yet, "Hey, I know you haven't registered yet, but this is what's upcoming." That context, that personalization is so easy to do when you're just very intentional about actually using some of the data that you're gathering.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Just earlier today, we were chatting through some of the Cvent, like 2025 event trends that we're seeing. And it's so centered on having a streamlined repository of data that you can access and pull insights from very quickly. Being able to leverage AI only happens when all your data is centralized and you're able to access it quickly. Personalization becomes so much easier when all your eggs are in the fridge.

We were talking about this concept of data lakes with my integrations product marketer here at Cvent and he was saying, "A lot of the challenge today is instead of your eggs all in the fridge, when you want to go make an omelet, you're going to make an omelet. And you realize, 'Oh. Well, I've got two eggs in the laundry room and two eggs over here,' and like, 'Oh, wait. This egg's half-cracked.'" I mean, I don't know if that's a perfect metaphor. But it helps me understand that before we're even talking about things you can do with the data, you've often got to get set up. But I know we'll get more into that later.

I liked how you touched on the trend of understanding the relationship between events and membership. And I'd be curious to hear if you've seen associations wanting to understand their engagement data for a sponsorship perspective. Having bigger, better sponsorships or charging more, because they're able to tie engagement and impact with the data they can pull with these integrations to sponsorship. Is that something you're seeing come up as a use case?

Ben Muscolino:

It is actually. When you talk about non-dues revenue and sponsorships and things like that, the better that you're able to inventory assess and create funnels in some of your data like, "These people fit this member category and these people fit this member category." And that has to do with a good integration strategy, making sure you have a good data continuity plan between all of your systems.

The more detail you have in that, the more valuable it is for the partners that want to come support your event. And as one of those partners, Breezio, AMS Geek, Data Sangria, we sponsor all of the shows that we go to and we are very intentional about asking questions and making sure that we take that data. And are not only responsible with it, but we want to get as targeted as possible as well. And so the more information that we can get that's useful, it tells us, "These aren't people for us to reach out to. These people are and here's why." So it creates value on both sides long-term.

I'll give you a great just real-world example. Having a list of registrants is one thing. But when you have proper single sign-on set up, for example, and it's bringing over your unique member ID and some of the things that the member doesn't really care about. But it autopopulates their data, it autopopulates their member type. With Cvent, they have such a great API, you can actually have it put you right on a registration path for a certain price or allow the member to say, "I'm actually not that type of member anymore."

It streamlines the member experience, but it allows the data to come over with the registration instead of just having a registering count. So what is the context around that registering count? That context is where the value lives, right? Everything from sponsoring your online community alongside your event or having sponsors on your website and knowing the traffic of the types of members that are going to be there, all of those details in the same way that you might buy advertising for your business on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. And we were always like, "Oh my gosh. Look how targeted you can get. I can just get in front of these specific people." If you take the context from your systems and roll that into your registrations, the value just continues to compound. Because it's not all a quantity game anymore, it's quality and the quality of your data is well-rounded as those records become. It's just more and more valuable.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

So what would you say is the biggest challenge for associations today that they're looking to solve when they come to you and they're looking at some of these integrations? Is it the single sign-on seamless experience? Is it more than that? Talk to me about what associations are coming to you asking to solve.

Ben Muscolino:

It's interesting. Sometimes they're on both camps, but it's usually one camp or the other and they're so intertwined. So it's a lot of fun for us, because we're not telling them anything they don't know, but we get to connect the dots for them to help them understand the value. Because we have people that say, "I want to know which of my vendors or partners are registered already and which aren't, so that I can then send personalized messages to them." Same thing with members and non-members that are registered or aren't registered. You want to be able to say, "Did they register two years ago, but they didn't register this year? Let's send them a unique message too."

So that level of personalization for marketing and getting that data back to your AMS, for example. So that it can then go from the AMS, that event data over to your email system, right? And that becomes wildly useful data to bring the registrations as they happen every day, hourly, whatever it is. To have those integrations in place and then there's the other people that are like, "Well, we're all about user experience. We want to do single sign-on, because we want our members, when they log in, to get validated for the pricing that they get. We don't want it to be an honor system. We want them to authenticate against the member database and show and prove that they're a member."

Because it's going to eliminate issues when people say, "Oh, I thought I was a member but I'm not," and then you have to charge them more or issue a refund or whatever. It takes some of that out, but it autopopulates fields in the form. So when you do that, now, you've got this white glove experience where I went to the registration platform on Cvent and I said, "Yeah. I'm a member," and I click and I enter my credentials from my AMS single sign-on. It redirects me back to the Cvent page and then my profile is loaded in there. I don't even have to fill out the form. Just my meal preferences or which sessions I want to attend or whatever it might be.

They're used to these things being readily available for them to make their life easier and it is virtually impossible for most associations to build this stuff out on their own. So we have to properly integrate with these tech stacks to do that. The most important part as a data nerd is when you authenticate and do that single sign-on and make that user experience for you members better, one thing that happens is it brings the unique member ID over, which nobody's paying attention to except me. And I'll tell you why.

