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We built our company around the primary goals of the event planner (or, if you prefer, event organizer, event architect, or event director). You want people to register, attend, and get the most out of the experience. You want to create a buzz. At the moment of execution, you want your event to be valuable and enjoyable.

We’ve created the ZeristaPRO platform with these goals in mind.

Research suggests that 64% an event planner’s working time is consumed by mind-numbing busywork. In addition to the fact that time is the currency of your life and it is being used in a manner described as “numbing,” we believe that if you could eliminate this nonsense from your workday you could better allocate that time to far more useful ventures – setting yourself ahead of the other event planners who are spending over half of their day with busywork. So, how do we remove the busyness from your agenda?

ZeristaPRO makes event planning a breeze.

• By using the matchmaking and chatter features attendees are able to connect and start buzzing long before your event takes place. This user-propelled pre-event buzz will virally build a sense of excitement for your events – no monkey-business or busy-work required.

• The schedule builders and agenda features make sure that all times and locations are in sync for all attendees & speakers – no mass notifications and confusion for small changes and adjustments.

• Chatter feed and social media integration allow attendees, speakers, and sponsors to establish a community organically, exchange thoughts and ideas about which sessions to attend, and get the conversation flowing long before anyone boards a plane or checks into a hotel.

• Effectiveness: streamlined registration, great user experience, and mobile event planning dashboard make it so that your event thrives and you aren’t tied to a computer.

Anjanet Mort, our June employee spotlight, is not only the phenomenal (multi-tasking, early-rising) Client Services Manager here at Zerista, she’s also a perfect representative for our June Life Sciences theme.

Anjanet was born in California but then grew up in Colorado. She went to school at Purdue, where she earned a BA in writing and a minor in computer technology. Her jobs have spanned from being a release manager for Integware, a software provider for the Life Science Industry (our June theme!) to being a technical writer at Vidiom, a division of Time Warner. Today Anjanet is happily married to her husband Chris (who happens to work for a medical device company – Life Sciences Industry strike 2!) with whom she has an adorable 4 1/2 year old daughter named Gwena Viere.

She’s currently recovering from a full, cringe-worthy, Achilles rupture. In her spare time, she loves to read (a lot) and is organizing her book club to host a charity garage sale whose profits will go towards the Learning Source for Adults and Families.

When she isn’t reading, hurting herself, or saving the world one garage sale at a time, Anjanet loves to garden. She has gads of heirloom flowers from her grandmother back in Pennsylvania, along with rhubarb that is older than…well..dirt. “My garden obsession is keeping my husband’s hops out of my garden; my garage obsession is keeping his brewing equipment contained.” Towards the end of the season, the garden gets totally ignored as Anjanet turns her attention to college football; watching the boilermakers.

Besides gardening, she loves biking to the farmers market with her family, complete with Gwena on her training wheels, and petting her pup Lily.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, recently released it’s regular report on key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry. According to the report, “for the three month average period ending in March, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices.” Of these devices, 72.5 million were smartphones.

“Browsers were used by 38.6 percent of subscribers (up 2.2 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 37.3 percent (up 2.9 percentage points),” indicating that people are still using a browser more than downloadable apps.

What does this mean for your event?

First of all, it means that making your event mobile is an increasingly powerful way to improve your event. It also means that, from an accessibility standpoint, if you only use native apps you’re neglecting huge components of the mobile marketplace. comScore reports that Android & iPhone users constitute 60% of the downloadable app market. Assuming that roughly 1/3 of the market are using downloadable apps, these statistics indicate that utilizing purely Android and iPhone apps at your next event will cover only about 20% of the market – and potentially only 20% of your attendees, exhibitors, speakers, and sponsors.

It’s for this reason that Zerista’s mobile platform utilizes both native apps and a mobile browser – so that you, and your attendees, are sure to be covered.

Sources:

comScore press release: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/5/comScore_Reports_March_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

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Lady Gaga Sharp IS03 two commercials, cell phone, KDDI in Japan will operate, with a bright 960 x 640 3.5-inch screen. http://www.sunrainet.com/lady-gaga-sharp-is03.html

The Zerista Manifesto (more humbly and appropriately titled “Vision and Purpose = Events Matter” on our About Us page) has been tangible as ever in the midst of our world’s recent events.

“Events punctuate life.”

Internationally, the world has been pulsing with celebration. Through the dark haze of a troubled economy, record-setting unemployment and environmental disasters, we’ve found some solace in the fairy tale wedding of the beautiful and graceful Kate Middleton to Prince William. Now, in a far less anticipated moment of good news – today we awaken to the news that Osama bin Ladin has finally been stopped in his tracks.

