Don’t be tied to a narrow specialization

To make a useful conference, many organizers narrow down the specialization as much as possible: an event for developers in the banking industry, for Java programmers, or dedicated to a single technology. It seems that if you narrow down the topic, it’s easier to talk the point.

The problem is that the narrower the specialization, the harder it is to find speakers and gather an audience. So if you only think about carrying out your own IT-event and you don’t have a pool of experts and a reputation, it’s better to refuse a “narrowly-specialized concept”. Visit other conferences, establish connections and acquaintances and once again think over the concept. In general, it is better to make event in the area in which you are an expert. Or at least very much interested in it and about to become an expert.

Specialization – is not the only way to make the event interesting for the IT-community. Technology is now penetrating into various spheres of life, so current topics related to IT, told from the right angle, are of great interest.

IT professionals are not only interested in the technologies they work with: conduct a survey among your target audience and you’ll be surprised at how wide a range of interests developers have.

Don’t be tied to one format

Let’s say you’ve tried to follow all of our advice. Now take another look at your program: if it consists only of “We do this, and we get this”, “Look at our superinnovative (in fact, no) product,” then something is going wrong. The IT community is demanding of conference content, but probably not in the way you think.

Stop terrorizing the speakers with requests to make a wow presentation and come up with a tastier presentation topic, think better about the format. Maybe instead of lectures you should organize a discussion, a round table or a contest for the funniest story about failure.

There is no perfect solution: for a while, it seemed to everyone that the best event for an I.T. student is a hackathon. Here you get practice, and productive communication, and sometimes even good prizes. Then everyone rushed to hold hackathons, and there were so many of them that they quickly became boring to everyone.

Now there is a real battle of formats: online versus offline, formal versus informal events. It is clear that everywhere there are pros and cons, and above all it should be based on the goals, objectives and existing resources. But if you look at the general trend, participants are more willing to choose informal events, where you can not only listen and ask questions at a set time, but also engage in a dialogue with the speaker. It is difficult to do this online, and all other things being equal, live communication will be preferred.

Each format has its supporters, and surely they will be found in your audience, even if you offer something quite unusual. As it turns out, many people are willing to trade their couch and TV shows for this kind of action.

If you’re afraid, set up a survey among your potential target audience to find out how they’d like to spend their time. Here we get to the most obvious, but nevertheless the most important tip on our list.

Speakers

Ask people you know to speak. If you don’t know the speaker personally, look for common acquaintances and ask them to introduce you.

Why look for common connections? Speaking at an event is a matter of 15 minutes, but you have to prepare a report, or even a presentation, before you speak. When asked by someone you know, it’s harder to refuse or ignore the request than when asked by a stranger. So do not be shy to ask for help.

What should be in a message to a potential speaker:

introduce yourself: write who you are and what organization you are from, attach a link to your corporate website – that way you save the interlocutor’s time;
state the gist of the matter: what the conference is about, when it will be, what you want from the person in this regard;
finish the message with a question. For example, ask if he wants to meet and discuss the format of the presentation. Of course, this is worth doing if you are better at persuasion verbally;
talk about how this person’s performance will help your guests pump up their skills. Generally, people are pleased when there is attention and interest in their favorite cause.
Write briefly. A couple of paragraphs in two or three sentences is enough.

As part of the follow-up communication, give the speaker a timeframe for his or her presentation, a deadline for preparing material, including the presentation. Think about the format of the presentation: whether it will be an experience story, a master class, or some other form of activity.

If it is a workshop, find out if any equipment, special programs, or props are needed. Ask the speaker who the master class will be useful to: a general audience or narrow specialists. All this information should be obtained from the speaker before you start promoting the event. You need to understand what benefits you are offering your guests.

If your speakers dutifully send you presentations a few days before the conference, review them on your projector and make sure the text and images are readable. This will help you avoid a situation where the presenter is drawing the audience’s attention to a presentation in which nothing can be seen.

Find out if you can include the presentation in the newsletter after the event or post it on social media. Announce before or during the presentation that materials will be available later. Then guests can listen quietly and ponder questions, rather than straining to take pictures of the slides. When the conference is over, remember to keep your promise and post the presentations.

Date and site

Think about how many rooms you need. Is just the main event room enough, or will you need separate rooms for the workshops? If your space can accommodate at least 30 people, consider that you have the space.

If your company office is not suitable and you are looking for space, keep in mind:

• transport accessibility;
• Free passage for participants;
• The availability of water and toilets.