Because in order to sync the data back to the AMS to it useful for your marketing team or your advocacy team or whatever to know who's on site, who's registered, who didn't, that unique identifier allows you to map the data back to the AMS purely and cleanly from record to record instead of creating duplicates. And a lot of people will run registrations and they'll say, "Well, let's import our registration list." And then, they start to muck up their data a little bit by creating duplicates. And some people might use their Gmail to register for an event, but their professional email might be the one on file. And so, being able to see those things come alive and connect the dots for associations is a lot of fun and teach them the value of why it's important to get the data there in the first place. Because it makes that value coming back so much greater for personalization across your organization for years to come.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. And talk to me about who you find is being the internal champion for this, for integrating the event tech with the CRM and the AMS's? Is it the planner raising the charge? Is it the marketer or is it the IT person you're working with? Is it the executive or the board? Who's really getting the lightbulb moment?

Ben Muscolino:

It's such a good question because you find that there's incredibly smart people at a lot of associations. And one thing that I see often is they understand the strategy. But if it's not connected, what we end up doing in the association market is we throw bodies at it. We throw people at it. Well, these people are smart enough to figure it out. Absolutely. No question. But what if those people could be working a little bit more on the polish for the event or the messaging or the personalization or adding value in programming instead of doing some manual data shifting here and there, right?

It's not about replacing people with technology, it's about optimizing the organization. And I find that the role of IT has shifted, right? And in the association space, shifts happen slowly. It's true, right? There's a lot of consensus building, there's a lot of governance, and it's good because it's all about the programming and the advocacy for their industry and the credibility of the content they're putting together. It is what associations do best.

And the IT director, the CIO, if you will, of today is someone that really understands the strategy. And though it may not be their budget, it's their role in the organization to make sure that they go to the events department and say, "What dependencies do you have on AMS data?" And go to marketing and say, "What dependencies do you have to do your job well with event data or membership data?" And then, when they can put all of that together, the budgets to get those things done may come from different departments, but you need a quarterback.

And that's where IT fits the role because I assure you, the people in events, the people in marketing, the people in membership, they can tell you exactly what they need. But a lot of times, they're left to go do things in a silo. And the moment that you start collaborating in these organizations, you realize the unintended consequence of creating efficiencies and the staff all of a sudden creates a much better member experience. And then, all of a sudden, your annual fund for fundraising goes up, registration goes up, churn goes down for membership, sponsors go up, sponsor average investment goes up. All of a sudden, you start to see a trend that, "Hey, we had this little bit of time left over from these efficiencies that we were able to create value. Our members realized it, our partners realized it, and they're doubling down with us." And that's what technology fuels these days, I think.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. I really loved how you just painted the picture there. And I wondered, whoever is listening, who let out a huge groan when you talked about they see the value, but they're stuck in the silo. And I feel like that leads us into our next line of thinking is where are we in the evolution of this in the association space? How many associations are actually good at doing this yet or are optimized for this or are a lot of associations struggling to even think this way?

Ben Muscolino:

I love this question because this has been in flux. So there's, again, an incredible amount of smart people doing this. What happened is we had a slippery slope a few years ago where all the API's got better, and the software has got better, and the ability to share data got better. And you know what? It turned into this all-you-can-eat buffet and people were like, "Just start syncing our data from this system to this system."

We need to be intentional about the data because it becomes more usable when it actually has an impact and it's not just overloaded with their data. Systems have gotten better at the same rate that everyone has learned and gotten smarter in the industry. And it is the most fun to be in this industry right now, because you can slow down. The tech is so good that you can slow down and be ultra intentional about, "Well, let's not sync all the data over here. What are the things... Let's talk to the people that are going to use this data and only bring over the things that we need, that we're going to use." And then, it allows us to actually use that data. Instead of bringing everything over and then people get overwhelmed and they say, "Well, I want this data. But I don't really know how to find it now because it's buried in this amount of data that we have." We've got to be careful about that.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. I think that it's an interesting concept, this thought of intentionality. Because you're so right, raw data is just noise. It's how do you set things up for success to actually drive insights down the road? And that requires this backwards scoping. So how do you get all the players at the table and figure this out?

Ben Muscolino:

So I don't think it's for everyone to come up with. But if you get some key stakeholders together and perspectives from different departments, all of a sudden, you start operating as an organism that you really are which is, "We're all focused on the same mission." But the mission within the organization is to have the best event possible, to have it marketed the best we can, to have it tracked the best we can. Get the CEUs back in for sessions they attended. And you get a few of the right stakeholders in there and that data plan comes together faster than you think.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. And so, I feel like that is such a great segue into some key takeaways or for our audience, it does swing pretty event planner heavy. What might someone who is totally having their light bulb moment now, they see the value in this, where do they start? What would you have them take action on first within the organization?

