360Conferences

During the planning for 360|Flex Atlanta, Tom and I realized something. We hadn't been engaging our speakers. Here we had 40+ of the biggest names in the Flex developer community, most of whom blog and/or regularly speak at User Group meetings.

And we weren't talking to them, let alone engaging them.

What do I mean by 'engage'? I mean talking to them, asking them for help, asking them to do what they do best, asking them to be themselves.

At about 30 days out we had about a third of the registrations we wanted. We realized while sitting around the lounge of the OMNI that we had not engaged our speakers. WHAT? Yeah it sorta took us by surprise too, we just never thought about it.

That very night around mmmm 1am or so, we composed an email that we sent to each speaker. We explained that the speakers were in fact our marketing department and budget. Sure plenty of people read the 360|Flex blog, but too many (in our opinion, LOL) don't. We meet attendees when they pick up their badge. Some will ask if there's any events planned. We'll say, "Yeah, the ones we announced on the blog." To which some have said, "You have a blog?"

That night, we let each speaker know, that we needed their help, that all we asked, was that they blog about speaking at 360|Flex Atlanta, that they mention why they're speaking, what made them want to speak, etc. Nothing untrue, nothing "shady", nothing like that.

The reason we asked them to mention the conference, and their involvement was easy. Their blogs all had hundreds or thousands of people reading them daily. People who may not know we have a conference blog, but who read the speakers' blog religiously.

By everyone, we also mean customers. That same night we also asked our past customers to give us a plug on their blog as well. Tom gets all mushy in his recount of the customer aspect on his blog.

After both started posting, we saw registrations double in about a month.

That's what I mean by 'engage'. If you have customers (speakers, attendees, and sponsors in our case) that care enough about you, then utilize them. We did and they literally make all the difference in the world to us.

Tom and I aren't born to the calling of conference organizers. It wasn't in our blood from birth, and we didn't start conferences to push other business. We do conferences to promote community. In the case of 360|Flex, it's to bring the Flex developer community together under one roof, for one purpose. We're not trying to retire young (though that's not a terrible goal I suppose), we're not trying to get rich on any single event. We're certainly not in it to (pardon the term) rape our customers. Other than a few other visionaries in the space, we're alone in that last one.

I'm not going to name names, but there's an event in DC, I've attended it, it was ok. Not cheap, and the price seems to go up almost yearly. For that reason alone, before even starting 360Conferences, Inc, I decided I wouldn't return.

As far as I know pre-conference training has been part of this event for a while. Always a seperate fee, always a lot of money. This year's no different.

When Tom and I had the opportunity to offer pre-conference training, we jumped at the idea. We also decided to make the training free. If you're registered to attend the conference, the training is free, just show up. Why? Why not? Why should the attendee pay even more? We don't believe our customers deserve to, or want to be nickel and dimed. I know as a consumer, I don't like it. Why would I do it to my customers?

What has always confused me about business is the lack of agility. Now, Ford or GM turning on a dime, not possible, but the rest of the business community? Really you can't do it? Tom and I completely tossed our first model, and adapted to what our customers and speakers said was important. It wasn't hard, it didn't hurt. (Editoral note from Tom: Though it was humbling. Thinking you have the perfect model, then getting a "Well, not quite.")

That said, I can't for the life of me figure out why this other event is still telling their customers to bend over for pre-conference training. The company that runs the conference has never to my knowledge let it's numbers out, so who knows how many people will end paying $900 for two days of training. $900 bucks? Yup.

Their announcement made sure everyone knew, NOT FREE, NOT INCLUDED.
*All classes are $449 each (this cost is not included in your conference registration for the main event, it is completely separate)

$449 each? 450 bucks a day if you want pre-conference training? On top of about $1,100 to attend the conference itself. Really?

Tom and I may not be a huge threat, yet. But having attended this other event before, they're not doing anything Tom and I don't do, except give out backpacks and a shnazzy printout of the slides... SNORE. Well, the prinouts are nice, but $600 nice? So how do Tom and I do it, for less than half the price? How do Tom and I do it, without having another business to prop up the conference? To use the conference as a marketing event for other services? Hmmm...good question. I'm hoping the community at large is asking this as they decide what events to attend. They should be.

There's been times when Tom and I have wondered if transparency is really that great. Those times usually pass pretty quickly, we can't see running a business any other way. I saw that, as of yesterday, the TSA is blogging. How freakin' great is that!?

I'll be the first to admit, I usually hate the TSA. They break things and take no responsibility, they're more often than not rude, and the policies and thoroughness vary from airport to airport.

Opening themselves up to the public like this (as of now, the first post has almost 500 comments), letting us get a better idea of who the TSA is, and letting them get a better idea of who we, their customers are, that's great! It doesn't counter the treatment they impart, but hopefully that might change. Reading some of the stories, I realize I could have worse luck in my travels.

They're breaking out topics such as shoes, liquids, and even inconsistencies in policy execution, into separate blog posts, asking, yeah you read that right, asking for comments. And from the number of comments so far, the public has no problem answering the call for engagement.

And it's not just a one sided "post, response" scenario. TSA peeps are commenting, replying to specific people, acknowledging failings, etc. It's a true two way dialog!

Seeing this, totally reinforces my resolve that business (or government) can, should, and needs to be transparent. Too many businesses as well as our own government have forgotten whom they serve, and have decided that, "it's better if we don't know". We say Screw that! A conference soda costs $5.00! Wifi sucks ass! Hotels charge too much! Renting a projector for 3 days is almost twice the price of owning one!

Right on TSA!! You keep talking to us, I'll keep trying to smile share a kind word as I pass through.

Labels: Business ethics, transparency