Traditionally, the week after the Canadian Sponsorship Forum, my blog attempts to summarize the conference’s highlights.
Tributes to speakers. Kudos to our partner event. Platitudes for the host city. This trio of topics meriting a dedicated paragraph, each tasked with the implausible goal of simulating the emotion of the live event. Since the majority of readers didn’t attend the event, it would seem my recap would be falling on deaf ears.
Eagerly I wanted to try a new approach. I do apologize if you wanted a highlight reel, but the social space is filled with enough photos and posts to facilitate any emptiness I may leave you with.
So instead of sharing what was on our presentation screens, take a peek inside me. Because inside is where I benefited the most from this year’s event. Inside I felt a stronger connection to our speakers, delegates, and partners than I have ever had. It didn’t matter whether I was hanging with clients, employees, ex-employees, competitors, competitors to my clients, friends, strangers, or a mix of both. For some reason there was this incredible bonding among the group.
I think my personal lesson is how do I harness this feeling and leverage it? Often conference delegates, of any conference, are told they have 72 hours to implement what they have learned.
Seems to me conference organizers should follow the same rule.