Phil Forte

Bio: As founder and president of Blue Sky Broadcast, Philip has been involved in the formation and development of successful technology companies for the meetings industry for over 20 years. Blue Sky Broadcast is a leader in developing fully managed web events for scientific and medical associations as well as the life science industry. Blue Sky has worked with over 200 associations and over half of the top ten pharmaceutical companies by creating world class online learning and event solutions.
Prior to Blue Sky Broadcast, he co-founded and was president of Ascendent Systems, a leading developer of mobility voice communications for events and mobile workers. He helped the company file for several patents and raised over $17 million, while orchestrating national strategic partnerships with major wireless companies. Ascendent Systems was sold to Research In Motion’s Blackberry in 2006.
Prior to Ascendent, he formed Travelers Telecom, a provider of short term communications solutions for trade shows, conferences and high end traveling executives. Travelers Telecom grew at an annual rate of over 400% per year and was listed as the fourth fastest growing privately owned company in the Los Angeles area.
Philip is married with four children and a graduate from the University of Southern California.

This session will discuss the technologies behind webcasting, hybrid meetings and the creation of digital archives of meetings for multiple formats and how they may be applied to physical and virtual events. In addition, for those holding multiple meetings, these technologies offer the opportunity to create ‘channels’—transforming events into on-going experiences and additional subscription/sponsorship opportunities.

Session Take-Aways:

* Learn the basics and new trends of online events
* Leverage your content to a broader audience by implementing this technology
* Measure your success- learning what to look for and what you can expect
* Develop checklists to evaluate webcasting vendors

Major Benefits:

Given today’s challenges on time and travel budgets. Many event organizers are developing successful strategies on leveraging their meeting content by archiving the presentation and developing “knowledge portals” built around the spoken-word knowledge delivered at the event. In addition, with the broad adoption of live streaming, event organizers can “bring the event to the attendee” thus increasing exposure and revenue channels.

Integration Potential:

Webcasting and knowledge portals now seamlessly integrate with;
*Registration platforms
*Association Management Systems (AMS)
*Learning Management Systems (LMS)
*Many other SaaS based platforms

This session is applicable to:

Planner Type: Corporate, association, tradeshow

Technology Level: Beginner – Mid-level

*CMP-Accredited Session: BS I: Strategic and Event Planning Process