Becca Mazur | Patrick Rife | The Pixilated Podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pixilated podcast I am your host Patrick Rife if this is your first time tuning in welcome glad to have you here and if you are a regular listener welcome back we're here sitting in season three we're a few episodes in at this point I guess this is probably episode 10 or 11 and if you've been listening you know that we have been jping back and forth between interview type podcast episodes and then also like content type podcast episodes today we're back for another interview style podcast episode so that being said our whole mission statement when we're producing interviews is to find people inside of the in the offense industry but also industries that sit adjacent to it marketing and operations and that whole side of it and we look to find people that sit in kind of the nooks and crannies of all those worlds so like any industry there's a dynamic amount of positions that are there and I feel like a lot of times in the events world we don't get to hear about the people that are sitting inside of those specific roles so whenever I'm looking for guests for our interview series it's with that in mind I I love to find people that we haven't talked to yet so that way we and by we I really mean you know selfishly me I have a chance to ask the questions that I'm interested in so today is going to be no different on the podcast today I actually have a bio I'm gonna do a little intro before before we welcome her on we have a Becca Mazur so Becca is an accomplished events leader with over 15 years of experience on both the agency and client sides the Pandemic's impact on the events industry allowed her to realize her passion for strategy leveraging event tech she has since become a visionary in event strategy and operations integrating cutting edge text ACTs and optimizing processes to capture meaningful event data and insights based in Long Island New York Becca brings people processes and technology together to create impactful event experiences that drive business growth Becca welcome to the pixelated podcast thank you for having me happy to be here quite quite the intro there thank you I love it I love it you have to always like put those things out there and then you're just like you know sometimes it's like a gut check is like as you're writing it you know and I say that to somebody whose title has visionary in it so like with with all of the flush cheeks I poke I poke fun in a good natured way but needless needless to say thanks for being here today we're really excited to get a chance to speak with you you know like we talked a little bit before event technology and how it could have global impact for organizations is something that's been an interest of mind for you know near a decade so seeing where your experience bases was super exciting and I have a ton of questions I'm really looking forward to digging in but before we get there let everybody know that's listening give them you know like obviously I gave them a primer just there so you don't you know you don't have to reread that but just you know let everybody know who you are and how you got here today sure so I'm Becca Mazer actually just like so I actually started out working and I was planning events on the side and I loved it I just didn't know that it was an actual career it didn't take me long and entertainment to kind of be disillusioned by that industry as a whole and to realize that events was an actual industry so I made a pivot over to you the world of events and pursu career I started out on the agency side I was there for about eight or nine years that I want client side which really helped me round out my experience gives give me a deeper understanding of the event life cycle as a whole fast forward to 2020 as you mentioned in my bio oh you know three weeks away from my most favorite event and that's not enough to have an opportunity to take on an event strategy role while we you know we're all figuring out the new normal which I'm sure you remember it was kind of gizmet for me I always had an operational mindset you know going back to my very first role I kind of drew up a path and realized that I was always trying to help make things better make processes better look for the right tools and now I have the chance to marry you know that operational mindset with strategy which is something that I didn't think was even something that I could do so I kind of like to use the cogs in a wheel analogy so events used to happen in silos and data was thrown you know on a on a table but when you align those cogs into an engine in the right way it powers the event life cycle so back to my event strategy role I realized I could help build that allied engine by creating strong data foundations optimized for integration optimized for automation just make everybody's lives easier as we all know there there has been a lot of manual effort in the world of events and event planning and execution and end to end so just really seeing how event technology and data could lives easier and to to open the door to a 360 degree view of how impactful an event is to an overall marketing program so in person events are obviously back now better than ever more data than ever so my kind of mission now is to help people make sure they're building the right foundation so they can finally leverage all of that data so they can then measure measure success measure overall business impact in a real way so yeah that's where I'm at excited to dig in to to anything you're interested in learning more about yeah yeah I that's I mean for one like points for kissmet I no one has used that word in an interview I love that word so love that I you know I so immediately I'm I'm tasked with a bunch of different directions that I wanna go in and I I'm super interested in this idea of laying the foundational groundwork to be able to meaningfully do this thing because I think that one of the experiences that we've had in so many years is having a