Archive for August, 2005
August 31, 2005
Those Damn Associations Ruin Everything
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Radley Balko says ACCA’s blog took the edge off the blogosphere. Well, something had to do it. (But hey Radley, the ACCA blog has actually been around since January 2004, not June 2005 — so I’m afraid you’ve been toiling away in an un-hip medium for close to two years.)
August 28, 2005
The Luxury of Choosing
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From an article at Fast Company’s website on how the long tail is changing the meaning of “luxury”:
“In the hospitality industry, for example, developer Ira Drukier is applying a set of rather narrow consumer insights to create a different kind of luxury hotel. As reported in The New York Times, Ira’s idea is that there’s a market in Manhattan for a hotel with small rooms; and even shared bathrooms and bunkbeds; so long as it’s equipped with wi-fi, iPod docking stations, and flat-screen TVs.
“Drukier figures that if the rooms are clean, neat and wired, he’ll attract young travelers whose only option at $125 a night is not nearly as, well, luxurious.”
Yeah, I’ll stay there! (Well, not in a bunkbed.) But the size of a hotel room has never mattered that much to me, even when I’m traveling on business and will have time only for holing up in the hotel — but I do care that the hotel is in a convenient location, the room is wired, the bed is clean and comfortable, and the TV is large and modern. Beyond that, it could be pretty much a closet and I won’t mind (I probably won’t even notice).
But I know lots of other people who would disagree strongly, and care much more about large rooms, lots of comfy furtniture, and the usual luxuries of a four-star hotel. Different things for different people; markets used to be put in three broad tiers (low-end, middle-class, luxury) but those markets have splintered. For one thing, the lower tiers now expect a lot of the things that used to be reserved for the top tier (style, cutting-edge technology, brand awareness). And for another thing, as Tim Manners points out in the above-linked FC article, “luxury” as we know it may be going away as “the long tail” works its magic (basically, “micro-niches” may soon offer more sales and marketing opportunities than mass markets).
Associations have traditionally had a fairly egalitarian mindset — dues gets access to the same array of services/programs/opportunities. Even if dues are broken down in tiers, such as many trade associations that charge differently based on things like revenues or number of employees, that difference in cost usually has little to do with the actual member experience, and is based on ostensibly objective criteria — in fact, there can sometimes be a total disconnect between what an association’s dues are and the individual value a member receives. (This is why you frequently read conversations on the ASAE listserve between association staff who are agonizing over different ways to “explain” their value to members.)
Starting several years ago, some associations began experimenting with “a la carte” dues, allowing members to pay differently based on the individual services they wish to receive. I’ve never been a big fan of the concept; for one thing, there are too many things central to many associations’ missions — such as advocacy, standard-setting, etc. — that are expensive but simply aren’t very marketable in and of themselves. (In fact, the reason many associations get into so many other business areas is because they need to sell those products to fund the things they can’t sell.)
But despite all this, something is going to have to give in many organizations as people begin demanding more individualized experiences — “micro-niches” are going to be served whether it’s by us or someone else. And, ironically, in order to fund the basic services that are central to an organization’s public service mission, I think many associations may have to focus a lot more of their marketing efforts on what some of their members want (and are willing to pay more for) and less on what all of their members need.
August 26, 2005
Walking In
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I feel like I’m beating a dead horse with this opening session thing, but I just remembered that I said I would write about “the walk-in experience” in a later post. So here it is. Those who disagree with me about the importance of the overall experience of a conference, I’m sure won’t agree with me on this post either, but that’s okay.
The most important thing about walk-in, in my opinion, is that “walk-in” at an opening session should mark a “break” from the past. When attendees walk into the general session room, there should be the sense that they are “entering” something — something big, something meaningful.
If you can’t afford the “big” stuff it doesn’t matter, just be creative. It may be the people who are greeting attendees, signs that are placed around, lighting, the decor — whatever. The last thing you want is for people to just wander into the opening session room, find a place to sit, and wait for the program. Yes, that’s the essence of what they’re doing, but the session room should feel more “different” than that.
As an example, here are the five or six “silly things” I insist on during walk-in:
Secrecy
Nobody sees our stage set before the doors open a half-hour before the opening session is scheduled to start (except for the production crew, myself and a few staff, and the chairman and the CEO, who see it during rehearsals the day before). That means nobody — doors are kept locked. When they open, they are “revealing” something.
Music
Music is not background noise. We take special care in creating the mix used during the walk-in. The songs are not selected because they match our locale (we didn’t play country in Texas or zydeco in New Orleans), and they are not selected because they are songs our members like (our members are probably more country and adult contemporary oriented). They’re selected for their pounding beat. While not played at a deafening roar, the music is not turned all the way down, either.
