E-venting.net

Squeezing Ever More Productivity from your Speaking Gig

Congratulations. You were invited, accepted or otherwise negotiated for a speaking role at an upcoming conference. Obviously, you're going to do some preparation to make sure you know the topic and are prepared to make the most of your stage time. But to take full advantage of the opportunity speakers need to realize that what the audience in their sessions hear them say is just a fraction of the value they can gain from an event. Here's how to take a wide-angle view of your next gig in order to squeeze as much value as possible out of it:

• Your role as a speaker begins the day you learn of the gig, and ends when the conference producer dies. Your audience are the people peering at you on stage, but your principal consituency is the person who put you on stage in the first place. As soon as you've landed a gig, do whatever you can to help promote the event for the producer, including blogging about it, issuing press releases, inviting your clients personally, etc. Want to make a huge impression? Negotiate a co-op ad buy with the conference producer to run banners about your session on the conference website or elsewhere online. Why? Because good speakers possess two very distinct attributes: they do a great job on stage, and they make the conference producer's job a little easier. Add value at every step - instead of requiring maintenance - and you're a shoe-in for the producer's next event as well. And the one after that, and after that.
• Prepare an exclusive announcement. Maybe your session will have 50 people in it, maybe 500. Either way, it's a bigger audience than who reads your press releases, which you probably deliberate over for days and limit only to the biggest news. And since many attendees (and fellow speakers) blog about the events they're at, each pair of ears is attached to its own amplifier, just like the press. Only they've wilfully selected to come and hear you, and in doing so are hoping you'll reward them with some fresh, new, unique, exclusive announcement, piece of data, case study, or witty epigram. Let them down at your own peril.
• Treat your fellow panelists like your best customers. Even if you're a CEO and you're seated on the panel next to an Assistant Manager. Remember that anyone in the audience evaluating you as a potential partner is doing so based in part on what your company offers, and also in part on what kind of partner you personally will be. There's room for controversy and some adversity on stage, but never at the expense of graciousness. I've seen too often a speaker attack his fellow panelists and clearly win each micro debate both on merits and on volume, only to end up alienating himself in the process. And I've got the audience feedback forms to prove it. (This advice comes from me in my trade marketing consultant hat, not my conference producer hat: a villian makes for a great session. But don't expect to play the villian if you're my client.)
• Be in the audience, as well as on stage. 2 reasons for this: (1) There are likely dozens of really interesting speakers from remarkable companies at the same event. It's highly probable that you will learn something and find someone you want to do business with. (2) It's important to remember what it's like to be in the audience when you're on stage yourself. Identify what makes a session valuable to you (data points, strong opinions, epigrammatic wit, organic and authentic conversation) and what bores you (pitches, self-promotion, universal consensus, session time wasted on intros and background). Keep all of it in mind when it's your turn.
• Send a Thank You note to the producer. Don't you dare call this self-evident. It's not. I programmed a show a few months ago with no fewer than 170 speakers, each of whom I was in personal contact with leading up to the event. The show was a blockbuster success, with 2500+ attendees and full rooms in every session. And I did get some thank-you notes afterwards: 2 of them. Out of 170 speakers. Remember, the person who puts you on stage is doing you a favor, not the other way around.
• Your word is your bond. Understandably, conflicts come up and speakers must drop out. But drop out with less than 2 weeks before the show and no matter how passionately you adhere to all the points above, you just made the List. Oh, and remember that you are not your company. If you do drop out, you should absolutely offer up a replacement from your company or elsewhere - but don't simply assume that your speaking role is transferable to someone else. You think more of yourself than that, don't you?

Why You'll Lose if You Compete on Content

I came to a discouraging conclusion yesterday when talking to one of my clients about marketing their conferences. They want to stay on the high road and be known for having the best content in their industry. In fact, the main reason they hired me was to achieve for them exactly that - Rule by Content.

The trouble is, I can't give it to them. My principal job with show producers is to help them create the best possible content at their shows, and use this superior content as a meaningful point of differentiation against competitors. And I'm unable to do it.

