If 2020 was the year of the pivot in the media industry, then 2021 will be the time for facilitating connections. This week, Winsight, a large B2B media organization—they now run the National Restaurant Association Show—announced that they will launch a new platform called Restaurant Community later this month.

by Ronn Levine

On the NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, they've taken to asking celebrity guests on "Not My Job" a multiple choice question—where all the choices are right! It makes sense. Number one, it allows them to give three correct pieces of information, and two, nobody loses. I thought of that watching Jim Sinkinson give his thorough, benefit-laden Copywriting Bootcamp today at Day 2 of BIMS 2020.

“Company A Acquires Company B.” "Great, I read the same thing in Google," Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up! Marketing once told us about a headline he received. “Your content should not be about the industry per se, it should be about the reader. There are important developments afoot in that acquisition that are going to affect me.”

Events were certainly top of fold on the first day of BIMS 2020 yesterday, with a very popular Connections and Cocktails. Frank Salatto of Government Executive Media Group spoke of the success they've had pivoting to virtual. "There are new opportunities in the data you can collect and the leads you're able to deliver," he said. Here are some of the virtues of virtual events as we look to 2021.

“Data’s greatest promise is becoming a roadmap of actions that, when completed, result in the actions we want to see,” Stephanie Lievano wrote on INMA this week. For a 2021 roadmap, it will be worth your time to hear Sherrell Dorsey’s keynote, Audience Data: Creating Inclusive Connections to Grow Your Business, at BIMS 2020 Featuring the SIPA Sales & Marketing Leadership Summit next week.

"Virtual events break down geographic barriers to attendance. Stretch your event across time zones so participants can experience it live wherever they are. Leverage digital conferencing platforms... that enable live captioning and translation for speaker remarks so audience members can view subtitles in their local language."