Isn’t There a Better Way to Run Conferences?
#1 Thing You Need to Know About This Post:
In an age that questions carbon footprints and has ever shrinking travel budgets, those who cling to how they’ve always ran their meetings and conferences are at a risk of becoming irrelevant.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Every revolution starts when a small group of people unite behind a shared set of ideas. Over the course of history, people have come together in person to forge this union and raise the banner of their cause.
France had its salons, Weimar Germany its beer halls, and Colonial America its taverns. In these spaces, people gathered to share ideas, debate policy, and forge their vision of a brighter tomorrow.
I run these romantic images thru my mind every time I’m headed to another conference or meeting. They clash nicely with the drab reality of hotel meeting spaces and bunker-like convention centers. As I sit penned into my seat, I wonder if they had the same blue mints at the Bastille.
Why Do We Need Meetings and Conferences Anyway?
We’re social creatures by nature and feed off the robust exchanges that in-person gatherings create. It is from these emotional cocktails that we make important decisions and forge alliances. Gathering people from different parts of the world with different perspectives can create powerful outcomes.
Throughout the ages, the only way to do that was to put people in the same room at the same time. Now, we’re not limited by time and space. So isn’t there a better way to start your next revolution than flying everyone to an exotic locale to huddle in the basement of a hotel?
Biggest obstacle to innovation? Small thinking of organizers who think letting the world in will hurt attendance.
Online Media Rips the Fabric of the Time-Space Continuum
Of course, there are better ways. We’ve seen some savvy meeting organizers weave in the delicious goodness of social media. These tools allow for those attending to get a much richer experience and for those following along at home to live vicariously thru the social media streams of others. Along the way, they sow the seeds for next year’s attendees who don’t want to be left out of the fun (assuming the program is of good quality).
If you’re on Twitter, you’ve seen various conference hashtags – #SXSW, #PDF09, #140conf, to name a few. Sometimes those are planned and other times they’re crowd generated. No matter their origins, these conversation streams allow for each one of us to partake in the back channel conversations that previously were confined to the hallways and after parties.
Example #1: SXSWi
To me, South By Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) is one of the standard bearers for how to use online media to enhance the experience. Anyone who has attended SXSWi can attest to the vast array of official and unofficial online resources.
Right now, you can go to http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ and submit your program ideas for SXSWi 2010. In the coming weeks, the mob will descend upon this site to vote for those ideas they like best. The top vote getters are selected for the official programs.
When it comes time to register for SXSWi, you can create an account within the SXSW community and build your customized calendar with all the events and programs you’re interested in attending. That way, you and your friends can see what you’re each planning to check out.
Example #2: #140conf
Jeff Pulver pulled together his first #140conf this past month in NYC and did a respectable job of intergrating online media into the experience. In pulling off this event, Jeff spent no money on traditional advertising or marketing. Instead, he simply put out a “casting call” via Twitter and asked people to nominate “characters”. Thru the hashtag #140conf, Jeff generated quite the buzz.
With the focus of the conference on “Now Media”, we had plenty of ways to share and interact regardless if you were there or not. The hallways were filled with mainstream media cameras conducting interviews interspersed with bloggers and vloggers creating their own stories. Plenty of Flickr photos, YouTube videos, blog posts, and Tweets were created in the two-day span.
You can get an idea of the #140conf by visiting http://140live.socialapproach.com/ or you can visit http://www.140conf.com to see the video content yourself. To get a flavor of the event, you can watch Andrew Keen’s presentation that’s been posted to Blip.tv.
Example #3: 2009 NMC Summer Conference
This is one I didn’t attend in person, but it felt like I did with the plethora of social media tools they used. One would expect as much from the New Media Consortium, right? The 2009 NMC Summer Conference was meticulously detailed by Joseph Levine on his CogDogBlog.
The conference home was located at http://2009.nmc.org and was built upon the Pathable social networking platform. I encourage you to read Joseph’s post that outlines every tool they used and the amount of content they generated. Some tasty tidbits: Their Twitter hashtag produced 1,874 tweets from 173 people, while more than 2,400 photos tagged with the conference were uploaded to Flickr.
Example #4: BlogWell Conferences
Andy Sernovitz, Bob Pearson, and team do a great job generating word of mouth buzz for each of the Social Media (formerly Blog) Council’s BlogWell conferences. One of their secret weapons is giving their members and strategic partners discount codes to distribute, along with a small handful of free passes people can qualify for by tweeting.
A second secret weapon is how easy they make it for attendees to broadcast their experiences while they’re at the conference. When you arrive, you have a robust WiFi signal, designated hashtag, and plenty of designated blogger tables with extensions cords.
The third and most impressive secret weapon is how they do something unexpected for you. Whether it’s the large bar of gourmet chocolate in your grab bag or the customized luggage tag they send you after the conference, Andy and his word of mouth champions set the bar high.