I'm not one for shirking responsibilities, but I don't think my failure is entirely my fault. I think you can't win on content. Why? Because there is nothing unique about one show's content over another. Sure, sessions can have more interesting titles and precise panel composition, and program directors can use feedback forms vigilantly to weed out poor speakers and re-engage stars. But there's nothing you can labor and sweat over that your rival can't simply copy, and quickly. I've programmed shows with 4-tracks and 20+ sessions in two months. If I'm nimble and connected (which I am), I can skim the cream off any show out there and stir it into mine. And launch before the shows I'm poaching from.

I don't do this, of course. But the way conferences within an industry work with and against each other almost ensures that the content is about the same. You see, programmers select their speakers and content from a few different sources:

1. Speaker and Session Proposals
2. Sponsors who buy their way in
3. Past experience

But all of these sources draw from finite and duplicated pools of potential speakers. Any company sponsoring your show (2) is also sponsoring your competitors' shows, and buying their way as speakers into all of them. For many companies, it's cheaper and more reliable than a PR firm retainer. And your past experience (3) is comprised of who you've seen speak and speak well at your shows. Think they got to be good speakers only speaking at your shows? Even speaker proposals (1), which are often the best source for finding speakers and companies not heavily on the circuit can backfire. When they submit to your show, you can be sure that the exact same proposal (or a near copy) is going to rival programmers. Believing that you're the only one who sees the potential in this speaker or company or topic is to underestimate your competitors, which is foolish. If you invite them in, know that your rivals will too.

I'm almost using "speakers" to be synonomous with "content"' and that's not entirely fair. They're very different to the people who attend the shows and diligently sit through the sessions. But the vast majority of people who learn about your show through your marketing will equate content with speakers. If they've seen that list of speakers before, they're likely to believe it's the same old thing they've heard before. It's rare when you hear a conferee remark, "Oh, she's speaking in that session? I saw her at a show last month. She was great. I'll go see her again." Instead it's, "Nah, already know what she has to say. I'm gonna go into the lobby and make some calls."

I've thought for a long time on this next point, and it's almost too simplistic to be true, but I believe it:

The only meaningful point of differentation a conference can achieve is through networking. Everything else is the absence of a negative.

When I was a Marketing Manager at a Fortune 500 company about 10 years ago, I was proud to be able to tell my then-boss that I was working towards my MBA part-time. Satisfied but unimpressed he remarked, "an MBA is the absence of a negative." What he meant was that you didn't get points for having one, but you'd lose points if you didn't. It was a cost of doing business in marketing departments then.

I don't mean to discourage everyone who toils and tears over all aspects of show production - operations, programming, sponsorship sales, vendor liaison, and on and on. I've done it all and I know these functions are important. But only inasmuch as they don't give the audience a reason not to come back. Nobody will rave about your show if they're sped quickly and efficiently through registration, but if they have to wait 30 minutes to get their badge it will color their whole experience. And I've never seen a response on a feedback form inquiring into the attendees' favorite things about the conferece, "The chairs in the general session were super comfy!" But make someone who spent $1100 stand in the back because you over sold (or under set) and you may have lost them for good.

Sadly, I believe the same thing holds true with content. If it's the same pool of speakers on similar topics, how can it not?

But there is a perception that content at one show is better than another, and here's how that happens, and what you can do to put your content's best foot forward:

• Manage expectations. The greatest disappointment I've heard from conferees is not that the content isn't any good, but it's that it's not what they were expecting to hear. Make certain that the speakers discuss the topic exactly as it's presented to the audience. Your attendees are evaluating not what they hear in an absolute sense, but what they hear relative to what they expected to hear, even if it's less interesting to you. It's like when you bet on the ponies - if you bet a horse to Show (come in third place or better), you win more if that horse comes in third than you do if he wins. (I'm conservative - I always bet to show.)
• Remember my blog, E-venting.net. This is an absurdly narrow blog on a topic important only to a few hundred people in the whole world (most of whom seem to be in Canada, strangely). But you're one of them, and you're reading it. And the reason you are is because I'm producing the content I'm uniquely qualified to produce, and letting the audience for it (however small) find me. When you program your shows, be very conscious of as narrow an audience as you can. If you want 1000 people to come to your show, and try to find topics relevant to all 1000, you'll be so watered down that you'll get 200 if you're lucky, and send them all away unsatisfied. This means conscious segmentation, and swallowing the bitter pill which is the realization that you can't program a show for everyone in your industry. You can't. There is too much diversity of company type, company size, seniority or tenure, functional responsibility and domain expertise. No matter what industry you're in. What's that? You run a show now that brings in all those people? Harvest it, now. As your audience becomes increasingly demanding for specific content and interactions in all channels, there's no place to go but down from where you are.
• Start, but don't finish, conversations from the stage. I would have put this in the point above about the blog, if I had enough comments here to make a point. Many programmers think their objective is to create ALL the show's content. It's not. They should be focused more on catalyzing conversations than wrapping up points nicely at the end of a session. Good blogs do this, where a post of 200 words spurs conversations in the comments of several thousand words. I don't know what the right ratio is for conferences, but it sure isn't 50 minutes of panel discussion / 10 minutes of audience Q&A. Let your conferees take some responsibility for what they came to learn - they'll do a better job than you can, and cement their loyalty to the show in the process. Think of this: let's say you run a 45-minute session on 'Best Practices and Case Studies in Hoozenfaffer Ubbaglub,' a topic of particular interest to your attendees given the pending Hoozen legislation. And let's say that in your 45-minute session, each of your 3 presenters sucks. And by "sucks" I mean that they're good, but not rock stars (because that's "sucks" means to someone paying $1100 to be there and taking 2 days off from work). Session ends; grumbling audience files out, complaining of wasting 45 minutes. Now let's say that instead of going to the next session, there is a 45-minute structured peer networking session on the exact same topic, where everyone joins tables of fellow conferees and even the speakers to vet the session topics. Even if someone says, "Well that sucked. I didn't learn anything. Here's what I know about Hoozie-Ubb..." and someone else says, "I agree that it sucked. But I disagree with what you just said because..." Suddenly the content as catalyst has redeemed the time invested.

So you see why I think the networking is the most important part. But it shouldn't be separate from the content, as it usually is. It's not the 45-minute break in the exhibit hall, or the cocktail party in the club that's so loud and social that you feel like a jackass by even asking someone, "So how do you handle your Hoozie-Ubb situation?"

The other point I'd make about networking is that it's a quality game, not quantity. If 200 of my peers are at a conference, mixed in with 800 people who aren't, I suppose I can find someone like-minded, though it's no guarantee. But if I have lunch next to one person who has a really provocative point of view and inspires my work in some way, then the conference is worth it.

I believe the show producer's objective is to facilitate that serendipitous meeting, not obviate the need for it.

Speaker Self Promotion = Symbiotic Conference Promotion

My friend Rob Leathern over at AnalystBlog.com is needling Plaxo for a press release that promotes their speaking role at an upcoming conference.

I agree with Rob that it's a crummy topic for a press release. It's certainly not anything any member of the press would be interested in, and seems to belie a gross misunderstanding of trade marketing vehicles - particularly for a Web 2.0 company like Plaxo. In fact, it's almost as if the CEO came out of his office and proudly declared, "I'm speaking at a conference!" to which his assistant snidely remarked, "I'll alert the media." And then did just that.

But...

As foolish as it makes Plaxo's PR department look, the conference producer - Supernova - is likely thrilled with their efforts. If each speaker at a conference promotes their role through their own channels - whether Press Releases or blogs or client / prospect newsletters - it can create a veritable groundswell of mindshare for the show itself, boosting Search Engine results, building relevance for the show's brand and assets, increasing the authority for everything related to the show. This translates into more attendees, happier sponsors, greater coverage of the event itself, and on and on.

So if you're speaking at a conference and you want to be invited to speak at additional conferences, by all means talk about it, blog about it, shout it from the rooftops in every way short of issuing a clumsy press release about it (Rob's right - the reputation liability isn't worth the payoff, which is tiny) - knowing that your primary audience is not your audience, but the show producers themselves.

