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5 ‘Radical’ Event Reimaginings May Actually Make Dollars and Sense

by Media

Getting a seat at Time’s new invitation-only event requires membership in the recently launched Time 100 Membership program — which means paying a fee unless you are a VIP. One of the four tiers is called Rising Stars: For $1,750, businesses send a selected employee to the conference. Patron-level members and former Time 100 honorees also may nominate Rising Stars.

That all sounds a little elitist, but the point of you “qualifying” people to attend your events—making it extra-special—rather than the other way around is becoming more common. (“You’ve been invited” usually gets my attention.)

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“Make it a little difficult for people to attend the conference. Make it aspirational,” writes VR Ferose, SVP and head of SAP Engineering Academy, in a recent article in Forbes titled 5 Radical Ideas to Re-Imagine Conferences. “This is one way to create demand. Have a simple questionnaire; ask why people want to attend the conference in the first place.”

That is part of his #1 reimagining that he calls Curate the Audience and Not Just the Speakers.

Benny DiCecca, formerly head of Wellesley Information Services and now CEO of World Congress Research, used to speak in those terms. “Are you asking [your audience] the right questions? One question we weren’t asking was, ‘Are you willing to pay to go to an event to learn on this topic?’ There is certain information that people would open up a checkbook and some people would not.” Are people willing to travel, he added. What would they pay for?”

Here are Ferose’s four other event reimaginings:

2. Share the Unsung Hero Story. “Imagine that you invite a speaker who came fourth in an Olympics and missed a medal by a whisker. Such a speaker would probably have more insights for the attendees than a medalist would… We often forget that handling failure is more important than handling success. We need to celebrate the non-celebrity.”

We do tend to think more about our successes than our failures, but some of the best talks I’ve seen have come focused on some shortcomings. Brian Grazer, the Oscar-winning movie producer, recently told about the time he lost for Best Picture. He was so sure presenter Sidney Poitier was about to announce Apollo 13 as Best Picture that he stood and reached for his speech. Poitier announced “Br…aveheart” instead of “Br…ian,” and Grazer sat down defeatedly. But he was consoled by real-life astronaut Jim Lovell, who told him “I never made it to the moon either.”

3. Don’t Focus on the Frills. “When a conference is all about free T-shirts, stickers and lots of giveaways, be a little skeptical,” Ferose writes. “While a bit of nudging is always helpful, overdoing it can be counter-productive. Remember all those lanyards, plastic covers for IDs, plastic bottles, and other swags we got from various events over many years?”

Especially in these environmentally conscious times, turning your attention more to a community project can attract more people or give them something more tangible to remember. “Audiences have an innate want to be a part of something,” said Nina Gomez, head of operations, Singapore, CWT Meetings & Events. “They don’t want be on the sidelines anymore, they want to be a part of something bigger.”

4. Plan for Impermanence. “Have a flexible instead of a fixed agenda. It allows people to remain engaged throughout the event, instead of their choosing only sessions that interest them. Some events even invite the audience to build the agenda in real-time… Always have an element of surprise mixed into the agenda.”

I’ve been to many Q&As after plays, movies or talks. Some should end quickly but others you want to keep going. I wonder if you could do this at publisher events. Leave a cushion of say 15 minutes at the end of sessions. If attendees want to leave, they go and network outside. But if the session is really dynamic, they stay, ask more questions, talk more. And maybe a popular session the first day should be repeated the second. Film festivals often leave the last day for Best Of or Most Popular encore screenings.

5. Make it More Democratic and Inclusive. “I have attended many conferences where there was a panel discussion on how to tackle homelessness,” Ferose writes. “Everyone on the panel had the right intentions and had thoroughly studied the subject. But imagine if they had invited a homeless person to the stage and got his perspective… Having representatives from all sections will make conversations more inclusive and authentic.” We’ve talked about doing more panels for SIPA 2020 to add more inclusiveness.