Ben Muscolino:

Start with your vendors. Usually, you go to your AMS company. You go to Cvent and you check the marketplace, who has experience doing this thing that I need? Because they'll help you put that plan together. They'll ask you the right questions. So I think starting with your vendors to say, "Who has expertise in doing this with the systems that we have?", is a great place to start. Internally, it's really not hard to just grab your morning coffee and call someone. Hop on Teams and be like, "Hey, you want to have coffee?" And say, "I am thinking about what would make my life easier when I'm taking on this part of the planning of this event. Who has the relationship with my vendor?" Because it may not be always that event planner, it may be someone in IT or whatever.

And these don't have to be these overly planned meetings, but you can get in very quickly and inventory your objectives. You can inventory your data pretty quickly, "Okay. We're going to register. What do we include in registration?" Start to inventory your data. And a common misconception of building connected systems is that you have to be technical. You don't. All you have to do is say, "Here's my description of my business use case." And if you're not documenting some of those things, you need to be.

Because whether you need the integrator now or you already have an integrator putting it on paper, sharing it with people may add value to it or remove things from it. And then, everybody's aligned on that and then you can get to work on sharing that with somebody that knows how to translate that into, "Okay. I know what you want to do. Here are the questions I have about your data and your systems," that you don't need to understand programming at all. You just need to understand your business case or your use case.

If you document those things and share them with people, there's such an incredible ecosystem of partners around the association space. But particularly, Cvent has an incredible roster of partners that already know their tech. Why go hire an engineer that doesn't know Cvent when you're trying to integrate Cvent, right? You guys have one of the coolest looking ecosystems of partner directories. Go look at that. That is a great place to start, I think, in a lot of cases.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

Yeah. So a little bit of research, assembling the right team, having thoughtful, concrete conversations. What does that inside superhero execution team look like? Is it making sure they're talking to membership or sponsorship or their IT tech stack owner? Who do they need to all bring to the table when they're having these vendor conversations?

Ben Muscolino:

Yeah. I think, certainly, it's the core, right? You've got your events teams. You've got your programming teams, the people that are putting together the content. They may not want to have a lot of input on it, but they want to be a part of that conversation. Once you get some of that put together, bringing it to your executive director or your senior leadership and say, "Hey, I don't need you to do anything. I just want you to know, this is the team that we've put together. These are some of the questions we're asking ourselves because we want to be thorough. We want to make sure that you and our members and everybody's happy. Is there anybody you think I'm leaving out?" And they're going to say, "No. Great job," or they're going to say, "Actually, call Susie from the foundation. I'm so glad you brought it up. Call Darren over there. Call Alex."

I think managing some of that information up does a few things. It reassures them. It gives them a storyline to bring to the board to, "Hey, let me tell you about this proactive cool thing that's going on around data continuity, around our events that our staff's working on." And all of a sudden, the board is looking at the CEO like, "Wow. What a great job they're doing." And it also makes them aware that if there's budget needed to execute on some of these things, they've now been made aware that there's a real plan coming together and someone's not just lobbing a proposal onto their table, because it does cost money. It saves time and creates value that way outweighs the money, usually. Always, I would argue.

But it does cost money to get these things done sometimes. And so, the better job you can do putting that together and managing it up allows you to execute, I think. Because most, if not all, association executives, they want you to be successful. If you show the effort that you're putting a plan together to make them and the members and the mission more successful, they're going to support you in doing that.

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

I just want to thank you for taking time to be on our Great Events podcast. Ben, you just come with such knowledge about the association space, even building out technology solutions, consulting with them as clients for over a decade. Talk to us about where our listeners can go to find more of what you have to say or what you're doing.

Ben Muscolino:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And actually, we've had Cvent on The Association podcast. So you can come listen to some really cool association conversations over there and dig through and find The Association podcast episode with Cvent on it. Some people think that I split my time in an interesting way, but I would say that I focus every minute of my day in working to solve solutions for associations. And it's the pleasure of my life and I get to do it at Breezio which is breezio.com.

Powering member communities. Sometimes integrating with event data. So we create communities alongside those events at AMS Geek which is where we have a very close relationship with Cvent and get to help a lot of their association partners. And then, get to leverage our platform at AMS Geek which is called Data Sangria.

Look for us. You can google us or it's breezio.com, amsgeek.com, and datasangria.com. Super easy, right? No tricks there. And reach out to us. We are awesome to work with just like your friends at Cvent. And we really appreciate the opportunity as a partner to come on and talk about some of the trends we're seeing. Maybe lift up the veil a little bit on the fact that tech has gotten so much better that if you wondered yourself, "What if?", around your event tech, the answer is probably yes. So ask somebody, right?

Elizabeth Wu (Powell):

All right. Stay curious. Thanks, Ben.

Ben Muscolino:

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Alyssa Peltier:

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews:

And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you discover Great Events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

Felicia Asiedu:

Stay connected with us on social media for behind the scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

Rachel Andrews:

Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

Felicia Asiedu:

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier:

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.

Intro: Great events create great brands, and it takes a village to put on an event that engages, excites and connects audiences to your brand. And we're that village. I'm Alyssa. I'm Paulina. And I'm Rachel. And you're listening to great  events, the podcast for all people interested in events and marketing.

