In this episode of Smart Start Radio, co-hosts Eming Piansay and Sara Robertson announce exciting news: Their podcast is a finalist for the ASBPE Best New Podcast Award!
They’re joined by Yaron Lipshitz, CEO of Prismm, a spatial design platform that allows event planners to visualize venues in photorealistic 3D without leaving their desks. Lipshitz explains how Prismm saves time, money and carbon emissions while streamlining collaboration between planners and vendors.
Later, the hosts speak with Katie Moser, director of marketing and business development at GoGather. Moser shares practical ways AI is helping marketers and planners—like generating content, editing videos and analyzing survey data faster than ever.
Together, Lipshitz and Moser offer a clear view of how technology is transforming the events industry—making it smarter, more sustainable and more efficient without losing the magic that comes from real human connection.
Co-hosted and co-produced by: Sara Robertson and Eming Piansay
Edited by: Eming Piansay
Editor’s note: This episode of Smart Start Radio was transcribed by Otter.ai and edited lightly.
[theme music]
Eming Piansay How’s it going, Smart Start Radio? I am your one of two co-hosts, Eming Piansay.
Sara Robertson And I am two of the other…two
EP Two of two?
SR Two of two. I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess that would make me two of two co-hosts. Sara Robertson, here. Hi, there.
EP Hi, and we have a really great episode for everyone today. We’re so excited, but breaking news, which isn’t really breaking news, but it’s more just like we’re really happy.
SR I think we should slap BREAKING NEWS on this news.
EP Alright.
SR It’s breaking news for us.
[breaking news theme music]
EP We, through some act of magic, are up for an award for our podcasting.
SR Yep. We are regional finalists for the Azbee Awards for Best New Podcast. So if you have been with us since the beginning, or since our rebrand last July, we have the utmost gratitude to you. Thank you so much. If this is your first episode listening to us, also, we have the utmost gratitude to you. Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of this journey and this community. However long you have been part of it, it is truly a privilege to do this podcast and talk to these people and share these stories with you.
EP Quick, quick little edit on that statement. We are the, we are in the category for best podcast in our region. So the Pacific Region is what we’re in for. I don’t know what’s best podcast or but it’s
SR Best new podcast.
EP in the Pacific.
SR In the Pacific region. West coast.
EP It’s fine, I guess, sure. But yeah, we’re excited. I’ve been floating on air for the past week about it, and we’ll find we’ll have the results after the 12th of April. So may we be announcing on our show if we won, and if we didn’t win, we’re probably not gonna say anything. We’ll just, we’ll just, we’ll just, I don’t know, celebrate ourselves in different ways. But getting back into the business, we have two guests for you today. We have Yaron Lipschitz. He is the CEO of, of Prismm, which, if you’ve read our magazine, we’ve talked about this a couple times with him. It’s basically a website that allows planners to view different venues around the world and kind of arrange their event accordingly. So you don’t have to fly out, you have to go anywhere. You can just sit from your office and see a venue and arrange it how you like. And it sounds really cool. And yeah, him saying it is better than me saying it.
[laughter]
EP So we’re just gonna cut to him saying it and spare you the painfulness of hearing my voice.
SR Hush, no!
EP Right now on Smart Start, everybody.
[radio tuning sound]
SR Hello, hello, Smart Start, folks. Eming and I are back at you with a very exciting guest today. So we have Yaron Lipschitz here. He is, the CEO of Prism,, which is an online event planning software. Yaron, do you want to just kind of dig into what exactly Prism is, for those who may not know about it?
Yaron Lipschitz Sure, prism is a spatial design platform. Essentially, what we do is we give people the ability to see an event before it happens. It could be either 2-D or 3-D, photo realistic. So essentially, you can do the floor plan and you can see the event before it happens. That’s the gist of it.
SR Very cool. Very cool.
EP So when we spoke, you had a lot of venues already in your computer. How many do you have now? And how has that changed since we last spoke?
YL Sure. We have about 50,000 venues on our platform, which means that any planner, any corporate planner or social event planner, that wants to start doing a floor plan and start, you know, wanting to do event visualization, can actually start from, you know, our database, and very quickly, you know, have a very, very productive day. I think that the, the trick here is that we not only have the database of the floor plans, it’s also the furniture. We have a lot of furniture rental partnerships, so the content, the 3-D objects that anyone can use in order to lay out a space, are already in the system as well.
SR So what does the process look like from, you know, going onto your platform and deciding, okay, I’m going to use this to plan out my event. How would somebody go through that process of creation?
YL If we’re talking about corporate event planners today, the process is very laborious, right? You need to basically have a lot of details in your mind, and a lot of really, you know, not only the vision, not only the what you want the experience to be like, but you really have to have a lot of details. What we do, we’re enabling you to start from either a template that the venue had put out there, excuse me, so for example, if they want to, if you want to start from a corporate event, kind of template that looks like, you know, a cocktail party, or from a seated event, all of those things are in the system, so you can actually get started very, very quickly. So instead of commissioning a production company that does that for you, it’s an offline process that costs a lot of money, very laborious, we essentially give that to you, you know, tip of your fingers, and you can start and get things done in minutes. Obviously, as you get more and more into the planning process, you’re going to come up with additional details and additional things that would match your vision for the event. And then at that point, those would also get, they would be able to get captured in our platform in real time. The other thing that’s really important in our platform, and that’s really from day one, because it’s cloud-based, because, you know, anyone can use it, really, it’s so simple to use. It’s collaborative, meaning, if I’m the planner, but I have a lot of vendors that are associated with my event, for example, I have the florist, I have the caterer, have the designer—I can invite all of them to my event, and we can collaborate and do things together.
EP Right, right. So in that respect, I know like we, we do a lot of stuff on like how planners can use like things to help them, you know, realize their vision better. So for what you guys do, you guys kind of, one thing working with you does do, is that it takes out the whole aspect of, like, I have to book a flight, plan a flight, get a hotel, all those things. So can you speak on, like, how working with you guys could utilize that to, like, save money, but also, like, be kind of, you know, save the earth a little bit more?
