Archived Posts from August 2007
My first job out of college was working for an insurance company as a Business Analyst. One of my first assignments was to interview the union workers in the printing and fulfillment department to help document and automate their process. I still remember one of the interviewees asking me “Does this mean my job is going away?” All I remember is thinking “Uh…Yeah… What should I tell him?”
As I market our WebEx Event Center product, which helps companies easily and quickly deliver online events, I wondered if the event managers were feeling the same way. Do they feel threatened by the growth of online marketing and online events? By buying my product, is their job in jeopardy?
Well, the answer came to me pretty quickly after a nice cup of afternoon coffee. The answer is absolutely ‘no’. The beauty of the "knowledge economy" is that our jobs evolve and morph into new and interesting areas to help us achieve our objectives faster and more cost-effectively. The human need to meet face to face at an exhibition or conference has not changed. In fact, even at WebEx, we are attending more events and conferences, while our online events are growing even faster. Online events, aka webinars, are far more cost-effective and scalable. By incorporating online events into a company’s overall event strategy, companies can obtain greater impact and results. For example, after an event with financial services companies, why not follow up with a series of webinars? Why wait for the annual user conference? You can easily conduct monthly and quarterly webinars in the interim to build the customer relationships.
The job of an event manager is not at all in jeopardy. But for those who want to explore new ways to get better results, complementing their activities with online events is the logical next step.