Loretta Hudelot wants to help you be smarter in your job, and one way to do that is to know what your customers care about and what your customers’ customers care about.

Hudelot, the enterprise insights manager for Freeman Companies, will present a session at this year’s VenueConnect on Sunday, July 27, that will give attendees insights into how technology is affecting businesses and how it has changed what customers want from companies.

Greg Wolfe, IAVM’s professional development manager, recently spoke with Hudelot about her session, and you can listen to his short interview above to learn more about her session and to understand what’s going on with event technology.

The Boise Centre broke ground on its expansion earlier this month. The expansion is part of the Civic Center Plaza development in downtown Boise and is adjacent to the current facility.

“Over the years, Boise Centre has built a reputation for delivering the highest levels of guest service and quality events,” said IAVM member Pat Rice, executive director of the convention center. “Our vibrant city and newly expanded meeting space will position Boise to secure larger regional and national conventions that will benefit our local economy.”

The new construction and planned renovations to the existing building will nearly double the Boise Centre’s current 50,000 square feet of meeting and event space. Completion is estimated in the third quarter of 2016. The expanded space will include a 15,000-square-foot ballroom, 14,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, 7,000 square feet of prefunction/lobby space, and connectivity to the existing Boise Centre via a skywalk. The expansion is being built directly across the Grove Plaza (civic plaza) from the existing Boise Centre. The lead architecture firm is tvsdesign of Atlanta, along with Conventional Wisdom Consulting.

The City Center Plaza project is being developed by Gardner Company and will include not only the expansion of Boise Centre expansion, but also construction of the Clearwater Building, a technology focused office building that will include the Boise State University computer science department, a multi-modal transit center, and restaurant and retail spaces.

Levi’s Stadium had its ribbon cutting ceremony last week and is officially open. The stadium is tech and friend friendly, offering free Wi-Fi throughout the venue. Fans will also be able to instantly watch replays on a mobile app. But that’s not all the offerings. Check out TechCruch’s first-look video above to learn more about the venue.

Breaking a promise is the worst. So is exceeding it.

According to new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, no one cares if you exceed a promise.

“I think there are two implications to keep in mind, both in our professional and personal lives. First, maintaining good relations with other people does not require a superhuman effort. Do what you promise you’ll do, and people are grateful,” said Nicholas Epley, John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioral Science at Chicago Booth. “You don’t need to be Superman and go above and beyond your promises in order to be appreciated by other people. Second, if you do put in the superhuman effort to do more than you promised, don’t get angry when other people don’t seem to appreciate the extra work you put in. They’re not inherently ungrateful or unappreciative—they’re only human.”

Epley and his co-researcher—Ayelet Gneezy of the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego—conducted three experiments and discovered inequality between broken and kept promises and kept and exceeded promises. They had study participants imagine purchasing row 10 tickets to a concert from an online company. Then the participants were given worse, better, or the exact tickets promised. Epley and Gneezy found that the participants had a more negative association to the better tickets than the promised tickets (the worse tickets were viewed more negatively, of course, than the other situations).

Since keeping a promise is so highly valued, there’s no benefit in putting forth an effort to exceed the promise, the researchers said.

“Businesses may work hard to exceed their promises to customers or employees, but our research suggests that this hard work may not produce the desired consequences beyond those obtained by simply keeping promises,” Epley and Gneezy said. “Promises can be hard to keep, and promise makers should spend their effort keeping them wisely.”

(photo credit: Claire_Sambrook via photopin cc)

There was a lot of news this past week. Here are some stories that caught our eyes.

A Pre-history of the Electronic Music Festival
—Resident Advisor
“The international festival circuit is booming, but little is known about the decades of evolution that got us here. In his latest extended feature, Luis-Manuel Garcia travels back in time to trace the roots of festival culture.”

Why College Football Is Studying Major League Soccer
—The Wall Street Journal
“To fix its mysterious attendance woes, the sport looks far afield—to professional soccer.”

Live Nation to Debut New Country Festival in Las Vegas
—Encore
“The event, which uses the historical name of present-day Las Vegas Boulevard, will include country A-listers Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley and Brantley Gilbert. Others on the roster include Dwight Yoakam, Randy Houser and Dustin Lynch.”

Social Sharing Has Become the Biggest Thing in Sports Marketing
—Adweek
“What most brands and agencies don’t know, or don’t act on, is that sponsorship is a new game now, one most are playing by old rules. If you are still slapping logos on stadium signage and hoping that counts as ‘unique impressions,’ you’ve got a problem.”

How Music Affects Your Productivity
—Fast Company
“You might be rocking headphones while you read this—but does what’s playing make you better at your job?”

(Image: Resident Advisor)