"I realized this morning that your event content is the only event-related 'stuff' I still read. I think that's because it's not about events, but about the coming together of people to exchange ideas and learn from one another and that's valuable information for anyone." — Traci Browne
Event marketing isn’t something you can do all by yourself.
I once consulted with a client who was new to meeting planning. Mike had bravely decided to create a new conference featuring his talents and those of over twenty friends and colleagues. This was a conventional format conference with a high amount of interactive and small group work.
Mike told me that the registration response had been poor to date. He was stressed out about reaching his break-even attendance goal, and wasn’t sleeping well. I asked him how he was doing his marketing.
“I’ve been doing it myself,” he said. “Most of the people who have registered so far are people who know me.”
“Mike,” I asked, “do your colleagues have their own circles of clients interested in attending this event?”
“Sure,” Mike said.
“That could be your answer,” I replied.
Problem solved
It turned out that if each of Mike’s co-presenters were able to register just half the number that Mike had personally registered, the conference would be at break-even. If they could simply match what he’d already done, the conference would be oversubscribed.
Mike’s colleagues were the perfect resource for marketing the event—they were as invested in its success as he was. He’d just not thought to ask them for help.
Creating a new event is almost always risky. This fuels the common sleep-disturbing worry that not enough people will want to attend. I have a rule of thumb, painfully acquired over many years. If I can’t find at least five other people who are excited about the event and willing to work equally hard to make it happen the event is very likely to be a flop. Even if you have many enthusiastic supporters, you need to involve them as much as possible in marketing the event through their personal connections and affiliations if you are to reach or, hopefully, exceed break-even attendance.
The most persuasive reason that people agree to pay significant money and time to attend a new event is that they trust the positive word of mouth of its worth from an active supporter involved with the organization or program. If you’re another courageous Mike out there (good for you!) be sure to engage every pertinent supporter as an active marketer at the earliest stages of promoting the event.
What’s the biggest unconference mistake you can make?
Sometimes, good intentions pave the road to hell.
A conversation I dread
CONFERENCE ORGANIZER: “Hey, Adrian, we’re incorporating participant-led sessions into our conference this year!”
ADRIAN: “That’s great! What are you going to do?”
CONFERENCE ORGANIZER: “Well, some program committee members are skeptical that this format will work, so we’re going to add an unconference track that people can attend if interested.”
ADRIAN: Nooooooo! Don’t do that!
I’ve had more than one conversation like this. Here’s why adding an unconference track to a conventional conference program is a big mistake. (Probably, the biggest unconference mistake you can make.)
Why you shouldn’t add an unconference track to a traditional conference
Consider these three points:
To date, relatively few people have experienced an unconference session (one shaped on the spot by the needs, experience, and expertise of the people present);
Lecture-style formats comprise the vast majority of people’s formal learning experiences. So, if you haven’t previously experienced an unconference session, you’re probably skeptical that it’ll be useful to you; and
We are creatures of habit, and most of us are cautious about trying something new.
When you combine these observations, the unfortunate outcome is that very few people will attend an unconference track. Most attendees will stick to the conventional and “safe” concurrent sessions on pre-announced topics.
I was a skeptic myself when I started using participant-led formats back in 1992. A number of years passed before I stopped worrying whether this new-fangled way of running events would work for the next group I tried it with. It turns out that when a participant-led session or sessions are the only conference activities going on, people dive in, and nearly everyone likes what occurs. But when you give people a choice between what’s familiar and what’s not, all but the bravest take the safer path.
I’ve made the unconference track mistake. I’ve stood in a room set for three hundred attendees and had thirty show up while four other concurrent sessions siphoned off 1,400 people. Yes, those thirty participants had an amazing time. But the overall perception of the vast majority who didn’t attend (and the conference organizers) was that participant-led formats were “not really wanted” and could be safely ignored.
Don’t make this mistake!
So how do we avoid making this mistake? Make participant-led sessions plenaries or simultaneous breakouts. You certainly don’t have to make unconference sessions 100% of your conference, but there should be no other type of conference activity going on at the same time.
There will probably always be conference organizers who are skeptical that participant-led sessions can work. A compromise may appear to be the way to keep such people happy, but it will invariably create a self-fulfilling prophecy; the “experimental” track will be poorly attended, and the skeptics will say, “I told you so”.