Movement
The room needs to suggest movement when people enter. The big screen doesn’t just show a logo or a static slide. It runs a slide show, continuously looping, for example, a sponsor logo listing, interspersed with announcements and housekeeping items. Occasionally sweeping lights, gobos and other movements on set — all orchestrated and choreographed, of course — makes the room feel “alive.”
Lighting
House lights are not turned all the way up — in fact, are kept down somewhat. We want it dark enough that people, again, feel a break from the outside hall, but not so dark that they can’t find their way around.
All of these things — music, movement, lighting — work together to create a sensation of difference and entrance and anticipation. People don’t necessarily realize that this is what’s happening.
We Start On Time, Sort Of
We usually start 2-4 minutes after the scheduled time. It depends on the music — when the walk-in music ends, the show starts, period. Tim, my producer, tells me we’re the only client that doesn’t dither back and forth about the starting time.
We Work with Great People
And finally, the key to any great conference experience is the production company. I’ve got no problem plugging the company I work with, O’Keefe Communications, because they’re absolutely brilliant. Going on five years now and we work great together, continually thinking up new and exciting ways to shake things up at the meeting. I highly recommend them. They’re not cheap (when we found them originally, they were not the lowest bidder — but their work is of such a stunning quality it was unmatched by any of the other usual-suspect vendors bidding). But they are worth every penny and know how to work within a budget.
There. Done with the whole opening session thing, I promise!
P.S. If you don’t do anything else, please please please spend a little bit of money and have all of your public announcements created in a professional studio by a professional voiceover artist. Do it a week before the event and just have the same voiceover read everything that will be — and anything that might be — announced at the event (introductions of all speakers, housekeeping items, narratives you will need, anything at all). The “Voice of God” is such a small detail but it makes any event “feel” much more professional.
August 25, 2005
Mommy, When I Grow Up, Can I Be a Consultant?
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Shawn Lea’s a great blogger. She does interesting things for her organization, and reports on her voracious reading habits in her association-related blog The Big Picture. And even though I don’t think I’ve ever seen her mention it in an association-related context, she also has a fun and worthwhile personal blog (and since there are no secrets on the Internet, here it is).
I say all this because I’m about to riff on something she wrote about on the ASAE Conference blog and I want her to know that … it’s nothing personal, Shawn! It’s just something you reported on during the event that I found hysterical.
And here it is: Shawn attended and blogged about a presentation from Matt Weinstein, “founder and emperor” (cute …. ish) of Playfair, Inc. In her report she noted:
“Also look for his management book on Row, Row Your Boat coming out from Penguin Books next year. Only four easy-to-remember components to the tenets:
1. Row, row, row your boat
2. Gently down the stream
3. Merrily, merrily, merrily
4. Life is but a dream”
Well, give me a break. But the funny part is, even though I didn’t attend this presentation … neither did you, most likely … but having listened to countless consultants and read countless books by consultants … can’t you already imagine exactly what the points are he intends to make for each of those sections?
What a great gig. In fact, anyone can do it! To prove my point: publishers take note, herewith my abbreviated book proposal, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider: How Smart Organizations Defeat the Business Cycle by Embracing It.”
It’s a book in six simple parts with an intro and conclusion. Notes on each follow:
Intro
Long-term success is not about continuous growth, but continuous renewal. &c.
Part 1: The Itsy Bitsy Spider …
Organizations: when they start up, they know themselves, their product/service. Focused on customer/market needs. Aggressive and willing to try risky things because they have no choice against big competitors. &c.
Part 2: Climbed Up the Waterspout …
Got a hold in your market and exploited it. Growth! What else does our market need? Or who else can we sell our product to? Expand services and products. Too easy to forget where you came from/who you are serving. &c.
Part 3: Down Came the Rain …
Bad news! Economic downturn! Organizational hubris! A smarter, nimbler competitor! Whatever it is, you’re screwed. &c.
Part 4: And Washed the Spider Out …
“Oh, no! How did we lose our way?” Too many organizations lose because they fight to hold on to what they have rather than to what they are. (How profound! I may have to repeat that several times throughout the book.) &c.
Part 5: Out Came the Sun and Dried Up All the Rain …
Return to roots. Organization understands now who it is and who it’s market is. Focus on creation and not just expansion for its own sake. &c.
Part 6: And the Itsy Bitsy Spider Climbed Up the Spout Again.
Smart organizations realize that … cycles happen. Embrace them! Plan for them! If you want to accomplish great things, that means you are also going to fail. Build a culture of renewal, not just growth. &c.
Conclusion
Visit my website and send me more money.
Interested publishers: you’ll find my email on the righthand side. And I can probably knock this out in a month or so, so if you have a hole in your pub sked to fill …
P.S. This is fun. You should try it! Take any children’s song or rhyme and figure out how to squeeze profound consultant-speak messages from the lines. It’s surprisingly easy. Here are a few to get your brain started: “Little Jack Horner,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” “The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” and “Baby Got Back.”
