Conferences are Broken Revisited
Shifting Focus from Information to Transformation
A few months back I wrote a post here on medium titled Conferences are Broken. And I took it up on myself to fix them. What I didn’t realize is just how broken they really are. Of course there are exceptions, but you no doubt have been to an even like the one I described in my first article.
Some of the ideas I had in that first article were kind of unrealistic. But unrealistic ideas are what cause us to explore possibilities that we haven’t considered.
When I sat down with my business partner Greg to plan our upcoming event, The Instigator Experience, he asked me 2 very important questions.
- What’s the transformation you want people to have?
- What’s the outcome for the attendees?
He stumped me because I had almost overlooked this. I thought it was simply assembling a crew of smart people and having them share their stories. That’s what it seemed like most of the events I went to did (even some of the great ones).
And in that moment it became apparent to me that this is really overlooked.
- Most events are about information, instead of transformation.
- The focus is on the speakers instead of the attendees.
- People leave inspired, but the buzz wears off when they get home.
So we decided on an outcome: help people bring bold ideas to life.
Those ideas could be startups, online projects, charities or works of art. Of course an endeavor like this is a bit like planning a wedding and starting a religion at the same time. It takes months of orchestration. Fortunately we had about a 9 month head start.
Creating an Epic Audience Experience
A few months ago I interviewed the graffiti artist Erik Wahl. He’s received over 1000 standing ovations for his speeches. So naturally I asked him what the secret to that was? He said “everything I do is about creating epic audience experiences. It’s about taking extreme mashups from various art forms and combining them.” He mixes rock music, graffiti art, and keynote speaking that results in an experience that you can’t help but talk about.
When we met with our event manager for the first time, she said to us “I’ve done 100's of events and I’ve never heard anything like this.” To us that was a good sign. I am hell bent on creating an experience that nobody in the world has had at a business event yet. To do it I’ve looked at multiple art forms: music, movies, theater, and borrowed elements from each one. And it might be worth stating in the biggest boldest letters possible
THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL BUSINESS CONFERENCE
If you’re looking for a day where you get to sit in a room, taking notes on your laptop, under fluorescent lights, it’s not for you.
Bigger is Not Better
I hate massive events where the speakers are treated like celebrities and the attendees don’t get to spend any time with them. In my mind, many of those events put profit over attendee experience. But I believe that if we’re going to really change this game, we have to create something that is so unforgettable that people will be inclined to talk about it. It’s intimate, real connections form, and the even itself becomes a story worth telling. It may not scale, but it doesn’t have to.
The Risk of Something That Might Not Work
At the start of 2013, I interviewed Seth Godin for my podcast. I asked him about the various projects he works on. Rather than provide any tactics, he gave me one piece of advice.
“Anytime I start a project, I say to myself, this might not work.”
The result is really interesting projects that shift paradigms, make the impossible possible and change lives. But the chance that it might not work keeps people in their comfort zones, following best practices, playing it safe and obliterating any chance of being labeled remarkable.
In one week we open up applications for our first in person event, The Instigator Experience. Below is a sneak peak at a few of our speakers
I’m the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where I have weekly conversations with creative entrepreneurs and other insanely interesting people. Our guests have included bloggers, authors, bank robbers, happiness researchers and world famous cartoonists.