YL Absolutely. So in a traditional world, what we’re doing today, or what people did before Prismm, it’s exactly what you said, Eming. it’s basically, I need to source a venue. I’m in San Francisco, for example, and now I want to do an event in New York. I have to get on a flight. I have to really just book a week of my life for that purpose, because it’s a day to get there and it’s a day to get back, and then I have to book hotels. I have to book meetings with people that also have to travel. So needless to say, this is not a sustainable process. Not only it’s not sustainable, it costs a lot of money, but the worst thing, and I think that, you know, there’s nothing wrong with having in-person meetings. Obviously, we’re in the event business, so we, you know, we all like that. However, there are some things that can be done better when they’re online. And what I mean by that is, sure, if I go to the venue, and I spend a few hours at the venue, sure it’s great, I’m going to be able to get a good sense of the venue and so forth. But there’s an opportunity cost to that. The opportunity cost is a week of my life, right? And, and I can be doing, and this is exactly what you know, our vision is, I could be doing a lot more with my time that is not being on a flight, that is not being inside a taxi in New York City, all those things you know don’t have to happen. And so prior to 2020, right, if it was 2019, every important customer meeting, I had to get on a plane and meet someone in person. Today, it’s completely acceptable to have that like that, right, to have that virtually. And so I think that what we’re doing is we’re not saying that in-person is not great, but we’re saying there is a cost to it, and the cost is both in terms of CO2, and it’s also in terms of what you could be doing with, what you could be doing with your time. Now, the other significant advantage that we have with our platform is when I am in that venue in New York, that venue is probably going to be empty. I’m not going to be able to see the venue the way I envision it, the way my idea for the, you know, inspiration for the for the event is, and so I’m going to be seeing a an empty, you know, space that is absolutely not laid out for my event, even if it’s laid out in a in a specific way, could have been the case that there was a wedding there the day before, and I’m doing a corporate event. I don’t, you know, that doesn’t mean anything to me. And so the fact that we’re able to dynamically change how this space looks, and we do that in seconds, right? The fact that we can dynamically change how this space looks, actually is a huge advantage, and I don’t need to be at the space for that. In fact, being at the space is actually counterproductive, because I can see with Prismm today, I can see tens of thousands of venues laid out very differently within seconds or minutes. So I can see that same venue that I’m going to see. I can see it as a seated 200 people event. I can see it as a cocktail party, and I can do that within a click of a button. That’s something that I cannot do. I cannot just ask the, you know, the, the salesperson at the venue, hey, can you just very quickly set that up so that I can see how that 200 cocktail thing looks like? No, that’s not going to happen, right? I can do it sometimes. Y
SR Yeah, that’s a that, sorry, um, that’s really, really interesting. And the fact, especially the fact that, like, these are all real venues, you know, so, like, all of these spaces are replicated online, and you can create that kind of, I mean, I mean, this is sort of more on, like the tech side. But how does that work? How does this like model of designing and like making, making that vision, like you can literally see it on your screen, how the space looks. How does that work?
YL We actually have a few steps for that to happen. If I can just go back to the end result. The end result is, think about an envelope that we have that’s like a photo realistic model of that venue in3-D. And in that model, I can put whatever I want. I can put tables, chairs, furniture rental. I can lay it out any way I want. Now, what we’re doing with our new platform and some of the new AI tools that we’re bringing to the market I, within a prompt, within seconds I can say, hey, I would like this to have a Christmas theme, or I would like this to be a winter wonderland, or I would like this to be Halloween. Within a prompt, that space can come to life and can be designed any way you want. And so, if you think about the space itself and the envelope, not just like a container, right? Not just like what you know, what host this, but then the important part, and this is really the whole thing that we’re bringing to the planner community, be it at the corporate side, be it at the, you know, social events, and be it at the venue side. Many times, the venue is actually the entity that does it for, for the host. There are so many details that are associated with bringing an experience right. Events are really about experience. It’s how I’d like my attendees to feel. It’s creating that emotional connection. If it’s a wedding, I want them to, you know, feel the love. If it’s a corporate event, maybe I want them to experience the new brand. But instead of today, instead of focusing on that, what planners are focused on is really the minutia. It’s the, just so many details and bringing it all together, making sure nothing gets lost in the way. We turn this thing on its head. We basically say, we want to empower the planners. We want to empower the community to focus on, on the on the vision, to focus on the experience. The details will be there automatically. And that’s what that’s what we do. That’s how we bring, you know, with AI and all of this amazing 3-D technology, we bring that to life.
SR Right.
EP Is that a new feature? I don’t recall you mentioning that last time, where you can, like prompt, that’s really cool.
YL That’s a new feature. It’s still, it’s still, it’s going to be in our next release of the product. This is coming out, but, but there are, there are many things that are going to be associated with that. For example, the overarching problem that we’re trying to solve here is take the planner from inspiration through the process of planning and design all the way through execution, right? And we want to do that again in a way where much of the details, many of the details, are not going to be ones where you’re going to have to just, you know, sit for hours or do them. I want to see, oh, I want to see how my event is going to look like with a winter wonderland theme. And let me just play with that and see if that’s going to match what I’m trying to do. The AI is going to do that for me. And so really, this is completely new way, very disruptive way of you know, bringing innovation, bringing very, very powerful tools to the market, so that planners will do what they are best at, which is bringing experiences to life.
SR Absolutely. Really cool. So do you know when that next release is coming out.
YL It’s in a few months. We’re gonna come out to the market. Yeah, it’s in a few months.
SR Okay. Really cool.
YL But it’s, the beta is already there. It’s working.
SR Yeah.
YL It’s really cool. I mean, think about, you know, you going to Pinterest and seeing you know something that you like, right?
SR Yes. I love Pinterest.
[laughter]
YL There you go. Who doesn’t? So here is a vision that I’d like to see how that’s going to work within this specific venue. Now you can actually drag that into our platform and really see that coming to life in a venue. This is, I mean, this is magic. This is really magic.
SR Yeah, it really does feel like, Yeah, it’s amazing to see how technology has continued to just develop and like, it seems like it’s exponentially developing, especially with this, this new release that you guys have coming. So, it is not out as at the time of us recording this episode, but you know, podcasts are kind of eternal, so if you’re listening to this episode a couple months down the line, you might be using this already. Isn’t that fun?
[laughter]
YL I hope so.
EP One thing that I don’t know if I asked you previously, but for users who, who, who, who are on your platform, what are the ways which, which to experience it? Is it, Is it on, like, here on 2-D or is it 3-D like, are there different ways to which a planner can utilize this, like they see themselves in the actual venue,
SR Oh, like VR glasses?
EP I don’t know if that’s a possibility, but is it, is it here, or is it coming?