Other Emerging Tools
Based on the tools already mentioned, there is a rising class of web-based services catering to the meeting and event circuit. One that was brought to my attention via Twitter by Doug Weinbrenner (@dougsdigs) is http://www.livestream.com/. This software allows you to stream, provide chat forums, mix 2D and 3D, and other interesting things. I expect to see more of it in the coming months (and not just because USA Today used it to stream the Michael Jackson memorial service).
Your Thoughts
Certainly, there has to be plenty of entrepreneurs who sense the market that is just waiting for them. Let’s help them gather some good market research.
What are some good examples for those doing it well? What are some new, emerging tools that you’ve been able to try out? What new services would you like to see?
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@scottyhendo
“The more virtual we become the more we need to have Face to Face Meetings” is something I first wrote in 1996. I believe these words are stronger now than ever before.
I also believe in people first and technology second. I avoid introducing technologies which take away from the on-site experience. And I have seen many conferences hurt when the focus of the day became the backroom chatter rather than provide a platform that respects the person talking on stage.
It is very hard for people outside of a conference to feel and work off the energy of the room where everyone is in. I believe in creating common shared experiences which provide a foundation for building relationships.
And then there are the random hugs with strangers which for some people says a lot even though very little is spoken at the time. The random hallway conversations are key to a conference experience. As is the random meal with a stranger and a chance to connect and communicate with people you would have never otherwise have met or had a reason to know.
Depending upon the type of event and the target audience, there are tools we can use today that work which didn’t exist in the past. I am always not sure whether or not it is proper to support the idea of having a headliner Video Skype into the event since that person would never be around for the networking which for me is a very important part of any event.
In my cookbook for creating and producing events, the advent of social media offers a lot of new ingredients to choose from. And while many people will try to leverage these tools, it really does take a top chef to demonstrate what is possible.
Glad to have your thoughts and insights, especially given your long career in organizing events and conferences. Your point is well made about the intangibles that in-person meetings bring. The serendipity of riding the elevator or sitting down at a break next to the keynote speaker is just as important as the new personal relationships you can develop from those sitting around you.
The two reasons I attend conferences are to see real people with similar interests/goals, and to learn stuff. I agree that resources for learning tech, social media, penguin farming and flux capacitor design are all around us…for free. I also think there’s a mob mentality to conference sign-ups and there’s a music-concert element to the process.
Mob mentality. If everyone is beating that homeless guy, I should too. If everyone is paying $1200 to go to the #140Conf I better whip out my AMEX Black. Seriously? Neither is right and anyone who recognized this called the cops about the beating and found a way to attend #140 for free.
Concert-style? Sure! You have 50gb of music on hard drives and iPods around your house. Why freak out when the Wham reunion tour comes to the local Taco Bell Pavillion? Because some things are better learned one-on-one and in person.
Why else would podcamps be so well attended? Are that many new people joining the ranks or do we love seeing ‘colleagues’ in this space? And who goes to SXSWi for the sessions? I’m guessing that friends of the presenters and staffers, but anyone knows the best info exchanges minds in the halls and at breakfast at the Driskill.
So what do I advocate? Go to conferences. Try never to pay if ANYONE ELSE is getting a free pass. Learn all you can online. And the cap it all off with the power of F2F.
Forgot to say, go to whatever looks cool – not just the MUST events. I’ve forged friendships and had great experiences at Tweetups with 14 attendees. I’ve wanted to hang myself during conferences that had 2000. But try it all and see what clicks.
Your philosophy of attending all types of events is the reason we met a couple weeks ago. I like your approach of putting yourself where the waves will be good for surfing.
Great points Scott. I agree there are so many creative ways to expand the audience while still making the event relevant for people to attend. One of my favorite recent examples was the “Rockstars of Social CRM” event (http://twebinars.radian6.com/socialcrm/) held recently by Radian6 in Boston. The event page had a live feed, while aggregating tweets with the #soccrm tag. They incorporated questions via Twitter directly into the panel discussions. Lots of companies can learn from this – I can’t imagine the aggregation of this content is that hard to build using feeds from ustream and RSS.
ps. Love the blue mints at the Bastille reference – very Dennis Miller of you…
Great post Scott. Very interesting and insightful. While I am not able to attend many of these conferences I still have the sense of being there and being involved due to the online social outlets that are available. Still, being there in person and connecting with individuals you have met through Twitter and other outlets is in my opinion, invaluable.
@tylerpoling
You had me at “taverns.” What I find most interesting about these social tools is the ability to make valuable connections well before the conference(s) take place. The introductions, the roles and responsibilities and value-prop is already taken care of, so when the face-to-face does happen, the relationships built are way more sustainable.