We all get tripped up from time to time by the unintended consequences of our good intentions. When planning to add participant-led sessions to your next event, resist the alluring compromise of an unconference track. Instead, dedicate a morning, afternoon, day, or days to well-designed participant-led sessions. Then you’ll see just how well these still-novel but increasingly popular formats can work.
Getty Imageshas announced that it would be making 35 million of its more than 90 million images available as free website embeds.
Don’t do it.
The program looks attractive. Getty is the world’s largest commercial image archive, and the lure of free access to such a rich treasure trove of eye candy for your website is hard to resist. Here are four reasons why I’m not going to take the bait.
Getty restricts free embeds to “non-commercial” use. What does that mean? Craig Peters, SVP of Getty Images, says, “What would limit that use is if they used our imagery to promote a service, a product or their business.” Huh? My blog contains no third-party advertising, but it promotes my book and consulting services. Is embedding a Getty Images photo here “non-commercial” use? Unclear. Sure, Getty Images is unlikely to go after a niche site like this one but that’s hardly the point. And what stops Getty from changing the definition of “non-commercial” in the future?
Embeds remove control over access from your website host to a third party. If Getty’s servers go down or slow to a crawl, too bad—there’ll be a blank spot on your webpage. And Getty’s ads will further slow down page loads.
That’s the downside to free stock photos. So I’m just saying no to “free” Getty embeds. Instead, I’ll continue to use Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr and Wikimedia Commons for my blog. Finding the “right” image is sometimes challenging, but always oddly enjoyable. Join me—don’t take the Getty sucker bet.
The interview helped me verbalize the close connection between the reasons why associations begin and new conferences are born. I’ll leave you to read Joe’s excellent article for the details.
From one perspective: millions. The step you attempted at eleven months but fell and skinned your knee. Your shame on hearing the gasps in class on announcing a sixty percent pop-quiz test score because you were supposed to be smarter than that. The time when you were so nervous at the interview that IBM turned you down for an internship. Girlfriends you fell for who dumped you. The partner who kicked you out of your solar energy business after five years of hard work. The decision to adopt infant twins that led to so much heartache during their adolescence.
From another perspective: none. How else could you find out how to walk without all the attempts and resulting falls? Would you have ever dealt with false shame if you’d never become aware of it? How long would it have taken to discover your dislike for working in large organizations? If your first girlfriend had been the woman who has now been your wife for 48 years, how would that have turned out? What other way could you have learned so much about running a business and managing employees in such a short time? Would you have absorbed so many vital liberating lessons about yourself without the hard truths you were forced to confront during the painful process of being a better parent?
All the learning that grows out of every single mistake.
How many mistakes have you made? Millions or none? It all depends on your perspective.
It’s time for my morning walk in Anguilla. I’ve written about it before. Out of bed, a little sleepy, I throw on swim trunks, shirt, socks, and shoes, perch my white Tilly on my head, and I’m off before the sun gets too hot.
A feast of the senses
The warm air on my skin. The sweet smell of almond croissants—alarming numbers of calories beckoning, reluctantly resisted—waft from the French bakery. Bass notes thud from several houses, random patterns until I am close enough to hear the melody. I pass trailers cradling gleaming powerboats: Pure Pleasure, Wet Dreamz, Drippin’ Wet, and Royal Seaduction (notice a theme here?) The gentle return uphill gradient calls for a quick dip in our pool. As I cool down I hear the clamor of bananaquits on the veranda railing gobbling up the raw sugar we’ve set out for them.
The warmth I feel during my walk doesn’t just come from the slanting rays of the morning sun. Every day, another kind of warmth envelopes me; the warmth of the people I meet.
Almost everyone I see on my walk responds in some way. On foot, the standard greeting is mornin’. The people who drive past me raise a hand in greeting and sometimes hoot the horn. These are not, usually, people I know or have ever met before, and I may never meet them again. And yet, there’s invariably a moment of connection.