YL Yeah, so, so today, the key way in which you can experience it is actually from your web browser. What that does is, everyone has a web browser. And what that does also, when I as a corporate planner, for example, when I want to bring my vision to my internal stakeholders, right, I want to basically solicit feedback from my CMO and from, I want to show my CEO where you know how this all is going to play out, and where he’s going to be, or he or she are going to be standing on the stage. I can do that because it’s all in a web browser. So it’s ubiquitous, it’s accessible to everyone, and all of that can be done super efficiently. We had a VR product in 2018. This was well ahead of the VR revolution. We had that. What we noticed is that it was a fabulous demo, and people loved it, but the form factor is still very cumbersome, so that people, they’re not crazy about using it day-to-day. And so today we’re much more focused on the, you know, web browser. I think, if I can make a prediction, I think that AR, augmented reality, is going to be the, the next stage as VR, as virtual reality, is going to get better form factor, something that’s not so prohibitive and not so cumbersome on our face. AR, you know, we, you can put that on glasses that look like that. And I think that that’s going to be kind of the next thing. And we’re, we already have plans and things that we’re working on that, but, yeah.
EP That’s really cool, to be able to do that. To just be, like, you know, move around a stage, or that, or the or whatever equipment is is you need to see it in real time. Like, what like if you were standing there, what it would look like.
SR That is super cool. Yeah. As we’re talking about, like, this new release that you guys have been coming up, I’m interested in hearing a little bit more about the past, about Prismm’s backstory.
YL Well, Prismm started when, really there was a, this was over 10 years ago, when there was significant issues with digitizing an event. Everyone was working from paper and pen, very old school industry. I mean, it’s because of that right, event people like the personal connection. So it was very manual, very laborious. And so the idea was to bring tools that would digitize the event planning process, that would bring everyone on the same page, the collaborative part, there is 10, sometimes 20, sometimes 30 vendors associated with an event. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Everyone needs to see the floor plan for their own, you know, purpose and event. And so that was really the onset of Prismm. It used to be called, All Seated. We’re still the same company, we, I know there was some chatter in the market that we got bought. We did not, and, and we were still the same, innovative company. What we then learned throughout the years, was that we started from 2-D we started from, you know, having very much, very much of operational tools. We learned that the 3-D element was very, very important. It was important because, A) it enabled people to see an event before it happens, which is great for the venue. They can now sell me their, you know, their space in many different ways. They can sell it to me, virtually and remotely, especially after the pandemic, this is how we do business. We do things, we don’t like to get on a plane every time, and it’s something that, as I mentioned before, with my internal stakeholders, I can now really just bring everyone, set the right expectations, get feedback ahead of time. So I am much more aligned. I am much more in agreement and aligned with, with the vision that everyone has, and then I can share it ahead of time with everyone, and everyone can, Okay, this is how it’s going to look. This is how it’s going to be. I mean, we think about it in the following way: events are really about experience, right? It’s not about dollars and cents, and even though that’s important, it’s all about what experience we’re producing at the end of the day. And we really enable everyone involved to really consume an experience, and not just dollars and cents.
SR Yeah, I think that’s really where a lot of the passion lies for planners, too, is like being able to visualize, you know, what is the space gonna look like where I’m gonna enable people to connect with each other, to network, to build meaningful relationships that might help further their career down the line, or just make a new friend, you know, like that is what people are concerned with at the end of the day. And the money, money, ROI, costs, exist within that, but they are not that. Yeah, so I think that
YL Absolutely.
SR Beautiful work.
YL Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, that’s, by the way, exactly the reason that we rebranded to Prismm. Because there is a prism, there is a way to look at the event from many different perspectives. There is the what you said before, there is the lighting thing, right? I need to be able to see the event, or to see my space when there’s light, when it’s dark. There is the electricity prism. There is the seating prism. There is so many different layers in an event and and Prismm really enables you to look at those different ways, or different colors, if you will, in that rainbow, in that prism, and really just filter into what it is that you need to be focused on at this particular point in time. That’s why we rebranded.
EP Out of curiosity, because I know since the pandemic, we’ve had a shift of younger folks in the industry. So I’m wondering if you’ve seen a spike in like the younger, because we know which younger folks like, you know, tech, tech, they evolve quickly, that they have a better grasp because they are always on the hottest like, what’s new? So have you seen a, have you seen that in terms of the people who are, you know, being like, hey, we want to work with you, because we don’t want to spend X amount of money on travel and hotel and food and whatnot?
YL Absolutely, in fact, the demand came from the market, we had corporates approach us and say, Hey, we have an initiative to be carbon neutral by this date. Can you help us with that initiative? We absolutely had a bunch of those. We see younger people that are very much into sustainability, that are using our tools, using our platform to, you know, do things remotely, either on the planner side and on the venue side. Venues, for example, especially if you’re catering to corporates that are booking things remotely, you now have a much better advantage to, to get that piece of business. If I can show you, right? If I can show you, the corporate person, Hey, this is how it’s going to look. You don’t have to travel to New York, and especially if it’s in upstate New York, like, drive another three hours for your off-site to see how this is going to look like, right? I can, I can just do it for you right now, from the comfort of your home or wherever you are right now, and visualize it for you. I think that what also happened is post, you know, post-pandemic, there was a change in guards in the events industry, there’s a lot more younger people that kind of replace the older generation. They’re much more tech-focused, and they’re much more amenable to adopting those new, new technologies. I mean, 10 years ago, I was walking around and people really just showed me a ruler with circles, and that was the tables that, the round tables that they were drawing on a piece of paper. I mean, we’re laughing at it now, but this was the reality 10 years ago. I think today, this has changed, and in a good way. I think that, I think that the industry is really embracing, because of the younger generation, because of the you know, techie generation, really embracing, you know, better tools that, again, help them to leverage themselves, help them to save time and eventually focus on what really matters, right? What matters for their company and what matters for their own personal success at the company that they work for.
EP Is there anything that you’re hoping or you’re predicting might happen in terms of like how you see either the events or the, how you’re evolving, as well as the industry, in terms of, like, how this is going to improve or change the industry’s future? Because obviously, like, you know, flying isn’t, isn’t always, people can’t always, you know, make time to fly to X, Y and Z place. So, based on what you’re offering, are you guys for seeing any big changes coming on the line that would, you know, be in the favor of, like, you know, using you, instead of, like, actually booking a thing to go somewhere?
