Creating a Different Kind of Event

The most important lesson from the Great Digital Migration of marketing events in the months since the pandemic took hold is that you can’t simply lift and shift the thing that worked so well in a physical world and expect it to make any sense whatsoever in digital. 

There are many good reasons why we were once all so willing (and perhaps now desperately pining for) the days of riding on airplanes, suffering bad conference food in crowded/tacky venues, and schlepping to far-flung locales in the pursuit of an industry event fix and, I assure you, every single one of them was social. Cocktail receptions, afterparties, booth visits, and hallway dialogues were where the real magic happened at these physical events and every attempt that I’ve seen to replicate that experience in digital has utterly failed.

Which is why, with The Customer Room, our weeklong digital event next month, we’re leaning into some fresh thinking about what really works in digital. Here are the key points of difference:

• Free and flexible registration--Register for what you want to attend and forget the rest and don’t worry about looking for budget or expensing a ticket. This is on us. 
• Self paced--Two short sessions a day over the course of a week may or may not fit into your schedule. Register now and watch whatever you want, live or later. 
• Snackable content--We’re not going to staple you to your office chair for hours on end. Two sessions a day, 45 minutes each, plus 15-minute daily musical interludes.
• Discussion and dialogue--Zoom fatigue is real, my friends, which is why we’re not pushing PowerPoint until your eyes fairly bleed. Interesting discussions, debates and even a couple workshops will keep you engaged in ways appropriate to the medium.
• Higher purpose--Look, we’re not changing the world here, but with all of the change and upheaval happening right now, we all need to contribute to the discussion. We’ll have sessions on diversity and inclusion, adapting to the new normal, and we’ve partnered with a community of notable Nashville musicians displaced by COVID-19. 

We’re delivering something that we believe is fresh and innovative--an event that pushes the boundaries of form and function, but not to the point of performance art. Form should always follow function. This event still has the clear, straightforward purpose of sharing perspectives and insights that make us all better in the craft and disciplines of revenue and customer roles. 

What we’re leaving behind are the stale artifacts of physical events that simply don’t work in the digital medium. There will be no awkward, disembodied virtual booth visits. There will be no lonely virtual cocktail receptions. No DJs jamming out into the abyss. 

But, yes, there will be music! Just enough to cleanse the palate between sessions, and with a social mission and an eclectic and soulful alternative to traditional conference white noise.  

I genuinely hope you’ll attend. If you’re responsible for revenue and/or managing customer relationships, the discussions will surely impact your thinking. Or if you have a stake in producing digital events yourself, I also hope you’ll attend just to give it a look.

Register now for The Customer Room, Sept. 21-25, from the comfort of your home office.