tool like a photo booth right that having a tool that can capture experiential data and it's it's built to be able to capture that at scale and move it somewhere at scale but it doesn't mean that the receiving ends are set up to receive that much less do something in a meaningful capacity with it but before we get to like so let's earmark that but before we get to that what I would love and I'm happy to share with you my kind of aha moment as well but what I would love is it to hear a little bit about you know like is there an aha or more than one aha moments where you found yourself with that information in front of you and you realized like this is a this is yeah is a problem right is an opportunity whatever however you wanna frame it up like was was there a moment for you or you were like wait a second like this just it doesn't make sense to me yeah I mean I so it's interesting because the event technology type of role at a company is something that's a little bit newer so I kind of took the event strategy role in that direction I noticed that where you sit with an organization really makes an impact and when I moved over from sitting on an events team over to more of a like a marketing operations team and martech team it really gave me a new insight into how impactful the event tech was and the data was and how disconnected things really were because you know when you're sitting and you're seeing different perspectives and collaborating with different people you don't always see it from different perspectives so it gave me the opportunity to kind of see oh wow you know everybody's doing this and seemingly doing it successfully but everybody has their own ways of that they're measuring that success you know we were putting a lot of effort into measuring digital marketing and there was so much data coming out of that that kind of helped drive strategy and you know I took a step back and I said why is no one using the data from events to do the same thing you know it used to be pre pandemic you know the drivers were how many people registered and how many people came now after you know the kind of the explosion of the event industry during and after the pandemic with the introduction of virtual events and all the data and engagement opportunities you had within those and it just opened up a whole new world of data and how are we using that data to your point if you're capturing these things that's great but if it's living in the tool that you're capturing it in then what you know so it was really important to me to kind of take a full assessment of the process from end to end and it's not just about the data it's about how healthy the data is how complete the data is and I kind of my mind just started looking at it in a much more big picture way and I realized there was a huge opportunity to really rebuild that foundation to make sure that everything was aligned to make sure that all of that were captured to make sure that you know the the data strategy going into every single event was something that was top of mind as a part of the planning process you know it's really just important not not just even capturing the data but to your point what happens to that data sure after the fact and making sure that you know the events over you don't just move on to the next event right or put it in your junk put it in your junk drawer you know exactly like I mean our my experiences is being you know more on the like being on the deployment side you know like we were working with a big brand at Bonnaroo was one of the big aha moments and so for anyone that doesn't know Bonnaroo is a huge four day festival that happens on a farm in Tennessee in June it's like 115 degrees it's brutal and we are in this like posh air conditioned tent and we were doing green screen photos and we were cranking we were just crushing and you know like they were awesome psychedelic bright fun like totally of the moment and this was a this was like athletic kind of conser brand that we were working with and really taking all these photos and people are emailing them to themselves we're not printing it's just all digital people are emailing them to themselves and then there is a charging station for phones that has some kind of data capture and then there's a massage area with a person with a clipboard writing down email addresses and then out front there's like a spin the wheel and you had to fill out like a like an index card with like your info oh God but you know like it was getting all smeared right cause it was outside of the air conditioning and I remember standing there with the guy who was the ball the big boss for the whole massive activation and being like Max you know like who takes the cards from the the spinner wheel and the checklist and the this and like consolidates them all and puts them together and then like and by the way tomorrow morning like is is everybody that was here today getting an email that says like yesterday was Rad today's gonna be better drop by and like power up or refresh or do we know do whatever it is and he was just like dbfounded and this is like a this is like a massive company and it's no it's no slack on him like he was at that point in time as 8 years ago already kind of probably moving towards the the the north side of his seniority in that role right and everything was changing rapidly so I remember that was this moment where I would just realize like whoa there is no centralized person to connect this and then even more so even if there was there's not a meaningful way for them to turn around and use this data in in the short term and in the long term and that's like that's what LED to us building our thing because we were doing you know we would we would go around with under armour right and we would be part of their finish line thing at every Marathon that they're a big sponsor of and like or like a high school volleyball tournament you know like the nationals or something like that and you know for us we always just saw like wait like this is like