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Conferenced Out: How We Can Do Better
For any professional, conferences serve as a wonderful concentrator to meet new people, catch up with prior connections and learn something new about the world, perhaps even becoming inspired to do something bold in the process.
I have personally benefited tremendously from attending countless technology and industry conferences over the years, including meeting my co-founder, one of my Managing Partners, as well as several long-term business partners, investors and investment opportunities.
However, these days, I no longer feel the excitement that I used to when thinking about conferences, and I’m not entirely sure why this is the case — I have my hypotheses, both internally and externally driven.
Internally, I’m getting older and less energetic, my network has grown tremendously since I started in venture, and I can barely manage my inbox on a normal day.
Externally, I see costs going up dramatically (not just the tickets but total attendance costs), incentives getting misaligned (sponsors taking over agenda and floor space), and the dilution of quality (by the size and quantity of events).
The purpose of this article is to reflect on my hypotheses, and provide my own perspective (for what it’s worth) on how to improve conference delivery for people with similar perspectives…