A good case in point my relationship with you, Scott. The Hunger Pledge that you so masterfully engineered before SXSW09 was very intriguing to me on many levels. We talked via Twitter and web, and so when I met you it was not a “nice to meet you, tell me what you do…rather it was dude, how are you doing on the drive, what’s the status, I see Indiana is leading the charge, etc.,”
Social tools no matter if they are the ones listed or anyothers will just continue to enhance these personal connections.
Great post. Nice food for thought.
Spot on Scotty!
The sole purpose of a conference is to share information of common interest and value among as many people as possible. However, the final part has a very real asterisk next to it for the vast majority of conference organizers, still in 2009.
They limit (intentionally or not) the information to those who are able to afford the conference registration fees, airfare, lodging, and travel expenses. Their influence and voice are then limited to a select few, usually those that are already ‘sold’. They fail to create new constituents, cross-sector allies, and industry innovation. They essentially fail.
By embracing web communication tools, conferences are opened to a truly unlimited audience. The information can be seen and heard by a once unimaginable number of people, by both the ‘choir’ and new converts. Not only is information disseminated to a broader audience, it becomes and stays alive. Information on a PowerPoint or photocopied gets tucked away and eventually thrown away. Information through e-channels stays dynamic and customizable, thus increasing the value…that’s what people will pay for!
Your comment made me realize how similar the conference industry is to the music industry. With information flowing free, how can the creators of that information (or at least those who host the events where the content is created) make money from. Just as I can easily get my favorite music for free or virtually free, I’ll be able to get the information I seek from conferences or events that I can’t attend or choose not to.
In both instances, there will always be a market of people who value the in-person experience – whether that be seeing Dave Matthews Band live or going to Austin for SXSWi.
It all sounds good, Scott, if you’re in the business of social media and everyone you need to meet or have anything to learn from is as connected and savvy as you. But that’s still a pretty small percentage of the population. Although the recent IABC World Conference in San Francisco was relatively well-tweeted by a few dozen people and probably followed by a few dozen more, it couldn’t begin to replace the experience of being there. We still need opportunities for face-to-face connections, for learning, sharing, networking and plain old fun. That said, we should keep experimenting and evolving the models, and make the very most of all the tools available, so your post is really useful for helping us question and think about what we’re doing. Thanks for that!
Barb (@barb_g)
Great to have your comment, Barb, especially on the heels of your conference in San Francisco.
I’ve been to a wide variety of conferences this year. The stark difference between the interconnectivity of SXSWi one week and the Association of Fundraising Professional two weeks later made me realize where the majority of people were, not where those of us swimming in online media are. I went from 95% people with open laptops to 95% of people not. In both instances, great things came from the personal interactions, but for SXSW those interactions included people around the world.
You remind me of a phone conversation I had with Steven Howard (@stmhoward) yesterday. He called me in response to this post (he claims blogophobia for not typing his comment here, but I think he just missed the sound of my voice).
His point was that he seeks out conferences that practitioners attend – he goes to meet people presenting or attending who don’t spend their energy pontificating on the web, but instead are actually doing things he wants to do.
Scott – alright, I will post ’cause we’re Chi Phi brothers. As I shared on our call, valuable conferences, regardless of their location and format, are those where there’s an exchange of ideas, where relevant content and info are discussed, debated, shared. The most valuable are those where PRACTIONERS come together and talk about best practices and emerging trends, and also are open about the landmines and “gotchas” – so newbies can avoid repeating mistakes. The most valuable conferences then are those where anyone can surround themselves with mentors, coaches – those with experience – from whom we can learn. I think that those conferences & meeting that short-change discussion, that limit opportunities to interact with panelists and speakers, etc. are the LEAST valuable.
Great post Brother Henderson. So have you seen Academicearth.org? This site has not just video lectures but videos of entire classes, including the questions from the class (currently I am working my way through a Game Theory class at Stanford). You also get the reading lists and copies of the exams. So it got me wondering, I love/d college…all the ones I went to. But if I can get all this from this site then aside form the actual degree, what is at the heart of that resident university experience?
Seems a bit similar to this question. It’s that old equation of what is your value versus your activity right? I think a lot of conference organizers will tell you their value are the sessions but the attendees will tell you its the random or even planned encounters outside sessions. That disconnect is an opportunity and a danger and NO that Chinese symbol does NOT mean both those things-look it up.
The ones in danger are those organizers who refuse to create experiences that work off and expand their value. People will grow more and more skeptical of conferences that seem closed off and who continue to focus on the person on the stage instead of the people in the audience.
I think in addition to the opportunity presented to those that do expand on the chances for f2f encounters, etc. I think there is an additional opportunity for those organizers who choose to offer content outside their domain. I mean, I go to a LOT of conferences focused on the learning/training industry but I go to Game Developers Conference and I see sessions on human cognition and memory and user motivation and I want them to come to the learning conferences. Let’s not just encourage random, serendipitous f2f encounters between attendees but also among THOUGHTS. Right?
So, yeah, there is a different way. There is always a different way. It just takes courage.