360Conferences

Business Week had a very informative article and it really resonated with Tom and I. It's about educational Marketingc and its benefits. The interesting part is that this approach isn't just beneficial to the marketer, but also to the marketee (that's a word, right?)

Three examples from the article:

Business: Real Estate Agency

Ineffective offer: "Let me teach you why you should list your house with me."

Effective offer: "Let me teach you the five mistakes everyone makes when selling a house. No matter who you list with, you'll need to know these things."

Business: Financial Planner

Ineffective offer: "I want to come and talk to you about how I can help you plan for a better financial future."

Effective offer: "Even if you never do anything with me, I want to make sure you know that there are five critical mistakes everyone makes in trying to accumulate wealth."

Business: Technology Services Company

Ineffective offer: "Let me tell you how great we are at helping with your IT services."

Effective offer: "As part of our effort to build better relationships in the business community, we offer a free white paper entitled 'Six ways to dramatically increase productivity using your current technology.' "

This really hits home for us, and fits with how we do things. We've addressed the transparency already but this is a different beast. This is putting our attendees, and even speakers and sponsors, ahead of us.

Our goal is to expand the Flex (for now, it's just Flex... for now :D ) Community. The industry needs developers, of all skill levels. If they get that training at 360|Flex, great. If they go to any of the other conferences offering various levels of Flex training and sessions, that's great too. The end result is the same, and the industry and community benefit.

So how does this directly help us? Well according to the article, and even some limited anecdotal evidence we've already collected, by looking out for the best interests of your constituents (customers, community) we make them more likely to want to work with us. By being genuinely interested in our customers' well being, they return that sentiment in kind with their business. Everyone prospers, and comes out the better for it. Anyone see a downside to that model?

We're not the first business to embrace the concepts of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Lego's done it, I'm certain more have. I'm more certain that more should.

I'm not sure if there's any start ups that 'started cluetrain' like we did. From the very first days of 360Conferences, even before the company was formed, we made sure that openness and transparency, and conversation were the core tenets. We started blogs, we approached user group managers to spread the word. We polled our customers, asking them what kind of conference they wanted.

Tom and I know we don't know what we're doing :) but we know what we like, and at least for me, as a conference goer (usually on my own dime) I know what I like, and what's lame.

From there, we just 'did it'. No mission statements, no venture funding, no outside Board of Directors, just Tom and I. Well, we had Ryan Stewart for like a month, until Adobe snatched him away from us. :)

I literally (I know I've said this before) carry cluetrain in my bag. Everything we do, we ask ourselves, "Is this the most open way we can do it? Is this too close to 'business as usual'?"

When we launch an event, we used to put a percentage sold ticker up. We've had people tell us, "Why would you do that? It might scare people into not registering." Yeah, it might, but it also shows the community roughly how much space is left. It hopefully shows people that waiting around 'til the last minute, may mean not attending. We also have had people ask, "Why don't you prop the numbers up? Make it say 75% instead of 25%" I'll admit, for a fraction of a second, we thought about it, but then realized, in terms of keeping ourselves open and trying to maintain a conversation with our customers, that we'd be lying. To their faces. We couldn't do it.

Tom Paragraph:
However, our sponsors have told us that the ticker scares them. I'm the money man too, so I need to weigh our decisions against the money option. Sponsors pay money to make the shows better for the attendees. While being open is good, having money to make the shows better is more important. Therefore, the ticker is gone. We'll still blog about the numbers though if we get close to sold out, etc.

We strive to be essentially the opposite of the existing conference industry. To us, conferences aren't just a "profit center". Ideally, shows should make a profit since it is a business. We don't, however, see a single show as a our "bread and butter" or "cash cow". Our plan is to grow to many shows, making a little bit of profit with each show. As we grow the business, hopefully more communities bloom and grow with us. We're not trying to "get rich quick". We're not even in a super big hurry to leave our day jobs. We do want to share our vision for community with as many industries and groups as we can. We don't think Flex developers (though we do love ya'll) are the only group that would enjoy our style of events.

Saw this on Doc's blog, and had to talk about it. It's on the practical PR blog, which (it says) is a "conversation with PR students at Kent State".