I'll even go a step further and say that while promoting your involvement at a conference today makes you a more valuable speaker/partner, it's going to quickly become the cost of doing business in the conference biz, and failing to do so in the very near future could get a speaker blackballed.

UPDATE 6/28/06:
Tim Bourquin over at New Media and Tradeshow Startup just called my attention to his post from yesterday, where he rants a bit about what NOT to do if you're a prospective speaker. It's definitely worth a read. Subscribe to Tim's blog (like I just did) so you don't get this day-old second-hand perspective from me.

Writing Better Speaker Proposals (especially if you're a Vendor)

If you're a vendor or technology partner or someone else on the 'sell-side,' speaker proposals are a critical part of your events strategy. And if you're in interactive media, marketing or commerce, your Events Strategy should be a critical part of your overall trade communications program.

I read a lot of Speaker Proposals (and also write them for clients) - probably about 200 in the past 12 months alone. Based on what I find most compelling, here are a few tips to help you get your next speaker proposal accepted:

1. Format your Format: Take a look at the previous agendas for the show you're submitting for to determine what session format is most popular. Is it all panel discussions? Heavy with solo presentations? Vendor / Client case studies? If a show is predominantly roundtable discussions (like the OMMA events), a 45-minute speech by your CEO will simply never get accepted - no matter how topical or relevant you think it is. Play to the odds by submitting a format you know your target show works with. And increase your odds by submitting several formats if the agenda mixes it up.

2. Empathize with your Show Producer: Feel their pain. Figure out what's the hardest part of what they do and submit a proposal that makes their jobs easier. For most of the shows I'm involved in, the hard part is recruiting great speakers for a must-include topic. A submission that nails a topic squarely AND includes pre-confirmed speakers really streamlines a show producer's job.

3. Choose your Moderator like a Show Producer, not a Vendor. Vendors shouldn't be moderators; they should be panelists alongside their clients. This is likely counter-intuitive, as almost every vendor proposal I get includes the vendor as the moderator of a roundtable of clients. But vendors probably have a broader perspective on the topic than most of the panelists, and a better session will take advantage of that perspective. Instead, line up as a moderator someone the show producer would want to have as a moderator anyway - an industry analyst, consultant, journalist, or even a well-known agency exec or client with a particular affinity to the topic. Not only will this increase your chances of getting accepted (because the session will look less like a vendor-submitted session and includes a more well-rounded speaker lineup); it will also better position you during the  session. Not only is an industy expert leading a discussion on a topic highly relevant to your business - they've (seemingly) invited you to join the conversation.

4. Don't merely propose. Instead, Converse. Sure, you can guess what the show producer is looking for by examining past agendas, going to the show, reading blogs to see what sessions and speakers generated strong feedback. Or you can ask the show producer directly what they're looking for and how you can help. It may very well be that the interests your company represents won't be addressed at all at the show, in which case you've saved yourself some time but still made more headway with the show than you would have by submitting a session blindly.

5. Remember your Ulterior Motive: Goodwill. Your principal objective is to get your session accepted and secure a speaking spot for yourself or your colleague or client. But know this - of the 200 or so submissions I reviewed within the past year, fewer than 20 were accepted wholesale. 10%. Since those are your odds, you need a back-up strategy: build goodwill with the show producer. If you / your client is attending the show anyway, say so. (Especially if he/she is paying to attend.) Mention that you're promoting the show on the corporate blog and inviting clients and partners to meet up there. Offer to help secure a client as a speaker for a separate topic even if there's no role for you or your executive. All of this goes a long way towards building a relationship with the show producer, and helps in future efforts.

Have any other tips that have worked for you? Please share them in the comments.

