Darwin’s theory: Survival of the (conference) fittest

• September 3, 2009
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Guest post by Cathy Brooks, read her blog | follow her on Twitter

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The tech industry cannibalizes its own young quite well – at least when it comes to conferences.

You know what I’m talking about. Any time there’s a hot topic, a battery of conferences and events spring to life, all purporting to be the end all be all source for information on that given subject.

These new market, technology or product focused voices join the steady ongoing chorus of stalwart general events – the panoply of high-end confabs targeting in-demand leaders from top brands and companies. From TED and PopTech to AllThingsD and Web 2.0 Summit, each of these executive-level (usually C-suite focused) forums trumpets its respective cast list (speakers and attendees), showing that their event will be the destination for decision makers making news; and that’s only in the US. Add to the mix gatherings like DLD and LeWeb and you begin to see that it’s easy to get confused.

For anyone who knows me even just a little bit, you may be chuckling at this point – chuckling because I’m one of those people who consumes far more than your average bear’s worth of conference fodder. In fact, I’m often asked, “Why on earth do you attend all these conferences? What do you get out of them?”

Besides having a truly deep fascination with and enjoyment of people watching, I find that if you peer beyond the degree of obvious overlap, each of the tech events – even the seeming duplicates – differ just enough to provide unique value.

Why does this matter?

Last week I met a fellow who’s embarking on a big community-outreach oriented project. He knows that social media will play a critical role in the development, execution and likely the success of this endeavor; and since he’s confessed to having a somewhat troglodytic perspective on these things, I was there to help. Well, at this point, mostly just to talk.

Our conversation skated the spectrum – from the basic premise of why integrating social media is important to some very specific discussion of tools and tactics. Then we got to the subject of conferences – specifically the series of events coming up in LA, both of which herald their value as being a deeper engagement with, understanding of and participation in “the real-time web”.

Such as it is now with events focused on Web 2.0 darling, Twitter.

To try and count every gathering, conference, seminar, workshop or meet-up tackling some angle of Twitter, would be folly. This is not an attempt to create the ultimate Twitter event resource list, rather it’s an exercise to remind us all that while in fact all five of those blind men do see the elephant accurately, it’s the compilation of their perspectives that brings true reality to life.

With that, I’m focusing solely on the events I see as rising to the fore as substantive gatherings. The three of which I speak are: The Twitter Conference, by Parnassus Group; Jeff Pulver’s The 140 Character Conference; and TWTRCON, co-produced by Tonia Ries and Gina Smith.

My objective here is simple: to shed some light on the unique aspects of each event, and in doing so, show how the aggregate reality of all three is where the true power lies.

DISCLOSURE: I attended two of these three events (missed the first Twitter Conference in Mountain View, CA due to travel). I helped emcee at The 140 Character Conference in New York, and have been invited to present at the upcoming 140 Character Conference in LA. However, I have no official relationship – monetary or otherwise – with Jeff Pulver or any of the other organizers or their events. Brian Solis has spoken at all three events and has hosted three different discussions correlating with the premise of each show.

For the record these are listed in the order in which they come up on calendars:

The Twitter Conference:
The tagline on the home page for the conference bills the event as: “the place where developers, business people, and enthusiasts converge to find innovative ways to tap into the Real-Time Web.” When you click through to the speaker list every person is either a Hollywood or Internet celebrity; or they’re a developer/staffer at Twitter. Above and beyond all else, though, this thing is about Twitter. Period. Whether it’s playing to the Hollywood geography and attending to the celebrity angle or a lot of deep geeking out on development of the platform and applications for it – The Twitter Conference is just that – a conference about Twitter.

I spoke with Steve Broback, founder of Parnassus Group and one of the organizers behind this event, and he was straight up in telling me that they “are not hedging bets” in trying to address all of the real time Web.

He said, “(There are other events in this space) and their angle is ‘who knows what Twitter will be’ in five years. We’re not doing that. We’re betting that while there are other real-time Web platforms, that Twitter will be it … and (we) are creating the event that Twitter would create if they had the time.”

I’d planned to go to this conference because the topic of celebrity as impacted by the world of social media fascinates me. I’m curious to hear from celebrities how they are leveraging the platform of Twitter to lower or remove the velvet rope between them and their fans. I’m also keen to see which of them are just posers and which are truly using the technology. Though I’m far from a coder, I am also curious to see what the company may have up its sleeve with regards to new applications, new platform direction – all that geeky stuff.