Rachel: Hello everybody and what is going on in this wide wide world of events? My name is Rachel and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events. We have a stacked show today with my fellow co-host, Paulina Giusti and Felicia Asiedu, and a very special guest. This week I'm excited to announce our guest speaker Ryan Curtis Johnson, who is the Director of Communications with The Valuable 500. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan: Thank you, and thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. If you're happy, I'd like to just give a quick, audio description of myself. So I'm a white male. I'm wearing a cream top. I've got my gold glasses on. I've got brown eyes, and behind me is a green AstroTurf wall, and a sign that says All you need is love, which is not lit up at the moment.

Rachel: That's awesome. Thank you for that. That's really on topic for what we're just doing today and talking about accessibility. Ryan, why don't you just introduce yourself and what you do at The Valuable 500 and give our listeners a little bit of background about you.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm obviously Director of Communications at The Valuable 500, but The Valuable 500 is a global collective of 500 CEOs and their companies who are innovating together for disability inclusion. Disability inclusion includes everything from representation, C-suite storytelling, inclusive reporting, and also part of that inclusive reporting is digital accessibility as well. So the full spectrum of looking at disability inclusion within the workplace.

Rachel: Okay, awesome. Actually, that's a great segue to our kind of first question here and opening up the conversation, so obviously accessibility is very important, but, a lot of times it's not discussed as broadly as it should be. Let's talk about the importance of that  and why our listeners should be concerned with that and be taking accessibility to the next level at their events, their marketing programs, you know, not just in person but digitally as well.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. It's so important. I think that the really simple way of looking at this is it's the right thing to do, you know, consciously it's the right thing to do. So often a lot of things will come through in the sense that it costs too much money. You know, there's no budget to be able to provide this.

And so just a caveat to how I think we drive change and support that. One of the things that The Valuable 500 does is we say no to any event, any speaking opportunity that is not fully accessible. And fully accessible for us means that if it is a live event, regardless of whether the delegate or the person who may attend, if they're registered or not, depending if it's a public or a closed event, If the person turns up and they do have a disability, they are able to be able to attend that event because it is fully accessible.

And that's really important to have that opportunity and those facilities and requirements and accommodations in place. And I think anyone that's sort of saying we don't have the budget is pretty much penalizing an individual because of the fact of they have a disability and it's the same as really looking at it in the fact of if you didn't provide tea and coffee, it's the same as if you didn't provide a description as to what your product is you're trying to sell from a marketing perspective.

If you decided to take all of those things away, that is pretty much what you are then doing if you're not making it fully accessible. And digital accessibility is everything. So it's making sure your website, making sure your content, texts, and its documentation is remediated. It's looking at the coloring, the font of texts.

The list goes on. There are checklists. You can see them all on different websites. If I named them all, I'm not going just name one, but there are plenty of places that you can check and there are websites that you can go and you can actually insert your website link if it is a registration or something like that.

That then allows you to tell you how accessible it is, and you know, in some cases if it isn't accessible, there are lawsuits against that because of the fact that it isn't fitting with data protection.

Felicia: Yeah. Ryan, you touched on when you are talking about how my mind was thinking as you were talking, you know, there will be lots of organizers and marketers that are kind of like,  but how do I do it? And they're so worried about falling foul that they just almost clam up and they say, okay, well I did this, and you know, what do you think about asking questions as to how can I do this?

Ryan: Yeah, I think the key to this is making sure that you ask the questions in the sense of if you do not understand or fully believe that you are doing everything accessible. There are experts out there that do this day in and day out, so it's really important to understand that these places are, or these individuals know this inside out. So actually don't be afraid. And that's where, again, costs will come into play, into that scenario regarding this in the sense of people would say, oh, well we don't have the budget to then go and pay for that professional to come in and support us with that.

Well, that's where you need to really be smart with your budgets because you know, as event managers or as creatives or as any good procurement person would be able to do, there are ways to find money or cut back on other things, and if that means, I don't know, being pedantic, one less brownie, one less croissant. But it means that actually your event is fully accessible or it means one less motion graphic that's probably not going to really do much on your website, but actually it means your website is fully accessible that all readers, you know, and website readers that people may be utilizing are able to use your website completely.

Why wouldn't you do that? Because, you know, morally, again, to go back to what I said, it's the right thing to do. So I don't know why we wouldn't do that. So it's, I think a lot, there's a lot of nervousness around it, but also there's a lot of nervousness for, you know, people with disabilities in being willing to come forward and talk about their disability because one, they see a lack of representation within their organization.

They don't see it in the materiality. So when they're looking at the promotions or when they're trying to apply for jobs or they just don't see them talking about it, but then they see it talk being talked about on Mental Awareness Week or you know, global Accessibility Day, or you know, IDPD, which is the International Day of People with Disabilities.

