If you want to organize a good conference, take a lead from the Juice 2.0 folks! Meanwhile, if you think your business should be profiled as part of Marketing Monday, do contact me.
What I Learned Losing The Juice 2.0 Conference Pitch Contest
In my world, no news is bad news. If I have something good to say, I’ll change my status update of Facebook, tweet, write a blog, or call my mother (or all four).
It is no coincidence that I was pretty quiet online Friday and Saturday, in part because I didn’t even make round one of the pitch session. (And in part because there was no working internet connection at this conference!).
I will say that the conference was a worthwhile one to attend and that I will go back when they have the follow-up version two years from now. Here are some general observations from my two days at Juice 2.0 Conference:
I have never been so flattered to lose a contest in my life.
After a keynote address by Nick Spitzer (host of American Roots on NPR), it was time for the forty of us pitchers to head to round one of the pitch contest. I sat down next to the previous winner Matt Zito, who was ready to get some more funding for his Maine Creates project. On my other side, a filmmaker was ready to work on getting funding for a feature film he was helping produce. We each got a sit down with one of the panelists for ten minutes and while waiting, we were to hang out in the main room and chat with one another.
I was scheduled to go second to last, which gave me lots of time to work the room. The more people I talked to, the more impressed I was. Everyone had good ideas and had done their homework. Usually the most organized person, I was among other equally organized (and in some ways more organized) competitors. One woman I talked to wants to design a workable model of a carbon neutral house to be produced in Maine for the UK, which has passed a law that all new houses will have to be carbon by 2012. Another group wants to design a boutique hotel in Portland centered around the successful restaurants of the area.
Is my little internet business capable of exponential growth with a strong exit strategy? Not exactly, so I knew that venture capital funding was a longshot but I was flattered to be in a room with some real movers and shakers.
The balance of business and arts made for more interesting content.
There was, as expected, a certain amount of Powerpoint presentations, standing at podiums, and other conference staples. When the whole shebang opened with an interpretive dance though, I think we all sort of perked up and realized this was going to be not so run of the mill. The organizers worked to have more of a balance celebrating both the entreprenneurial and artistic spirits and it showed. Day two I found myself surprisingly moved by a speech by modern dancer Liz Lerman that I went to a creative movement workshop. This is normally so unlike me but this conference I think made us all step out of ourselves a bit.
The speakers were phenomenal.
A mixture between the more artistic leaning (Nick Spitzer and Liz Lerman) and the more business focused (engineer Joe Lstiburek and economist Marci Rossell), I enjoyed all of the speakers. I am hoping that they put the videos online soon if only so I can rewatch the lectures and share them with the readers of this blog. (For now, I linked above to a discussion about the Maine creative economy with some of the Juice organizers.)
Rather than feeling pitched to, I felt like I learned a lot and was entertained by the speakers at this conference.
The internet presence… they were all over it right up until the event.
In addition to the website, Juice had a blog, Twitter account, Youtube channel, and Facebook page. They were all over the promotion of this!
And I saw they videotaped everything so I am expecting the video will go online or otherwise be used again. Hey, if you are going to fly speakers in from around the country, you might as well capture it!
No expense seemed spared.
From not subjecting us to terrible catered food (we all ate at local restaurants) to offering some sweet swag in our gift bads (a copy of ‘The Way We Get By’? Score!), the conference was well funded and it showed.
Overall, this conference was a useful one, if only to have been forced to hone my business plan/sales pitch. But excluding the pitch contest, I would have been glad I went anyway. I look forward to follow-up on this and how what I’ve learned will shape my business.