a teenage you know female basketball player right we know where she's come from we probably have like some idea like what products would align with her like buying like we know like what's important like all of these like touch points that we could blend into like our communications right to really create that genuine experience of why we're in each other's worlds and that was like a big you know it was inspiring to us now whether we've accomplished it or not has everything to do with the with the previous question which is that so many organizations are just they are not set up to receive it in a meaningful way and they're not set up to do anything with it if they were able to receive it completely and yeah it's so funny I I remember just like dating back to my agency days having opportunities that were like oh you can't get it you can't get this photo unless you enter your email and I was like well for what and then that's the whole thing it's like am I gonna get a million emails after this you know do they even know who I am and what I'm interested in you know it's but what I did realize which I'm sure you had your haha moment too is something like a photo booth you're not gonna get a spam email because people want their photos so it's almost like the conversion rates are crazy the conversion rates are crazy because yeah if you don't want it you just hit the X like you don't send it you don't send it to a fake email address so the the the deliverability rate is like 99.8 and then the open rate is like 98.8 which is amazing because when you think about it you know like those emails and text messages they have copy in them right so it's it's it's it's more dynamic than people realize and I think that that's a big challenge here is you know like you've got the experience that happens when they're there and if they never get the photo that had an impact and you can't measure it like in the same way but like you can if you can look at the photo you can see that they're stoked like if they took a photo in your tent with your brand and they're smiling you won right like base level and there's more that you can add on to it but you're right the the conversion rates on those kind of digital experiences are really really high because it's there's no requirement to do it and if somebody doesn't want it they're just gonna say no thanks exactly and also everybody loves getting their pictures just especially at these festivals for sure it's critical yeah I mean it's all but it's part of the entire mill you of why you went there like you want you know fun ways like you want to put it on your stories you want to put it you want you want content for your real when you craft it together at the end of that day and those kind of experiences are you know like those are the unique you know like everybody wants a picture in the Snapchat house at south by southwest 1 like the ghost swing like I've got one you know like it's a no brainer so okay so love that let's what is the I'm trying to organize this so it makes sense in a linear conversational sense I'd love to kind of hear about so you were working on this kind of stuff before Covid hit and and seemingly you were in an organization through a lot of that right but let's talk about how that change happened inside of the Satan organization right where you kind of went from an event lead right to being like an event technology lead because all of a sudden right like to be an event lead meant that every call you were on you had to explain what an eye frame was or like what a zoom call was or like all those like little Tiki tac details to your customers who you know we've said this we've hinted at the events industry maybe not being so progressive when it comes to adopting new things in the past so that being said like talk about what it was like when it hit right because all of a sudden it's something that you probably have seen and been advocating for and now your bosses and your colleagues and everyone further up is they're forced to reckon with it right and now all of a sudden you know Beck has been talking about this thing and it's right here in our face and there's no option but to embrace it yeah I mean interestingly enough the event that I was working on was a much it was an event that couldn't be done virtually I put it that was

00 0 one meetings things that just you know it wasn't possible right so we didn't really delve too much into the you know shifting from you know physical to virtual but I stayed on top of all of the technology as though we were going to because at any point you never knew when that was gonna happen right and it was just amazing to see how rapidly the industry just pivoted and you know and and these tools that you know you maybe had like a handful of tools to do webinars right prior and now it's it's a whole almost another industry in and of itself you know I I remember like dating back pre pre pre pandemic you know a virtual event like a hybrid event I'm using air quotes I'm not sure if videos shown on this or not but a hybrid event was you know something that was happening live with a video camera set up in the back of the room just streaming what was on stage and that was it you know this the pandemic just opened the door for everybody to to realize that you know you need to figure out how to engage the people that are at home watching virtually so so essentially how it helped me kind of grow out the event tech side of things is when we were kind of back in to in person events I took a look left and I saw that we were still doing webinars the same way and I said well that you know that's changed too and I I think and a lot of you know a lot of people and a lot of organizations still kind of put webinars in that box and didn't really realize the opportunity they had to turn those webinars effectively into virtual events because that's what they were you know yeah so you know I had I had the opportunity to really kind of revamp the webinar program to add more engagement you know make sure we are using