For Re/Code’s third annual Code Conference—and the first since the brand became part of Vox Media—organizers took pains to have a culturally and professionally diverse audience, efforts which enhanced the experience for the roughly 700 attendees, said Lia Kennett, vice president of conferences and special projects.
“We wanted to make sure we had enough entrepreneurs and fresh new thinking in the mix, and we wanted to make sure we had established brands, beyond the usual suspects,” she said. “We wanted more women, we wanted more people of color—we really took it to a much broader field.”
For a tech conference, the process was a decidedly analog one, Kennett said, relying on individual outreach to raise brand awareness and build networking connections. “We had an influx of new blood, and the next phase of that was curating the list in a deliberate, manual way,” she said.
Unlike previous years, where invitations to attend were based on prior attendance, this year’s conference picks were determined by a dedicated Re/Code staffer and a specialty communications firm, who worked together to introduce the brand to C.E.O.s, pick venture capitalists’ brains, and ferret out the next-big-thing names in start-ups.
“We were really thoughtful about the overall dynamic,” Kennett said, calling the initiative a challenge but also a success. She said the conference reached 80 percent of the diversity goals it set for the show, and the conference—held in June in Rancho Palos Verdes, California—sold out.
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