EXTERNAL BARRIERS As if our own internal demons were not enough to deal with, we are all facing phenomenal external barriers to reshaping and delivering upon our value proposition. While anti-corruption, digitalisation, terrorism, spending cuts and so many other internal and external threats failed to seriously dent demand for in-person events, Covid might have prompted people to re-evaluate how they spend their time and money, where and how they travel, and how they manage their carbon footprint. While the threat of cannibalisation of our in-
What is the buzz I’ve been missing? What will I be really missing if I simply sit at home and follow the conference online? • Who else is going to be there? Will I meet friends and colleagues with similar interests that I haven’t seen for years? Will I experience the diversity of opinion and perspectives that will challenge the way I go about my job and leave me going home refreshed and inspired? • How does my unique experience sit alongside my educational, compliance, sustainability, and personal priorities? How does my attendance serve a public good towards my peers, my association, my patients, my broader community? •What’s so great about the city where the meeting is being held? How will it inform the content of the meeting? Will there be instructive, educational site visits? How will the meeting benefit the city, not just in financial terms? And how will the whole immersive experience be uniquely valuable to me, the people I work with, and the people I work for? ONE HIT RECOVERY? People say they can’t wait to go back to conferences, but what did they really miss? Being shuttled from a soulless hotel to an equally soulless congress centre? Listening to the same old people making the same old presentations? Surely this will remind people what they haven’t missed? People will come back to our events – but if they don’t like what they see they won`t return. Now that virtual conferences have earned a firm, if begrudging, nod of approval from most delegates, it’s clear that digital will forever be a part of our conference offerings. In view of the remarkable success of digital we must also revisit the uniquely high value elements of face-to-face meetings. If not, we might be building ourselves a remarkably underwhelming, one-hit recovery. Medical association organisers are revamping their value propositions – programmes, structure, formats, duration and much more besides. The question is: will we be able to get our house in order before the proverbial carpet is pulled from beneath our feet?
Covidmight have prompted people to re-evaluate how they spend their time andmoney, where and how they travel, and how they manage their carbon footprint
person events by digital alternatives seems remote, we should consider that sanitary issues, safety issues, financial issues and now war, will serve to make the digital alternative more appealing to an increasingly digitally literate audience. SO, WHAT MAKES IN-PERSON SPECIAL? Most of the associations leaders I spoke to could not easily describe an explicit value proposition for their onsite event vis a vis their online offering, often mixing up their organisational objectives and the promise of what delegates could hope to gain from taking part. The exercise of formulating an explicit value proposition is therefore an instructive one. After two years absence, we should be able to answer the following questions from the delegate’s perspective: • What exactly is hybrid mix – what distinct experiences am I choosing between? • How will the onsite experience make me feel?
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