YL Yeah, so let’s talk about the economics for a second. If I’m a corporate planner and I need to set up an event I’m gonna commission, let’s say a CAD that’s going to be $20-40,000 for that event, right? And it’s not in real time. I have to hire professional agency to do that, and every change, it’s an iterative process, very costly and very inefficient and not collaborative. Then travel before an event. If I, you know, a team of three people, they go anywhere, you’re looking at, you know 20 grand, you know with flights and this and that, it’s 20 grand to do site inspections, for example, right for a week. Think about 40,000, $40-50,000, that I can tell you, not only you’re going to be saving that amount of money, but you’re going to be able to have a week back so that you can work on everything that really matters to you, work on inspiration, work on design, work on the experience itself. That is really the power of Prismm. We democratize the use of 3-D, and we’re now democratizing the use of AI, so that the cost, on average, the cost per event, is literally a fraction of what it used to cost you to, to do the prep work, to do this, the sourcing, to do the visualization of the event. So working with Prismm saves significant amount of money, which is where, you know, we start. The discussion is, look, you can say, if you’re doing 20 events, that’s like a million bucks that you can save. A million bucks. That’s a lot of money. And it’s, you know, 20 events, it’s a lot of money. Then think about the time that you get back. Productivity. Then think about the collaboration with vendors. You’re saving time and money for them, your, your internal stakeholders. You’re able to better, you set expectations better, you get people’s feedback, and I think at the fraction of the cost, right? So it doesn’t cost you more. You save, you can save 90, 95% of that cost. Get more time, and the benefits are huge. I think that this is the future. I don’t think, I know. I mean, we’re seeing more and more of those corporate planners adopting us. I mean, we have tens of thousands s of monthly users, something like 40, 50,000 users a month, using our platform. So it’s already here, it’s here to stay, and it’s only going to get it’s only going to get better and better. So I am a huge believer in what we’re doing. Obviously, I’m biased, but also I’m seeing all these new technologies that are coming in. And everyone heard, everyone on this planet, if you’re connected to something, heard about AI and the buzzword of, hey, AI is going to replace everything. AI is going to do everything for us. Okay, maybe not tomorrow, but AI is a very, very powerful tool. It is incredible in what it can do, and the pace at which it is evolving is, is just insane. It absolutely will change how we do things, and only for the better, because it’s gonna enable us, the planners, the venues, to just, you know, push aside a lot of the stuff that we anyway didn’t want to deal with, and focus on the things that really matter.
EP Right, right. On the other side of the fence, though, when people are like, thinking about using you guys, are there any like things that they like, oh, you know, because we’re not actually at the venue, we’re a little bit weird about being able to see it in person, or is there any like roadblocks that you see in folks who want to use it but aren’t, like, sold completely on the idea of, of seeing it through a computer? Because, you know, computers can only show you so much, and they may not, you know, feel like they’re sold on that completely. So what would you say to a planner who’s like on the fence about that?
YL I think that I’d say, give it a shot, try, and see how better your life is going to be, how much time you’re going to be saving, how much money you’re going to be saving off your budget that you can spend elsewhere. That’s what we tell them. We have gone through significant technology stack innovation over the last few years that enables us to really bring that to market very, very quickly. So for example, if a corporate planner wants to do an event at a specific venue and it’s not in our database, they can very, very quickly get us to go in and put that venue up. Our competition, for example, is still doing things with modeling, 3-D modeling that takes months and months and months to create. Each venue takes months and it’s super expensive, super expensive. So we have invested a lot of resources in our technology so that we can accommodate planners and really just bring them that photorealistic 3-D experience within a day or two, maybe a couple of weeks, just until we get access to the venue, instead of months and months, maybe even a year, with some of the technologies that our competitors are doing.
SR Mhm. That’s cool, I bet. Also, like, when it comes to, you know, pitching your event, for lack of a better word, and like, showing your boss your client, you know, like, this is the model that I made of my event. This is what it’s gonna look like. And this is how, what it’s gonna look like is gonna bring in the ROI that we’re looking for. So I’m sure that it’s also really helpful in that respect. And like being able to actually bring a visual to the person that needs to improve your budget
YL 100%, and because of that, because, I mean, you’re spot on. Because of that, what we, what we have in our platform, again, we’re very unique in that we enable embedding of media in our models. So for example, if you’re pitching an event, just like you said, if you’re pitching an event and you’re pitching it to corporate, you can now embed logos, you can embed images, you can embed videos, so that I can show you this is how the event is going to look like for you and, and also internally, I can show my internal stakeholders how the actual video that I’m going to put on that TV, in that stand, what that video is going to be. I can show a banner. I can show design elements. I mean, that’s really taking it to the customization and the level in which it just makes it just makes all the difference in the world. So, you’re spot on, and we are enabling that in our in our tech stack today.
EP The last question, unless there’s something else you want to speak on that we haven’t asked you, that you think our our audience would appreciate.
YL I think we touched on a lot of things. I think it’s like, like anything in technology. It’s about kind of taking that, that leap of faith, and the leap of faith with us is obviously not very expensive. It’s, it’s we democratize things because we want everyone to be using the technology. And when people do that, they’re there to stay. We basically have them, and they love it and, and they, this is their go-to, you know, go-to platform.
EP So we typically ask our guest at the end of each show a question that basically says, what’s something that has helped you become you know, the best you can be right now? So essentially, what is in your, what is your go-to, go-to tool in your toolbox?
YL Does it have to be a technology tool, or?
EP Any kind of tool that you think, whether its an experience, or
SR When we say tool, we think of just like a hot tip kind of dealio
EP Something that’s kind of like, helped you your best in this industry.
YL Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s, it’s developing. And it’s really developing, and it’s always about developing the ability to listen, developing the ability to listen to everyone, whether it’s obviously customers, the market, investors, people that were colleagues, listen to competitors, what they’re doing. Just listen to everything. You don’t have to agree with them, but really being a good listener, and you know, everyone’s gonna admit, it’s, sometimes it’s hard, because you have your ways set, and you think, yeah, I mean, I, I know how it’s going to be. But really just being open and coming with humility and, and, and really listening to people, I think, is really the secret in developing.
SR Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Yaron. It has been just such a gift to speak to you and learn about everything that Prismm is doing and all that it offers planners. I think that it’s a tool that is changing the game.
EP It is.
YL Thank you.
EP And if you utilize Prismm, make sure you try the AI feature, because that’s just
SR Oh yeah, we will definitely be keeping an eye out for that in the next couple months.
EP Yeah, absolutely.
YL Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
SR Thank you.
[radio tuning sound]
EP See? It was so much better hearing it from him than from me. But our second guest for the show is Katie Moser. She is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at GoGather. Our talk with her really got into the mechanics of using AI in marketing, and how it’s beneficial, how it’s helpful, and all the things you probably know, but said in a much more interesting way. So, let’s throw this over to us in the past with Katie from GoGather. Let’s go.
[radio tuning sound]
SR Hello everybody. Welcome back to Smart Start Radio. Today, we are here with Katie Moser. She is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at GoGather, and she has a wealth of experience in AI and branding and how all of this is going to be, already is, and will continue to be, a game changer for the meetings and events world as well as the business world in general. So thank you so much for being here today, Katie.
Katie Moser Awesome. Thank you both for having me. I’m excited to chat a little bit and hopefully have some good insights.