They might see all that activity, but that's only on one day. And we need to see this continuously. And I think the key to it, which is, which is another thing to kind of go again. So I know we are talking about people with disabilities here, but it's accessibility for all, you know. We never know at some point with an aging population and the amount, disability can affect anybody at any time, and it's visible and it's non-visible disability. So we can't just constantly think about the event and the sense of is access into the venue okay. And everything like that. Because a person with a non-visible disability that you wouldn't see on the offsite doesn't need those elements maybe, but needs other elements in making sure that the text and the communications has been fully accessible for them to see. And that's the key to it really.

Paulina: I love that. I have a quick question. Well, Follow up question to it. So I think there's something about this, and Felicia and Rachel and I have talked about this countless times as we look at our event design process for programs, whether they're internal or or customer facing. But there's this kind of approach of a universal event design process, right?

Including it into, you know, just that same checklist that you would approach for your food and beverage considerations or your content considerations or production experience. There is this sort of mentality. I'm sure many people who are listening are saying, gosh, I wish I just had a checklist to start so that I could create a foundation and then be able to iterate off of that and get better and better with each event or each year.

And I think a number of us are thinking, okay, I've started with the onsite experience and thinking about the ADA offerings. I've thought about the digital experience and having,  you know, alt text for images and, applicable fonts and color schemes. What else beyond that? And I think part of where I'm going with this is I'm thinking about all of these things.

I'm doing all of these things. How am I meant to communicate that this is being done without appearing, like I'm doing it to check a box? I think that's something that a lot of people who are listening may be thinking, I don't want it to look like I'm promoting that I'm doing it for the wrong reasons, but I want to be doing this.

Ryan: Yeah, and I think that's, you know, when we come back to, it's a really interesting point because it's that kind of tippy toe scenario again. But I think if we go back to, you know, something that I often give example to the Black Lives Matter movement in the sense of this process is very similar in the sense of, people communicated that they did support the Black Lives Matter movement.

And then actually when people were investigated or looked into their organization, they hadn't been. And so it was talking a talk, but actually the action was very different. And I think it's really hard because do you want to over communicate? Do you not want to over communicate? But if people don't know, they're not going to tell you whether you are overcommunicating or not.

And so I think it's one of those things where you need to test the water. Most organizations, I would hope, have different committees or groups within, if they're a large organization. So I think it's stepping out to those, to speak to those individuals and say, we're doing this. We're driving this.

How is the best ways to do this? It's also pulling on the professionals within the organization. Your internal comms people, if you've got them in your organization, should be able to tell you what's the best way to communicate. And sometimes one model does not fit all. So it might feel like you've gotta repeat it a couple of times before it finally sticks.

And does that mean we need to put it on our Yammer, which is our internal sort of intranet? Do we put it in an email? Do we also push out some video content as well? But again, thinking about it when you're pushing it out, do it by setting an example as well. So if you're putting your video out, put your live captions on the bottom, not auto human generated caption, so it's word for word, making sure that your text is correct and it's not too condensed together because you are trying to cram everything in.

Its good spacing within it, clear text, not lots of fussiness around it with coloring and everything like that. So in some ways it's about keeping it simple. Keeping it simple, but making sure it does. And I think it's like anything, you could have a checklist and you could have, we've got 500 companies, they're all going to do it really differently, but it's sort of setting the parameters of this is what good looks like. And so by learning from what good looks like, that helps to push it out. And there's so many organizations that are doing it that are really, really kind of excelling on it. You know, a really good example at the moment that I can tell you about is AirBnB. So AirBnB put together a new category on their website.

So on their website, it's all pretty much online. And the website that they have. Obviously, if anyone isn't aware, AirBnB is an online platform that allows you to find accommodation that you can stay in. They created their category, which was an adaptive accommodation, which supports for digital, for people with disabilities and these homes are homes that are basically where people live who have a disability. So it would meet the needs of many other people who would like to travel. And some of the biggest barriers for people with disabilities is travel and the travel industry and accommodation and what accessibility really looks like.

Cause let's be honest, for some places, accessibility can be one thing and then they'll have a room, but they've only got two of those rooms out of all of those other areas. And actually the wheelchair doesn't fit. Or actually it doesn't accommodate the needs of that individual when they're utilizing it.

So AirBnB have created this category and they have seen an influx of people that have been utilizing this skill. And bear with me while I just get the figure for you because it's too impressive not for me to get it wrong. So I need to make sure I get it right for you.  But it's really impressive in the sense of, in the space of, I think the first, they, they only launched it sort of at the end of last year.

And basically the way in which it's worked, they launched the adaptive category and now homes over 1,100 listings around the world. And it says, with hosts earning over 5.5 million since the launch. Now, for me, if that doesn't show as a business or a brand that if you tap into this demographic, in this market, there is financial benefits for you as a business.

So if you are not considering or even thinking about it and you are not even showing that representation or delivering within that internal element,  Paulina, what you were saying, then you're really missing a trick. Because there is an expenditure of this income that is out there where people are willing to pay and there are, you know, whisperings of where some brands are considering, luckily to say they're not part of The Valuable 500 where they're considering reducing the amount of people with disabilities they may have on any of their services because of the fines that they are gaining due to the fact that they're not meeting good requirements. That says a lot, but it says a lot really that the fact that people understand that they know what good looks like and why it is needed and that they are even fined on that basis, but to hear of these stories is quite, you know, is quite sad.

