At one end of the lucrative industry conference market, a rising trend amongst conferencing companies is to invite professionals from numerous fields to register their interest as speakers at "highly marketed" industry events. I?m sure you?ve seen them and know the ones I?m talking about. Yet while the conferencing companies themselves are making a fortune there are not too many individuals or companies making money from delivering the content prompting me to wonder where the true value is in such events. In fact in their speaker enrolment process those same companies will tell you that it is important to speak for nothing at such events. It assists in building your profile, your company?s brand, while at the same time giving a little back to the industry. Excuse me if I disagree, and let me share with you why ...

As a content producing organisation ? not of the event or conference variety ? we have inevitably made it on to the radar of several such event companies. Eager young producers (the name given to the highly leveraged sales person) designated with organising the event talk in the assumptive language of 1950?s sales techniques. Their questions are purported to solicit the speaker?s character and subject knowledge as a suitable presenter while in actual fact they are researching content and audience demographics.

Conference content is constructed by people "trained" to follow a three-step process; firstly facilitate an agenda, secondly find speakers, and lastly find or build an audience. Event producers will always ask for content first before asking speakers for their participation. They say this is for screening purposes but it is really to help them understand a complicated topic which they may have gleaned as hot from the industry press. As an example, you may have heard the following questions:

• Can you tell me about this topic?  (Real intent: I don't know where to start, please help me understand)
• Can you tell me about the customers that you work for? (Real intent: So that I can call and ask them to speak or attend our event)

Regardless of the approach, companies like Tonkin Corporation, Marcus Evans, Terrapinn and others are being successful at getting bums on seats. And many bums on seats for that matter, at several thousand dollars a seat, represents a significant business.  So does their approach make it bad? Not necessarily. But I am unconvinced that the delegate plays any meaningful role in the whole process.

You may or may not agree but my observation is that the vast majority of speakers at "industry conferences" today are actually working professionals who are keen to train up as an industry speaker and there are no shortages of event companies that are happy to oblige them. It is quite an irony that employers are happy to send their staff for training or professional development purposes to hear non-expert speakers who may very well be speakers-in-training themselves. 

While one legitimate source of such speakers is the public sector, whose servants can't actually accept payment for such engagements, I am sceptical of the quantity and quality of speakers at most conferences today. As much as the organisers will deny it, the speakers and delegates often joke amongst themselves. Like the real estate business, the buoyant economy and overflowing training budgets may well be a major cause of over-supply and lack of quality that can only be corrected through recession.

At the other end of the market, reputable international companies pay for reputable speakers and facilitators. They do so because it is a skill. Firstly, such companies are not selling a conference ticket or training but higher value solutions up the organisational chain. Secondly, they are looking for case studies, plus content, plus experience. Thirdly, they are looking for someone who can comfortably facilitate a two-way communication channel. That is, someone prepared for wide ranging questions from an interactive audience. Fourthly, they seek analytical content that is derived from a macro-knowledge base. And finally, they pay for insights and defensible decision making content.

Let me leave you with a final observation. In a typical multi-stream, multi-day event, the content produced by three days worth of case-studies from the many contributing speakers on a particular themed topic presents a unique opportunity that not one of these businesses is harvesting. We have only observed one organisation capitalising on the opportunity and as such have worked with them on several occasions.

So what is the true value for such companies? Acquire the experience and expertise to aggregate the data from each of the presentations, do some unique and insightful analysis, and sell the results of the conferences. Ark Group is a company doing this well and as a result attract a different calibre of speaker by recognising the need to reward quality content. Without it, such events are nothing more than an opportunity to network in a different city.  

For us, the decision to decline the majority of these invitations is often hard for our analysts at the time of the initial call, but ultimately on balance, we feel it is paying dividends by staying true to our own growth and the pre-targeted audiences of our paying clients. The occasional one that we attend has rarely met expectation on either of attendee or content quality.

As a general benchmark, our decisions to participate or attend events and conferences are based on this simple equation. The conference or event should be about the content and the delegate and not the speaker and the production company. If simple attendance seems like the end-game then that is a clear indication of the types of events to avoid.