SR Awesome. So to start off, why don’t you tell us just a little bit about your background. How have you built your career in content creation and branding, and when you work with clients on branding, what do you find people are tending to ask for?
KM Yeah, absolutely. So I have been in marketing now for almost 10 years. Started off on the client side, so worked for a pretty medium-sized corporation, managing brand and product marketing, but I did do a lot of event stuff as well, so kind of got my initial introduction into events through there, and then I transitioned to the agency side a couple years ago, and I’ve been working with GoGather in a marketing capacity, but also working with our clients to kind of understand their needs for events. Help them figure out, you know, the best ways to implement communications and branding and all those pieces into their events. So it’s been really fun to kind of explore all that, do, you know, research, you know, reading, Smart Meetings and all of the things that you produced, just to try to understand how we can help our clients, you know, create better events. So on the branding side, you know, we spend a lot of time looking at on-site branding, also at, you know, digital branding, all of those pieces that kind of come together. I think the biggest thing for a lot of our clients right now is just finding fresh, new ways to incorporate branding. You know, the most mature companies we work with are finding ways to differentiate their events, you know, make them more industry events, and really tie branding into that. I think it’s a great way for them to differentiate, you know, besides just the content that they’re producing at the event. So they’re, you know, investing a lot of time in branding and bringing in all of those pieces, you know, into registration, into the materials that they’re sending out before the event, bringing that feel into the event, into every space that people interact with and really trying to take that up to the next level. So we’ve spent a lot of time helping them understand the positioning for their event, beyond just, you know, picking a theme and like, kind of running with that, it’s really, how does this tie into everything that you’re trying to communicate at the event? And almost building like a brand guide for them. So we, we do spend a lot of time with, with certain clients who are trying to take their events kind of to that next level and and incorporate a lot of that branding on-site, so.
SR Yeah, and that’s so important, I mean, to have authentic branding. And you know something that you know when you’re an attendee, you walk into the space, do you have a sense of place that rhymed?
EP Mmm.
SR That rhymed. I didn’t mean to rhyme there I need to rhyme there, but yeah.
[laughter]
EP You’re a writer. It’s okay.
SR Yeah, so true.
KM Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, especially when we’re doing events where, you know, maybe there’s other events being hosted in the same space too. I think that’s really where branding can come in and help attendees feel like they’re really a part of this specific event, even if there are other rooms being used by a different organization that’s hosting an event that can sometimes be a really big area where we need to go, you know, heavy into branding and make sure that that space is defined so people are like, first of all, they know where to go, right? And then they also feel like, when they come into the space, they’re not just, like, sharing this event space with somebody else, but they’re like, really in it.
SR Yeah.
KM So yeah, I think that’s totally a big part of it.
EP So how does AI fit into all of this? Like, we’ve been writing about it, reading about trying to understand it as a tool, and from where you are, you use it as that, like you’re using it as a tool to either convey messages or express things or show people things. So obviously, that’s not like the best way to describe it, so can you, in your own words, kind of talk about how you are using AI in that process?
KM Yeah. I mean, we use AI in a lot of different ways within, like, our own marketing, we use it a lot. I mean, you know, it’s a great tool to help support content marketing, and we even use it for, you know, developing videos and kind of accelerating a lot of what we’re doing. Since we’re a small team, we kind of have to be very agile, and it helps us really make sure that we’re producing the level of content and the amount of content that we want to be but I think on the event side, there’s so many interesting applications. I think a lot of it has been talked about for, you know, content creation, and, you know, even like building agendas and helping come up with theme ideas and those types of things. I think that’s kind of the first place that you might go to for AI within the event realm. But I think there’s so many other tools that are coming into the market that can be used, which is really cool. I mean, you can leverage it for creating your PowerPoints, right, that you share on site or, I mean, I think the video production piece is really cool, being able to take, you know, if you’re recording video on site, or if you’re even doing like a podcast on site, and being able to use those tools to quickly make social media pieces, right? I don’t know if you guys have ever, have ever done that. I’m sure you have, you know, you take like snippets, and the tools can just create auto snippets for you and put captions on them. And, I mean, it, it really accelerates, like, all of the things that you can do in terms of, which, usually, I think, historically, have been, like, a very heavy lift, right? A lot of companies don’t have resources to be able to come in and, like, create a bunch of videos for them to, you know, promote their event, after the event or before the event, you know, and that’s, I think that’s a really awesome area to be able to leverage for content production. I mean, also the, the data analyzation piece, I think, is really helpful, you know, looking at, first of all, if you’re like, pulling beforehand, being able to, like, use AI to analyze it and come up with ideas based off of the answers that you’re getting from pre-surveys, and then post-surveys also, being able to take that and analyze it and give you recommendations. I mean it, obviously there’s still that human aspect, but I think it can help accelerate a lot of that. And then, you know, helping you consult, you know, be more concise with some of your presentations, or be more concise with your email communications or whatever. I think it’s a really great option for, again, helping you just kind of be faster in that editing and, and production piece.
SR Totally, totally. So I want to break it down even further, if we could talk about some of the specific things that people are using AI for, like analyzing data from a poll or using it to, you know, build little video clips and things and so on and so forth. These are different types of AI, right? Like, we’re talking about large language models. We’re talking about, like, transcription models and so on and so forth. But I mean, like when it comes to, for example, analyzing data, how would you plug that prompt into a large language model?
KM Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if you’re using a survey tool, you’re already going to have kind of, you know, some sort of output from that tool. So let’s say you have an Excel file, you know, being able to upload that into, let’s say, ChatGPT, and, you know, asking it specific questions. So, you know, you kind of have to go into it with an idea of what you want out of it. You can’t just say, like, tell me what the best ideas are from this. I mean, you could, but you’re probably not going to get the responses that you want or the, the really detailed analytics that you want. So, and you know, also, your survey tool is going to give you kind of those quantitative pieces already, so you don’t necessarily need to, I think, to use AI to analyze that. But, you know, taking it and asking it for a prompt, you know, if you have any open ended qualitative questions and saying, Okay, can you please give me a list of five key takeaways from this, and please also give me recommendations for how we can implement this into our next event. I think can be really helpful to at least get that initial piece started. You know, because you’re gonna, you’re gonna have people doing that anyway, right? Reading through the responses, you know, trying to figure out patterns and come up with solutions from that. And AI can kind of accelerate that, right? So that would be one way I think you could take that, if you’re doing pre-surveys, again, you can take some of the qualitative suggestions and ask it to, you know, provide you with whatever pattern it’s seeing, and maybe come up with recommendations for, you know, six of your breakout session ideas, and then you can build an agenda from there. It’s kind of like accelerating that, you know, review and recommendation process
SR Cool. And what about when it comes to developing like marketing strategies or branding plans. Like, how might you use AI in that realm?