P.P.S. Not having been there, I suppose it’s also possible that Matt Weinstein came up with something startlingly creative in his discussion of “Row Row Your Boat.” But then that wouldn’t play very well into the point of this post, now would it?
August 23, 2005
Multitasking Multidisciplines Multiculturally
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Interesting piece in this morning’s NY Times (registration required) on the growing number of computer science majors in college who are augmenting their studies with other disciplines like art, anthropology, sociology, biology, etc.
“For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security as advances in the Internet and low-cost computers make it easier to shift some technology jobs to nations with well-educated engineers and lower wages, like India and China.”
This trend echoes the thesis of Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind on the need for left-brainers to embrace right-brain thinking to compete with the unstoppable flow of technical jobs to developing countries.
Only slightly touched on in this morning’s article, though, is a concurrent trend that I think should be encouraged and where many of us are falling behind: the need for people whose study is not computer science to understand it anyway.
Take my own original “field” of communications (if you can call it that; a true product of liberal arts education, I graduated from college knowing how to write, and how to think, and little else). For the fifteen years I’ve been doing it, yes, as the cliche goes, “it’s changed.” Communicators themselves may not be changing enough.
It’s not enough to know how to write, how to interview, how to develop a PR campaign, how to layout a newsletter, etc. Communicators today need to know and understand technology. Not just what it is, but why it is, how it works, and how to use it. (I’m being purposely vague when I say “technology” because it never stops and I believe it should be the communicators in an organization — moreso than the IT personnel – who know exactly which new technologies are emerging and what their impact on the organization may be).
Too many “communicators” seem wedded to behaviors that seem old-school even to me, and I’ve been around for a while. (On the ASAE communications listserver yesterday, there was a robust back-and-forth on whether one should use a red inkpen when editing. I have no idea what they were talking about.)
I think Pink is right — the right-brain is ascendant in our economy, but that doesn’t mean the artists and writers and philosophers should rejoice. The left-brainers will still dominate, they will just have expanded their portfolio a bit beyond rote knowledge work. To succeed, right-brainers will need to embrace their left-brain as well.
The future belongs to technologists who know how to communicate with human beings. People who know how to communicate with human beings but don’t understand technology … well, that sounds like retail to me.
August 22, 2005
More on Level 1 & Level 2
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Rich and Jeff both had some great comments to my earlier post on “the first ten minutes” which made me think that maybe I hadn’t explained myself quite as well as I thought I did: the educational component of a conference, in terms of being both relevant and stimulating to the people who attend the meeting, is obviously important. Getting that right is what makes a conference a Level 1 event, as I described it earlier (and trust me, I’ve been to lots of meetingts that didn’t hit Level 1 status).
You have to hit Level 1 to reach Level 2. Level 1 engages the intellect and Level 2 engages the emotions. It’s what gets people talking about an event afterwards, and what creates “buzz.” I stand by my contention that the first ten minutes are the key to making a spectacular event because it’s those ten minutes that set the agenda. An exciting educational program can be made more exciting if people are “in the mood.” Moods can be manipulated. (Everybody thinks their emotions can’t be manipulated, but they can. I don’t think anyone ever walks out of an event going, “That first ten minutes made the difference and I learned a lot more because it got me energized and feeling positive about myself and the event itself!” Done right, they will have no idea. In fact, a few of them will think it was kind of silly. But the majority will think it was great and listening to those people’s impressions afterward will actually put the “I-think-learning-should-be-serious-and-dull” people in a better mindset, they just won’t realize it.)
At the same time, the same educational program can be rendered less interesting — or at least, be forced to work a whole lot harder to achieve meaningful impact — if people have to sit through an opening session that doesn’t engage their emotions.
Now, I’ve also been to meetings where they tried to engage the emotions (through “spectacle” or other creative means) without also providing a substantive educational program. These are the events that I think ring hollow — that make us sit and look at our watches or check our calls, as Rich described. It’s not a question of throwing money at a production just because you can. When I say “spectacle” I’m not just talking about exploding lights or whatever — you don’t have to spend a lot of money to engage people’s emotions, and just spending money on neat tricks and fancy videos isn’t going to do it, either.
Rich says the speakers are the most important part, and I get where he’s coming from. Yet the best speaker I’ve ever heard — in terms, not just of presentation, but of actual impact on business and operational life — was Marcus Buckingham. In fact, after hearing him speak, we’ve spent years trying to align our conference schedule with his so he could be our opening keynote speaker (finally happening in 2006). Where did I hear him? At ASAE’s 2002 Conference in Denver. Best keynote speaker I’ve ever heard. As far as the conference itself — well, learned some stuff. Had a good time. I’d say it was worth the money. Yet my overall impression of the conference was one of “blah.” And that’s pretty much what I said about it when I came home.