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Integrating AI in U.S.-UK Digital Trade Through Technical Standards Cooperation: Financial Services, Cars, and Pharmaceuticals

by Uncategorized

The Atlantic Council hosted Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Director-General Dame Carolyn Fairbairn in Washington, D.C. on February 5, 2020 for a discussion about the UK’s global trading future post-Brexit. Dame Carolyn was supportive of the UK pursuing a new free trade agreement with the US that would include new standards for tech including ecommerce, fin-tech, and artificial intelligence (AI). She suggested that the OECD AI Principles would be a good place to start with respect to operationalizing high AI standards in a U.S.-UK trade deal. There is a lot to be said for this approach, particularly in making Principle 2.5 c) a reality: c): “Governments should promote the development of multi-stakeholder, consensus-driven global technical standards for interoperable and trustworthy AI.” This also makes sense because neither the United States nor the United Kingdom are likely going to want to do away with the idea that market access commitments in trade agreements should be technologically neutral, i.e. that if a country commits to open up the market in a given sector, that sector should be open no matter what technology is used to serve that sector. Cooperating on standards development can, however, have the effect of stimulating the use of innovative technologies such as AI, which is a worthwhile goal.

Standards Cooperation does not Mean Countries Must have Identical Laws

Laws, regulations, and standards are sometimes conflated, which occasionally leads to confusion. The European Center for Standardization defines a standard as “a technical document designed to be used as a rule, guideline or definition. It is a consensus-built, repeatable way of doing something.” The National Institute of Standards (NIST) provides examples of AI standards areas such as:

  • Data sets in standardized formats, including metadata for training, validation and testing of AI systems
  • Tools for capturing and representing knowledge and reasoning in AI systems
  • Full documented use cases providing information re: specific AI applications and guides for making decisions about when to deploy AI systems
  • Benchmarks to drive AI innovation
  • Testing methodologies
  • Metrics to quantifiably measure and characterize AI technologies
  • AI testbeds
  • Tools for accountability and auditing

For instance, AI systems often require safeguarding Personally Indentifiable Information (PII) data. This International Organization of Standards (ISO) standard (ISO/IEC 29101:2013) defines a privacy architecture framework for entities that process such data. It does not specify what the definition of PII data is (that is a country’s sovereign right to determine), only how to create ICT systems to protect such data. Technical standards cooperation could pay dividends if companies could use standards (methodologies) accepted by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to demonstrate how transparency, bias avoidance, privacy protection and other regulatory priorities are being addressed from a technical standpoint. We are really talking about developing common methodologies (technical standards) to achieve certain objectives such as the protection of privacy, not substantive legal/regulatory convergence. And we are not talking about “checklists” either because the idea is that companies establish ongoing processes, not a checklist of compliance for a certain date in time.

Composition of U.S.-UK Trade

In this context, understanding the composition of U.S.-UK trade and recalling the most modern trade agreement in existence from a digital standpoint – the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) – is a good place to start. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) notes that in 2018, the U.S. goods and services trade with the UK totaled roughly $261.9 billion. For both countries, according to a 온라인 슬롯 article, trade in financial services, cars and pharmaceuticals is significant. From an AI promotion standpoint, honing in on these sectors could potentially allow for the two countries to do some innovative things in a trade agreement. The USMCA Digital Trade Chapter’s Chapter 19:14 says that the Parties “shall endeavor” to cooperate on a range of issues important for digital trade. A U.S.-UK trade deal should ideally delineate areas where the U.S. and the UK “shall” cooperate. It might also be worthwhile for the U.S. and the UK to explore whether USMCA Chapter 11 commitments with respect to Technical Barriers to Trade might be worthwhile considering in the U.S.-UK context.

Financial Services: Are Robo-Advisors, Use of Public Records, and Alternative Data Ripe for Cooperation?

The USMCA’s Chapter 17 covers financial services and provides for a point of departure in thinking about what a U.S.-UK deal might look like with respect to financial services. For example, chapter 17:7 provides for commitment with respect to “New Financial Services.” What this means is that if one Party permits a new financial service to be offered in its territory, then it must allow the other two parties to offer the same new financial service. See below for the text of this provision:

 

 

Each Party shall permit a financial institution of another Party to supply a new financial service that the Party would permit its own financial institutions, in like circumstances, to supply without adopting a law or modifying an existing law.5 Notwithstanding Article 17.5.1(a) and(e) (Market Access), a Party may determine the institutional and juridical form through which the new financial service may be supplied and may require authorization for the supply of the service. If a Party requires a financial institution to obtain authorization to supply a new financial service, the Party shall decide within a reasonable period of time whether to issue the authorization and may refuse the authorization only for prudential reasons.

