Why are Conferences Dying?

Millennials are killing dozens of industries, according to Business Insider.

"Psychologically scarred" by the Great Recession, their wayward generation is boycotting:

• Retail outlets like banks, department stores, and home-improvement outlets
• Chain-restaurants like Applebee's, Hooters and Ruby Tuesday
• Groceries like beer, cereal, and yogurt
• Household goods like bar soap, fabric softener, and napkins
• Sports like pro football, golf, gyms, and motorcycles
• Luxury items like diamonds and designer handbags

Will conferences be next?

Many industry watchers predict so; and some producers are clearly anxious, if this ad's any indicator:

But for the scrappy producer, as Mark Twain said, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

That breed of producer is testing the participatory "unconference," embracing the design ideas of trailblazers like Adrian Segar.

Segar insists old-school conferences "unconsciously promote and sustain power imbalances"—imbalances anathema to new audiences, who crave equality opportunity with producers and presenters to influence outcomes.

The power imbalances stem from producers' "underlying belief that when you lose control everything turns to chaos," Segar says.

"Meeting stakeholders and planners typically subscribe to this viewpoint because they can’t conceive of (usually because they’ve never experienced) a form of meeting that successfully uses a different kind of power relationship."

It's high time conference producers abandoned that viewpoint.

Or it's Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday.

Donald Fatigue

Nothing is more fatiguing, nor, in the long run, more exasperating, than the daily effort to believe things which daily become more incredible.

— Bertrand Russell

In a focus group last week, a dozen Pittsburgh voters labeled Donald Trump—whose standing in polls is the worst of any American president's in history—"contemptible," "disastrous," "crazy," and an "abject disappointment."

Admissions like these don't come easy for former supporters—or at all.

Blame it on cognitive dissonance.

Psychologist Leon Festinger was among the first social scientists to explain its irresistible sway, which causes otherwise sane people to hold stupid beliefs long after they're proven stupid.

In a 1954 experiment, Festinger infiltrated a religious cult led by a housewife who prophesied the world's end in an immanent flood.

The woman convinced believers they'd be spared from drowning by saviors from the planet Clarion.

Festinger predicted the woman's believers would stick by her, even when the prophecy proved false. 

Festinger's hypothesis was correct.

As the day of the great flood approached, many believers quit their jobs and gave away their possessions; but no flying saucers arrived to fetch them.

When they asked their leader why, she told them their faith had spared the world.

The believers grew elated—and stepped up their recruiting efforts.

Chunky

Small is beautiful.

— Ernst Schumacher

Bevies of experts believe "micro-content"—marcom you mold into "bite-size, digestible chunks"—can counteract customers' growing intolerance of marketing.

I'm not so sure.

If micro means publishing crap, small isn't beautiful.

If micro means posting "rough and ready" videos, small isn't beautiful.

If micro means turning tractati into tweets, small isn't beautiful.

In all these cases, small isn't small: it's only small.

If your sole success-metric is views, micro may be fine.

But if conversions are your bag, better work at it a wee bit harder.

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Owning Up

To err is human; to admit it, divine.

— New Richard's Poor Almanac

Visit GiveWell's website and you'll find something remarkable: a label in the main navigation that reads "Our Mistakes."

Click and you'll jump to a page headed, "This page logs mistakes we've made, ways in which our organization has failed or currently fails to live up to our values, and lessons we've learned."

The page is long, long, long.

Alexander Pope once wrote, "No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday."

How many organizations are gutsy enough to own up?

Not enough.