KM Yeah, um, there’s so many ways. I mean, it’s, it’s, I think I’m, maybe I’m biased because I’m in marketing, but I feel like that’s like one of the major areas that I think AI is really being used for is just content and ideation and all of those pieces that typically can be a very long process and very labor intensive. And I think you know, if you’re an events team looking to accelerate the marketing for your event or really just improve it, I think you can use AI to, first of all, help you come up with ideas, right? How do we, you know, theme this event, you know, here are the key things that we want to get out of it. Here’s the audience that we have. And then also use it to maybe write the emails that you’re going to be sending out, you know, writing briefs for your presentations, or even, you know, if you’re looking at a theme and you have, let’s say, a sponsorship package that you need to send out. You have a call for presenters. You have, you know, marketing promotions that you need to send out. You can kind of have it give you an outline and do all of that for you, and then you can come in and, and really personalize it and make it, you know, a little bit more human, or a little bit more towards your brand before you send them out. But it can really help you take all of those pieces and make them cohesive, and then be able to kind of Excel. I keep saying accelerate, but accelerates, but more in content production.
SR Yeah, cool.
EP I have a question. So when you are creating AI videos for marketing and such, like, in your experience, how much time do you feel like you spend working on them? Because I know, like, AI can, like, really give you a lot to work with, and then you can have to go back and look at it and be like, yes, no, maybe remove all that stuff. So how, in your experience, how much work do you have to actually put in with that when you have those on your plate?
KM Yeah, I think there’s a bit of, you know, making sure that you’re giving it the right content. You can’t just, like, throw in whatever random pieces of video that you’ve put together, you kind of have to give it a little bit of guard rails, or else it’s just going to give you back stuff that I feel like is irrelevant. We use it a lot internally for podcast production. So we’ll take, you know, a long form podcast, and we’ll say, okay, chop it up into whatever kind of pieces. And then, you know, going through and making sure that, yeah, whatever it picks makes sense, because the AI might think, Oh, this is really relevant. And then you start to look at it, and you’re like, Okay, this, you picked random pieces. And so I think it’s a good starting point to kind of be able to pull those together. And then, you know, we do spend quite a bit of time afterwards, you know, going through and refining it, making sure that you know the, the speaking pieces make sense that you know for a 45 second video, let’s say that we’re putting out on Instagram or Tiktok, that it actually gets a point across. It’s actually interesting. It fits into what we’re seeing in terms of trends. So to go back to your question in terms of time, I would say it definitely makes it much faster than if we were doing that manually, you know, adding captions, adding, you know, cutting the video, even just like making sure that it’s the right dimensions for whatever platform we’re putting it out on, is just so much faster than any traditional video editing software I’ve ever used. But it still takes time. I think it’s certainly not an immediate process.
SR Yeah, one thing I find you’re bringing up a lot is, like checking the work produced by AI, and I think that that’s so important, you know, it’s like AI is not an end all be all. It is something that can speed up our processes, our production, but we need to check its work. We need to keep the human in the loop, right? So I’d love to dig into that a little bit more, like, what are the things that people should be looking for once they, you know, create this content with AI, or break up their podcast or build a branding plan.
KM I mean, I could give you a laundry list in terms of content it is. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen it any you can always tell when somebody, just like copied and pasted from an AI-produced piece of content, because there are certain grammar structures that it always uses, and it’s like my biggest pet peeve. You know, obviously, image production is coming along, but there’s still weird quirks in terms of, you know, if you’re, let’s say you’re creating a logo for your event, or some sort of, you know, brand that you’re going to use throughout, I think AI is good for, like, an initial, maybe, ideation, but it’s not going to be necessarily your final production, because there’s, there’s always weirdnesses. I mean, the graphic design piece, and in particular, you know, I’m sure you’ve seen, like, the lettering can be weird, or the there can be weird, random objects in it. And you want to make sure that, you know, especially if it’s representing your brand, you don’t want to just be putting out things that aren’t completely aligned with what you’re trying to, to convey, or what your brand stands for. So, I think there’s so much of the human aspect that still needs to be involved. You know when you’re putting out communications, you know, going through and making sure that the voice is the same as your brand voice, or, you know, the, the communication. I mean, even just like the factual pieces, you know, making sure that if you’re putting out like a Know Before You Go, that you know, if you’re offering ideas for activities in the area that you’re hosting the event, that they’re real.
SR Right.
KM You know, sometimes it’ll give you ideas and like, oh, this restaurant’s been closed for five years, or silly stuff.
SR Right. Yeah.
KM And then, you know, obviously, on the on-site piece, I think, you know, people come to events because they’re craving that human connection. I mean, that’s, that’s the biggest piece. And I think we can use these tools to help us be, you know, better, and be able to focus on the pieces that really resonate with, with people. But you can’t take everything and turn it into technology, you know, having somebody on site to greet people, and having, you know, that human touch throughout, and I think we talked a little bit about personalization too, you know, being able to bring that, the human aspect, into that, if you know somebody’s having, like, an anniversary or birthday, you know, maybe the technology can remind you of that. But being able to really take that and make that personal is so much of what the human side of things does.
SR Totally.
KM And making people feel connected and special is really important.
SR Love it. Yeah, yeah. AI can really, like, speed up the sort of time consuming technical tasks, but we need to, we need to continue to operate with, you know, like, why event planners are in the business that they are, you know, it’s about human connection and building connection.
KM Yeah. And I think that event planners are so good at that. That’s why they got into this. And I think it’d be, can be kind of intimidating sometimes to bring in, like, the technology piece, because it’s like, for better or worse, I think our industry really wants to keep that, you know, human aspect. So, it’s finding that balance of, how can we use this to make our jobs easier, but also make sure that what we’re so good at is, is still a part of the equation and, and you know that, for us it’s the client interaction, right? You know, so much of what we do is the people to people, planning and meetings and making sure that our clients feel heard and, and, you know, we can’t replace that with AI tools. You know?
EP That’s really true. That’s really true, I guess, like, the, the biggest thing I am most curious about is like, like, if, if there’s a planner who, like, isn’t very familiar with AI, because I know that there’s a gamut of knowledge on AI, and not everyone is super experienced or understands the process of it all. But as someone who has experience with it, who, kind of, has used it frequently, do you have any like, suggestions or tips that planners can like, you know, look at or utilize or explore if they haven’t actually used AI for events yet?
