Experiences, Conferences, and What Really Matters

As we wrap up November and look ahead to December, I wanted to share a few reflections and updates. This month gave me a lot to think about when it comes to how we show up for our audiences and what we're really asking of them.

The tale of two marketing events.

This month, I had the opportunity to attend a Demandbase event at Circuit of the Americas.

This was a standout experience. The invite was “Would you like to join us to drive a Supercar?” Uh, yes! Spending time behind the wheel of a supercar at 140 mph is not your typical brand engagement. The adrenaline and excitement from the track translated directly into a positive association with Demandbase and to make things even better… their field marketing team struck the right balance. They facilitated genuine conversations without pushing the sale, making follow-up discussions feel natural. It was a reminder of how powerful real-world experiences can be in building authentic brand connections.

At about the same time, I attended a major industry conference that left much to be desired. The event felt inefficient and uninspiring. While the networking and shared meals were valuable, the overall structure (multiple tracks, vague session descriptions, and a clunky mobile app) made it difficult to navigate and extract value.

I’ve been thinking about what would make that industry event work and zeroed in on the user experience . The app was clunky and difficult. A great experience there would have gone a long way to make the in-person experience sing.

Imagine enriching your profile (that the company already has) with your LinkedIn profile. This combo of data would combine what you’ve shown interest in with your profile activity with social data and then be matched with the various workshops, break-outs, conference sessions and keynotes to build a “perfect” agenda for you. With tools like ChatGPT or NotebookLM you could quickly reach scale.

If we were to rethink how a conference works, we would get an invite with a connect to social data or a simple this vs that gamified quiz that let's the conference quickly match your interest with what they are offering. Innovative marketers could pull your personalized agenda into a tool like NotebookLM to build a 7 minute hype podcast about what you (and I mean YOU) would be getting at the conference. Instead of poking through page after page of half baked, generic descriptions of a session, I get an engaging, focused and relevant “precap” of my time at a conference. Yes please!

To make this really sing, I think that the traditional session descriptions need a real rethink. Today they are painfully vague and so bla… I know writing a description is difficult. I’ve done it and lead a content marketing team. Its a huge pain in the ass to try and write a description for a session that is only half planned with a speaker that is barely committed by some arbitrary deadline. But in an era where we can make changes to copy for very little cost (apps and the internet are built for this) you can always update the description. Once the speakers have locked in their presentation and speaker notes, get a little LLM help with suggestions to make the descriptions descriptive, or exciting, to show that the vast majority of your attendees do not care about a topic and it would be better to change the topic or drop the session (man would that be a can of worms, but I am behind a keyboard with no real cost to speaking candidly right now).

Another idea… as your speakers practice, record and get a transcript and use that to further tighten up the descriptions. Using the practice materials to enrich the sessions descriptions (the ads for your session) would be a stellar way to tune the message.

Finally, share attendee profiles with the LLM and hunt for matches between what your conference speakers are going to cover and what attendees care about and then invite potential matches. If I got an update (email or my conference app) that said, Hey David we think that you would be interested in “this session” by Notable Speaker because they are covering Topic 1 and Topic 2 that you’ve posted on or said you were interested in. Click here to add to agenda. I would totally click. It would help to have the conference act as match maker between me and a speaker/session. Anyway, the traditional model of moving from room to room, hoping a session will be worthwhile, is overdue for a rethink.

The Real Cost of Attention

All of this conference talk got me thinking more broadly about what we're really asking of our audiences. I wrote about this on the blog, calculating the cost of a minute of attention. When someone gives us their time (whether at an event, on a call, or consuming our content) they're giving us something genuinely valuable and finite. That Demandbase experience? Worth every minute. That conference? The math didn't math as my kids say. As we plan our 2026 initiatives, let's keep asking ourselves whether we're earning the attention we're requesting.

Award Season Highlights

On a positive note, it's been an exciting award season. I was honored to be nominated for a Zenith Award. While I didn’t go home with the win I hoped to I might, I did meet other storytellers and marketers at the event and am still flattered to have been considered.

Next up I am nominated for the 2025 Marquee Awards at CyberMarketingCon and for Media Creator of the Year from the SANS Difference Makers Awards. Fingers crossed!

No matter what happens, these recognitions are a testament to the great work happening across our teams and the impact we're making together. A big thank you to Kenne Miller, Virginia Tran, Joseph Bettencourt, Michael Heller and the entire team at our partner CyberWire (N2K)

A December Reminder About Taking Care of Yourself

As we head into the final month of the year, I want to offer a gentle nudge about something that's easy to let slide this time of year. December brings holiday parties, end-of-year celebrations, and a general slowdown that can mean more feasting, more drinks, and less movement. We've earned the celebration, but we've also got a month left in 2024 to set ourselves up well for 2025.

If it works for your situation, consider working some exercise into your routine now. Not as punishment, not as a resolution, but as a way of doing good for yourself while feeling good. A walk during lunch, a morning workout, something that gives you energy rather than depleting it. Start now, and you'll roll into January in better shape (physically and mentally) than if you wait for the traditional resolution cycle. You'll thank yourself in February. And as a side note to all the guys out there like me that are trying to grit through some injury (and it always seems to be guys), go see your doc, your PT. In July I tore up my knee again and tried to just baby it for a bit. A big thanks to my PT Sam Gallardo for getting me back on the road again. I am back to (nearly) daily 5K and closing my Apple Fitness rings again. And that feels great.

My final thoughts on November

Let's continue to push for innovative, meaningful experiences in our marketing. If you have thoughts on improving events or want to share your own recent conference experiences (good or bad) I'd love to hear from you.

Whether it's a track day with supercars or a bloated conference agenda, the lesson is the same. We earn trust and attention by respecting what we're asking for. The best marketing experiences are the ones where people walk away feeling like their time was well spent, not wasted. As we close out 2025 and plan for next year, let's keep that standard front and center.

Here's to finishing the year strong, taking care of ourselves, and continuing to push for innovative, meaningful experiences in our marketing. If you have thoughts on improving events or want to share your own recent conference experiences (good or bad) I'd love to hear from you.