Weber Shandwick-sponsored SMAC brunch at SXSW, from left to right, New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author and artist Hugh MacLeod, privacy and identity expert Adriana Lukas
South by Southwest. BlogWorld. Salesforce.com DreamForce. Radian6 User Conference. f8. Mom 2.0. BlogHer. Evo Conference. WOMMA Summit. Our team has invested quite a bit of this year time at digital and social media conferences, ones where Weber Shandwick clients executed programs and others where Weber Shandwick had a leading role, including several where I had the privilege to speak on a panel or moderate a discussion.
I have always found attending conferences to be valuable opportunities to learn and grow outside of the day-to-day business environment but as I reflect back on 2011, I can think of four key criteria that can serve as smart barometers to determine if it’s a valuable investment of time for your team time and your resources.
Can you meet new people or strengthen relationships with individuals that are critical to your business? The adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” has never been more valid. Hearing first-hand and talking with the people who can help our clients, whether they are bloggers, heads of media networks or the chief marketers behind brands with which you might partner down the road. Knowing people (who know people) continues to be a way we work to help clients reach their goals.
Will a company be in attendance through a demonstration or an exhibit that provides an offering that helps your clients reach its goals, helps deliver solutions in a more cost-effective manner? The solutions we provide for clients are no longer best limited to the talent, skills and technology an agency has internally. There’s always another company out there with an emerging platform, a startup that’s trying to take a challenge or gap faced today and turn it into a revenue-generating opportunity for tomorrow. We keep our ears to the ground to find the best and brightest solutions always.
Will people be attending that could be good additions to your staff and team? It’s always tough to find great talent as this article in the New York Times recently pointed out. But we’ve personally met a lot of people at conference that we’ve either hired, tried to hire or that we keep in close touch with should a need come up down the road where they would be a perfect fit. When you’re trying to staff teams at an agency and there’s a new need, it’s always easier to go to someone you know personally through professional networking than to look through a stack of resumes.
Can your attendance help place a spotlight on your company and better position it to be a choice for talent and a choice for clients? Our firm wins dozens of awards every year but the ones that always mean the most to me are the workplace awards, the ones like when Mashable called out Weber Shandwick as one of the top four places to work in social media. When we attend conferences as representatives of Weber Shandwick, we can be visible in the marketplace in a way that’s not replicable through the daily work we handle for our clients.
What do you look for when you attend a conference and where do you find value?
Jackie Danicki
• Nov. 23, 2011 at 8:36 pm
My favorite events are the ones where those treasured hallway conversations are brought as close to the dais as possible. The traditional, formal format of events feels increasingly antiquated as our informal social networks get more valuable, online and offline.
Also, events like SXSW are great because literally EVERYBODY shows up, from all corners of the earth. It’s the one place where I know I’ll see friends from LA, SF, NY, London, Berlin, Dublin, South America…It’s about getting energized for the possibilities. That magic only happens with the right mix of smart people and the time/space to connect.