Last week I drove six hours and stayed in a hotel to attend a marketing conference. I left crestfallen.
It was the same old tired conference formula: keynote addresses, breakout sessions, exhibitor tables, gloppy hotel meals served at big round tables; tables optimized for server efficiency, not conversation. (But they had urns full of weak coffee and I got a tote bag and some pens.)
It felt like loading DOS files off of floppy disks. It may have worked 25 years ago, but there are better ways to learn and connect than traveling to a stuffy hotel and listening to people read off PowerPoint.
Now more than ever, I want to go places, meet new people, socialize and make friends who share my professional interests. I think others do too.
I challenge every professional association to design live experiences that add value and facilitate meaningful connections.
Can you make your events so compelling that they sell out? Can you create remarkable gatherings that people talk about and remember for years?
How might you bring people together to accomplish something useful?
How might you gather people to advance your industry forward?
How can your event have a lasting impact on the people and organizations who participate?
Start from scratch. Be creative. Conduct experiments. Empathize with your members. Trash the keynotes and breakouts. We can learn 10x more from our desks.
Gathering in person is expensive. How can we make it priceless?
I want to help.