Updated 6-8-06:

6. Propose only what you're Uniquely Qualified to Present On: It may be a great topic, and it may be perfect for the show. But if there are a dozen or more other companies who could present the same thing, there's no reason for a show producer to choose you. In fact, they'll probably just harvest your idea and fine someone more relevant to present. For your submission to stand out, it should be on a topic that's both relevant to this audience AND one which you're Uniquely Qualified to present. Often, this combination simply doesn't exist (a big reason why 90% of proposals are rejected).

How to Craft a Panel

Panel discussions (or roundtable discussions) - where there is a modator and a row of speakers who essentially just opine, and not present from a laptop - remain the gold standard for conference producers, for a few reasons:

- They allow the promotion of 4-6 speakers, which makes for better marketing
- They're easier to coordinate than sessions with multiple presentations, with less QA
- They have a greater chance of spontanaeity, where a good moderator can extract something valuable and unrehearsed from a panelist, creating news, buzz and even some controversy

I personally don't believe they create the best content, and I think the risk of disaster is exceedingly high (one speaker who hijacks the panel, speakers who add little or nothing to the discussion, or everyone simply agreeing - resulting in one insipid hour). But they're popular among show producers, publishers and vendors creating client events, and prospective speakers, who commonly submit an entire session for consideration at a show instead of a solo speaker.

Here then are 6 ways to craft better panel discussions:

1. Build a 360-degree view of the topic. For every topic worth discussing, there are a handful of stakeholder constituencies. Try to get each one represented so that every comment someone makes can be addressed by those it most affects. Every force should have an equal and opposite reaction, otherwise comments are made in a vacuum and reprecussions can be overlooked.

2. Wag the dog, if you have to. If you can't get precisely the right perspectives to talk to the topic as programmed, re-program the topic around the people you DO have. It's better to have speakers talking from their own expertise than it is for them to rely on conjecture. The audience is paying for their expertise, and has plenty of conjecture of their own.

3. Invite the elephant in the room to join the conversation. The best panels start by aiming squarely at the most controversial issues. Choose the right topics, and you increase your odds of a good panel. But not even the best speakers can salvage throwaway topics.

4. All things in moderation, including Moderators. The moderator's job is to facilitate the conversation - by starting it and getting the hell out of its way. In most cases, they shouldn't also act as panelists, infusing their own perspectives into the session. They do this already through the questions they ask, but the biggest fear is that given their lead role it's far too easy for them to hijack the entire panel. Make sure they're clear on their objectives and limits.

5. It's Who they know as well as What they know. Place people on a panel who already know each other and you'll increase your chances of hitting conversations mid-stride, and have at least two people already able to talk naturally - at least with each other. Solicit speaker suggestions from confirmed panelists to do this. One caveat - be wary of vendor/client pairings, as some vendors will clam up around their clients for fear of releasing senstive (proprietary or competitive) information. Better to aim for people who used to work together, but are now at different companies.

6. In the Star Power vs. Brain Power decision, back Brain Power every time. Sometimes the lure is great to put someone on a panel because of his/her company or title, regardless of what he/she believes (and importantly - can communicate) about a topic. Resist, with vigilance. If you go with Star Power and it works out, you'll have more people show up to witness an underwhelming session. OK for this year's show; bad for next year's. But surprise and delight a smaller crowd with whipsmart newcomers or unknowns and you'll generate positive feedback and buzz that can fuel a show's future success.

I always say "craft" panels, and I think that's perhaps the most important word to remember here. Pay attention to what you're doing and how you're doing it, with your eye always on the prize - which is an authentic and productive conversation that's highly relevant to your audience.

But do we make good Moderators?

I've said that Bloggers make good conference speakers, but how are we at moderating?

I guess we'll find out. I'll be moderating a panel on "The State of Online Advertising" at Digital Media Wire's 3rd Annual Digital Media Conference in McLean, VA on June 23rd.

I'm really looking forward to it. I've spent the past 4 years putting other people on stage, coaching speakers and moderators, developing sessions and conversations, but haven't done any speaking myself during that time. But I should. Everyone who programs conferences should try their hand at moderating - somewhere. I plan to follow my own advice to speakers and moderators and see if it works, or if I'm full of crap. (I followed my advice on getting a speaking gig and that seemed to work out, so maybe I'm onto something after all...) And I'll review my performance here, and let you know where I was wrong, and what doesn't work, and otherwise let you profit from whatever pain I engender.