And I think the key ideology, or if I was going to say, what is the magic solution to this? I don't believe there is a magic solution, but sometimes it feels like it's really simple. It's a workflow and you know, I would probably say I'm not the most digital person in the world, but I understand that when you are building a digital platform or a website, you have workflows of the way in which you want that individual to go through and that sort of customer experience or delegate experience, if it's an event registration, and the same happens in real time. So in a face-to-face scenario, you understand the way in which you want this conversation or that journey for that customer experience.

And there is a huge gap in the way in which that customer experience happens for a person with a disability and that is what we need to close and it feels really sort of simple when I say this. I have many conversations with different brands where I've sort of said it feels really easy, like there's just a knowledge gap here.

Where staff and individuals, who may be delivering on whether it's front of house in an accommodation, a person turns out they don't tell you that they're disabled. Does that mean that that's the person's fault? No. They should be able to just turn up and gain the same experience as a person who doesn't possibly have a visible disability.

It's the shock factor that sometimes causes the individual to not deliver on the same customer experience as someone who turns up, who doesn't have a visible disability, would then experience something very differently. And I, it's understanding that workflow and really providing better training, better accommodation in the sense of how we then speak and deliver and communicate with individuals and having the assets, collateral, whatever it might be, guidebook, whatever you might need to, to deliver on this, to close that gap, and then that makes it accessible for all. That doesn't just make it accessible for people with disabilities. That just makes it accessible for all because someone could break their, their foot or their leg.

That means that you are disabled for that period of time when you cannot use your leg. During that period, and people with disabilities, they're just asking to be treated as everyone should be treated and have the privilege that everybody has the privileges and the opportunities to experience and why would we penalize anyone for that?

Felicia: Yeah, and I hear you mentioned knowledge gaps, communication, like Paulina and you were asking about, you know, do I over communicate because then I might be treated as a ah, typical saying you're doing it. Not really. I just happened to Google whilst we were, you know, chatting, accessible, what I put in was “accessible events checklist.”

Here's what's really funny. Obviously I'm based in the UK. I got University College London, University of Glasgow University and College Union. I got Cornell University. What's this about? It's like every single checklist that's come up as my first results are universities that are trying to educate people as to like, could you just consider this?

There's some pretty good checklists in there as well, but I was actually shocked to find it wasn't the Association of Event Organizers or event organizations themselves that were putting out knowledgeable information about what should we do about this. So sounds to me like there is a healthy gap, you know?

Ryan: But also as well, what's really interesting when you say that is,  we've all been there where we've seen everyone talk about sustainability, environmental, they're following the sustainability sustainable development goals, which is the union ones. I'm just going to break it down for you.

The SDG 10, which is one of the sustainable data, which most companies, most agencies are saying “We are affiliating. We are learning by this. We have this plastered on our website. We follow this as our guidelines to do good.” One of them is about inequalities, which is SDG 10. So if you are not thinking about accessibility, and I think that's where we get really kind of bogged down with the idea that sustainability is all about environmental.

It is, don't get me wrong, but it also is about inequalities, which means that if you are not delivering on the accessibility elements or showing clear representation or really supporting inequalities in anything you are doing, you are not actually following those goals that you've plastered all across your website to say that as a business, you align yourself to these.

Rachel: Or the goals are antiquated, right? Like they are only focused on people with wheelchairs, for example, and, and not the non-visible. I keep going back to your non-visible disabilities comment, because I think that that's where the gap is of the checklists that we have. You know, all event planners and event designers have this duty of care that we follow.

But we need to update it. We need to update it with these other non-visible disabilities. Like I've seen a lot of events lately, post signs outside of general session for epilepsy, and warnings of strobe lights and things like that, like more things like that on site. I think we need to think through.

Ryan: And also for neurodivergent people, quiet rooms, taking in, you know, time to reflect event. We’ll do a lot of that, which is great. Where they provide spaces, quiet spaces where people can come and they can go away just so that they can take some time. And in there, also in the quiet room is a live stream to the main room.

So, they're, they're still not missing out. They're still able to be part of it because what you don't want to do is you don't want to isolate and you don't want to segregate because what we're trying to do is we're trying to make it inclusive. We're not trying to sort of say, right, this is where you go and this is where everyone else goes.

Because that's where segregation comes into it. And if we really want it to be inclusive, which is what we're after here, then we need to make sure that it's, it's transparent. And that's where I think there was a lot of battle with virtual against live when we had the pandemic. And actually virtual is a really great opportunity, an option to make it fully accessible for those that have, you know, immune deficiencies, that being in a large space can cause huge implications, but they may completely appear to have a non-visible disability. So it would be like, well, why are you asking for that? I've seen you on calls. You, you look fine. And it's that pre-perception, that preconception.

And you know, we also have that preconception that people should tell us, you know, why? Why can't we just make it accessible like the lead by example? Rather than trying to sort of put the onus again on the person with a disability.