better tools make sure we brought on a producer because you know it really isn't on you know an event manager field manager to be you know doing the the quote unquote AV and running the board during a live webinar no you needed to treat that these like they were actual events so that is really you know how I saw kind of virtual make its way into an organization that wasn't quite wanting to pivot yeah to to the virgilance during the pandemic so you know it's still it's still had an impact and to this day you know it it does make a difference right anyone who's just doing webinars for you know talking head content they're not gonna get the traction that they once did like yes it's content that can be promoted but you know it's it's much more engaging when it's it's live or simullive I'm a big fan of simullive so I can talk about that for days but you know it gives people a chance to feel like they're in the space with someone they can engage with Q&A polls things like that it just it it you have to figure out how to differentiate yourself in that space and yeah the old old webinars are not gonna cut it anymore yeah so I'm I mean kind of what I expected what I saw was the opportunity and I think this is a lot of the reason why so many people were unsuccessful at it one because it was like it was a Big Apple right like that was a lot to do and there were so many pre Rex to be able to do it well right like what we're talking about so like I'm gonna reference this LinkedIn post of yours you know event tech is martech right oh yeah which I like I'm with you 100% I think the problem is is like there are a lot of organizations with not great martech and and calms like that had already been moving so fast for 10 years that you you know you have these organizations that maybe have some you know lewdite tendencies inside of them and all the sudden it's like oh there's this thing we're trying to catch up we're trying to catch up we're trying to catch up and then all the sudden like they got a Voltron together and all three of them are you know like at a 33% kind of like functionality or or they're not even really dialed into the organization in a real way right there just kind of been like oh yeah we need to do this let's like slap it on there and we don't really know what that means because it because it's hard but that being said you know what I thought was the opportunity with with virtual and with Covid and this whole you know forced hybridizing is you know it was really how do companies become media platforms and that becomes this very significant portal and I think that the idea should have been and what I thought was you know you're really building a whole new audience in a sense and that audience can can actually be activated dynamically and separately from your live event audience and you can activate them in tandem and they really represent a whole new business segment that can be engaged with but that's a tough idea to get together and I think that if you didn't have media platform chops to make sure whether that was spinning all the plates to get the attention and present the kind of big idea all the way through to following it on in a meaningful way and having follow up events and having following education and program you know like an example I would use would be like the American Heart Association's annual gala right that happens in Kansas City or something like that that can no longer happen like for them and the right marketing comms team that presents a huge opportunity because now all of a sudden you have people across the globe who have been impacted by heart cancer or or heart disease or whatever the case may be and they want to be advocates for but they're not in Kansas City and typically it's been this localized organization that even though it has a national impact it still draws from like probably where its founders are and what have you the the opportunity there right was to all of a sudden have a global audience and and to then turn that global audience into a global community that you harness yeah and then you come out of this thing and you bring your live element back in and maybe some of those new people that you've added in your your digital ecosystem are regionally located and it works but if they're not it doesn't matter like you just need to make sure that you program for both of them and you figure out how to continue going and I think that that was just such a a lot for so many organizations to wrap their head around that I feel like the large majority have come back out on the other side saying like good riddance to that like glad we didn't have yeah let's let's go right back to what we were doing right right right so so like it's a Great Gatsby theme for the Shears Gala right yeah exactly yeah I think you're right it really has changed the landscape it changed just the way that we think about community right because before to your point we were very localized in a lot of these events that we were doing so this it just expands the audience it expands the reach and depending what the goals of the event are what the organization is it has to be looked at as almost a whole you know new channel and another itself you know you might still be doing that Gayla to your to your point you might wanna do it hybrid and include a virtual audience in a few elements of it where they feel like they're engaging with people that are there or you have something that's entirely virtual in addition to you know the the the live event that you're doing and you you never realize that you had that audience before until something like this happened so it's the companies and the organizations that are gonna leverage this new opportunity to reach this audience and get all this data I can't I can't even stress that enough when you're online the engagement you know engagements are clicks duration you know you can measure what they're interested how interested they are you know you put up different you know if you're a BW organization white papers links to you know