Your Very OWN Biznik Event - Part 1
On the tail of a fantastic event last night on How to Host a Biznik Event, taught by Joe Shirley, Dominic Canterbury and co-founder, Dan McComb - (with some pips in there from myself, Lara Feltin) - I’m going to post a 5-6 part series on the ins and outs of hosting your very own Biznik event.
Last night’s event was broken into four parts. Dominic talked about how to turn hosting a Biznik event into a great marketing opportunity. Joe led people through an exercise of developing a topic they could teach. Dan introduced the web tool and walked folks through the actual process of hosting an event. And I wrapped up the evening with points, suggestions and reminders.
I’m going share my tips here with the intention of showcasing just how easy hosting an event can be, things like - What to include in your description, Chooosing a venue, How much to charge, and What materials to bring. If you missed the event last night, visit the archived page above to view the follow-up discussion, download the class hand-out, and watch the Events page for another one. I think this is a class we’ll offer once a quarter.
PART 1
What is a Biznik Event?
A Biznik Event is an event taught by a member for other members and must fit into one of four types:
Great events hosted by other organizations that you or your company are a big part of putting on, may be of great interest to other Bizniks but do not qualify as a “Biznik event” by the meer fact that they are being hosted/sponsored by another organization. These kinds of events can be announced in the BizTalk forum until we are able to create a separate calendar for ‘member-endorced’ events.
Membership in Biznik is free and we have no annual dues. Supporting Membership is voluntary and is a fraction of the cost of more traditional networking groups at only $10/month or $100/year. Biznik is a rapidly growing business with operating expenses and development costs and one of our sources of income is through our events. Biznik takes 1/3 of the gross fees collected. As an event host, if you believe Biznik is providing a valuable service and wish to help support that, please consider the event as a fundraiser not only for yourself and the event expenses but also for Biznik, when assigning a fee.
Thus far we believe that Happy Hour socials in public venues and book club meetings should always be free. The social happy hour event is often someone’s first taste of Biznik. RSVPs are not required and members are encouraged to invite others they’d like to introduce to the Biznik community.
Educational events are different. We put it in the Biznik Manifesto, “we believe that money is a good thing.” That being said there is a fine line between participating through gifting the community with your knowledge and expertise, and giving your valuable time and service away for free. These kinds of Biznik events serve two purposes equally. They are a marketing opportunity for the host, and an educational and networking opportunity for the attendee. (I’ll touch on how to come up with a fee in a later post.)
The points, suggestions and reminders that I’ll be outlining in this blog series are based on our experience hosting events in the Seattle area for the last 6 months. Very little is set in stone, there are always exceptions. Biznik is evolving organically and we expect Biznik events to follow the same course. If you have an idea that seems to contradict one of our points, drop either Dan or I a line and let’s discuss it!
Check back next week for PART 2:
What kind of event can I teach?
Choosing a catchy title.
How do I choose a venue?
What’s a good number of people?
How do I choose a good date and time?
September 9th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Thanks for putting this together Lara, and for the great event Thursday night! For those of you who weren’t there, the energy in the room was amazing, and if even a fraction of the events discussed by the combined experts assembled materialize, watch out gang. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or, just wait, watch, learn and enjoy.
And as Lara says, you too can do it. We’re all in Biznik because we’re Indies with special skills to offer each other. And it doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. It can just be a book you’ve read that you’d like to bat around with other Bizniks. You can then find a venue (a bar or coffee house that’s not *too* noisy for conversation) and voila ~ an event! That’s exactly what Christopher Braxtan’s doing next Tuesday with “The Long Tail,” and check out Dan’s book event for “The Rise of the Creative Class” on 9/26.
Or, as Dominic suggested, if you want to start out slowly in your area of expertise without planning a full-blown event, you can schedule a topic-focused happy hour. Take a look at Dominic’s description for his Marketing Theory Happy Hour. He took a topic he’s passionate about (as well as his area of expertise), limited it to 7 participants so there could be good, focused discussion, and let it fly.
Anyway, the possibilities are virtually infinite (as long as they’re appropriate for Biznik, as Lara says).
And consider forming an alliance with another Biznik. At Thursday’s event, I ended up getting together with Julie Dillon from Yoga Butter. I went planning to do my own event on ergonomics and pain relief for people who spend too much time in front of the computer. Now, we’re going to team up to talk about yoga and ergonomics. And we may even take it beyond Biznik events into the corporate workplace. Strength in collaboration!
So… before this turns into a dissertation. Final thought. Biznik is already turning into a major, positive force in the networking world. As we add more (and ever more vibrant, practical, niched) events, Biznik will/can really rock the world.
Thanks Joe, Dan, Lara, Dominic for the event.
Thanks Dan & Lara for Biznik.
~jan
September 9th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Thanks, Jan. Great reminders on the finding a partner to teach an event with, or simply pulling together a more social discussion around a topic of interest. I’ll have to include those points in Part 2 of my blog series.
Links to the events Jan mentioned are:
Discussion of The Long Tail book, hosted by Christopher Braxtan.
Discussion of The Rise of the Creative Class book, hosted by Dan McComb.
Dominic Canterbury’s Marketing Theory Happy Hour
NOTE on “book club” events - these events are not actually centered around a “club” of people who meet regularly. We’ve just been calling that. If you read this book and are interested in talking about it OR if you haven’t had a chance to read it, but are interested in what it might be about, you’re welcome to attend.
September 9th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Hey, thanks, Lara for posting the “How to Host” content. I missed the event, and will appreciate being able to learn about this subject anyway.
Joseph
September 12th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Thanks, Lara, for posting this and the downloadable handout! The class filled up so quickIy that I missed my opportunity to go. Now I know I can look forward to it next quarter and read on it in the meantime.
I’m very excited to see what new events are in the works!
Kisses,
Elizabeth Scarlett
September 14th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
[...] Last week I wrote the first installment in a five part series on the ins and outs of Hosting Your Very OWN Biznik Event, Part 1, answering the question: What exactly is a Biznik event?. This blog came on the tail of a fantastic event on How to Host a Biznik Event, taught by Joe Shirley, Dominic Canterbury, co-founder, Dan McComb and myself, Lara Feltin. This blog series will share the ins and outs and hopefully cover all you need to know about hosting your very own event. I will include tips on things like What to include in your description, Choosing a venue, How much to charge, and What materials to bring. [...]
September 20th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
[...] Hosting Your Very OWN Biznik Event, Part 1 answered the question: What exactly is a Biznik event?. Part 2 talked about exactly what kind of event YOU can host. [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
It has come to my attention, that some people are still reading these old blog posts from 2006.
Biznik’s event fee structure has long changed. It used to be that Biznik collected the fees and reimbursed the event host for 2/3 of the fees collected. In July 2007, with the launch of the new site built by John Adair, things changed including the event fee structure. Currently, Biznik applies a $5 transaction fee to each registration. This fee is included in the displayed event fee on the RSVP page. The event host receives 100% of the fee set (less 3% of the gross take on events with reservation fees of $50 and above.)