The Changing Face of Seminars
By Malcolm Gardner www.visionarynetwork.co.uk
Back in 1996, Zoe Charlesworth of Public Sector Strategies (PSS) and I started a long-running partnership producing high quality counter-fraud and benefit seminars for local authorities. The concept to create conferences that would challenge current thinking. We used the best professional speakers who were at the heart of housing benefit administration or counter fraud professions. The people who influenced change and policy and we coupled them with those speakers who informed their thinking, the academics and think tanks. We used innovative practitioners who are at the cutting-edge of their profession. These seminars were (and still are) run from LGA House in London, a great location at the centre of power. These conferences proved to be popular and we can see that some of the changes to the approach of benefit administration and counter-fraud management were seeded at these conferences.
After, fourteen-years, Zoe and I have decided to challenge our own thinking and change the format to meet the needs of our 21st Century Customers. Over the years of producing our conferences there have been incredible changes. The growth of the internet! The demands for mixed media presentations! The rise of blogging, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter! E-Government and e-Commerce have reshaped the way that we engage and communicate with our public services and make our purchases. We have move from top twenty performers and favourites and moved into the world of Long Tail Theory[1]. There are now only six pixels of separation[2] and we are all connected[3].
There are other more traditional drivers that are creating change. Tighter council budgets mean that the big expensive conferences are not always in reach of the average manager. The reality is that attendance at seminars are expensive. It is not just the cost of ticket but also the travel and the time out of the office. With reduced resources, this can be the heaviest cost. We can see two things happening. The first is attendance at conferences and seminars is on the decline. The second is the rise of the webinar[4]. Webinar – or web conferencing – are an inexpensive method of presenting to a large audience.
So, in March 2010, we are launching Visionary Network, a modern approach to presenting seminars. Because the need to keep-up to date is still critical especially in a field as complex and as fickle as benefits.
The technology that runs Visionary Network is not that innovative, insofar as it uses the industry standard web 2.0 driven WebEX[5] online conferencing system as the spine of the Network.
We are going to run the same high content seminars as before. But instead of the delegates coming to the conference, we are going to bring the conference to the delegates. The innovative part is that each conference will be presented as a season of one-hour session over a period of eight weeks. Everything will still be there, the ability to ask questions of the live presenter and networking through forums. The big difference will be the cost, 25 percent of the price of traditional seminars and no cost for travelling or time out of the office but you will have to bring your own sandwiches.
This point is that this design and the delivery mechanism is important because it shows how the web and the internet can offer cost effective solutions to council. For example, we are using Web-EX for the conference, web-forums for networking, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and email for communications. This allows us to deliver an essential service at a low cost.
The next stage is that we partner with sponsors and Opportunities Magazine to run free “talking-point” workshops so that you and others can discuss key issues. We will also be working with training providers to produce besoke-training using the same mechanisms. This is a visionary network. Who would not want to be a part of that?
[1] “The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand” by Chris Anderson, Random House, ISBN 978-1844138517
[2] “Six Pixels of Separation” by Michel Joel, Business Plus ISBN 978-0-446-55938-6 www.twistimage.com/blog
[3] “Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirkey, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-141-03062-3
