For the past 12 years, the DigitalNow conference has convened executives from professional and trade associations at Walt Disney World for three days of education and networking focused on helping their organizations adapt and thrive in the digital age. The event, produced by Fusion Productions in partnership with Disney Institute, is designed to be exclusive—registration is capped at 300—and engaging, with a format designed to encourage interaction and an invitation-only vendor area in lieu of a traditional trade show.
DigitalNow wrapped up Saturday at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. We spoke to Fusion Productions president Hugh Lee about the strategy and design behind the event.
DigitalNow attracts executives from a range of industries such as health care, finance, education, and engineering. What makes this event appealing to them?
First, we get speakers before they become famous. We identify what the trends are. And we mix that with people who are already well known. Second, we spend so much time finding presenters for the workshops who are trying new things, so they can share what works and doesn’t work. But I think most important is that it’s not a conference, it’s a community. The whole design is based around that. I don’t consider myself a meeting professional. I am a meeting professional, but I believe our role is curation. We curate for our particular target audience. I start from almost building a museum exhibit. What’s the story? What’s the environment? What’s the moment of truths that are going to say to these people it’s all about them, it’s really unique, it’s exactly what I want and when I want it. Then once I’ve identified that, then I build the meeting around it.
Your opening keynote session had an interesting format. Speaker Geoffrey Moore spoke from the main stage for about 35 minutes and then he moved to a small platform in the middle of the room where he answered questions from attendees for the remaining 45 minutes. What was the strategy there?
I know that community and networking is critical to our attendees and the major barrier is the formality of most meetings or the loud networking of most places, which breaks down the C.E.O. conversation. So now we design even the general sessions with this in mind. To create the culture of people going up and talking to each other—again I’m curating a story here—I want people to talk to each other in the hallways, so what we did was we had the speaker in the middle with three other chairs. We had three people who had volunteered to ask him questions, talk to him about their specific problem. Then we also allowed people to come up, tap on the shoulder, and replace that person to get more attendees engaged. The key thing is get the content out, get Geoffrey Moore’s points out, but get it into the problem-solving mode. Two-way communication. Create the culture of conversation through your design.
The central gathering spot at Digital Now is the Fusion e.Comm.unity Resource Center. It’s a large, open layout with 12 technology vendors who discuss their products and services with attendee. The set-up is very low-key, no elaborate exhibits or giveaways that are so common at typical trade shows where exhibitors are vying for attention. Why did you opt for this format?
We don’t have trade shows. We don’t allow salespeople. We go up to these people and say our advisory board, your audience, told us who they want to see here, what technology they are interested in, what problems they have. So when you come here, if you are invited, you are not going to see a trade show area. You are going to see a conversation area. And we want you to have case studies up that you can have conversation over, not sales pitches, no sales collateral. We want you to get people talking about their problems.
In the midst of these vendors is the C.E.O. Lounge, an area with sofas and chairs where some of your presenters come after they speak to have more intimate conversations with attendees. How did that come about?
Think back to Starbucks, think back to anything that has created a community. You can’t force a community. So you can put design elements that people will create communities themselves around. So five years ago, we stuck out these couches in the middle and we just left them to see what would happen. And we observed it. C.E.O.s would have their direct reports sit down with them and say what did you get out of this meeting. And then the last couple of years they would end up inviting the keynote over, or a workshop presenter over, sitting down and talking with them. So we just said what would you call it. And they said C.E.O. Lounge. Now it’s a very popular attendee-driven program.
You are streaming all three general sessions and both plenary sessions in partnership with Meeting Professionals International. This is syndicated streaming. What is the strategy behind this?
Webcasting has always been around. Now what we can do is we can syndicate it. You can say who has access to that for a fee. If you are a corporation, you can say we are going to syndicate this just to our Spain office. If you are an association, you can syndicate to certain chapters, or to sponsors. When they see it, it’s the same feed but it’s on a separate website that is branded with their logo and feel. So it’s not DigitalNow. It’s a whole business model around changing the way people are viewing things. We are trying to show our attendees what is next and that is syndication. Because people are having trouble monetizing this stuff. This is a new business model for them.
This is a small, exclusive event and you have sold out for the last 10 years. If attendance is not a concern, where do you focus your marketing strategy in the months leading up to Digital Now?
What’s the story we want to tell? We start eight months before the meeting creating that story so when people get here they know what they are going to get. We use social media, we use our keynote speakers, we use our advisory board, anything we can think of to create a plan that says how we create the energy ahead of time.