From the long-awaited royal wedding, to the even longer-awaited capture of Osama bin Ladin, voices worldwide are echoing the Zeristian belief that, to quote ourselves, “events produce the social content that people care about.”

These events mark beautiful new beginnings, and, as the Roman philosopher Seneca (and more recently the American philosophers Semisonic, in their hit song Closing Time) bittersweetly once said, “every new beginning comes from another beginning’s end.”

This week’s events have marked beautiful new beginnings – a handsome prince and his beautiful princess; while they simultaneously remind us of endings – the tragic death of William’s mother Diana, whose own beautiful beginning took some sad turns. We watched Diana’s beginning lead to divorce and, eventually, culminate to a car crash in Paris in 2007. That brutal end, that terrible event, punctuated our lives in a way most of us will never forget.

When looking back, it’s often easiest to remember something from an event-based standpoint – because those are the moments worth sharing and remembering. In psychology this is a phenomenon referred to as a “flashbulb memory” – “a vivid and detailed memory for an event that is typically charged with emotion (either positive or negative). The most common example given (at least to individuals of a certain age) is ‘Where were you when you heard of the assassination of President Kennedy?’ to which very many individuals can give graphic answers describing a place and the events occurring in it.” Today, most of us can remember exactly where we were sitting or what we were doing when we heard the news about Diana, and someday we’ll remember where we were last night or this morning when we first heard about Obama’s death.

Truly, “events echo and live before & after the date.”

For weeks before the royal wedding, everything from Kate Middleton’s hats to remembrances of Princess Diana were covered and dissected on news stations, blogs, and magazines worldwide. Today, as we attempt to emotionally and psychologically come to terms with this new reality – a world where Osama Bin Ladin is gone – we’re reminded of an old event, the events of 9/11, that stung the world and scarred our hearts in a way few things ever will.

Events, like their memory, are but a snapshot in the rhythms of our daily lives – but that is only a fragment of their impact. From the stress & excitement of planning an event, to the skip in our step when we feel like we have “something to look forward to,” events begin long before the date itself, and often their impact is felt for months and years afterwards.

“Events are mobile, social, and happen in real-time.”

The royal wedding was celebrated around the world, just as we shared in their loss of Princess Diana – through the television. Now we can blog and tweet about it, becoming real voices in an international conversation.

Today, as we remember the attacks of 9/11 and celebrate the end of one man’s terrible chapter in world history, let’s be grateful that technology has given us the tools to celebrate and remember these events together.

Do you remember where you were when Princess Diana died? How do you think social technology is changing the way we celebrate and remember events? Please – comment below and let us know your thoughts!

Taylor, a Colorado native, grew up ski racing in Steamboat, Colorado. Rather than going to a traditional high school, he attended a “ski academy” where he wore ski boots 250 days out of the year and traveled all around the world.

After high school Taylor studied communications at DU and went on to work for Nordica as their North American factory rep.  His job was to be the face of the industry, driving all over the country and maintaining the equipment for clubs and athletes. It was a sports lovers dream – Taylor was responsible for keeping all of the athletes happy, from the Nordica athletes in the X-games to those in the Olympics.

Taylor went on to be an entrepreneur in two, very successful, software companies, before arriving here today at Zerista. Although he works with us as an account executive, it’s his incredible background in technology and software development that lets him be such an  effective liaison between the development team and our customers.

Today his interests are vast. His parents still live in Steamboat, where his mom runs “Strings,” a well-known yearly Steamboat music festival. This festival has been a big stepping stone for up-and-coming bands – a number of Best New Artist Grammy have been won the year after they performed at her festival. Growing up this translated to lots of starstruck moments for Taylor, who met people like Billie Corgan, David Bowie, and Trent Reznor during these summers.

When he isn’t skiing or meeting superstars, Taylor loves to cook and loves to eat – he’s even teaching his wife to cook at the moment. When they aren’t cooking together, Taylor and Katie spend a lot of time with their dogs – Chuck (a 5 year old lab/great dane mix) and Roxie (a 4 year old shitzu poodle) – both rescues. You think between the cooking, the eating, the skiing, and the Zerista-ing, Taylor would have enough on his plate – but no cigar: he just finished his first half-marathon, where he raised about $10,000 with his wife and sister for the Leukemia/Lymphoma society. The photo above was taken at this marathon, right at the 12.5 mile finish line.

