As we get closer and closer to the meeting, the question that George hears the most is “Why can’t my agreed to meeting be scheduled?”. We’re here to take you through all the reasons:
1) The most common reason is that there is no mutual availability. As meeting schedules fill up, it is more and more difficult to find time when both parties are free.
2) The meeting includes multiple participants from both companies. Schedule coordination is compounded when there are more moving parts.
3) The meeting has been canceled. Once a meeting has been canceled, it is in effect gone. In order to get it scheduled again, a new meeting request must be submitted to the targeted company.
How can I improve my chances of getting a meeting scheduled?
The first thing is to make yourself as “available” as possible. This can sometimes require you to be available for meetings during unpopular times, such as lunch or late afternoon. Also, try to reduce the meeting participants down to only those who are essential from your side. However, the reality is that it takes two to tango, and even if you do all of the above, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your counter party did.
Once you do all of the following, if a meeting is able to be scheduled, it will be, as BIO is now running the scheduler each and every night, and will continue to do so during the convention.
George has been keeping his ear to the customer service line, and I’m sure at some point or another you’ve had the pleasure of talking with him. Most of those conversations have centered around a few repeating topics. So in an effort to set the record straight, George has asked me to provide you with a list of his weaknesses…aka things even he cannot do.
1) Reserve an hour time slot instead of 30 minutes. Sorry but schedules are just too tight, and the system does not allow for it.
2) Add additional delegates to an already scheduled meeting. With the meeting being so full, and with so much activity in the system continuing to do this risks meetings being unscheduled.
3) Similar to the above, George has heard the “can you add this new delegate to all my meetings”. Sorry, but again not possible or in your best interest.
It is quite apparent now that the 2010 Business Forum is going to be breaking all BIO records this year. I can only speculate as to where we will end up, but the numbers as of right now (9:30 AM EST on 4/29/2010) are impressive.
Total Scheduled Meetings:
Old Record 14,500 (2008)
Currently 14,900
Project 16,000+
Total Companies:
Old Record 1670 (2009)
Currently: 2045
Projected: 2100
Since we have launched all of our how-to videos for the BIO One-on-One Partnering System, we though it would be a good idea to answer specific questions that users have from our customer service line. Below you will find the three most asked questions this week.
NOTE: The deadline to publish your profile is this Friday (April 9th).
1. How to publish your company’s profile.
2. Finalize your personal calendar to ensure you can make the most of your 1×1 experience.
3. How to opt-in to email alerts? Want to know when a meeting is scheduled, you receive a new request, or a meeting has been canceled. Learn how here!
Well we are currently five weeks out from the conference and partnering is HEATING up. At the time of this blog post, there were in excess of 9,000 meeting request already sent via the One-on-One system. We’re also seeing between 1,200 and 1,400 users on the site on any given day during the week. So what are the implications? For one thing, you are starting to see the activity picking up in the system and your own in-box will start getting some traffic. How do you manage all these new incoming requests, and still manage to strategically send requests?
George has the solution, and it can be found in the next video installment of the BIO 1×1 tutorials. George once again brings to you a quick tutorial navigating the message center and the various tools which are now available to help you effectively manage your in-box.
Are you seeking companionship? Looking to find the yin for your yang? Would you like to match yourself with others based on 29 dimensions of proven compatibility? Look no further.
Being able to find those with whom you would like to meet in Chicago this year is one the most important elements to enhancing your business forum experience.
One of the significant upgrades that we have made to the 1×1 system in 2010, has been a concerted effort to improve the quality of search. Search leads directly to messages sent, and also being noticed by another company. Search is the backbone of the messaging system and the means by which the 1700+ companies will figure out who to meet with over the three days of Business Forum.
What’s the point? Watch the video and learn how to search for not only companies, but individuals, new companies, and how to archive those companies which you are interested in via the “bookmarks” section.
Let us know what you think!
The deadline to publish your company profile in the BIO One-on-One Partnering System for inclusion in the 2010 BIO Business Forum CD-ROM is MONDAY, MARCH 22ND AT 5PM, as in TODAY! By publishing your profile by this time, you will ensure that your company’s information will be handed out to all Business Forum participants on the Conference CD-ROM. This way, everyone will have a hard copy of your company’s information that they will be able to take with them and review after the conference.
Regardless of the approaching deadline, it is a good idea to publish your profile within the Partnering System as soon as possible so that you can start sending and receiving meeting requests, which is the whole point of the system anyway, right? In order to get the most value out of your registration for the conference, we highly recommend that you have your profile up-to-date and published within the Partnering System as soon as you can.
For many of you, this year’s Business Forum will not be your first partnering rodeo. However, for all of you, it will be your first opportunity to use the new “Calendar” section in BIO’s One-on-One Partnering System.
Here’s the unofficial guide to optimizing your experience to ensure that you’re getting the meetings that you need.
1) Update your availability – whether you elect to use the new “Calendar” section of the older “update your availability” link, both will allow you to select which times you want to be eligible for a BIO 1×1 meeting.
2) Add some notes – go into the new “Calendar” and add in up to two notes per time period. This will allow participants to include programming elements, lunches, and meetings outside the partnering system to reside in one concise schedule. Also, none of these notes are able to be viewed from those outside your company.
Let us know what you think, and let us know if you have any questions.
Hi all! BIO Partnering is live for 2010 Business Forum, and the team is keeping busy entering folks into the system. Since partnering is picking up, we’re releasing our first tutorial/webinar on the “Profiles” section in the partnering system. This is a brief guide taking you through the first step in getting your partnering account in order.
What you will learn:
1) The importance of keywords. If you want to ensure that your company is maximizing the amount of time it lands on the search results page, you’ll want to spend some extra time developing keywords.
2) How and why to publish your profile. The short version is that it leads to increased exposure and allows more information to be presented to your prospective partners.
3) Why publishing your profile on time matters. Consider that nearly 1,800 companies (potentially more this year) will have a hard copy of your company’s information for after the convention. DEADLINE – MARCH 22, 2010 5 pm!
We’re always interested to hear your feedback and learn more about what you, the user, are experiencing. So please feel free to leave a comment below or email either George [gmacdougall (at) bio.org] or myself [jcolangelo (at) bio.org].
Hello all! We are trying something new with the BIO 1×1 blog today. This is our video/slide share post designed to help users more effectively use the BIO 1×1 Partnering System this year in Chicago. The team is planning on releasing 4-5 mini webinars (5-10 minutes in length) on each of the major areas of the partnering system. This includes:
1) Profiles – how and why to create a profile, as well as the importance of publishing you profile.
2) Calendar – an introduction to the new calendar feature.
3) Search – key tips and tricks to finding your next partner.
4) Message Center:
A) Guide designed to help users send messages and accept meetings.
B) Tutorial into managing your inbox efficiently throughout the meeting.
In addition to these longer webinars, we’re also going to be posting very short (1-4) minute video tutorials that are focused exclusively on questions that we’re receiving from our users on the customer service lines. So, if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to email either George ( gmacdougall at bio.org) or myself ( jcolangelo at bio.org).
Joe is Manager of Business Development at BIO and is part of the design team for the new BIO 1x1 partnering system.
George is the friendly voice behind the BIO customer service line. Should you have a question regarding your partnering account, please feel free to contact him at gmacdougall(at)bio.org