Purposely Prepared: How To Recession-Proof Your Career

Industry associations provide a lot of value to their members, but none is more important than how they provide a venue for people to get to know others in their lines of work. The people who are engaged in their trade groups in good times are the best situated to navigate the inevitable downturns in the economy.

It is common for those who are active in their associations to have strong reputations within their companies, with their customers, and among their competitors. While the online world is full of great tools for people to gain "fame", lasting reputations come from shared experiences.  

I have been working on a new program for association conferences called"

"Purposefully Prepared: 

How to recession-proof your career"

Many finance experts are predicting a pending recession. While nobody can say for sure when it will happen, they are sure of one thing... it is coming.  If we get hit again like we did in 2008 there are many people who will get hurt who have barely recovered from the economic disasters of eight and nine years ago.

Thus, we cannot wait to have a plan of what to do if the bottom falls out and the amount of corporate layoffs go through the roof.  You have to dig your well before you are thirsty.  Too many have no plan of what they will do if their job goes away, and it seems almost nobody wants to talk about it.

That is why this program is so important to be added into conference agendas now.  If we are educating people on how to be prepared, we are providing real value.  To look the other way and hope there will not be a crash is not fair to anyone. 

What would you do if you lost your job tomorrow?  Most people, after getting past the shock and anger, create a plan, identify their purpose, and network with key people.  But if you wait to do this until the worst case scenario happens, the problem is you have no momentum and are caught up in competition with everyone else who is suddenly unemployed.

To purposefully be prepared means to start behaving today like your life depends on the right goals, the purpose that motivates you to work hard, and your connections to people.  The truth is if you do these things and there is no recession, you are likely to get more promotions and other opportunities.  However, if a crash does come you will be light years ahead of all the other newly unemployed.  By the time they can get it figured out, you will be the one with the new job in hand.

If your association wants a program that will get your members thinking and acting in ways that do not resemble ostriches in the sand, let's have a conversation about how to customize this program for you next association meeting.  It is our responsibility in the meetings and association world to help people learn the necessary skills that will help them succeed.  The last recession is not so long ago, and the wounds are still fresh.  Another economic upheaval could have a worse impact on people.

I promise this program is fun, and forward thinking (it is not gloom and doom). It will also get people talking about your event about how important your organization will be to their future no matter how the stock market is trending.  

Check out the information about my keynotes and workshops at www.ThomSinger.com

Have A Great Day

thom singer

Live Meetings Exist To Help People Connect

Last week I was asked to comment in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle and on SF Gate about why people attend live conferences.  

[Check out the artcle: "How Salesforce runs the well-oiled Dreamforce machine" here]

Events like Dreamforce are more than an agenda of speakers.  The best conferences are experiential and have an impact on people. Live events bring people together, and in our digital focused world, people are hungry to engage with other humans in a live setting.

Ten years ago the death of meetings was predicted.  Economic pressures around the high cost of travel were coupled with the advancement in streaming video, causing many to think that business gatherings would become less popular.  Yet that could not have been farther from the truth.  In 2017 there will be more face-to-face events than ever before, and the meetings industry is experiencing record numbers.  More hotel and convention space is being planned in almost every major city, and barring another recession, the trends are showing up and to the right.

But why?  If we can connect with others through a like, link, share, or follow, what is the purpose of getting together in person?

Because people are still people.  We are social creatures and we do our best when we collaborate with others in our communities.  While some elements of this can be achieved remotely, there is still something about looking another person in the eyes and sharing experiences.  

When I speak at live conferences, or act in the role of master of ceremonies, my content is about connecting.  In a world where we have more access to people all around the world, people are more lonely.  Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review that we face an epidemic of loneliness.  Over 40% of adults in the United States report feeling lonely.  This is only getting worse as we retreat deeper into our phones and look up at those around us less often.

Live meetings used to be the place we went to learn cutting edge information about our industries. There were few other ways to gather information and stay relevant.  But now all the information we could ever want is available online.  There are free and paid resources in every field that will help professionals learn.  

However the other reason people have always attended meetings, for the networking opportunities, has become even more critical. Surveys of attendees across verticals shows that people want to make connections when they come to a conference (and yes, learning is still a key draw, too).  

It is the responsibility of meeting organizers to provide both.  Too often they seek high impact topics and data, but hope the networking will just happen on it's own.  Making contacts at a live event, however, has gotten harder over the years because people are commonly looking at phones and tablets.  They miss the chance to have conversations and thus go home feeling they missed out on much of the networking.

The more companies and associations embrace their key role in helping their attendees engage, the better experience people will have at the event.  The better experience they have, the higher chance they will return the following year.  It is a vicious cycle.  Conferences like Dreamforce, SXSW, and others that have high repeat attendees are very aware in how the success of the meeting is tied directly to the human experience. 

If people attend for "networking opportunities" and we do not provide them with the chance make meaningful connections, than the conference has failed.  I spend a lot of time talking with clients about their goals for the experience and the networking.  It does not matter if the audience is made up of millennials, introverts, academics, etc... (all reasons sited as to why they do not prioritize the networking on par with the learning).  People are people.  We spend too much time labeling our audiences and separating them.  Instead we need to seek the similarities and build a community. 

Live events exist to help people connect.

Have A Great Day

thom singer

Call for Speakers

Is a "Speaker" a commodity?

A friend who works at an large association called to ask me something about sourcing "good" speakers.  She said that her organization has gotten so good in their "Call for Speakers" that they get amazing proposals, and crappy speakers.  

After several years of instituting a strong grading system for ranking submissions, the results of audience satisfaction declined.  Since I am a professional speaker, she wanted my opinion.

I have never worked for this association, and probably am not the right fit to keynote their conference or present breakouts for their highly technical niche audience.  But I do know one thing: Writing a great proposal and being a talented speaker are not the same thing.  Content is not king.  While content is very important, they have placed too much emphasis on how well someone can craft a list of audience learning objectives, and moved too far away from caring if the person knows how to deliver a speech. 

I rarely get selected to speak if I fill out a "Call for Speakers" form.  As a person who attends a lot of conferences, I can tell quickly if those on the planning committee had a policy of "audience first" or "how do we look smart".  There is a big difference.

The smartest people are not always the best speakers.  That is not suggesting that we should not care about the information and expertise (those are very important).  But speaking is an art form.  You would not pick someone to paint a portrait of your dying grandmother based on a written essay.  There is so many little things that make a great presentation, and the intangible parts have to be given the credit deserved.

When people create a "Call for Speakers" they need to decide what constitutes a speaker.  My friend's organization was really conducting a "Call for Good Proposal Writers Who Want To Speak".  

If they really care about having better speakers they will need to let it be known that experience and speaking style is important.  Some groups have a minimum number of presentations that the speaker has given in the past years as a requirement to apply.  Even if people fudge those numbers, this requirement sends a message of what is expected.

A speaker is not a commodity. 

What do you think?

Have A Great Day.

thom singer