Events matter. You’ve heard us say it a thousand times. It’s plastered all over our website, twitter page, and e-mail signatures. Yes, it’s a concise, striking, and powerful tagline (if we do say so ourselves), but it’s much more than that. The truth is, it gets to the heart of who we are and why we think our product matters: because events matter, and our product is a tool that enhances events. ZeristaPRO is a vehicle that allows you to engage in an event before the physical start date, so that when that date arrives you are set up, connected, and able to make that invaluable face-to-face time as high-impact as possible. It enables you to take those face-to-face encounters and keep the conversation going for months afterwards. In a nutshell, it’s a vehicle to help you make the most of events, and this matters only because events, themselves, matter.

Events inspire us. Educate us. Connect us.

When Lady Gaga gets involved, on the other hand, they  perplex us.

From industry trade shows to professional sports games, events bring people together and punctuate life, they’re the things worth sharing and remembering. From Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to Hurricane Katrina, from Lady Gaga being “born” out of a giant egg onstage during this year’s Grammys to your 16th birthday party, events drive our personal and cultural social conversation. Events have the power to inspire, connect, and educate. In the case of your 16th birthday party (or Lady Gaga), they might even have the power to be slightly traumatizing.

First mover advantage is way overrated.  Trail blazing companies capture headlines, @Techcrunch articles and @Scoblizer tweets – no doubt.

Sam sees Zerista as a “game changer for small events.”  He goes on to say that he sees Zerista as “more than a mobile social network” but also “a mobile communication system for small groups.”

In his words:

Did you hear that Zerista launched a new mobile community for events last week? It could be a game changer for small events – giving them access to event technology that was previously too expensive.

Sam’s bottom line is that “the Zerista mobile community is more of a communication platform than a private social network. It allows you to form ‘disposable communities’ and help them communicate, collaborate and share – while they are on the go.” We look forward to seeing how our platform is being used at events and sharing new things we learn.

To read the entire article visit Interactive Meeting Tech Blog.

“The Congress for the New Urbanism is very excited to be using Zerista this year! Attendees have been impressed to find an event networking site that looks great and connects them with the colleagues they’ll see at our conference. They’re also using it to select and find sessions. It definitely surpassed our expectations.” -CNU Communications Director

We recently completed a fun project working with a leading urban design conference in Denver.  The Conference for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the nation’s leading forum dedicated to advancing urbanism and promoting alternatives to sprawl.

We were excited to work on this project – not only because we support the general new urbanist principles, but also because we live and work in the types of communities that new urbanism seeks to encourage.

As background, New Urbanism is an urban design and development movement dedicated to implementing community-oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast to the prevailing system of formless sprawl. New Urbanist developments are walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces as detailed in the Charter of the New Urbanism.

The conference attracts more than 1,000 attendees from around the world who particiapte in several hundred planned activities throughout the week.

Some of the key challgenges faced by the conference organizer:

•    Strengthen relationships between core stakeholders – attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Increase networking between attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Increase productivity at the conference

The solution included the following key components:

•    Attendee, speaker and exhibitor directories with detailed info on all key stakeholders
•    Online conversations for attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Personalized scheduling tools with ability to export MS Outlook, iCal and other calendar aps

The solution generated a significant ROI:

•    27% average increase in event networking due to Zerista (based on survey data)
•    10% average increase in overall event productivity due to Zerista (based on survey data)

If you have any questions  or comments, please feel free comment below.

One of the most exciting projects that we’ve worked on recently is Denver’s Great American Beer Festival.   This annual fall classic is rated as one of the 1,000 places to see before you die, drawing upwards of 40,000 attendees and 400 exhibiting brewers a year to sample some of the best beers in the country.  Zerista got involved by working avidly with the event organizers to streamline and enhance this old classic, providing online tools for attendees to find brewers before and during the event itself.

One of the more challenging aspects of this project was to figure out how we could provide a user-friendly venue map interface that would enable attendees to quickly search and find exhibitors from within a single browser window. In the end, and after hours of work, we accomplished our goals to raving reviews; 10,000s of attendees used the site, and the project was viewed as highly successful. In the words of the event organizers themselves:

“With Zerista, we were able to offer our 40,000+ attendees an easier way to plan and map out their event experience at the Great American Beer Festival. Our requirements included an interactive convention hall map that showed the location of more than 400 exhibitors and 50 events. Zerista rapidly delivered an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to a rather challenging mapping project.  The Zerista team was great to work with, and we’re looking forward to working together again in the future.”