There is a “like circumstances” caveat, as well as scope for the Parties to “determine the institutional and juridical form through which the new financial service may be supplied.” The U.S. and the UK may want to consider areas where the two sides might want to consider mutual recognition regimes of some kind. There has been a lot of discussion, for instance, regarding how to regulate financial advisory services “robo-advisors.” See this LEXOLOGY piece, for instance, on how regulators in the U.S., the UK, Europe, Canada and Hong Kong are dealing with this issue.  Michel Girard’s January 2020 Paper entitled: “Standards for Digital Cooperation” provides some good ideas for what might be possible in this and other sectors. He notes, for instance, that the report from a 2018 High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation proposes new data governance technical standards to address gaps such as the creation of audits and certification schemes to monitor compliance of AI systems with technical and ethical standards. I have also written about how explanations and audits can enhance trust in AI.

Another example where closer U.S.-UK cooperation might be warranted is in the area of know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) services. Although to date, trade agreements have appropriately not entered into detail regarding what a privacy law should look like (the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and USMCA only say that Parties shall have a privacy system), it might be worth clarifying that privacy law should not be an impediment to the provision of these essential services. In practice this would mean that the “right to be forgotten” laws would have to be appropriately tailored and that companies would continue to be able to use public records and wide distributed media to provide high quality KYC and AML services.

Alternative data is another area where the U.S. and the UK might want to step up collaboration. For example, the U.S. and investment industries could potentially benefit from greater use of voluntary alternative data standards. Standards that have the effect of improving data documentation; raising data quality; unifying data pipeline management; reducing time spent on data delivery and ingestion; easier permissions management and authentication; and, simplifying vendor due diligence and contracting would be a good thing.  Export Britain actually advises UK firms to focus on , among other sectors, financial services in exporting to the United States. The same is undoubtedly true for U.S. financial services firms looking to expand in the UK.  It may make sense for regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to work together to promote the use of alternative data standards for the investment industry. There is perhaps also scope to work together on the use of alternative data in making consumer credit decisions. There is substantial evidence suggesting that the use of alternative data in credit scoring can help in expanding service to underserved markets as these comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) make clear. Common U.S.-UK alternative data standards could be helpful, particularly if they are coupled with safeguards to ensure that alternative data can be developed through access to public records and widely distributed media in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Cars – Can the United States and the United Kingdom Drive Connectedness?

On January 8, 2020, the Trump Administration released “Ensuring American Leadership in Automated Vehicle Technologies: Automated Vehicles 4.0 AV 4.0).  Clearly, going forward this will be a U.S. strength given the investments being made by U.S. tech firms. But there is plenty of potential interest in the UK as well as this 2019 Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) report notes. One of the report’s recommendations is to harmonize international harmonization of regulations. And as this AV Investor Tracker report establishes, concerns about data privacy are holding back the development of the sector. This Booz Allen Hamilton White Paper delineates some of the issues at stake. Perhaps one of the ways to help U.S. and UK carmakers would be to take what is relevant from the U.S. National Institute of Standards (NIST) Privacy Framework in creating “privacy by design” for AV manufacturers in the UK and the U.S. On the UK side there has been plenty of preparatory thinking about the privacy issues surrounding AVs – particularly what to do about location data. See this piece, for instance, entitled: “Where your data is being driven.” The Center for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles has done innovative work in this space. Perhaps U.S. and UK negotiators could agree on how privacy can be addressed through mutually agreed upon privacy by design standards for car manufacturers and the apps that will have increasing value add in automobiles.  On February 14, 2019 the United States and the United Kingdom signed a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) with respect to standards. One of the stated purposes of the agreement is to promote trade between the two countries. The agreement at this time focuses on mutual recognition with respect to telecoms equipment, electromagnetic compatibility, and pharmaceutical good manufacturing practices. Perhaps there might be scope to expand this to AVs and other standards important to innovative digital industries?