Steve was emphatic on the point of timing, saying it is an important part of their positioning that theirs was “the very first conference with Twitter in its name, focused wholly on this platform.”

He went on to say, however, that he does feel there’s room in the sandbox for everyone. “In the old days (of conference producing) if you were first to market you’d crowd out the competition.” In continuing he explained that the differentiators between the various events, as well as the changed landscape of event production overall in the bad economy allows more space in the market for more players to engage.

The pricing set for this gathering is, as Steve described, in keeping with the feel of Twitter, and targeted to end users and developers with a series of keynotes and panel discussions addressing an array of topics.

140 Character Conference:
With the name being “140 Character” of course the preponderance of discussions relate to Twitter as a platform, but also incorporates a wider landscape view with discussions being less about the technology and more about the way that it’s being used and the social impact that results.

There is some celebrity quotient as well with several Hollywood people on the roster. The bulk of the program, though, focuses on people from major brands, government entities, private business and just plain old regular folks (including a homeless man) who are finding ways to use the real-time Web as part of their lives.

I’d planned to attend this conference for several reasons, not the least of which is that as someone who advises clients as to the best ways to leverage real-time technologies, there will be ample case studies of interest. In addition the expansion beyond the world of Silicon Valley to other businesses and industries means that this conference does its best to get outside of the echo chamber that is so normally a Silicon Valley event (geeks talking with and to geeks about geeky things).

The event’s producer, Jeff Pulver, said that his conference’s focus on the real-time Web had a Twitter flavor “for now” because “in 2009 Twitter is … the platform we use … the language we speak, but it is not expected to be the only language or platform of the future.”

He continued: “I’m trying (to avoid) being the place where people will be on stage singing the praise of Twitter and where people will talk about tips and techniques … To the extent that Twitter has helped bring about change that change is what we will discuss.”

The 140 Character Conference also is marked by densely packed program and rapid-fire presentation format. There will be more than 120 speakers on the stage over two days in a combination of individual talks (10 minutes each), keynotes (15 minutes) and panels (20-40 minutes depending on the topic).

Pricing is a bit steeper, but as Jeff explained, “This event is being priced and marketed to the executives in the Entertainment and Media industries responsible for dealing with the change and the opportunity the emergence of these underlying technologies represent.”

TWTRCON:
Right out of the gate, TWTRCON differs from the prior two events listed by its format. Rather than two days, TWTRCON’s organizers produce a single-day program that delivers a very focused set of case studies and discussions around real-world implementations of Twitter for business. In talking with Tonia Ries, Founder & CEO, Modern Media Partners and co-host of TWTRCON, she referred to a recent blog post by Robert Scoble, in which he says that Twitter is underhyped as a business tool. Tonia agrees.

“Where the power of Twitter is being felt in many ways, in a way that I think is very sustainable and will shape the long term, is in the business applications,” she said. “Our mission from the beginning was to bring in the people who are actually using Twitter in a business context – for whatever application – bring those case studies to life and talk about some of the challenges and best practices around that.”

The next foray for TWTRCON is in Washington, DC on October 22 and Tonia explained that in addition to the business cases studies, this event includes non-profits, foundations and possibly a look at policy and government issues. I’m hoping to go, but frankly for me it’s a travel thing. (I’m going to be far more familiar with the inside of my suitcase over the next couple of months than I’d already like, and am pretty sure that should I expand that time away Truman will ensure the destruction of my cowboy boot collection.)

My interest in this gathering hinges squarely on the great experience I had at their first go-round in San Francisco. There the conversations were, as billed, a focused discussion of real-world implementations as told by the people who are doing the work. There was one panel, masterfully moderated by Kara Swisher, on which some of the Twitterverse/Social Media realm’s influential voices did their thing, but TWTRCON clearly drew the line between celebrity and practical use focusing its content on how this stuff can and does work.

Tonia explained these events clearly represent the stage at which our use of this and other real time web technologies currently sit.  “Twitter is a simple tool to use, but the business applications around it are incredibly complicated. They range from things like having complete transparency – do you allow employees to Twitter and talk about work-related issues? … what about when your executives Twitter?  … where do you connect personal brands with business brands? –  these issues are brand new. They’ve been bubbling under the surface with social media for a while, but Twitter is completely public and (completely real time), it brings issues to a point where businesses can no longer ignore them. And that’s what we wanted to build a conference around.”

In conclusion – if there is one – it’s that every one of these events brings its own level of value to an audience. Will there be overlap in attendees, of course, but given the clear distinctions set out by the organizers, the overlap should be minimal, and so there should be room in the sandbox for all.