In starting to explore further about the Conferences and Events business and the role of social media tools in making them better, I came across this brilliant must-read post by Seth Godin (who incidentally used to be one of my (and everyone’s) favorite speakers back in 2000 when I was involved with Sponsorship matters for Fast Company’s Real Time Conferences):
In other words, "I flew all the way here for this?" is going to be far more common than it used to be.
If you think a great conference is one where the presenters read a script while showing the audience bullet points, you're wrong. Or if you leave little time for attendees to engage with others, or worse, if you don't provide the levers to make it more likely that others will engage with each other, you're wrong as well.
…. here's what a conference organizer owes the attendees: surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and just possibly, excitement."
I absolutely agree about the need for events, conferences and trade shows to step it up, especially in this economy.
For starters the talking heads model is more broken than ever, and provides less and less incentive to leave the house. Increasingly, I can see videos of the best presentations from the best conferences (like this week’s TED) right at my desk.
Part of my vision with ConferenceBites is to continue that progression of bringing the best of events to us rather than our always having to go to them.
While face to face networking is in many ways irreplaceable, I find I can get a lot of business done with people I’ve never met, and that email and the phone allow me to cast a wider net than ever before.
While this perspective may be troubling if you are an event producer, this is ultimately a challenge that is good for events in general, and for conferences in particular. We will all now have to grow to provide a new and different value proposition.
The social networking sites and related programs at most events, even those in the tech and Web 2.0, space tend to be pretty lame. In my view those programs have the best shot at meeting this challenge, but from what I’ve seen so far they're still in their infancy in terms of delivering truly engaged continuity before, during, and after an event.
I would love to hear from you about who you think is doing it best, either from the event side, or the technology provider side?
Do you share my disappointment with the tools as they’ve been deployed to date?
How about my optimism that these tools will grow up to dramatically change events, and the role they play in our business lives, for the better?
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