All sounds good. I have not gone through the surveys yet this year but will be in touch after I do so. If we need a re-orientation, we’ll make it happen.
1WineDudesays
Thanks, Allan – obviously that’s great to hear but I’m also assuming you have enough similar feedback to go on to warrant a refocus.
PR folks and marketing folks also blog, so if they are going to be a significant % of attendees going forward, then it would help I think to look into how the sessions can be arranged to serve both citizen and corporate attendees – as well as changing the name to the Wine Blogging Conference, and setting the appropriate expectations up front on all of that so both “types” of attendees know what they’re in for, etc.
I think the difference was just more acute this time because 2010’s conference was very “organic” (as a couple of WBC11 attendees termed it to me) and the sessions were more overtly focused on the craft of blogging/writing/etc. for bloggers vs. those of WBC11.
I do want to stress that WBC11 was by most measures very successful, I think there’s just a balance / focus that needs to be very publicly visible so us repeat attendees have our expectations aligned properly.
Speaking selfishly for a moment… and I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way!… I’ll volunteer my time left-&-right for citizen bloggers; but industry/PR folks need to pay for that time. I had a blast moderating the Millennial panel at WBC11, for example, but the attendees for that were about >80% industry folks. That’s *not* who I’m volunteering to help, because outside of WBC I get paid to consult to those people. That’s a personal example, maybe too personal (I hope not) but I think it’s a good one to show how far off my expectations got from the reality, and I’m someone who has been to all of these conferences.
All my comments are really in the spirit of continually improving WBC – I really do think you guys and Joel do a hell of a job pulling it off each year and I hope no one loses sight of that!
Yes, we would be amenable to trading off sponsors with a higher conference price, although I do think bloggers are price sensitive. Joe, I had a conversation with Drew and Christophe in the DC airport last night and we discussed this. We came up with some ideas to achieve your ideas of re-focusing the conference on bloggers. I’ll draw up something and send it your way for your thoughts.
I think it’s worth throwing the choice out to the community to see what the appetite is for increasing the registration cost in favor of fewer sponsorship opportunities.
Having said that, we can still have sponsorship for the event and gear the sessions towards the craft of content creation and other topics pertinent to bloggers (loosely termed of course! 🙂 vs. industry attendees?
Anonymoussays
Joe, there are really only two choices. Ask sponsors to provide the wine and pay for the meals and other expenses (AV at this conference alone was $13K) or charge bloggers a heck of a lot more than $95. I can’t believe most bloggers would want to pay more to have fewer sponsors in attendance. And I think many attendees like having the opportunity to taste so many wines. Thoughts?
It’s great to see the conf. growing and being successful.
It’s not-so-great (for me, anyway), to be experiencing such a focus (on day one of the conf.) on industry/PR/sponsors. Is this a conf. for bloggers/media, or for the sponsors to reach out to those content creators? Seeing this kind of graphic on the homepage suggests the answer is the former.
I know the answer isn’t really that simple, and that the lines are blurry between blogging/media/pr/etc., but I think the focus of the American WBC needs to swing back towards the side of the pendulum where the majority of value is for the content creators, because otherwise you risk losing those content creators through attrition, and that’s not good for WBC *or* for the wine blogging community.
All sounds good. I have not gone through the surveys yet this year but will be in touch after I do so. If we need a re-orientation, we’ll make it happen.
Thanks, Allan – obviously that’s great to hear but I’m also assuming you have enough similar feedback to go on to warrant a refocus.
PR folks and marketing folks also blog, so if they are going to be a significant % of attendees going forward, then it would help I think to look into how the sessions can be arranged to serve both citizen and corporate attendees – as well as changing the name to the Wine Blogging Conference, and setting the appropriate expectations up front on all of that so both “types” of attendees know what they’re in for, etc.
I think the difference was just more acute this time because 2010’s conference was very “organic” (as a couple of WBC11 attendees termed it to me) and the sessions were more overtly focused on the craft of blogging/writing/etc. for bloggers vs. those of WBC11.
I do want to stress that WBC11 was by most measures very successful, I think there’s just a balance / focus that needs to be very publicly visible so us repeat attendees have our expectations aligned properly.
Speaking selfishly for a moment… and I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way!… I’ll volunteer my time left-&-right for citizen bloggers; but industry/PR folks need to pay for that time. I had a blast moderating the Millennial panel at WBC11, for example, but the attendees for that were about >80% industry folks. That’s *not* who I’m volunteering to help, because outside of WBC I get paid to consult to those people. That’s a personal example, maybe too personal (I hope not) but I think it’s a good one to show how far off my expectations got from the reality, and I’m someone who has been to all of these conferences.
All my comments are really in the spirit of continually improving WBC – I really do think you guys and Joel do a hell of a job pulling it off each year and I hope no one loses sight of that!
please cc me on this too, thanks
Yes, we would be amenable to trading off sponsors with a higher conference price, although I do think bloggers are price sensitive. Joe, I had a conversation with Drew and Christophe in the DC airport last night and we discussed this. We came up with some ideas to achieve your ideas of re-focusing the conference on bloggers. I’ll draw up something and send it your way for your thoughts.
I think it’s worth throwing the choice out to the community to see what the appetite is for increasing the registration cost in favor of fewer sponsorship opportunities.
Having said that, we can still have sponsorship for the event and gear the sessions towards the craft of content creation and other topics pertinent to bloggers (loosely termed of course! 🙂 vs. industry attendees?
Joe, there are really only two choices. Ask sponsors to provide the wine and pay for the meals and other expenses (AV at this conference alone was $13K) or charge bloggers a heck of a lot more than $95. I can’t believe most bloggers would want to pay more to have fewer sponsors in attendance. And I think many attendees like having the opportunity to taste so many wines. Thoughts?
It’s great to see the conf. growing and being successful.
It’s not-so-great (for me, anyway), to be experiencing such a focus (on day one of the conf.) on industry/PR/sponsors. Is this a conf. for bloggers/media, or for the sponsors to reach out to those content creators? Seeing this kind of graphic on the homepage suggests the answer is the former.
I know the answer isn’t really that simple, and that the lines are blurry between blogging/media/pr/etc., but I think the focus of the American WBC needs to swing back towards the side of the pendulum where the majority of value is for the content creators, because otherwise you risk losing those content creators through attrition, and that’s not good for WBC *or* for the wine blogging community.
enough logo’s crammed into one space?