Impressions of #Inbound2017
Had the awesome opportunity to attend Hubspot’s Inbound marketing + tech event, and it was pretty good.
I was never a huge fan of Boston. Growing up rooting for the Buffalo Bills, the NY Knicks, and the NY Mets, I had always held the success of rival New England teams in contempt purely out of their consistent success & their sketchy methods to reach such noted achievements. From my Mass friends, I had heard the city is clean, has some great seafood, boasts a lot of historic American venues, and is home to some of the top universities in the world.
Whatever man, this city and its residents consider Dunkin Donuts to be on the same level as a bodega. How can one take these opinions seriously?
Fortunately, Inbound 2017 changed my perception of the city, and the four days at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center was undoubtedly the best professional conference I’ve had the opportunity to attend. As the Comms Director for Wethos, I embarked on a solo mission to network with potential freelancers, nonprofits, & strategic partners that would be interested in joining our nonprofit revolution. Inbound’s well coordinated programming ensured that my assignment would be straightforward and successful.
The beginning of Inbound included a beautifully executed happy hour for attendees that were sent independently by their respective organizations. The soirée was held before the conference’s opening ceremonies at a seaside bar that was a 5 minute walk from the conference, which included free food and free swag.
Everyone in attendance was approachable, friendly, and in high spirits, and the organizers made a point to make everyone feel welcome & facilitated networking conversations with people in similar industries. I was pleasantly surprised to see that men and women from the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, and even Canada were all at the event and happily claimed that this wasn’t their first Inbound.
While I spent a great portion of my time passing out my card and meeting interested nonprofits, I had made a few friends along the way, and we created a WhatsApp group, titled “Inbound Mavens.” My only complaint about the happy hour? Cash bar. Got a decent buzz, and with my new group of companions, we set forth to the open remarks.
After a seamless pick up for my badge and lanyard, I entered the venue and was immediately impressed with the set up. Dimmed lights, well remixed music, comfy bean bag chairs +couches, free massages, snacks stands, electrical outlet stations, and plenty of floor space for booths and business discussions. Well designed, curated, and executed Hubspot. TedX speaker and academic Brene Brown kicked off the festivities with an inspirational address about her hometown of Houston and how the recovery efforts brought people together in a time of tremendous political divide.
Afterwards, open bar at the convention. Called it an early night, and went back to my hotel.
Over the next three days, I got to workshop with some the brightest marketing professionals in the game, witness nuanced demonstrations of up and coming tech platforms from all around the world, and hear dynamic speeches from accomplished individuals like Piera Gelardi of Refinery29, Insecure’s Issa Rae, author Adam Grant, NYT columnist Wajahat Ali, & Uber’s Bozoma Saint John.
And of course, I got to check out the Girl from the South Side and former First Lady Michelle Robinson Obama.
FLOTUS discussed her former legal career in Chicago and described the challenges that women face everyday in pursuit of their professional ambitions. She shared some of her memories from the White House and shared her thoughts on what it was like to raise children in such a scrutinized and public setting. She got political, but didn’t even once use POTUS 45’s name and still kept it classy. Biggest takeaway from Mrs. Obama was definitely her advice to the audience: “Be your authentic self.”
Naturally, the security for the Michelle Obama event was at a larger scale, but with over 21,400 registered participants, the line and seating transition was very well coordinated and my hats goes off to the Hubspot team for maintaining a clean and orderly 4 days.
From a social perspective, this was undoubtedly an incredibly fun event. Hubspot showcased Boston’s beautiful Seaport district and the energy at the happy hours and after parties were infectious and exciting.
Are there a few things I think #Inbound2017 could do better for next year? Sure, they might be nitpicky af but I’ll list them below.
- Having a Community Pass (the cheapest option) should at least allow guests the chance to be on stand-by for breakout sessions, especially when that session has significant capacity for more audience members. I understand that there’s an incentive for Hubspot to offer these workshops to the All Access + VIP people, but I definitely felt like Community Pass people often found themselves wondering during the breakout periods, just looking to fill the time or networking with a fellow CPer.
- General consistency of info from Hubspot + Inbound workers. A few times I asked about Hubspot’s platforms or even about the event scheduling, but found myself encountering different levels of communication from people wearing the same shirt and branding. Nothing too major, I understand Hubspot needs to hire some hands to help with the conference, but at least slightly differentiate the two parties so I know who to talk to about what.
- A more structured way to meet people in a similar industry. Obviously, this is billed as a marketing conference, and most the attendees are in sales, business development, communications, yada yada yada. But besides the Inbound Solo happy hour, it was slightly more tedious to track down potential nonprofit users for Wethos’ platform, and it would’ve been nice to see people’s orgs in larger font on their name tags. Is that too network-y to lower my gaze past the name and towards their respective company? Maybe. Maybe next year, distinct happy hour for people in various fields like Tech, Nonprofit, Sales, Legal, Marketing, SEO, etc?
These are small things I noticed, but overall, #Inbound2017 was an absolute blast to attend and it convinced me that Boston is not as terrible as previously imaged. Can’t wait to register for Inbound 2018 (maybe even as a All Access guy)!