They're walking through each chapter of the Cluetrain Manifesto, starting with the preface, and are discussing the book's ideas along the way. That's so great! I wish I was in that class!!

I'm re-reading Cluetrain right now. I'm about 1/3 through, and finding so many little insights I missed the first time! Tom and I bought 300 copies to give out at 360|Flex Atlanta as our way to showing the attendees what is we're doing as a business and why we do it.

We show what money comes in and goes out. We talk about the software we've built to help us, and when there's a bug (as there always is), we tell everyone about it so they know and can get the latest version.

Tom's Paragraph: In other words, we believe in transparency. Our company is not a secluded citadel where things are done in private. It is a product of our customers money and therefore, they deserve to know what's going on inside. This way, if something is broken (like speaker compensation) we can fix it.

It seems to really resonate with attendees. I've heard that a few are already reading their copies. Only Amazon or eBay will know if there's a sudden flood of unused, 'new' copies hitting the market. We tried though, and as a business, that's all you can do.

I'll be following the Pratical PR blog discussion. I'm very interested to see how the students relate and react to the manifesto.

Tom's Paragraph: John and I didn't go to business school. Heck, we didn't even finish college. We jumped straight into the business world. We always wonder if kids that never participate in the business world can truly come to understand it just by reading books. They're reactions to Cluetrain will be very interesting indeed.

I mentioned the actual event on our conference blog, but wanted to talk a little more about it.

Tom and I both believe in Karma. Not in the Hindu sense, Tom's a Mormon and I'm a non-believer. Hope that's okay with everyone.

That said, we do feel that the concept of Karma is a good one, and highly relevant, maybe one day I'll finish my essay on the "Karma Circle".

Many business visionaries have said it, plenty of religious leaders have said it, and as I mentioned, one religion revolves around it. The concept of doing good things, ideally for no other reason than because you can, is powerful.

In Atlanta, we received a "Hat in hand" email, explaining why this person couldn't pay to attend our 360|Flex event. He asked if there were any cancellations he could use, or any discounts, etc. He'd drive himself (though he ended up flying since he caught a cold), if only he could somehow get in the door.

This person pinged us and our sponsors. David Bigelow from Simplified Logic replied to this person and gave him the reg code he had been given as a sponsor. His sponsorship level included a few passes, and he had used all that he was going to use, so he had a few left over. Tom and I don't care what sponsors do with their passes so it was cool to see Dave just give his away. Not to a prospective client or employee, but to someone who obviously needed some help.

I think it's really powerful when people, and more so when it's a company, do things like this. Not to further their business, or win a new hire over, or anything like that, but rather just because.

Tom and I thought about making something more formal around this idea, but for now, it's going to be more informal. Our first thought was some sort of marketplace for unused passes that sponsors could all put them into a "pile" to be doled out to those less fortunate, but that puts some one (Tom, me, or someone else) in charge of deciding who is worthy of a free pass. That's not us, we're not in a position to decide that. Something will solidify itself over time, it's Karma. :)

If you're reading this and thinking, "Score! I'll email and ask for a hand out" but aren't really in need, think again. You'll likely be ignored, and if not, Karma will get you. :)

Some companies try to find time and fundage to go for an offsite summit at least once a year. The reason for this is to get out of the traditional surroundings, find themselves in a new place that will hopefully stimulate new ideas. Many corporations swear by them and feel that their business will come to a standstill without them.

With regards to 360|Conferences, we find ourselves in a lucky predicament. One month before each show, we fly out to the location of our upcoming show for an onsite visit. Usually, it's just a walk through with the staff. We finally get to meet them face to face and get familiar with the rooms that will house our conference.

The onsite visit only takes a couple of hours. After that, John and I find ourselves in a completely foreign place with nothing familiar but each other. We take this time to explore the city by day and then we do our strategic summits by night.

It's just another example of how our little company can beat the big guys. Our offsites are a necessity, and so our customers benefit in more ways than one on these trips. We nail down the details for the show and figure out ways to better serve everyone.

Killin' two birds with one stone, ya gotta love that, especially when we don't have very many stones. :)