I used to be an analyst, and I remember saying then that one of the hardest things about that job was that the longer I spent as an analyst, the more difficult it was to understand the industry because I was no longer a practitioner of what I was analyzing. Sure I spent tons of hours studying, researching, contemplating, and meeting with folks chin-deep in the field, but I wasn't there grinding it out myself anymore. And I feared that while I had a good grasp of the industry facts and theories, there were nuances of practical execution that eluded me. It was hard for me to feel authentic after a while, so I moved out of research into Event Programming. And now that I've found myself in an Events Ivory Tower, I'm excited to get back to class and learn.

So go forth and moderate.

Why Bloggers Make Good Speakers

Last week I was in Toronto, producing the Sympatico / MSN Digital Ad Summit. Patrick Lauzon, VP of Sales for Sympatico/MSN, had the idea to model their client summit after Microsoft's Strategic Account Summit, and bring in a host of top-tier speakers for individual presentations - essentially a parade of keynotes. So that's what we did. Have a look at the lineup here:

http://www.digitaladsummit.ca

I know a bit about almost all of these speakers - either by seeing them speak at an event (in some cases even inviting them myself), or reading books they have written, or being familiar with their company's research.

But I felt like I knew Steve Rubel and Joseph Jaffe exceptionally well going into the event, because I read their blogs every day. What I noticed about both of their presentations was the freshness of content and examples in it.

Steve was able to talk in the Q&A session about the work his firm, Edelman, is doing with bloggers on behalf of their client Wal-Mart - which is an initiative the firm took some fire over recently, and which Steve defended and responded to candidly on his blog. He also picked up the theme of the "expanding social media universe" from his blog, and updated it with examples from MySpace (he indicated that Edelman is working with a MySpace "star" named Forbidden, who has some 870,000 friends)

Joseph's presentation was a catalog of case studies - his preso itself was a framework that he was able to populate anecdotally with very recent examples of current ad campaigns, and even news from the day before. Joseph is all about topical freshness, and he included some media in his presentation on the AMEX and Tahoe Consumer-Generated campaigns that he blogged about just two days before the show.

What made both of their presentations stand out is that both Steve and Joseph were able to integrate turned-over thoughts on very topical issues, because they had taken the time to write about them very recently. They were both able to apply some big-think theory to very immediate particulars, and their presos rocked as a result.

I think bloggers have a distinct advantage here, because they constantly open public dialogues / debates on sometimes controversial, but usually relevant issues. They take a position half a dozen times a day, and have to defend it against, well, everybody. It's not king of the hill at the playground - it's king of the mountain range, with dozens of peaks to defend.

I've said it before - I think blogs are one of the best places to find conference speakers. Not just because you know what someone's POV is, but because you know they're accustomed to defending it. And as conferences grow more conversational (which I think they will), having speakers who are themselves blogger-conversationalists can only increase show quality.

Working its like Berkowitz

Special thanks to David Berkowitz (no, not that David Berkowitz) for seconding my nomination for the 57th Annual Trade Show and Events Enthusiast of the Year Awards.

That brings me up to 2 nominations, but now I've got momentum.
I'm rockin' like Dokken.
I'm cruisin' like Susan.
And now, thanks to David, I'm workin' its like Berkowitz.

If you've ever been to a show I've programmed you probably know David, as he speaks at a lot of them. He also writes for the MediaPost Search Insider every Tuesday. One of my favorite columns of his chronicles the launch of his blog, and the search implications of gaining some e-notoriety. Definitely worth a read.

And for more on David, there's this.
Warning - nudity! Not suitable for viewing at work.

(Kidding about the nudity, David. Just trying to get you more traffic. Google Analytics doesn't discount for pervs. Yet.)

The Program Director's new Title

Cartoon courtesy of Hugh at gapingvoid. If you like it, check out his blog and also why he's letting his work run free across the world.

