What Can You Learn From a Kid's Event?
According to Technavio , the global event management software market size is estimated to grow by $2.7 billion from 2024–2028. That’s a lotta meetings!
Deepfakes Revisited
We had a lively VEG meeting last week as we all took the “Real or Fake Test” to see how good we are at spotting AI-generated images. Spoiler alert? We suck. Play along at home with this test.
One trick that that I've been using to spot AI deepfakes is to use Google Lens, which is summoned using the funny little camera icon on your Google search bar. Just drag and drop an image or upload a file into the Google Lens search. It goes out and attempts to make a match, and it also provides some useful clues as to an image's origins. For example you can discern if the person exists at all, and whether a landscape photo like the one you’re looking at exists on the web.? Not perfect, but a good start.
Tom’s Guide offers some additional basic fake-spotting skills by looking at things like image quality, stilted audio, and more. The Online News Association has a series of educational programs for journalists, many training them in fake-spotting. Our hands-down favorite new game is fake-spotting on the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management project. You are shown a series of images (there are thousands) and asked whether you think they are real or fake. In this Turing-like exercise, AI programs are given the same test. Your answers are being used to train AI on what people think are fake images, so it’s all very circular.
At the enterprise level, you should look for solutions such as Steg.AI and other watermarking tools. These tools place invisible digital watermarks into an image to track ownership and digital rights. And this crazy video that’s being shared around the Internet shows celebs talking to their younger selves, all generated by AI. Thanks for the contribution, Ben Erwin .?
What I Learned About the Future of Events From Going to a Kids’ Show
?Sweet Suite is an event put on by The Toy Insider Magazine . They invite toy exhibitors to set up shop on a hot day in the middle of a sweaty NYC summer, so that kids and their ‘rents can get excited about the holiday buying season. The event used to be tailored for journalists and press coverage, but as those numbers dwindled, Sweet Suite has morphed into a tot-sized ComicCon. It’s now an event for bloggers, vloggers and influencers in the toy industry. That means you see a lot of Internet-generation stage moms and dads whose kids have followings on YouTube and TikTok. There is also a smattering of parental advice bloggers. Attracting attention in this crowd calls for a more festive, noisy presentation where swag and sugar rule the day.?
So what can we learn from an event like this???
But is It Instagrammable?
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If your exhibit did not have an “I was there moment” it got no love. You dressed for the event and grabbing your photo was mission-critical. This Instagram page ? for the event says it all. And note that all parents and kids were told their images could be used in social media at the event. (See image on the left.)?
It also meant giving free rein to mom directors and their talented offspring. I watched this Mom commandeer the booth for multiple takes of the same “action shot.”? (See image on the right.)
Tie into the Creator Economy?
The toy brands at the show were there and so were the creators who wanted to work with them. It’s a no-brainer to introduce a system that marries the two more efficiently. So the Sweet Suite’s creators built FUNfluential . Say you’re launching a brand campaign for a new doll and looking for a perfect family as your social media spokesfolks. This service will make a match. Imagine this sort of thing being deployed for other verticals in the events industry.
Sticki Rolls from Sky Castle Toys are beaded bracelets with little tiny sticker dispensers built into them. Your kid peels off a tiny little sticker from the roll and doles them out as they see fit. Each bracelet holds 5 rolls of 10 stickers, with replacements for sale. It was a big hit at the show. Its key allure is immediate gratification, but the stickers also have a viral presence at the show.
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Cognizant of the fact that American parents and kids spend only 37 minutes of playtime together each week, Pennycake’s entire lineup of games is affordably priced, meant to be played in under 15 minutes, and aimed at something the whole family can do together, such as a puzzle with different size pieces for different ages. Full disclosure: the Pennycake brand is owned by Chick-fil-A , masters of catering to time-starved parents.??
Let Your Exhibit and Your Product Speak the Same Language??
To hawk its new Jurassic CAPTIVZ Epic Battle Rumble Cage , where a miniature dinosaur rumbles around in a cage, PR firm JustPlay built a life-sized rumble cage photo opp. Kids liked the toy ($16.99) but they went gaga over the cage, which was simply a vibrating platform behind a cut-out. Inexpensive but ingenious for a booth. And the kids might even remember the toy when they look back at the photos.
?Swag-A-Rama?
?I wish I had taken a picture of the swag bags the families toted as they left to go home. You could barely lift them. But I also wish that there’d been a charity where kids could have been encouraged to give a little, too. There were no conference sessions, no stats on the toy industry’s vitality, and no experts on parenting and play to make for a more informed audience, but that was not the Sweet Suite's mission. As a reporter, it was a missed opportunity to educate parents and kids. But, if you operate under the premise that we’re all big kids at heart, you’ll learn something from this event.?
Scuttlebutt
What3Words? Apropos of nothing, a friend showed us What3Words , a website that lets you meet anyone anywhere without needing a street address or exact coordinates. Say you want to meet a friend at a concert, at your favorite tree in the park, or at a store in the mega-mall. What3Words maps the entire world into 10x10 meter squares. Just point to the square where you want to meet on a map and say three words, for example “gifted, square, extraordinary”, to mark your spot. It’s a high-tech pirate map.?
Meeting Note Takers Have you all noticed that the number of attendees for meetings has grown because of the presence of AI notetakers?? Everyone is sending their notetaker into a meeting as their right-hand assistant. If you’re feeling left out we recommend Otter.AI , Fireflies , and? tl;dv . Time Magazine offers a roundup of some of the more recent additions to the AI-powered notetaking space. So does, Zapier . Most offer some limited amount of notetaking for free, with a paid premium subscription.
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We’ve got a heck of a 4th quarter in our sights, and would love your help getting the news out.?
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