Felicia: I was going to say to that Ryan, though. I've been very grateful when people have offered information, and I wonder if there's a way that we can think about making it a safe space for people to offer information. So if there's a way that we can deliver, our planner side to kind of say, you know, and we can accommodate for a variety of, you know, disabilities or, you know, differences with people so that the person says, oh, fantastic. Glad to see you accommodating. I'm going to need this because some of the speakers that we've had, even at Connect last year, I had a speaker that asked us for the specs of the main stage, both from an audio perspective, a visual perspective, what would the lighting be like, how big would the screen be? Because she happened to have a neuro divergence,  we were more than happy to provide her with that information. But I'm happy that she was able to ask and I was really grateful that maybe she felt. That we were providing a space enough for her to say, can I just get those details? And we said, yeah, sure. Here you go. You know?

Ryan: You've got to create that culture. You've got to create that space where people feel like they are being valued and they're actually going to be, you know, accommodated and seen. I think it's really hard to get it right. I don't know, again, I don't know what the solution is to that, but if you create a culture, you know, and I would definitely say the younger generation, you know, they get very much given a bad rep for being, you know,  disruptors and being challenging towards certain, the status quo. Actually, they're the ones that are really kind of coming forward and owning the word disability because for a very long time it was a negative connotation. And actually what people, what we're seeing now with disability pride and the International Day of People With Disabilities and GAD is they're owning disability and they want to own disability and they are not afraid to own disability.

And that is where they will come forward and we'll see that. But I just don’t know whether the working, you know, corporate world is still playing catch up. And that could be legacy because of comments. It could be, I feel like I've not been seen within my organization in the sense of representation, but I've also not heard the language used.

So one of the things is like at The Valuable 500, we've just pushed the five KPIs, which is part of our white paper and it's important for us to, get businesses to look at that and look at workforce representation, goals, training employee resource groups, which is the ERGs, but also digital accessibilities, and include them in their AGMs, include them in their sustainability reports in their end of month, end of year financial reports so the wording is seen, and I believe that that then trickles to make it feel like it's a safer space for people to come and express that. But I get what you mean. It's really hard. How do you plan an event, but to a certain extent, to set a good example, just do it. Just have live captions that are human generated.

Make sure, yeah, just like do good, like do you not want to do good? You know, it's morally right, like, I can't say it anymore. It's a really hard one.

Rachel: What is the gold standard? What are your dream accessibility features like if in a perfect world at an event, I know we could talk at the business level, but for an event specifically, like what are your dream features?

Ryan: I think it's just that it's really been thought through. So like it's the translation and the live captioning or having sign language in there. It's the use of the fact that it's recorded. So then obviously people who may not be able to digest all that information all in one go, they can come.

It's the fact that they're not segregated. So it's the fact that it's mixed in as an inclusive event. So it doesn't feel like, well, we've just put them all over here, people with disabilities, because they need to be separate. It's the fact that it feels like it's just part of the event. What I like is I like going when I feel like I look at things and, I think I recently went to Rome and I've learned so much in this space since working in it, and I wouldn't have probably thought twice about, accessibility or digital accessibility because of the space that I've worked in. And to go into the Colosseum, which is a very old building, let's be honest, but look at it and then get around this corner as we went in to go into the center of the Colosseum and see a lift. And the lift allows you to, so it's fully accessible to get out to the main area on the ground, but the lift allows you to go up to the next tier level. That to me is what it's all about because it's about the fact that anybody can now come and experience this. And yes, it's, these buildings were not made to be accessible because they are so old. It's like the Great Wall of China. It's not something that really should be walked on because it's crumbling and it's up.

But at the moment, there isn't a way for you to get on there if you did have any physical or visible disabilities or like if you needed wheelchair access, but also as well, you could be, you know, it's easier for you to access through a lift. So that to me is what, where, where it, it warms my heart because I just think, well, this is fully inclusive, it's accessible for all and that's what it's looks like.

And that's what I love about an event. You know, the moments I love is like when you've seen sort of the larger concerts and they've considered it with having a sign language person, and that person is living their best life, the way in which they're providing that commentary to those individuals.

And yes, they are to an area so that they can see it, but it feels like they're part of the experience. And you also feel like it, because if you are a scene in that vicinity, that person is showing that. So it just is so, it seems streamlined and it doesn't feel like an afterthought or a consideration or that you've actually gone and asked.

It's like everything has been thought through to make this fully accessible and make everyone feel like they're part of it. And it's probably, I would also say back to the point that you made, that the questions were asked, you know, is there anything I can feel? So that individual that you had on your panel, they will go away feeling like the person you genuinely cared. You cared about me being there and me being there and bringing my whole self and making sure I felt comfortable. And that's so important.

Felicia: I saw the most amazing TikTok. I know. You've just, that thing of it warms my heart. I know it's different cause it's more commercial, but Louis Capaldi on stage, so Louis Capaldi, big singer from I think Glasgow, he's probably going to be like, no. And just discovered he's got Tourettes. Which is not helpful when you're a singer on stage and you have to be able to get through your lines.