Every day, unexpected responses
A speedy truck driver takes both hands off the wheel, palms facing me to say hi as I walk towards him, the hedge on my right leaving me no place to go if his steering is not true. A beautiful woman shoots me a dazzling smile as she leaves her driveway for work. Two locals walking in the same direction who, as I pass with a mornin’, say fast walkin’ admiringly to my back. Nuanced respectful nods from respectable Anguillan lady drivers. A grandmother pivots from conversation to pipe a melodious good morning. Her granddaughter in a cream blouse and green skirt uniform, waiting for her ride to school, murmurs hello as I pass. A businesswoman gripping the top of her steering wheel, fingers flying up like rabbit ears when I wave. The minister, waiting for a ride to preach to his church lifts his hand and our eyes connect. Then I’m past, turning the corner, moving towards the next meeting.
My morning walk in Anguilla. Such simple moments of connection. So little to give, so much received. Growing warmth. A wonderful way to start any morning.
Curtiss Reed and I enjoyed presenting our thirty-minute MeetingsNet webinar Participant-Led Meetings: A Case Study on February 4, 2014, and I’m happy to announce that the webinar is now available free on demand (until February 4, 2015). Just go to the registration link and complete the short sign-up to receive a link to the webinar. We received many good participant-led event questions and were not able to answer them all in the time available. So I’ve listed them here, together with my answers. I hope you find them useful!
Angie Patel
Do you find most participants are organically prepared to participate in the peer sessions? Or do some come with data, slides, etc.?
At Conferences That Work, people are willing and able to participate in peer sessions by the time they begin. (Typically, this is the morning of the second day.) The combination of the ground rules, roundtable experience, and peer session sign-up transform the vast majority of attendees into participants.
How to prepare attendees for the possibility that they may have given a relevant presentation previously or have resource materials that might be relevant to the conference? We send out pre-conference information—a couple of weeks before the meeting—that includes language similar to the following:
“Have you worked on something that may be of interest to other attendees? Do you have experience or expertise in a given area or topic? Then, we encourage you to bring any useful supporting or presentation materials or links to the conference. All sessions are informal, so you don’t need to bring or prepare anything polished for distribution.”
Tara Taylor & Alethea Session
How do I find out if and where there might be opportunities to observe/attend participant-led events?How do you find these events?
For Conferences That Work format events, check out my events calendar, which lists events I’ve heard about that use the Conferences That Work format, or elements of it. (Unfortunately, many are unlisted because I don’t know about them. If you’re running one, please let me know and I’ll list it for free!) You can also fill out my training opportunities form, which allows me to inform you of events that you may be able to staff.
If you have a meeting that has to be more structured (due to regulations, like continuing medical education) can you do a hybrid? If so, what elements can you successfully integrate?Is a “hybrid” approach worth discussing? Example: Day 1 pre-planned agenda, Day 2 – participant-led content?
You can hold a hybrid event incorporating participant-led and traditional sessions, provided you have enough time to do both well.
I don’t know how to include traditional elements into a 1½ day Conferences That Work without unduly rushing the participant-led components. But if I have two or more days, it’s easy to integrate a keynote/plenary/trade show.
The edACCESS annual conference I’ve been running for 22 years lasts 3½ days and uses the Conferences That Work format. It includes a trade show, one or two preplanned plenaries, and sometimes a keynote. Peer sessions fill the rest of the time.
Incorporating such traditional elements can also help with marketing. People see the program and say, “Well, I don’t really understand this participant-led stuff. But so-and-so is going to be speaking, and there’s a session on such-and-such, so I’ll sign up.” Invariably, they end up evaluating the peer sessions higher than the traditional ones, but that’s OK; the latter helped them make the decision to attend.
One more point: on the order in which these two kinds of sessions are presented. It’s best to blend both formats, participant-led & traditional, into a single conference rather than separating them into a traditional day and a participant-led day. That way, people get exposed to both approaches and come to appreciate the latter. Otherwise, some people will avoid it because they aren’t familiar with its benefits.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
I’m curious: what if the sign-up-to-sessions process means that one or a few participants don’t find anything that appeals to them? That’s where I’ve been disappointed with Open Space formats in the past…I didn’t share the concerns of others!
