The Problem with “Social Media” Events is….#smwf
Conference and exhibition format has been the same for a very long time; yet the digital industry has changed dramatically.
- Events are sponsored by those organisations who wish to market themselves
- They are offered speaking slots for doing so
- The result is – those who spend the money get the platform
- A few Keynote speakers are invited, who are authoritative and influential, and they draw the punters in
- They employ a “personality” facilitator who has no real idea about the subject matter, and they make several faux pas throughout the gig
- Event organisers make money from a hot topic. (That’s why they do it)
Two to three years ago, in the earlier days of social media, this format worked. Why? Well it was a fairly new subject for the vast majority and explaining the intricacies of the SEO benefits of social web engagement and how Twitter worked was all well and good. The innovative and early adopter digital agencies could hold a platform. All was good and the bandwagon was playing a tune that everyone danced too.
"Cleverness" has levelled out. The value of interaction is in the platforms.
Now, in 2010, social media is mature. It has crossed the chasm and the majority are adapting it. (Of course, there are the Laggards, who are still sceptical and probably have turn ups on their trousers. These people will always exist in any industry. They are probably still using faxes as well.) Anyway, the hype has passed and more importantly, the knowledge gap has closed. People, you, me, within organisations, within agencies, as consumers all now have a fairly good general knowledge of the subject. Maybe not all the intricacies…but certainly the main body of meat. Therefore, events that offer authoritative platforms to people who pay for the privilege, to present to well versed audiences are virtually doomed to failure. We’re not talking about the social platforms, as they are the key holders. They have people in huge volumes (we all know the stats, of which 96% are made up on the spot) and hence offer real value. We all want to hear from them. We’re talking about the people who claim to know how to help an organisation engage with people via these platforms. The “Social Media Gurus”.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea for a future event to use the power of “social” and use the knowledge, expertise and experience within the audience in a “Wisdom of Crowds” way. i.e. We hear from the major social platforms providers (Facebook, Twitter etc) to understand their strategy and forthcoming functionality; and then facilitate idea sharing; polling etc., using social media to invite comments and thoughts directly from the audience, of how this new platform functionality could be used to provide value to people and organisations at the same time. We’re not talking small group break out, workshop, measurement camp stuff. We mean large groups and real time sharing and commentary. The social web technology is there to achieve this…we just need the people in the “arena”. And there is certainly a thirst for this. Harnessing our collective wisdom would provide real value…wouldn’t it?
People in the audience will contribute to the session; share their wisdom and walk away with some real nuggets; as opposed to sales pitches and well tailored individual “guru” opinion. There are very, very few social media gurus out there (We all know Tommy is one and will always remain so) the knowledge gap has closed; and very few can offer an authoritative “preaching” presentation of how to use social media. We’ve moved quickly in the last few years and caught up. Hence our Social Media Fairy Tale, we believe is now becoming a reality. People can see through the hype and bullshit being spun….time to move on.
Nice perspective. I have one comment.
Social Media may be mature as a platform(s) but mainstream audience and the industry that supports it within a business context certainly is not.
Dan
It’s scary isn’t it. This is why we feel “social media events” shouldn’t be isolated, in the same way it shouldn’t be isolated within a business. It should be integrated into everything. It’s classic Geoffrey Moore Crossing the Chasm malarky type stuff. We have definitely crossed it haven’t we?
Great post – one thing that social media is lacking is the right tools to enable real time audience participation.
Fortunately we’ve thought of this – we’ve built tools to enable real time audience interaction – have a look at http://www.livetalkback.com – the results are stunning, whether on TV, or live audiences – it does mean that you need to think about how to change the content to engage the audience.
Or maybe a simple “vote off the speaker if he’s boring” is enough of a start.
We’ll “check it out”….a bit like the old Tesco’s ad’ and something 1980′s rappers used to say.
Interesting comments Tommy, and absolutely appears to mirror the tweets from the event.
Andy Headworth (last comment) will agree with me, that the SMWF could learn a little from the Recruitment Unconference, organised by Bill Boorman – that took place in London in Feb, and subsequently is going to Dublin (wahey!), Manchester and the US.
Although directed at the recruitment industry (internal and external), it was a great place for anyone to be. The format is – as you propose – group discussion based; and frankly a bit of a `free-for-all`; hence the `UN-conference` title.
Discussions are led by `track leaders`, who are experts – sure – but also conversation leaders, and contribution in most part comes from the audience – and more wisdom would often come from the floor than from the chairs at the front. No-one was selling anything, to anyone – it was all about shared knowledge, ideas and ok – a few smug smart alecs – but we loved them too. (frankly it was very UN-recruitment – in fact it should be called the UNrecruitment Unconference!!)
I’m in no place to criticise the SM events, because I haven’t been there – I’m just an observer from afar – but the comments intrigued me – and maybe someone should give Bill Boorman a call…!
(and Tommy Twanker!)
Agreed that there could have been improvements to the conference, especially logistically. However a few alternative viewpoints to consider:
1) I’ve developed Facebook apps and done enough social media stuff for big brands to consider myself knowledgeable but I still learned a few things from some of the presentations. If nothing else, on how to package it up in biz terms to better sell the ideas. So I can imagine what someone new to it could have learned. LOTS of people around me furiously scribbling notes on paper and learning and getting inspired and excited whilst a few industry insiders were busy tweeting a lot of negative comments.
2) Lack of audience questions may have been from fear of looking stupid. I could imagine a person new to twitter looking at all the negative comments and thinking “Wow so many experts and so much criticism, I’d better keep my mouth shut”. There is some responsibility on the “experts” side to make people feel comfortable enough to ask questions. Nobody wants to look stupid around their business peers. Remember when programmers used to make (l)users feel stupid?