Making the Most of AI to Make Drug Discovery Cheaper and Quicker

There is a lot of excitement about the potential for AI to help with drug discovery but there is arguably a need for standards to realize the potential of the technology. AI Startup Entrepreneur and Ph.D. Charles K. Fisher actually asks the FDA to develop such standards. Why not work with the UK equivalents to do precisely that together with NIST and UK equivalents? The Confidentiality Coalition (the Coalition is composed of a range of different healthcare industry players, including pharmaceutical companies) submitted a January 14, 2019 letter to NIST requesting that it work on a privacy framework that is protective of privacy but at the same time allows for needed healthcare data to go to where it is needed. One of the Coalition’s requests is for the Privacy Framework to be consistent with HIPAA and other existing Privacy Frameworks. The NIST Privacy Framework does not explicitly establish a system to comply with specific laws. And, for instance, with respect to international transfers of clinical trial data, there are some differences between HIPAA and the GDPR as this article notes. Although the NIST is appropriately careful to note that its cybersecurity and privacy frameworks are not “checklists,” it might be helpful, especially given the 2019 MRA to select some sectors where additional guidance might be useful such as healthcare. After all, in 2018 the United States imported about $5 billion in pharmaceuticals from the United Kingdom. In 2016, the United States exported about $2.5 billion to the UK in medical and pharmaceutical products. Despite these seemingly impressive numbers though, it is hard to think of a sector more in need of a revolution for a changed innovation model. And besides the economics, AI-driven enhanced drug discovery clearly has potential to help people in the way that matters most: improving health outcomes through faster development of new drugs. In this context, given the politics surrounding healthcare, it is worthwhile underscoring that this technical standards cooperation is about ensuring high quality as well as efficiency, and that it has nothing to do with healthcare delivery models that that United States and the United Kingdom choose.  The UK can keep the NHS. And the U.S. can keep its largely private insurance-based system.

Conclusion

The U.S. is putting its money where its mouth is in that federal money is being prioritized for AI R&D. The UK is also a strong AI adopter and leader. And the countries are partners that share similar values. Let’s make the most of these strengths and develop a trade deal that promotes AI-driven innovation.

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Test, Include Lighter Content and Offer Rewards to Increase Retention

by Media

According to an excellent NiemanLab story last year, when The Wall Street Journal put together a cross-functional group “to identify retention-driving actions and reinvent the way [they] promote those habits to [their] member base”—calling it  Project Habit—they started by making an “an exhaustive list of all the things a member could do on our site.”

That included “actions from Email Article and Play Puzzle to Build Watchlist and Comment.” Next—and this gets a bit heavy—they borrowed from medicine and applied the Kaplan-Meier estimator to member retention. This looked at those members who engaged and those who did not in the first 100 days—”and how it affected retention in 30-day increments over the course of their first year of tenure.”

Their major finding was that it wasn’t one particular action that affected retention, but that members could engage in a number of ways. Three characteristics—rather than actions—stood out:

Loyalty: Your audience keeps coming back to a specific section or writer. “The particular area or author didn’t matter—as long as they were loyal to it.”

Cadence: “Those who read content that publishes with a regular and obvious cadence stayed in at an above-average rate. When readers know exactly when to expect something, they come to rely on it and read it.”

Play: As serious and financial-based as the WSJ is, they found “that lean-back content and features drive retention too.”

I was referred to this information by another article about a study on what gets readers hooked. Here are a few takeaways from that study by Twipe:

Market your benefits. In their early days with you, make sure that readers know all that’s available to them, both in terms of site services and the daily flow of content.

Reduce load time. The Telegraph in London found that reducing loading time from 9 to 5.5 seconds led to a 49% increase in subscriber conversion from those who visit the homepage. Their WhatsApp service proved successful too; users who regularly listened on WhatsApp were 12 times more likely to become paid subscribers.

Run engagement tests. New York Times Co. CEO Mark Thompson said last week that giving digital teams the autonomy to “continually optimize” by having “parallel tests running in the background” was the “single biggest reason” behind their recent success with digital subscribers.

Hop on the gamification wagon. If you have a popular feature, add encouragements for readers to read/play it every day. “The Times’ popular Crosswords product encourages readers to play every day through various ‘streak’ features and shares successes on their Wordplay Twitter account.”

Offer rewards. In The Economist’s digital-only Espresso, people who read all of the articles in that day’s edition are rewarded with an inspirational quote at the end. The Economist can even track readers who might read only the depressing news stories of the day and possibly offer a positive story at the end. Also on the table: Readers who invest their time in the Economist brand could be rewarded with credits to share premium content with friends/colleagues.

Send welcome letters/packages. The Guardian found that subscribers who open the welcome communications tend to stay longer. Educating readers about the product is key here. “The Guardian found that the majority of their subscribers use less than three features, but that the more features a subscriber uses, the lower their risk of churn.”

