Commentary
Do We Need A Different Kind Of Search Conference?
- by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, September 17, 2009
Let me give you one example. Earlier this year, I was at a client's internal summit, talking about the importance of "Getting It." I looked at the 100-some assembled people, responsible for driving forward the digital strategy of this company, and asked the fateful question, "How many people here are senior C-level executives in the company?" Not one hand went up. Oops! Houston, we have a problem.
advertisement
advertisement
Where are the Actionable Takeaways?
Most of the events I speak at focus on giving attendees actionable "to-dos" to take home. In fact, I've been told time and again: give people a list of things they can do Monday when they get back in the office. That makes sense. Conference organizers have learned that attendees find the most value in these things. Yet I tend to ignore the advice of these conference organizers and talk about things like research, understanding buyer behavior and how this integrates into marketing strategy.
Increasingly, I'm seeing more confused looks in the audience:
"Where is my top ten things-to-do checklist? This guy is just giving me more questions, not answers."
This disappointment bothers me, because at my heart, I desperately seek approval.
But, in those sessions, after the rest of the crowd has dispersed to look for a speaker with a list of things they can do Monday, there are also a handful of people that come up to me and thank me profusely. They seem to operate at a different level: a strategic level. I've seen this pattern over and over again, and as I said, it's been bothering me.
Are the Takeaways Really Actionable?
Here's the biggest thing that bothers me. My suspicion, borne out by several conversations with people that attend these shows, is that very few of these "to-do" tips that make the list ever get implemented. Months later, they still sit somewhere in a conference handbook, quickly jotted in a margin. Stuff just doesn't get done. Why?
The people that attend these conferences don't control their to-do lists. On Monday, their list gets put aside to respond to the all the other things they have to do -- because they're not calling the shots. The to-do list is being determined by priorities that have been put in place somewhere else by someone else. People come back from conferences with a list of "what" to do, but unfortunately no one told their bosses "why" they should do it. The bosses don't often go to search conferences.
Less "What" and More "Why"
"Why" doesn't come from to-do lists. "Why" comes from seeing things in the big picture. "Why" comes from "getting it." The people who go to search shows already get it. That's why they have the job they do. You don't have to explain to them why this "what" stuff is important. They understand at a fundamental level. But eventually they leave the conference hall, full of other people who get it and with whom you've swapped stories about how your boss desperately doesn't "get it." Monday, you're plunged back into a culture where "what" is not aligned with "why."
There are no easy answers here. Even if you have that rare CEO or boss who gets it, you need a fully integrated culture that is committed to executing at the highest level of "getting It" from top to bottom. Everyone in the company has to agree on the "why" and the "what." And I've yet to see a conference or summit that manages to pull that trick off.
Gord, great post. I couldn't agree with you more.
good point Gord. It's rare to find sound "to-do's" and even if you do find them, it's hard to implement due to mixed priorities and lack of time at the office. i think the challenge is the DMs that send folks want to see some ROI (whether it be subjective or hard metrics in performance results) for attending the conference. Sales people that attend want to see leads and media buyers want to see insight/ actionable info or results. I think it's necessary to manage expectations and clearly outline the objectives of going to events.
additionally, i do find it hard to attend conferences with thought-provoking content. Search Insider Summit is as close as it gets. most of the time, you might get a good keynote that speaks to marketplace/ research/ strategy and the rest is about the front line.
either way, good read gord!
Gord, we have been writing about this for the longest time. Welcome aboard and thanks for a great post.
Amen, amen, AMEN!
I posted about this issue back in January; see:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=98131
I caught plenty of flak from this article but it was worth it :)
Really excellent post!
Frank makes a good point: that "10 to-dos" make for a great post-show cost-justification argument. Sadly, though, the need for such justifications merely underlines the fact that - above a certain level in almost every business - managers do not care, and do not want to know about either the big picture, or the details.
I suspect this, too, relates in some cases to cost-justification. Increasingly, the job of top managers (and to some extent, all managers) is to allocate limited resources among competing projects and strategies. And there seems among some managers to reside a sentiment that if they were to know too much about any given thing, they might 'get religion' and lose the ability to strangle their runts impartially.
This kind of syndrome is murder on innovation, because (among other things) it assumes that you can compare, say, the cost of doing a weekly web conference, with the equivalent cost of mastering a new and potentially game-changing technology. The web conference wins every time.
Here here! The tactical search people who attend most of the conferences are in the mindset of optimizing demand-capture, not business growth strategy. That's important, but only part of the equation.
I'd like to support your point by drawing a parallel to U.S. Hispanic marketing. Bottom line, we have found that if the effort is not a part of the overall corporate strategy, the effort will remain a tactic to the overall organization. If search is not seen as mandatory to the viability of the business or presented as a key competitive advantage at the corporate level, search, like Hispanic marketing, will remain a tactic. The question that I can hear the executive ask themselves is: why should search be a strategic corporate initiative? For many today, search is perceived as a tactic. It is not only the job of agencies but also the few trade associations to take this initiative to the next level. A business case will need to be presented to key senior executives before the organization is convinced that search is a strategic imperative. Once that happens, change can quickly come from the top down, spurring the growth of not only the business (and hence the organizational culture) but even the industry, itself.
Good post.
Your observations are on target -- search marketing conferences are essentially the same type user group meetings we used to have for DEC and HP twenty to thirty years ago. They are all about tactics. Reaching the C level executives means speaking at their conferences and using their frameworks. Membership in The Conference Board is all about corporate strategies. The SIIA - Software and Information Industry Association - is another corporate membership. Separately, research on search per se, is not widely developed--it's not computer science or marketing. The closest is library and information science, and that has lagged.
You're right on target. I would refine that argument and say that the right people to get in the room are the C-Level Marketing Execs. In order to transform search from a tactical exercise to a strategic initiative, these people need to understand the increasing role that search can have in any given brand positioning process.
If search provides a solution to those seeking it, and your brand is well-positioned to provide a solution at that very moment, then the bonds for building a relationship can be established right then and there, with the added opportunity to consummate that relationship and achieve marketing objectives.
It's not the conference that needs changing.