other other videos that you've done and you can kind of see where your audience is gravitating to those aren't things you can always do at a live event so not only do you have this new channel but you have all these new engagement opportunities in a way that you know you have their attention right it's not like they're just you know clicking through you know passing out on LinkedIn while that that obviously has a lot of impact the amount of impact that can be measured at an event where you they came they logged in you have their attention and then they click something like the possibilities are endless for how you can you know further segment that data personalize experiences for them and really get them into this community build this community around them and I think that's a whole that their community is a whole that there is another channel beyond all of this you know that that's really I see taking off in a lot of organizations as well yeah and and and the community goes beyond the product or the organization and it's it's it's a way for like minded people to come together and talk about things and bounce ideas off each other you know post opportunities ask questions and just really find their people I I know personally I've experienced you know getting into a lot of different communities recently event related and it's been great it's been great to kind of feel your community outside of the organization you're in or your past co workers or just who you're connected to on LinkedIn this community to your point is is a whole another like I think that's what's gonna blow up next honestly because you can't get more personal than that yeah yeah yeah I don't think you're wrong so I think I feel like we've spent a lot of time kind of identifying right the the symptoms kind of the traditional you know like attitudes and feelings towards a lot of the stuff and kind of the evolution of how it's gone but but I wanna spin kind of the conversation for a second and let's talk about this from like a proactive perspective okay so like let's start by identifying you know some organization types and like what are table stakes right like what are the things you know 1 is there an organization that is too small right is there an organization that is that is large enough to really be able to do this meaningfully and then my other question is like what are the what are the table stake low hanging fruit winds right that they can start thinking about immediately and then I've got a following question that will come after that but let's start there let's kind of like just go through and workshop out you know like how an organization approaches it and what they can stand to win at the beginning yeah I mean to be honest I don't think an organization could be too big or too small to leverage events the right way if you're doing events you should be doing them with purpose and if you're doing that with purpose and you have goals you should be able to measure those goals and if you can't measure those goals then you probably shouldn't be doing the events in the first place because you have no way to prove that there was a reason for you to be there and that that was a success and that you should be there again so it could be the smallest company it could be the biggest company but there's got you know there's a common thread and that's proving the proving impact proving the fact that you know you were there for a reason and that reason impacted something whatever the you know whatever the organization's goals are so yeah I I think what it comes down to at the end of the day it's not just the size of the organization it's the alignment within the organization I think where a lot of companies struggle is alignment between sales and marketing that's the very first thing to be honest events touch both right you go to a trade show who's there you know you might have your marketing people there but you have your sales people there everybody needs to be on the same page as to what is the outcome of this event and then after the fact it's this you know the hot you know the hot leagues the MQLs it's this it's getting passed off to the salespeople so you know you know an events team a marketing team can give those those sales teams the best leads that there is like literally they had the conversations and they know that there's interest and then nothing can happen with those leads so alignment between sales and marketing and really having a process for that handoff is key obviously a smaller organization probably easier cause less people involved and the larger you get with an organization there's a lot more cooks in the kitchen but you know that that is nber one is alignment regardless of how big or small it is and then obviously starts with sales and marketing alignment and then of course alignment within the marketing organization itself making sure that things are happening in a consistent way you know within the organization as a whole and not happening in silos and that there's a strategy around that okay and then you said low hanging fruit wins yeah yeah yeah and maybe even like the so I think like low hanging fruit cause thinking about like what are our steps to implementing anything right and then I think the other thing that would be a valuable counterpoint to that that's probably already there is like what is that data like what is that the the whatever the index of that thing that we've done and and you know and how does that help us yeah I mean low hanging fruit it's hard again it depends what level of maturity the organization is at your point if they don't even have like a martexta that may have a you know a lot a lot more work to do on just the foundational end of their marketing organization h but assing that they do have at least the digital side of things relatively buttoned up yep the lowest hanging fruit is gonna be the getting the data I hate that you know there's no other way to say it like make sure if you're going to use a trade show as an example you know you're giving you