Yes, Open Space, which has a minimalist structure, can suffer from its opening format. That’s because people are asked with little or no preparation to suggest topics they want to be discussed. Without easing attendees into a participant mindset—as happens during the first half-day of Conferences That Work—attendees may only hear topics from the more extrovert attendees, leading to the others ultimately feeling unrepresented. By the time the peer session sign-up occurs during Conferences That Work, nearly everyone is comfortable sharing the topics in which they are interested. If you’ve shared your own topics — i.e. you participate 🙂 — other attendees will see your interests. Subsequently, it’s rare that absolutely no one else is interested in every topic that any one person suggests.
Lee Pucker
How do you get companies to pay for people to attend without publishing a defined agenda that they can use to prove the ROI for the company?
I hope Curtiss gave you a useful answer from a client’s viewpoint during the webinar. There’s no question that until participant-led events become more mainstream it’s hard to start participant-led events from scratch when there’s no one yet available to testify to a specific event’s benefits. The capability to form more and better connections that these formats allow is probably the most concrete outcome for someone who needs to justify on an ROI basis. “I’m likely to make three times as many better quality connections at this event than at a traditional conference. That’s three times as many better-qualified sales leads…” etc.
Amy Forgette
With the roomset being so radically different (room for 200 to accommodate 70 in a circle) …how do we get VENUES to take our programs?
I’ve found that the issue is less about getting venues to take our programs (venues are almost always eager for business) and more about finding venues that fit the space needs of participant-led events. You may need to look beyond standard hotel business meeting rooms and event spaces that focus mainly on special events. Interestingly, educational institutions often turn out to provide great venues for many of the events that I run. I’m a big fan of non-traditional venues. Also, there are an increasing number of commercial venues that are aware that these event formats are becoming more popular and have adapted or reconfigured their space to fit.
Chris Kirchner
Any best practices on pre-conference marketing without a published agenda?
I hope I was able to answer this question during the webinar. Here are some helpful articles:
What makes a “well-run” event? Is it facilitators?
I think there are two important components:
1) An established participant-led format that has a good track record. Any of the formats covered in the webinar poll meet this definition, except sometimes events advertised as “unconferences” or “bar camps.” Why? Because such terminology is sometimes slapped onto “alternative” events without having a clear meeting design in place. People occasionally use such labels to describe events that turn out to be relatively unstructured, prone to hijacking by a vocal few, and unnecessarily chaotic.
2) What’s more important is the caliber and experience of the event facilitators. That’s not to say that someone with good facilitation skills can’t do a decent job running one of these formats the first time they try. But if there’s some perceived risk to holding the event, it’s worth working with people who have a track record of running successful participant-led events.
John Boyle
What is the ideal size for a participant-led event? Is it scalable? For instance, can you have events within events or concurrent events to serve a larger group?
My book covers events that have up to 100 attendees. For an answer that covers events larger than this, please download my free book supplement and check out Chapter 5.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
With crowdsourcing tools and online collaboration, couldn’t this exchange [of topics for the conference] be done, at least in part, ahead of the event?
“Unmembership? What’s that?” It’s a word invented by my creative friend Mitchell Beer during a wonderful ninety minute coffee break during the 2014 PCMA Convening Leaders conference a few weeks ago. Let me explain.
First, some definitions. In this post I use the term “formal member” to refer someone who has paid dues to be an association member. “Informal members” are those people who would currently consider themselves to have a significant connection with an association. Unlike informal membership, the exact number of formal members of an association can be quantified at any moment from an AMS report. Associations that have no formal members use what Mitchell calls an unmembership model.
The role of membership in association business models
Over the past few years there’s been a growing debate about the role of membership in association business models. I’m sure I’ve only heard a portion of it, but a great place to start is Jeff De Cagna‘s excellent July 2012 articles Five reasons why membership is killing association business modelsPart I, Part II, and Part III. (I’ve included links to some other discussions at the end of this post.)
Jeff’s reasons for concern are that membership-centric business models:
organize all value around the membership relationship;
tend to focus on association outputs instead of stakeholder outcomes;
often depend on cross-subsidies that create unintended consequences;
ask members to make the most important decisions about new value creation; and
require a significant investment of human effort for an insufficient return.
A couple of examples of unmembership
I agree with all of Jeff’s arguments. Rather than repeat them I recommend you go and read the original articles. In this post I’ll share my experience as the co-founder and president of two small associations, which now both use the unmembership model.