KM Yeah. I mean, definitely spending some time just researching ideas, I think, is so helpful. I mean, even just getting on ChatGPT and asking for suggestions on how to use it. It sounds silly, but I mean, that can be a great way to just get those initial ideas of, like, how do I, how do I put together a prompt? You know, I mean it, if you do have access to, like, a ChatGPT, Perplexity, like those types of, Gemini even, you know, those types of platforms, you can certainly just start by saying, Okay, what, what do I, how do I use, you know, your platform? And it’ll give you suggestions. And I think looking at what are the biggest pain points, right as an individual, if you’re just swamped by, you know, dealing with billing, right? Like, how can you maybe use that to analyze your BEOs, or, you know, those types of things. Or if you’re swamped by trying, or if, you know, your strong suit is not coming up with catchy email subject lines, you know, or whatever you’re, you’re just really having a hard time. Yeah, same, same. But if you’re, if there are certain areas of your job that you’re just really like, it’s super time-consuming, that might be a good place to start and say, Okay, how can I maybe use a tool to be able to make this faster so that I can focus on the things that I that are really important to this event and that I’m good at, right? I think that’s, for me, I mean, it’s so much, the ideation piece can be really challenging when you have a lot of things going on, when you’re, you know, trying to manage all these different pieces. And, you know, the creative side can sometimes be tough, so using that to kind of kick start some of that initial brainstorming I’ve found to be really helpful, and it usually gets the juices flowing and the content creativity piece going for me. So, you know, I think just looking at, practically like, what are the things that are most challenging? And then, you know, I think some of these programs, like ChatGPT, are probably, you know, the most user friendly in terms of just, most of the market knows about it, and it’s the easiest one. Just go type something in and play around with it and see how it comes out, so.
EP Right, yeah. Well, I’ve been using it a lot like, not at work, well at work, but also outside of work, and I recently uploaded a paragraph, and I asked for some feedback on it, and it went out of its way to tell me that a certain part was funny. And I was like, can ChatGPT like, know what funny is?
SR Right, right!
EP I was like, I mean, I appreciated the compliment, but I was also like, is that real? It was interesting moment, like, working with it. I was, like, acknowledged, like, humor, right? My content, I was, like, interesting.
KM It’s wild how much it can pick up on, you know, just cues that you think only people will be able to pick up on, but, you know, data that it has, it can kind of pick up on those things. And, I mean, it even just in the last couple years, it has progressed so much that, you know, you can be really specific with it, and you’re better off if you’re specific with it, you know, if you’re saying, Okay, I have these people coming to my event, and it’s hosted in this place, and we’re doing this and, you know, whatever. And you kind of give it all that information, it can give you super specific stuff, which is kind of wild.
SR Yeah, that is one of the things that I have noticed in my AIS is, like, the more specific I am in my prompt, like, the first initial prompt, the better responses I get. And like, I’ll continue to chat with it and add, like, further specifications and so and so forth. And just like, narrow it down, get better and better each time.
KM Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s great. It does definitely get stuck on certain things where it’s, like, it’s super frustrating, but, um, it’s definitely it gets better and better. And it, you know, it’s gotten better even just at like, citing things, if you’re looking for, like, research pieces, it’s gotten a lot better at being able to give you very specific stuff and then the links to it. Yeah, it’s really cool.
EP Outside of like, like the, the videos and like the helping like to brainstorm ideas. Where do you see AI going in terms of where you are, like, do you see it evolving to a point where you don’t even need to make a verbal request for something? It will just, like, know? Or like, obviously that’s not happening right now. But based on what you’ve been seeing in the industry and what has been needed and requested and what people are hoping for, where do you hope it goes?
KM Yeah, I mean, it’s totally becoming, like, your personal assistant. I don’t know if you use any Google products, but the Gemini model is like on, I have an Android, and we use Google products for work, so it’s on everything, and it’s amazing, like, the, the capabilities that it has just for everyday life. And I completely see that being like, you know, it’s, it kind of already is, like your personal assistant, but it will integrate with everything that you’re doing, right? So it’s not just like going to a separate platform and typing things in. It’s, you know, if you’re working on something, it’ll give you suggestions, or it’ll refine things for you in real life, real time. And, you know, those types of things I think are so helpful, and it’s gonna just be like any other technology that we’ve adopted, where it just kind of becomes ubiquitous in our everyday life. So I definitely see that happening. I would say, in the events industry, I mean, I think it’s, the adoption is going to continue to increase, and I think once we get to a certain point, I think it’ll be just like any other technology we’ve adopted, right? Registration technology, or, you know, site search technology, or any of those pieces, it’ll just be kind of part of our regular, everyday kind of planning, you know, pieces. Those words, did not come out in any intelligent way.
[laughter]
KM But, you know, I think it’ll just become, I think it’s still kind of that adoption phase where people are unsure, and they don’t know how to use it, they’re not sure if they should. Then eventually it’ll just be, you know, natural.
SR Yeah, absolutely. Cool. There is another area that you have some level of expertise, and that’s online communities. So I’d love to chat about that a little bit.
KM Yeah, absolutely.
SR What is the relevance of having an online community looking at, you know, our present day and age, you know, how can it drive attendance? Like, we know that it does. But how?
KM Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, I think this is a really fascinating area. I you know. I mean, the more and more these technologies are adopted, I think people are turning more towards people, you know, obviously using the AI and, and various other technologies to help them in everyday life. But when it comes to genuine, like authentic recommendations, I mean, even just looking at Reddit and how much people really rely on Reddit and the community around not wanting ads on Reddit or not wanting companies within subreddit, subreddits, I mean that, to me, is fascinating, and I think the more that companies can leverage those communities to, and not just Reddit, but like their own communities, I think a lot of, you know, SaaS companies are using communities to really drive engagement for their products, but I think lots of companies could use them. I mean, even just if you’re hosting, like, your sales kickoff, you know, your internal communities, through your Slack channels, or Teams channels, or whatever you’re using, can be leveraged to, you know, create excitement for an event, or to analyze conversations and understand what is important. What are hot button topics that maybe you could create as presentations at your event? You know, how can people share content within those channels prior to the event to get people excited? I think there’s a lot of, kind of, maybe untapped opportunities there that really will help get more of an authentic attendance and engagement at your event. So, I think there’s, there’s a lot of opportunity for companies to look at, you know, if they have an existing community online, or if they have, you know, different channels that people are engaging organically through, then how can they leverage that to drive attendance? And I think it’s more than just driving attendance. I think there’s a lot of pieces, but, to your question in terms of how to drive attendance, I mean, again, I think you have to keep it authentic. It’s very much people to people, right? So, it’s the users, it’s the people who are part of your community. And how can you engage maybe some top influencers within that community to, you know, showcase them attending the event, or you know that they’ve registered, and, you know, get those conversations started. You know, leveraging those communities to take pre-surveys or polls or, you know, get people excited and engaged in, you know, building the event even, and then they just feel much more, I think, involved and tied to the creation and the, the on-site, piece of it. And you know, if there are ways that you can take the online community and build those kinds of connections on site, that’s super valuable too, right? You know, if people are consistently coming to your community to talk about, you know, your product, or talk about how their lives have changed because they’re using whatever service or product you use, and then you can facilitate that on-site, you know, and let them create those one to one connections, that’s a really cool opportunity. So, I think there’s a lot of maybe, like I said, opportunity there, that maybe companies are not as focused on because they’re trying to send out communications or get people to come through kind of the traditional channels. And I think a lot of companies that are already really successful in those online communities are leveraging that for their on-site events.
