Conferences are dead.
It’s time to mourn the inevitable death of conferences. I know what you’re thinking, “but, I love awkwardly attending conferences and getting bags of free stuff I’ll never use!” Calm down and let me explain.
They’re becoming less valuable, yet the cost remains untouchable.
What are you paying for?
1 year ago Patrick Cooney posted in a forum asking if it going to WWDC ($1,599 a ticket) was worth it.
“The big sell is the networking.”
That’s it.
Networking.
That sounds like such a dirty word. Let’s call it human interaction (like we’re all aliens who have been living exclusively online for years…).
So you buy your ticket…
“We’re sorry. It seems the airline lost your luggage :(”
So, you mean to tell me I flew to San Francisco with my suitcase under the plane, and arriving in San Francisco my suitcase is now in Milwaukee?
It happens… somehow.
If you’re still reading this you’re likely thinking to yourself, “what the hell? This girl said conferences are dead, now she’s telling me my luggage is lost?! I don’t even remember getting on a damn plane.”
I’m almost to the point. I swear.
Travel pains aside. The truth is, they’re really just expensive and inaccessible to the general public.
Conferences are not about the speakers.
People go for the human interactions! I told you this was important.
You sit through conferences for some insight, sure, but you could just watch all these videos online later. So why would you go? The connections. You are now surrounded by like minded people loaded with business cards to connect. You’ll put the card in your pocket, maybe you reach out, maybe you don’t. You’ll most likely have nothing to say except the desperate “I NEED SOMETHING” e-mail you might shoot them. They have no idea who you are. They handed you a business card, which surprisingly didn’t mean, “let’s connect!” It was really just a way to let you know you’ve been seen, and this is now goodbye.
Side note: Where do you put your hands when you’re talking to someone you just met at a conference? Any insight on this would be great.
The conferences are about the people who attend.
So, how do you reinvent conferences to increase the benefit of human interaction and decrease the cost/time?
No more flights.
No more hotels.
No more tickets.
The first Lightning Con will be PodCon
RSVP if podcasting is your jam. It’s free, and you can watch it from your couch, hot tub, or even the toilet. Wherever you want.
PodCon is for podcast junkies all over the world. Get all the insight from top podcasters, which connecting with the viewers at the same time. I promise the connections you make during this PodCon will be a lot stronger than a business card.
Okay, conferences are just evolving
“But you said conferences are deaddddddd”
They’re not dead, they’re just evolving!
Let’s try a Pokemon reference instead.
Modern day conferences are Pikachu and Lightning Cons are Raichu. Cold e-mailing can be Pichu.
Conferences will never go away, but they are changing. They are changing to benefit the people who are and are not paying top dollar for access. A conference shouldn’t be a party for the speakers, it should benefit the people they’re speaking to the most.
I’m also not talking about webinars… those are definitely dead.
