Insights and Ingenuity

Almost every product, service, and event will have a myriad of individual responses/perspectives that will generally settle into 2-3 broad groups: Like; Dislike; Okay, But Wouldn’t Buy/Do Again.

For the most part, I’ve had a great experience here in Austin at this year’s festival and will definitely seek to attend again next year. I’ve gotten closer to some fabulous thinkers and authors with whom I’d never interact with were it not for this festival, due to it’s unique culture. I’ve learned some insights from small but successful business owners about how they manage scale. And I strengthened relations with communications professionals (public relations, marketing, branding, internet technologists, social media) that previously I’d only known through Twitter or not even known at all.

All of these and more weigh out on the positive side of this trip investment for me and while don’t immediately net tangible value (like a new client signed or affiliate partnership), these take-aways will coalesce into building a smarter, more resourceful Heather (and if for some reason it doesn’t, it’s my fault and not a reflection on them).

As a newbie SXSW’er, I knew this was a good conference for me to attend, even without having pre-defined specific goals for my attendance.  I had an idea about what was possible here, even without having an idea about what to expect.

Being exposed to a great number of speakers, with different specializations and interests, educational backgrounds, and experiences, what I saw ran the gamut from smooth, planned, and controlled to downright disappointing and poorly delivered.

A few of my thoughts on offering the most to your audience, to really reach them and provide maximum value. Nothing earth-shattering here, but maybe a good general collection:

1. Write well-defined seminar/panel descriptions for the guide books. The quirky colloquilisms can be fun on one level, but what if people don’t get your humor or can’t decipher what your session is about because it’s too abstract? You run the risk of irritating those who *thought* they knew what to expect (but then don’t deliver), and missing fans who didn’t catch your drift and elected to attend something else instead.
2. Provide sufficient background and solid introductions. To fully appreciate the thought leaders on the panel, shouldn’t I be told some of the reasons why paying attention to them is important? How they earned their stripes? While I recognized at least a couple of the folks on panels I attended (which of course shaped my decision to sit in), some of them I didn’t know about and really wanted to.
3. Bring your administrative skills. Claim a hashtag at the onset of a meeting so that everyone who live twitters it is on the same page. Outline the purpose and goals for the panel in order to reinforce someone’s decision to sit in. Already have your presentation posted to Slideshare and announce the link. And share the twitter handle for all the panelists so people don’t have to search if they want to follow them.
4. Follow up with registered attendees. I didn’t experience this at all. And granted with a conference like SXSW, there was a lot of informal attending/departing that wasn’t on the books. But at least having a solid register list could provide panelists with a way to solicit constructive feedback, reiterate their main points, and provide a tangible take-away with pass-along potential (thereby reaching even more folks).

Tags: conference, SXSW

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 9:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.