SR Totally. And I will just plug in a little Smart Meetings promo here that we have an online community of our own coming very soon. It is actively in the works, and we are so excited. So, listeners, please stay tuned for that. Coming to a phone or computer near you, soon.
KM I love that. I love that. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s huge. People get to come in, and I’m sure, for your audience, talk about the challenges that they’re having and get advice.
SR Oh, yeah.
KM Then it’s just like a great way to facilitate that. And then, if you’re a company, you get to kind of see, like, what are the challenges people are having? How can we solve these? How can we turn this into content that they’ll be super excited about? It’s like market research, right, but in a more authentic way.
SR Yeah, allowing space for collaboration and interaction among your community, your clients, your audience, your attendees.
KM Yeah, yeah. Absolutely
SR Love it. Eming, do you have any further questions for Katie?
EP Um, no, I don’t think so. Did you want to ask the last final question?
SR Yeah, so we always sort of end off with our trademark question, and that question is, what is in your toolbox? Which essentially means, you know, what is something that is really, you know, like, what is something that you want to leave our listeners with, or, like, what is the hottest tip or piece of advice you think that people should understand about what we’ve been discussing here? What’s the game-changer?
KM Yeah, that’s such a good question. I’m trying to, like, consolidate everything we talked about, but I would say, really what you touched on in the kind of the middle of the conversation is that these AI tools are awesome. They’re so helpful for reducing friction within your own work and accelerating the things that you’re already doing. But so much of what we do needs to have the human touch and engaging those experts in the industry, I think is so important. I think AI can help a lot in terms of helping you with research and learning things, but there are always going to be people who have that deep, very good expertise that is so important, whether it’s, you know, engaging a designer to help you create kind of this cohesive theme for your event, or it’s engaging the AV team to make sure that you know your staging and your production is wow. I think that’s not going to be lost. If anything, that’s going to be even more important, as you know, the world continues to engage with these AI tools and technologies. So, I would say, you know, if you’re an individual looking at leveraging these tools, I think absolutely go for it, but always keep those connections and those people and human piece in it, because that’s going to be your differentiator, I really think, going forward.
EP Yeah, we’ve talked a lot of people about that, and that’s been kind of the main, the main issue is that people need to be involved in the AI process, or else, yes, it’s not going to work that way.
SR Exactly. And that’s why I think, you know, like AI, there’s this fear that AI is going to steal jobs, right? That like, it’s going to replace people, and so on so forth. But that’s, I think that’s a counter to that fear, is like, we need that humanity. It is so crucial. Yeah.
KM 100%. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think there will ever be, especially in our industry, there will never be something that can 100% replace the people that are involved.
SR Yeah. Totally.
KM So it’s, it’ll be, it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves, and continue to use it.
SR Yeah.
KM But I’m excited for the events industry. I think we really just have so much growth and so much connection that’s still going to come in the future. And it’s, it’s an exciting time, I think.
SR It definitely is.
EP Well, thank you so much Katie for joining us. This was really fun.
SR This was a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.
KM Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you both, and I’m excited to learn more from you all and continue to hopefully drive the conversation around these different pieces.
SR Amazing. Thank you.
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SR Well, that was a great discussion with both Yaron and Katie. I think it’s interesting, because with Yaron we kind of talk about, you know, how technology is developing and, like, fueling this forward momentum and the events industry. And with Katie, we get into, like, the nitty gritty of, here’s how you can be a part of it.
EP Yeah.
SR You know, I think that, like these two conversations together, these two professionals have so much to say and so many interesting insights to offer about how technology is progressing and how you, as an event professional, can leverage it to further your productivity, your ability to do what you do best and also be more sustainable and work faster and work smarter, not harder, right?
EP Yeah, and we’ve done some stuff on AI this year, as you probably heard, earlier this year, but I feel like we’re, you know, we’re getting to see it in different ways. Like, how is it working in the industry, outside of just like, you know, what you learn in the classroom, like, how can you use it in a practical sense in your day to day? And this is definitely an episode that gets into that.
SR Yes.
EP So, we hope you liked and appreciated the information we found for you guys, because we definitely enjoyed it. It’s very, very insightful, very helpful.
SR I always learn so much when we do these episodes. Every single time we talk to somebody, I feel like I walk away a little bit smarter.
EP Just a little bit like, like, a percentage point, just I feel slightly more educated than I did 42 minutes ago.
SR Yeah, it’s fun. It’s so fun. Yeah, I really do learn something every time. It’s so fun.
EP Yeah. It is. But yeah, we’re excited for what’s coming next, and we’re excited to let you know if we won. Again, if not, yes, we’re just gonna, like, you know, we-woo in our own way, but yes, fingers crossed for us.
SR Yes, and once again, just the fact that we’ve made it to this point of being nominated is such a huge deal. We are so excited, and seriously, it would not be a thing if we didn’t have all you wonderful people listening and learning alongside us. So that’s what’s at the spirit of this podcast, and thank you for being part of this journey.
EP Yes, thank you all for hanging in with us as we kind of worked out our issues and our tech issues and our content. And we really appreciate everyone who has just really been open or interested in engaging with our content, and we hope to bring you a lot more of it this year.
SR It’s developed into something I think we are both really, really proud of.
EP Yeah. So as always, as always, please leave a comment. Please subscribe. Please check us out. Go to our website, smart meetings.com, Instagram. You know we’re here. We’re open. If you want to talk to us, we’re definitely available to engage with you. So don’t be shy. We don’t bite. We’re weird, but we don’t bite.
[laughter]
SR We’re fun and we’re funny and we don’t bite. And also, at the end of the day, you belong here.
EP You do belong here, and we’ll see you next time on Smart Start Radio.
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You’ve been listening to Smart Start Radio, a Smart Meetings production. Interested in being our next guest? Connect with us, at [email protected].
