Past Lives Matter

The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.

— William Faulkner

My Irish heritage has always been a source of pride, as it is for 33.3 million other Americans. (For what it's worth, my genome shows I descend from an Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages, a lordly lineage that makes me all the more proud.)

But being a "mick" ain't all glory.

It wasn't sixty years ago micks, like other groups, were considered untrustworthy outsiders, a distaste that vanished from our society only with the election—and killing—of John F. Kennedy.

I still remember from childhood offhand remarks made by Wasp adults that made the distaste clear to me.

When I conjure up the past lives of Irish-Americans, I picture tin miners and tunnel diggers; road workers and factory stiffs; Civil War soldiers and civil servants.

These people are part of me; I stand on their shoulders.

There are past lives that are a part of me which I haven't thought about.

My alma mater, Georgetown University, sold 272 of its slaves "down the river" in 1838. The slaves, who built the school, were sold out of necessity. The income—$3.3 million in today's money—retired a debt that, if unpaid, would have meant the end to the institution.

I stand on their shoulders, too.

The Young and the Badgeless

To event-industry old salts, working an event with unofficial credentials is known as suitcasing.

To the unwashed, it's known as crashing, hacking, lurking and lobbyconning.

"There is a long tradition of those who simply show up for conferences, wallets closed," Jane Levere reports in The New York Times.

"But for young entrepreneurs on limited budgets, particularly in the technology field, the importance of the personal introduction has only increased. Just don’t mention the fee."

While I think suitcasing's a nice problem to have, consultant David Nour considers it symptomatic of a dying event.

The handwriting's on the wall when attendees refuse to pay for credentials, Nour says. "And its message is bleak."

Producers routinely come down on suitcasers in Stalinesque fashion.

One producer calls them bottom-feeders "mooching off everyone else who has spent marketing dollars to be at the show."

But suitcasers may not see themselves as mooching, doing damage to their own reputations, or even harming the event.

One suitcaser in fact told Levere he was an evangelist. "I think I’m adding value by spreading the word," he said. "A lot of people most likely attended the conference because I mentioned it.”

Where do you come down? How do you come down?

Event-Goer: Won't You be My Neighbor?

Are you an adventurous event-goer?

Airbnb wants you.

Room-sharing represents the ultimate way for event-goers to personalize business travel, says company exec Chip Conley.

While she once aspired to stay in a predictably clean and conveniently located hotel, today's event-goer seeks “discovery”—a craving Airbnb satisfies by providing rooms in every sort of neighborhood.

The company fills a need that's not without precedent, Conley says:

• Home-swapping dates to the 1950s, when the Dutch teachers' union suggested members could swap houses to save on vacation rentals.

• VRBO web-ified peer-to-peer vacation rentals in 1995.

• Boutique hotels surged about the same time, proving “there was a growing number of customers for whom predictability and ubiquity were not the right model."

Airbnb targets “customers who are a little adventurous, especially in locations that they know already,” Conley says.

To accommodate event planners, Airbnb is hawking widgets planners can embed in their websites. The widgets link attendees to blocks of Airbnb listings available during the event's dates and in proximity to the event's venue. 

Following in the footsteps of Amazon and Netflix, the company plans to use algorithms to become a global hospitality giant, according to Conley.

Should a Speaker Ever Break the Fourth Wall?

Aristotle advised every speaker to use pathos (feeling) to cater to listeners' "sense of identity, their self-interest, and their emotions."

But it's not enough to open with "My fellow Americans," as politicians do.

Sometimes it's smart for a speaker to break the "fourth wall" by letting listeners in on the secret that he or she isn't 100% "on the podium."

Twenty-five years ago, two media studies researchers discovered audience participation—a key index of audience interest—increases when a TV show character breaks the fourth wall, acknowledging he's fictional by suddenly interacting with the audience.

"That interactive relationship redefines the normally passive relationship with a given show and makes the viewers a part of the action," the researchers said.

The research proved TV shows that broke the fourth wall not only gripped audiences, but shot up viewers' charts for their "entertainment value" and "content sophistication."

Analogously, speakers who self-efface are much more popular than those who don't, says Chris Anderson, curator of TED.

“Some people come on full of ego and want to boast about their accomplishments or they tell a story that’s just designed to show off,” Anderson says. "That doesn’t work, and audiences push back on that. 

"What works is people who really have something important to say, and that they’ve done the work. They’ve earned the right to say something that matters, and they’ve found a way of saying it authentically and humbly.”

Marketing Myopia 2016

Our “measure everything” age has engendered a new form of marketing myopia, says Todd Ebert in Convince & Convert.

"While marketers once accepted as fact that they didn’t know which half of their ad budget was wasted, today they’ve done a 180 and believe that if it can’t be measured, it’s not worth doing," Ebert says.

Marketers' new myopia causes them to put all their money on one number, whether that's SEO, podcasts or white papers, and to walk away from proven, but less measurable, tactics like advertising, PR and exhibiting at trade shows.

A riskier bet you couldn't imagine.

Betting only on search, for example, ignores every buyer who hasn't started her product research; while betting only on podcasts or white papers ignores every buyer who thinks she's finished it.

In fact, betting it all on one number—no matter how measurable—undermines the marketer's tactic of choice, Ebert says.

"If you don’t do anything to drive brand familiarity and interest at the beginning of the journey, then it won’t matter how well you optimize at the end because you won’t be invited into the buyer’s consideration set."