know there's a spin wheel or whatever there is there's a pen that you're giving away don't just scan leads to scan leads you know you low hanging fruit is using this as an opportunity to qualify those leads and most of the trade shows that you'll go do will have a like a badge app that you could scan there's you know a bunch of independent companies as well independent products as well where you can scan and qualify leads do it don't just but don't just scan make sure that you're asking the right questions make sure your sales people are trained on filling that you know that those qualifiers in within a day of what they have those conversations because the the the the biggest thing you can do is get everybody doing things the same way yeah because you can't do anything yeah if the data is all over the place yeah because that's we all know it's garbage and garbage up so you know the first thing you could do and it isn't low hanging fruit for like impact I don't know but low hanging fruit in that it's easy to get the data if you just ask the right questions then yes that's the wagon fruit it's funny that you say that so I I wanna say I wanna ask you about your opinion of kind of first party second party data happening in the trade show booth right because those badge scans are don't have the the value that somebody putting their own email address and to get their picture has and I use that because it's right at the top of my head and obviously it's what I do because other things you can do aside from a photo booth to capture direct data from someone and you need to consider that for sure like do you have an opinion about about how the efficacy but the quality of first party leads being captured through like a some kind of tertiary system or experience versus you know like the bad scanners that you're getting yeah I think honestly I think it comes down to like what the goals are because if brand awareness for example is a key goal then having a system like that and just getting as many people to interact with it as possible you know get their picture with the you know with the overlay that has the brand's logo on it sharing it out to social and putting a hashtag that you know you you basically pre bake into the sharing feature those those things are gonna be you know what is gonna have the impact if but if you know if it's a trade show and it's b to B and you know brand awareness isn't a a key goal and the the key goal is marketing qualified leads for example it's gonna be having the conversations right so I think if if there's an equal goal of brand awareness over here and MQL's over here then yes both of those you know the the the quality conversations are as important as an activation that's just gonna draw people in and get the brand's name out there but in a lot of cases for the bigger brands where there already is brand awareness for example and your you know looking for something that's gonna take you know buyers stations right it's gonna be the engagement it's gonna be meeting subject matter experts it's gonna be you know talking to you know salespeople and really understanding what those challenges are that the leads are facing that's the information that that needs to be captured in order to qualify those leads as someone that is interested in your product or service so yeah again it just depends on the goals so hopefully that answers it does use a great excellent job excellent job so we're starting to run a little long here but I want to you know like I have a few specific questions that I really wanna make sure that I ask you and stop you know like maybe they will they're not meant to feel like hot seat kind of questions but they're gonna end up being that way anyway so whatever but coming out of I keep saying I love that we're like post post covid where we don't have to acknowledge covid in the conversation but because of I think where the wave that you're you're you know teaching from and about is so it gained prominence because of that like it ends up being a relevant thing but will biggest surprise post post covid in the event space the biggest surprise is the realization of our third event data I think that there was a you know just the the there were there's at least like an Assption that organization if they're collecting the data then they must be doing something with the data they must be you know it must mean something to them and they must all be doing oh cause this is before I was on that side and then you know that was probably the biggest eye opener for me is that that's not the case haha a lot of organizations so you know my goal is to again help educate and help organizations understand it's not it's not scary you know all that coming but it it's starting with the foundation right it's it's building it it's it might take a year to get the data that's gonna tell you the story you need to to to read but you know it's worth it because from that point on then it's you know real time all the time and you can be making decisions not on impact of twins and stuff but you know at least it real time enough where you know you'll know if you should be going back to that event the following year not just because you did it before totally totally I remember we built us we built a Salesforce integration for our photo booth software and we were like this is gonna be amazing we took it to one of our customers and we're like look like look at all this we're doing for you like you guys you know like you use Salesforce and like we built this thing and they were like like that sounds so awesome but like the like the CSV's of all those emails that you send us like we just put them in something we call the junk drawer and I was like oh man and this is like this is a you know this is a Fortune 100 company and they were just like totally you know honest about it and what we realized in doing that is when you're working with companies that have had crazy accelerated growth you know like I mean if pixelated blew up tomorrow there would be a whole lot of processes