Last night, at my Alexandria Web Strategy Discussion Group meeting, we had a great conversation about lots of interesting things, and one in particular has been on my mind a lot lately: about how sharing and generosity can actually extend your association's reach.
We started by talking about how the blogosphere was all abuzz last week about the SXSW conference and how Twitter is the new Twitter. Dennis McDonald asked, what does this actually mean for conference organizers, that their audience could (and already does, as evidenced at the ASAE Technology conference in January) send out messages in real time, via their phones and laptops, about the conference session taking place? What about issues of intellectual property and a speaker's content being sent out willy-nilly across the internet? What about negative reactions to that content or speaker?
On the issue of audience reaction, conference organizers should be beginning to realize they need to step up their game. They will learn the hard way - when their audiences start speaking up, or walk out en masse, spurred on by "Twitter-momentum" - that the content they are putting out there is just not good enough. And yes, that will make them worry, but this has to be a good thing. Who wants mediocre content? If an association can't find enough really good speakers to fill the slots for two annual conferences, then streamline and just have one great conference. Or test out some new blood and encourage audience feedback during the sessions.
But what about the issue of a speaker's intellectual property? In some cases, and I have been to several meetings like this, a specific announcement is made asking the audience to "keep the information in the room" - and everyone agrees. It relies on the honor system, obviously, but you have to trust your audience. (And, at least in the Twitterverse, it's not (for now) about sending out lots of content! It's about real time reactions, and it's about sharing links to websites or stories or blog posts already out there.)
But shouldn't speakers (and consultants), in more general circumstances, be willing to share their insights freely in this new relationship economy?? Here's someone in the thick of it who says no. While his experience is valid, I think - and this might be a little radical - that if you share your expertise freely, you will expand your reach and you will find a whole new market of people who like your ideas but need your help to implement them and are willing to pay for that.
This applies to consultants and to associations in general. Lee Lefever at Common Craft gets it (his emphasis):
"Make something useful, brand it, and give it away for free. Encourage others to share it and make it easy for them to do so.
Look for markets that will be happy to pay for a custom or specialized version of the free item. Make sure your free products appeal to these markets.
Be open and friendly. Talk to people who ask about sharing your free items. What do they want? What do they need? What would help them? Look for opportunities to build paying models around these needs.
Look for tiers of freeness. Consider creating free versions and pay versions, with the pay versions offering higher quality, ease of use, special access, etc.
Look for ways to collaborate with other organizations for free. Trade time, brand, information or whatever makes a win-win for the parties involved. "
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