Time to plan the content!
It's June, and already we're right in the thick of content planning for Conversations 2007. What's that you say? Isn't that at the end of October? Sounds like YOU have never planned content for a 1000 person user conference before!
The challenge every year is that there's always so much we want to talk about -- so many topics, valuable customer speakers, product launches, and industry trends to bring to the attention of our audience. (When they’re not playing golf or soaking up the Florida sun, of course.) How do you squeeze all that content into a 2 1/2 day conference?
Hell if I know. (Shrug).
Oh, wait a second -- I'm supposed to be running point on this sucker. Ahem. Let me try again: "We will rigorously evaluate past customer surveys, submissions to our Call for Speakers, internally nominated sessions, and corporate messaging requirements, and balance these with the logistics of our multiple presenters and the need for business units to achieve a successful variety of thought-provoking insightful sessions for our conference goers." (I did say I was in marketing, right?)
In plainer terms, we're going to take a look at what our customers are asking about, see who's interested in speaking (internally and externally), and look at the overlap. Then we'll fill in the gaps, finding speakers for topics of interest, and in some cases topics for good customer stories. In the end it'll be a lot like planning a wedding -- here's a list of people the Mobile family wants to invite, here's a list the Sales family wants to see, and here are all the people that the Customer Care folks simply must have. Put those together... and you’ve got three times as many invitations as you have spaces! Sigh…
fortunately, the end result is always very strong -- a great cross-section of industry leaders, valuable metrics from successful deployments, unique insights from folks "in the know" -- and I've yet to hear anyone walk away from Conversations feeling it was not worth it.
What do you want to hear about at Conversations this year? Let me know -- I'm listening!
Comment Notification
If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here
Subscribe to this post's comments using