that are not done right and you know like then all of a sudden you start hiring and you start putting people in these roles and they inherit the things that are there and they asse that those things were considered and that they're there for a reason aside from that's just what we were doing and then like you just keep rolling and then you get you pick up moment and people don't wanna rock the boat or it's too late or it's hard or you don't know like you don't even know when the org chart who the decision makers would be to make that change in a meaningful way and then the next thing you know like yeah you're capturing tens of thousands of email addresses and you'd like literally stick them in like a Dropbox folder because you don't know what you would you know you don't even know anyone on the Markham's team to say like by the way like you know that like quarter of a million dollars that we spend every weekend to be at a different place like we've got all of this okay so next question is like what do you think the the the biggest missed opportunity is with event technology of of the of the Kobe ecosystem because like we've said it a lot here like so much money got spent into that ecosystem and what we came away I mean like we've seen a lot of the companies that have absorbed a lot of that cash not make it through so I'm just gonna miss opportunity yeah I wouldn't say it's missed opportunity I would say it's you know how do I say this not the right expectations for where it was going because you know I think everybody immediately saw the value during the pandemic because we were all stuck right like all this this is gonna change everything this is this is what we need and you know it was only those that had kind of the foresight to think about what was gonna happen after and I think the the missed opportunity is I guess the virtual platforms that didn't see beyond virtual I didn't see beyond the pandemic and I think that's where we're seeing a lot of those being acquired you know by larger companies doing kind of more more tech that that hits the in person audiences as well but yeah I think I think that's probably the missed opportunity I think you know in the future missed opportunities everything around AI it's I feel like AI is the new pandemic to say it's like you know we're all trying to figure out how that's gonna impact oh my God it's great but like how come we utilize it how come we leverage it how can we use it to make our technology that much better you know a lot of you know a lot of platforms are and a lot of event technologies are using you know the low hanging fruit of you know content generation but you know we could all go to chat GPT or my Claude Claude that AI is my new favorite any of these and and do the same thing just in the chat tool so it's really figuring out and the companies that that figure it out and and do something that's gonna change the industry are the ones that are gonna come out on top but that's gonna be AI is gonna be the next like why don't we think of that or why didn't you know you know that the Monday morning quarterback situation for sure yeah yep definitely Becca this has been a super great chat I have Learned so much and I have no doubt that a lot of the things that you said have provoked a lot of thoughts and people that are hearing it listening so we're gonna wrap up here in just a moment but before we do that why don't you let everyone out there that's listening no how to get in touch who good organization that you'd like to work with might might look or feel like challenges they have whatever whatever you think please just just let everyone know like how to get in touch and and why yeah absolutely so LinkedIn I would say is the best place to get in touch with me connect with me there message me there it's LinkedIn slash and it's just Becca Mazur one word B E C C A M A Z U R and then contact me if you wanna talk about tech if you want to if anything I've said just you know Little spark gave you a haha moment you know I just love networking I love connecting I I just love talking to anyone who has something that's gonna you know peak my curiosity or I can help them figure out a challenge that they're facing you know I'm all about that and then also obviously if you're an organization that's struggling with any of the things that we're talking about and want just someone to bounce off ideas and you know not have it feel so overwhelming you know I'm happy to chat about that too amazing amazing Becca you know on behalf of all of our listeners thank you for taking time out of your day to come on and chat with us and answer all my questions and happy birthday I mean just just just be such a light in general this has been really really fun oh thank you yeah it was great thanks so much for having me definitely okay guys so that brings us to the conclusion of another exceptional interview I'm going to make sure in the show notes I'll be links to Becca's LinkedIn profile probably that wonderful bio I read at the beginning as well and some other stuff in there so if you want to get in touch just open up the show notes and click that and that will take you to the place you need to be so that way you can follow along connect with Becca two things before we go first and foremost if you aren't subscribed yet whether you're watching this video on YouTube or LinkedIn or if you're listening on your favorite podcast network make sure that you hit the subscribe button it make sure that you get notified each time we publish a new episode and secondly if you enjoy this interview and you have a moment please leave us a quick 5 star review and just a few kind words adding some words in there helps the algorithm out helps us find more people the vision for this podcast is just to spread more information around kind of the events and marketing and technology world we really love to do it and we really love when more people find us and find the things that we're doing helpful so that's it until next time I'm Patrick rife with pixelated peace