And he was singing and suddenly his ticks started to kick in and the entire audience just went with it. They just started singing his song for him like nothing had happened. It was just seamless and then when, as soon as his ticks finished, he's like, oh, okay, fair enough. Let's crack on. You know, it wasn't like, oh, let's stop the show everybody, because this is not supposed to happen. It's uncomfortable. And what you were saying about young people and that seamless experience, I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid now. Cause it's like, yeah, it's fine. He's got Tourettes. Great. Whatever.

Ryan: And that's what we need to see more of. We need to see things and brands that are on this wider stage, like L'Oreal recently launched the accessible packaging, which has got a qr code, so it describes everything. They also released a device where it allows you to be able to apply makeup, if you suffer with hand tremors, so it allows you to have, and so you can apply makeup, why wouldn't we allow someone to have that opportunity to do that?

We've got things like Sony creating cameras where it's a new retinal projection camera kit that helps people with visual impairments to see and capture the world around them so that they can do it. So it works with them. I mean, the list goes on with the various different things and places where people and brands of what they're doing with innovation. And that's what it is. It's innovation. But what's also interesting is where we are seeing in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers, media owners and TV sales houses and other key industry partners. So like Proctor and Gamble, are doing a reset bar in advertising and accessibility, which is basically hoping to progress where a hundred percent of advertising will be accessible with advertising accessibility across Europe, by 2025. I mean, that is huge and great, but we don't want to just see it in Europe. We want to see that across the globe. And I understand baby steps, baby steps, but you know, it's so important. It's a really important factor.

Paulina: I think something to this baby steps concept and for, you know, our respective audience listening, many of whom are event professionals, organizers, marketers right? Kind of going back to this, where do I start concept is,  events is where it can start for your organization, right? If you are not in perhaps a really progressive organization or association or company, you can lead the charge with how you design these experiences, which ultimately will reflect back to your corporate or company culture.

And so I think we're at a unique opportunity with our peers listening in to kind of take the reins, and take those steps to perhaps, you know, injecting some change at the company level. And I think a lot of it can, like I said, start with these events that we design and execute.

Felicia: Yeah. And Paulina, to that extent, I was going to say one thing. I absolutely love. I always say I love the fact that I work at Cvent because I get to use our tech. I'm very lucky other people have to pay for it. But I know that our developers are developing accessibility into the technology, which is so helpful, for me, for Paulina, for Rachel, and all of our customers because it means that there are certain things that we will have to, we will not stop thinking about. But you won't have to really think, okay, well, is that color on that color going to work? Because the tool will just tell you, this is not good, you know? And I think developing it into technology is a really great way to get a big change to happen quickly, because that way you're not relying on every single event planner to think about colors, which they don't necessarily know, you know?

Ryan: Or have the time. You know it, it's a lot to think about. But what I think is really interesting is that it's there, it's integrated from the offset. It's not an afterthought. The technology is there to support it and to help drive it. And that's what's really important. And that's what a lot of brands, I think are starting to wake up to now, to see that.

And I think going back to what you were saying, Paulina, in the sense of it's actually experience here. That's what events are all about. Events are about creating a great experience. Everyone should have and has the entitlement and should be allowed to experience it. So why would you not allow them to?

So it's about thinking again, the experience. That's what events are all about. But does everyone experience it? Because if not everyone is experiencing it, then really it's not. And I think that's where we're as an industry or where the events industry is so good because they're so good at creating those euphoria moments, that moment, that experience where it elevates, it makes people feel good.

And there's a great opportunity to sometimes send messages out as well. You get the world sometimes looking, you know, we've just had the coronation. We've had some big events happening here. The same happens over in the US. It happens across the globe at various different things. There is great opportunities to have woven that in without even thinking.

And yeah, it may feel like a tick process. Make sure that. Isn't that where we've had to come to with diversity to get that change? Isn't that where we've had to come to get women seen within various things? So when you go back to all of these different demographics, it's just a shame that it takes a crisis or an issue to get it sorted. So is there not an opportunity now where we can just go for it?

Rachel: Yeah. Well, wow, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We've learned a great deal. I think I even learned some stuff that we probably need to do for our events as well. I think you mentioned a lot of resources that people should educate themselves with. We'll make sure that any of those types of links will be available to our listeners. Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more?

Ryan: Yeah, so, another great way to find us is through our website. So, it's www.thevaluable500.com, and on there you can see all our members. So I always like to say to the events industry, if anyone is pushing back and they're a member of The Valuable 500, it's always good to see that when they're asking for certain things not to occur.

So yeah, that's where there's lots of news, there's some resources on there, which allow you to also,  you know, find out bits and pieces that are going on.

Rachel: Very good. Well, I think we can all do a better job of making sure our events are accessible, and thinking through all aspects of the event design. We want to make sure we're considering all attendees. But thanks again, Ryan, for joining us today.  For our listeners, if you have any other topics or people you'd like us to add, throughout the rest of the season, please send us a note on LinkedIn or at greatevents@cvent.com.

Thanks for tuning in to great events