3) Give the presenters a little bit of a break. Yeah, some were overly sales pitchy and some seemed like they were full of BS. But how many of the people criticizing have ever made a presentation to 150 people? Trust me, it ain’t easy and even really authentic people who know what they are talking about person-to-person can lose the story or come off as stiff when nervous. How many people that tweet #FAIL during a presentation would yell that out? Twitter commentators need to learn some manners or step up to the plate and show what a better presentation looks like.
With that said, a social media conference that was a lot more social and a lot more interactive would be a welcome experiment. As a final note, if we are bad with the complaints, I can only imagine a conference for conference organizers
Todd, Thanks for your comment. Agree there is a always range of expertise in both audience and presenters at all events. But maybe, SMWF was one of those that had the extremes on both sides. Hadn’t considered the “fear” aspect, which I think is a really valid one. People afraid to comment in case they appear foolish, is not a “vibe” conducive to extracting the most value out of an event.
Using social media (i.e. a Twitterfall) to solicit feedback and opinion, live in a future event, may help over come this fear? People will probably be prepared to throw things “out there” and offer heart felt opinion in this way more readily than having a microphone shoved under their noses.
Also agree that it is the easiest thing to criticise; however, if criticism is constructive and offers alternative solutions then it should be considered. Random #FAIL messages don’t achieve this. Like football fans, however, many people paid a lot of money to attend, and if they feel they didn’t get the value they expected they have the right to say so.
We hope to work with some people to help shape a future event that can hopefully deliver and we can all have an “awesome social media love in”.
Thanks again for your comment.
Twankers
I didn’t go to the 2 Day Conference because:
a) I wasn’t going to pay £800 quid for the privilege of hearing “same s***, different day”
b) I have a phobia about trouser turn-ups
c) I presumed that the exhibition alone would be funky and where it’s at – being that we are all a bunch of very social twankers
All I can say is reading the back channel, and doing 97 circuits of the exhibition, it was hugely disappointing – when I first got to Level 3 at Olympia, and got out of the lift, I almost did a double take and thought I was at the wrong gig…there were suits everywhere!
Okay, generalising a bit, but come on people! Sort it out – these days of conferencing and exhibiting are so done, done, done……..
Thank God for @bethehurricane @denti5try @bowleydesign @chrish10 for company and most importantly – cake.
#smwf? or was that #smWTF?
Jo
@brandguardian
p.s. Gutted nobody flicked paper or bogeys at me – #FAIL
Jo, if we’d seen you you’d have been covered in paper confetti and all sorts of stuff. Only attended day 1 and circumstances dictated that day 2 was a no no. Time for a change on format and we think we may have an answer to that. Thanks for posting your comment, you seemed to have summed the general feeling.
Having presented in both a developer garage and on a panel, I have to say that the audience participation was lacking… very few questions and little discussion. I actually found the developer garage quite painful as I was asking what issues people were having with respect to measurement and ROI. I ended up having to explain my services – which likely came across as a sales pitch for my company. This is likely due to the format, where it was set up as a ‘presentation’ and not a conversation.
I’ve been to a number of these events, and the reality is that the audiences are generally (big generalization coming here) a bunch of sheep who are looking for easy answers so they can copy some of the case studies and deploy them with their company.
If you want great discussion, the entire conference format needs to change. The companies pitching services are the ones who are usually the forward thinkers with great technologies powering all of the client case studies. Let’s figure out a new format to facilitate better discussions.
google me ‘cowanpkc’ if you want to connect.
Paul, great to get the perspective of a presenter. We think the format did let you and others down. There was opportunity to stimulate much more interaction, but it didn’t happen. Interestingly, a lot of opinion being voiced on Twitter but not during panel sessions or face to face….is this what social media does? Enables people to say things they wouldn’t necessarily say in face to face situations? If so, then there is an opportunity to extract genuine thoughts and opinions. And then use this to good effect.
Thanks for posting your comment.
Thanks Stephen, Andy. We feel this is not just the SMWF event, but many other conferences too. It is a tired and somewhat flawed format for ensuring attendees extract the most value. It’s a bit like sitting in a classroom (and those days don’t hold fond memories for us). We think there could be a huge opportunity here to break the mould and create a new style and collaborative event.
Alternatively. We could all go back to the office and do some work that benefits our clients rather than our egos.
I couldn’t agree more, and recognise the very individuals you are alluding to.
SM conferences aren’t for learning new stuff, as those attending are already involved. Attendees come to be reassured that they are getting it roughly right, and to earn more SM gold stars (I confess to doing this myself).
Conferences usually end with an unsaid consensus “So we’re agreed that we’re all using social media the right way. Yes? OK then, here’s your guru badge, go spread the word”.
Great post!
Having also attended the Social Media World Forum yesterday, I was both surprised and very disappointed in the approach the organisers took to audience participation.
As you say, being social is all about user participation and user generated content. But there was prescious little opportunity to ask questions of the ‘experts’. Each presentation allowed one or (if we were lucky) two brief questions at the end! Then when all the panels sat, it looked like they had been given the questions in advance (one of the pannelists was actually reading the answer from her pre-prepared document!). The panels were a promotional exercise for the people concerned – one even had a powerpoint presentation to introduce himself – what baloney!!
What they should have done from the start was to open them up completely to the floor, to hear what we wanted to ask, not the self created stats that they wanted to tell us!!
Not unsurprisingly, I have not attended the 2nd day!!
Andy