A tip for finding a venue: look for recently opened venues, such as event lofts. Ask for space in exchange for advertising on social media and at the event.

This is a good place to talk about a coffee break. If you don’t have the budget for it at all, a good way out is to invite private culinary projects: enthusiasts with burgers, falafel, ice cream, coffee – whatever. They set up their counter at the event site, and guests can buy treats or drinks from them. Food for money is a normal practice for events where you don’t have to pay admission. But you need to make arrangements with the “food” at least a couple of days in advance to have time to tell the group about it and to warn guests to bring cash with them.

Do not believe that the more speakers the cooler the conference

If you think that IT-community consists only of introverts, who will silently listen to the reports and run away to program, then you know your target audience badly. As practice shows, many specialists attend the events not so much for the speakers and lectures, as for the informal program and networking.

As an option, make an event, where there will be a lot of discussions and different activities. You can attract partners for the entertainment program, because IT community is a desired audience for many brands.

In the pursuit of a busy program, many organizers drive themselves into rigid frameworks, which is not good for the conference. Were you ever at the events with a kaleidoscope of speakers, where everyone has 15 minutes to speak and a couple of minutes for questions? At the most interesting part of the speaker always runs out of time, and if the room is intrigued by the report, and people begin to ask interesting questions – time to full-fledged answers is catastrophically short. That’s okay, the organizer thinks, but look how rich our program is.

Want the scale – make more scenes. Are you afraid that the speakers’ reports will turn into a boring lecture, like at the university? Don’t be afraid, IT students are not timid students – they will be bored, they will listen to someone else. But if there is a discussion, you can’t imagine how much more useful the event will be! Insights, facts, and interesting memories will flow. No rehearsed and crammed with numbers presentation can compare to an honest discussion “without cuts”.

Do not think that the top speakers will be confused by your informal approach. They are people too, and many of them are willing to share their observations without slides, clickers and timers: the more informal the environment, the more interesting the cases.

Don’t delay collecting feedback

Your Telegram-chat comes in handy at this stage, but you can also collect feedback in person. Print out small questionnaires in advance, hand them out to guests before the official end, and ask them to fill them out.

Make a board for feedback (it can be sheets of wattan with a heading), and leave felt-tip pens and pens next to it. It’s low-informative, but people like it.

What can go wrong?

The speaker may drop you an unreadable presentation five minutes before it comes out. Be prepared to move the presentation on the schedule, and in the meantime find someone who will work with the author to bring the presentation to a better look.

The speaker didn’t show up. It’s good if you find out about it 15 minutes before his presentation. Same trick: Move above the other speakers, or announce to guests that there will be more time for networking.

There will always be things that get out of hand. Try to accept that, give up early – there’s plenty more to do.

Announcing and promoting the event

It’s best to do this a month before the event. Don’t neglect the design and ask a designer to help.

In the meeting, specify the place and time of the start, the topic of the conference, who it will be useful to. Before inviting people, make at least three posts, remembering to accompany them with pictures:

Write basic information about the event. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself and tell what’s going on here in general.
Talk about the organizers, i.e. your company.
Again, write briefly about the event, invite people to join and ask for reposts.

In addition, in each post, you should give a link to the registration form. The number of people who sign up is usually closer to the number of actual guests than the number who check in at the meeting.

In the fields on the form, ask for the person’s first name, last name and occupation, phone number, and email address. Be sure to state on the form why you are asking for a phone number. There’s a non-obvious tip: you can send them a reminder text message a day or two before the meeting. It’s not hard to do, and the likelihood that the message will be read is high.

Once you have collected the participants’ emails, you can do a mailing list after the event: attach links to presentations and useful materials from the speakers. This will give a plus 50 to the PR of your company, because you have sent useful content.

Look for public relations admins you know, who might repost your conference post. Write to other IT companies and the organizers of similar events in your city. Don’t be shy – if they refuse you, you won’t lose anything, and your doubts will only steal your time.

Do you have a list of speakers? Great! Tell us about them in the group. About each speaker – a separate post with his pre-agreed photo, a link to his social networking profile, the story about him and his report. Remind your readers that this person can be heard at your conference on such-and-such date, and include the link to register.

Another way to spread the word about the event and encourage discussion is to start a Telegram feed or chat room. It’s convenient for communicating after the event, distributing the promised materials and collecting feedback. It’s also easier for participants to contact you directly.