The Marlboro School Association
One of these associations, a 501(c)(3), is so small that its lack of formal members is not especially remarkable. The Marlboro School Association (MSA) was founded in 1994 to raise an endowment for the small K-8 public school in the Vermont town (2000 census population, 978) where I live. Endowment income is used to improve attending students’ educational experience. The MSA was set up using an unmembership model right from the start. Volunteers run this non-profit, which has built a $250,000 endowment over the last twenty years. The informal members of the MSA are those community members who support the work of the MSA through donations of money or their time. We have no need for formal members.
edACCESS
The other association, edACCESS, a 501(c)(6), was founded in 1992 as a vehicle for administrative IT staff at small schools to explore the use of some amazing new devices called “personal computers”. For ten years, edACCESS used an annual dues membership model. At the time it seemed necessary. Potential vendors for our annual trade show would ask us how many members we had, and we felt compelled to be able to give them a number.
But over the years it became clear that maintaining formal membership was more trouble than it was worth. We discovered that tracking and collecting dues from formal members was distracting us from our core mission: supporting and fostering a community of informal members who shared the association’s purpose. In 2002 we abandoned our formal membership model. The trade show vendors didn’t seem to mind, because by then they were asking how many decision-makers would be attending our annual conference, and we had good information available for them.
Using volunteers
Volunteers ran edACCESS for sixteen years. In 2008, when I stopped consulting in the educational IT field and began a professional shift to meeting design, I asked the organization (the board, our conference steering committee, and the participants at the annual conference) if it would consider paying me to continue to coordinate its activities. Now I am the sole paid, very part-time, staff member (volunteers receive various perks and we reimburse their expenses). [Update: I stepped down from running edACCESS in 2017.]
The annual conference process effectively uncovers participants’ issues and occasionally leads us to hold further focused events during the year. A listserv (old-fashioned, but effective) and private wiki provide places for community members to access resources, ask questions and get support at any time. We also run a site-visit program that allows interested schools to receive targeted consulting for modest fees.
What is the edACCESS revenue model? Our income comes almost entirely from our events—the vast majority from our annual 3½-day conference. We construct our event budgets to cover our modest administrative needs. Over the years we have built up sufficient funds to weather several years of poorly attended or canceled events, though we have had no problems so far during our 22 years.
What can we conclude from these examples?
First of all, I hope they illustrate that unmembeship is a viable path for small associations. The MSA has enjoyed a few hundred informal members during its history, edACCESS a few thousand. Both associations are fulfilling their missions while maintaining healthy finances. As Joe Rominiecki comments in his article referenced below, adopting an unmembership model “removes some complacency; the organization has to be relevant to its community, or the community will just go elsewhere. They haven’t committed money in advance that might keep them around.”
What about associations that supply other benefits to their members? Industry research, lobbying, and chapter support, for example, all cost money to provide. I think there’s a role here for tying support to unbundled programs using a Kickstarter approach. “Want your association to do X? $Y is what such-and-such level of X will cost. Here are suggested donation amounts, (which might be associated with specific individual/corporate benefits). If pledges reach $Y we’ll do X, otherwise we won’t.” Funding models for potential programs would incorporate the associated administrative expenses incurred. In other words, rather than guess or impose what your association community wants, let them choose for themselves.
“Free membership” association models
I haven’t said anything so far about “free membership” association models that straddle the formal and informal definitions I’ve given above. Clearly, as the rapid growth of Doximity shows, there can be demand for a free service when the target “member” is a well-compensated professional defined by third-party certification. The question in my mind is whether it’s possible to generate sufficient revenue to pay for the “free” service. In Doximity’s case, revenue currently seems to be a combination of advertising, LinkedIn-like recruiting firm fees, and, perhaps, ultimately consumer subscriptions to some kind of referral service. Time will tell whether this is a sustainable model.
Finally I don’t think that all associations will embrace an unmembership model in the future. For example, any associations that have a lock on key certification requirements or continuing education for their industry are very unlikely to give up the membership income that their members essentially have to provide to become or remain certified in their field. Nevertheless, I expect there to be a growing trend towards unmembership associations providing flexible unbundled services to the informal members who find them of value.
Other posts that may be of interest on the role of membership in associations