-------------

I ran into someone I've known for a while at the MediaPost OMMA Hollywood conference. She knew I worked in Events and saw me carrying my omnipresent game-day clipboard, so assumed I was working at that one. I was. She asked, what, specifically, I do.

"I'm responsible for the show's content - inviting the speakers and shaping the conversations they have on stage," I told her.

"Content?" she asked, taken a little aback. "That's the first time I ever heard of what people say at conferences referred to as 'content.'"

It got me thinking, and so did Hugh's cartoon. It's disappointing that more people don't think of what goes on at events as Content. I describe myself as a 'Conference Producer' or 'Program Director.' More often than not, my role is referred to by others as 'Speaker Coordinator' or 'Planner.'

But I think a conference is very much like a publication, or what a publication should be. It's expert voices carefully selected, and focused around issues and topics which are editorially determined. But better than newspapers or magazines, this process is interactive, where people on both sides of the stage can join in, and where the value of the content thusly produced increases with the number of voices contributing to it. It's a network model and value proposition, governed - like other networks - by Metcalfe's Law.

Some conferences are like a blog, where the editorial voice is very strong and almost all commentary revolves around it. SES is a good example, where Danny Sullivan's voice is heard in every discussion.

But most are more like an online publisher who really gets social media - like the New York Times, or The Washington Post, or CNET. They're conversations that start on stage among a small group, and spill into the audience, and into the hallways, and onto the web as they're picked up live by journalists, reporters and other observers.

What do you call a person who initiates that process? 'Program Director' suggests too much control - we should be willing to cede that to speakers and, importantly, audience. 'Coordinator' connotes a role that is largely logistical.

John Battelle, one of the founders of Boing Boing, refers to himself as that site's 'Band Leader.' That's a good title, and appropriate for his role there.

But it's taken, so we need to come up for a new one specific to conferences.

How about:

• Conference Editor
• Program Catalyst
• Chief Microphone
• Conference Conductor
• Arrangement Architect

Any thoughts?

Welcome to the Next Seller's Market

My article this week for MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider was entitled 'Welcome to the Next Seller's Market.' It's based on observations made at OMMA Hollywood, which make it pretty clear that publishers' stars are on the rise right now. I believe there is more industry interest in what new inventory (particularly video) publishers come up with, than there is in how much advertisers are spending online, and on what. All the conversations skewed in that direction; publishers' sessions were more full than those on creative or search or email or even Web 2.0.

The anecdote at the end of the article, about the diary of an 11 year-old boy in 1946, was found through my fiancee's blog - Bethesda Rookie. Her friend is in Bali, and it's her father's childhood diary (and her blog) I referenced.

If you haven't read the article, don't intend to, but are still mildly curious about what I'm talking about, here's an excerpt:

There are a thousand reasons for this shift in the market equilibrium, and while identifying, vetting and ranking them would be an entertaining and self-congratulatory debate, I'll leave it to someone else. At some point in the past year, online had its Chuck Fruit moment. It had a thousand Chuck Fruit moments. So here we are-- now what do we do to smooth out the valley that will inevitably follow this peak?

So far it looks like we're doing what we did last time:

• Google is raising another couple billion dollars, and joining a VC firm is suddenly fashionable again.
• The press release wars have been joined again (and the battle has expanded into the blogosphere).
• Start-ups (particularly in social media) are leading with their exit strategy once more, aiming more at getting acquired than building a sustainable business.
• We're scheduling, programming, promoting, sponsoring and attending industry events with a fervor not seen since 2000.

None of this is bad, of course (particularly the last bit about events). But as we go down this road again, we have to be mindful--vigilant, even--about remembering previous missteps. Now would be a good time to reread business plans or strategy powerpoints from 2000--not for resurrectible ideas, but retrospective wisdom. They may be the closest things we have to a diary, like this one that I found excerpted on a blog just today.

An 11-year-old boy began this diary in 1946, and revisited his entries almost four years later. "I found this diary and read it. I sure must have been girl crazy," he reflects. I hope we can be as wise about our future as a 15-year-old was about his past.