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Do you hear the thunder coming over the mountain?
You know, the roar of uncertainty and the rumble of disruptive innovation marching towards the association and event world.
What roar you ask? Or perhaps you say, “It’s just not true,” as you listen with deaf ears. Well, consider the following.
Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, has an interesting post, The New (New) Mediaconomy, on Harvard Business Publishing recently.
He talks about the clash of traditional media and the Internet and says that asking, “Can media survive the www?” is the wrong question.
Haque compares today’s media to soda pop and wine. He says, “… there are two kinds of goods: wine and soda. Soda is low quality communication: thin information, low-quality information, and just plain disinformation. Wine is high-quality communication: analysis, debate, and knowledge.”
He proceeds to label most blogs as cola: pedestrian, prosaic, humdrum and uninspired. The problem, as he defines it, is that traditional media has done nothing but rehash the same cola, instead of providing higher-quality, thought-provoking, multi-layered fine wines. You see, people are willing to pay more for fine wines with multiple textures, a variety of notes, degrees of intensity and an assortment of tactile sensations from tannin to prickle. Most people aren’t willing to pay much to digest cheap traditional sugary colas.
What are your providing to your customers, members and event attendees: cheap cola or fine wine?
For me, this sounds a lot like today’s associations and conferences.
Many associations have focused on their annual conference, meetings and education as their largest source of non-dues revenue. Association leaders and conference organizers have spent long hours producing status quo programs, services and content to attract members and event attendees. These leaders display an entitlement syndrome that paying-dues members are also expected to pay to attend conference and to receive content. Traditional thinking is that the association is underwriting the costs to provide members with that content and therefore the member should at a minimum pay for those costs. (Event organizers, can you say, “Plus, plus, plus?” For non-event organizers, think of labor, service charges, local taxes and rent added to the delivery fees.)
These associations have relied on making the same money from meeting attendees that they’ve always made and have been happy with less than stellar attendee conference evaluations. A 70% conference smile rate from registrants is perfectly acceptable to them and a good reason to provide the same experience and quality at the next event. The last thing these leaders were interested in was creating authentic value for a member or attendee.
Year after year, these conference organizers have repeated the same conference format, securing the same industry speakers (who are typically now writing their own blogs and sharing content online and through their own webinars), with little thought given to upgrading the attendee’s experience, changing the traditional conference format or providing fresh, fine-wine type content. The content is often generic, bland and can be found on your local mobile phone, free by visiting the speakers’ website or blog.
Some speakers change their presentations regularly yet are they offering attendees an opportunity to analyze and debate that content with them, and with each other? Or is the content just bottle-fed to attendees, a drip at a time, as attendees sit passively in large ballrooms, in a zombie-like states thinking, “This tastes all too familiar like yesterday’s cheap cola? Fizzy, sacchariny sweet, cotton-candy fluff.” Some are even remembering the old Wendy’s commercial, “Where’s the beef?” Some turn to using social media to describe their distaste for the meal being offered.
However, some of those attendees and members are beginning to see associations and conference organizers as yesterday’s monopolists of the only content and experience providers available at that time. These organizations and conference providers are now facing disruptive innovation: online free content, quality unconferences with low registration fees and the ability for people to create their own online tribes (community).
Haque challenges readers to think about it from the opposing view as well. The reason organizations are having trouble making money is because they’ve spent so long producing ordinary, dull, insipid weak cola as well as an undefined cheap experience to go with it too.
Haque ends with this, “Media’s just the canary in the mine. Over the next decade, every industry will undergo a similar transition from locked down and closed to blown wide open.”
Think about it? When was the last time you returned from an annual conference, a three day event or 90-minute webinar where you were drunk with new knowledge, high on the adrenalin of healthy debate and discussion, and wanting to purchase more of that organization’s fine wine.
Association leaders, board members and conference organizers, are you producing bland sugary-sweet cola, or crafting and cultivating fine wines?
So, what say you? Let’s hear your thoughts, questions or comments.
Did you hear the Buzz July 9, 2009? 
Did you hear about “The Living Conference?”
And no it wasn’t the hornet’s nest that I poked this time. It was the Buzz 2009 association leaders (not social media strategists) pollinating new social media fields. Yes, those assocaiation leaders even stepped right into our meeting and event flowerbox this time.
That’s right, 70 nonprofit association leaders had gathered in Washington, DC to hear some big name thought leaders like GasPedal’s Andy Sernovitz , Alltop’s Guy Kawasaki, Return Path’s Stephanie Miller, National Geographic’s Brendan Hart, California Tortilla’s Stacey Kayne, Never Stop Marketing’s Jeremy Epstein, Smartbrief’s Rob Birgfeld and of course the Socialfish Supremes’ Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer.
These 70 association leaders were there to learn about bringing social media to their association nonprofit jobs. The bee waggle dance really begin to jive the hive with the FREE, (yes free, hint, hint to long time readers and conference planners), live streaming From Brainstorm to Firestorm: Creating an Environment for Viral Marketing Success Webinar panel of four moderated by Kawasaki was broadcast to more than 5,000 virtual attendees online. The Webinar was packed with bit-of-honey social media sauce that association leaders should unwrap, chew like the cud and let the sweetness and stickiness ooze into their social beings. Thanks to KRM who live-streamed the webinar and is hosting the recording, you can still view this FREE Webinar
Immediately following the live webinar, the Twitter Chat group #eventprofs held its Thursday chat to discuss the presentation. Did you get that? A group of professionals took the next hour following the Webinar to continue their learnings and take-aways online in Twitter. That’s the nectar of virtual associative learning at its best, often referred to the sweet spot.
What struck me as one of the most profound bits-of-honey from Buzz2009 actually occurred after the Webinar in the #eventprofs chat and onsite at conference location. (I was still following Buzz2009 tweets and got excited as if I’d found a new source of honey. My waggle dance got interesting and I’m glad no one was around with a flip camera.)
Suddenly both audiences, without knowledge or guidance, begin to talk about extending the association’s conference experience for the broader community at large, and not just for attendees who paid for the face-to-face event. That’s right, these social media and association thought leaders were coming to the conclusion that the face-to-face association conference needed to be captured and shared with the entire association community. Both groups were arriving at the conclusion that extending the content, the user experience, the buzz into the overall community is a must. And that it was the association’s responsibility to turn the conference into a “Living Conference for the entire association audience.”
There it was in sweet tweets, the same point I had been 
arguing for more that 10 days that the face-to-face had to morph into something that affected the community and industry at large, not just those who could afford to attend an event. It was and is the Association’s duty to engage those members that cannot attend as well as those that are attending the face-to-face event. The Association had to become the Queen Bee and teach others how to share their own waggle dances with all. Buzz2009 illustrated perfectly how to take the face-to-face experience and engage 5,000 more people with its content live during the event, FREE. Wow, 70 to 5,070!
Yes, I had more take-aways than this but this one has to be shared quickly.
So tell me, who in the association, conference and event planning world doesn’t want an ROI like that? How would you engage your association or industry community with the face-to-face conference? How can you extend the experience to the entire associaiton community? And how can you do it without placing a high fee on your membership that can’t afford to attend?
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