History Over Cocktails

One of the latest and greatest after-hours meeting destinations in Northern Kentucky for convention or corporate groups is the The Grand At Madison, located at Fifth Street and Madison Avenue, Covington. It's a five minute walk from the Northern Kentucky Convention Center and is located in the historic and recently renovated Odd Fellows Hall. The history of the place provides an interesting backdrop for chatting during drinks and appetizers:

• It was the center of Covington's civic and political life for most of the Victoria Era.
• When the Civil War ended, victorious Union General Ulysses S. Grant was honored at a reception there.
• In 1900, the body of William Goebel, the only U.S. Governor to be assassinated in office, laid in state there as an estimated 10,000 filed past.
• In the 1950s, a roller skating rink filled the second floor ballroom, famous for its 25-foot-high ceiling suspended by a truss system.
• In May 2002, a major fire almost destroyed the entire building and sparked a five year massive renovation.

For more information: www.kycater.com

Check out this short video.

Email for young and old alike

For those trying to reach younger audiences for meetings or events should email be forsaken for texting, Facebook and other more seemingly relevant social media for that age-group? That's a vexing question for experts smarter than me.
http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/?p=
But I tend to agree with this post relative to my experience with our Cincinnati American Marketing Association Chapter. For instance, Wednesday, we hosted our monthly Word of Mouth Shared Interest Group. We generally average attendance of 10-15 each month. However, armed with a strong email list and a minor mention in the newspaper business calendar section, we had a mob on our hands with 51 showing up to hear a treatise on the power of Linked In. I asked our lead facilitator Rob Bunting (cincyimg.typepad.com) about his thoughts of the power of email. He remarked that while Facebook and other social media outlets have millions of subscribers, email is universal. In fact, you're starting to see many business cards do away with fax numbers in favor of email.

I also asked Will Krieger, who heads up the Cincinnati AMA Young Professionals Group, if he uses any of the social networking tools to attract the two dozen or so YPs that gather at their monthly events. Nope, it's all email.

It also occurs to me that the pressure to conform to a more standard communication form faces recent college graduates when they enter their first job. Most of their older colleagues just began using cell phones in the past decade so the question of whether they want contextual advertising on their phones is laughable.

So it appears that the death of email as it relates to younger emerging audiences is about as true as the immediate demise of print advertising.