Be more personalized in your onboarding. Schibsted, a large media site in Norway and Sweden, learned the importance of a proper onboarding strategy. They created a “newsroom onboarding guide to welcome subscribers in a more personalized way. Now new subscribers can choose one of their renowned editors or journalists as a guide through the onboarding period. These personalized onboarding mails have a higher unique opening rate: 63% versus 38% for the standard onboarding process. The retention rate after the first renewal is also five percentage points higher.”

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The Importance of Our Andy McLaughlin Rising Star Award

by Media

I had the wonderful experience of interviewing our four Andy McLaughlin Rising Star Award finalists last year. Simone Bunsen, marketing manager, Chief Executive Group, told me about the time they made a small mistake in a personalized email. Did they fret? No. Instead, they sent out a corrected version, apologized and offered $100 off registration to an upcoming event. “And surprisingly,” she said, “we did really well on that email! I think the lesson is to own up to any automation or marketing mistakes. It gives your brand an opportunity to show its human side.”

Justin Scace, associate content manager, Simplify Compliance, told me about hosting their podcast (EHS on Tap), relying more on analytics, writing stories and being on Jeopardy, where he lost in the last round. “…the final question was a real tough one, and while I can’t remember the exact phrasing, I remember the answer (and will never forget it!): Namibia.”

And Jenn Ocampo, marketing director, Cynopsis (Access Intelligence), corresponded with me proudly yet modestly about all her accomplishments, including their Television Upfront/Digital NewFronts season. It’s an online resource and destination for agencies and brands. And it won first place in the SIPAwards for Best Product Launch/Relaunch.

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All of these young people (the fourth was the winner, Kirstina Colvin) were incredibly impressive, and we hope you submit more great people to us this year. As I did those interviews, I thought back to the person that the Rising Star Award is named for—Andy McLaughlin, who passed away suddenly just over two years ago at age 47. I recall maybe in my first year with SIPA, how calmly and expertly Andy helped to steady an annual conference that, a few days before, had veered off after a couple sudden departures. I remember my colleague Julie getting off the phone with Andy so relieved, saying—because of Andy—”we got this.” And we did.

But let me turn the column over to someone who knew Andy best, Ed Coburn, president of Cabot Wealth Network, to say exactly why this most prestigious award is named for Andy.

“Andy McLaughlin caught the SIPA bug from his college professor who published the very successful Communications Briefing,” Ed recalls. “Inspired he went and started PaperClip communications which is now the pre-eminent publisher in the higher-education residential life and safety market, among the various education-related markets it serves. Andy was a shining example of a rising star, starting with little and growing his knowledge and his business into an industry leader. Along the way, Andy also personally developed into an industry leader where he served SIPA as a director, president and frequent speaker, and earned SIPA’s Volunteer of the Year honors. Andy also spent time, through the SIPA Foundation, working with university publishing and journalism programs to give students exposure to our industry.

“I had the good fortune of knowing Andy as both a dear friend and colleague. In addition to being a smart entrepreneur who gave freely of his time to help SIPA and its members, Andy was a truly delightful person who was a friend to all who knew him.”

“The SIPA board had been discussing creating a rising star award to recognize up-and-coming leaders in our industry, and when Andy died unexpectedly in 2017 we realized he was the perfect embodiment of a young, energetic person whose hard work, knowledge and enthusiasm carried him to success in our industry. The board unanimously voted to name the award in his honor.

“I have so many personal memories of times spent with Andy that were equal parts business lesson, therapy session and a lot of fun,” Ed concludes. “If I could do anything to bring him back, I’d do it in a second. Since I can’t, the Andy McLaughlin Rising Star Award is one of the best ways I can think of to honor the legacy and the spirit of a wonderful person who did so much for SIPA and our industry.”

Click here to check out the entry process.

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How Behr’s Used Video to Increase Event Registrations 55%

by Media

In his 2019 SIPAward-winning entry for Best Use of Video in Marketing, Behr’s Verlag CEO Arno Langbehn wrote that it was a coincidence that as he played the accordion at the port of Hamburg—yes, really—and then started talking up their Annual Conference QM!, a cargo ship moved across the background named “RELIABLE.”

Knowing how thorough and clever Langbehn is, I wonder that he didn’t set up that ship-shape scenario as well. But I will take him at his words and give him credit for playing off that bit of kismet: “This was a perfect match for the content of our seminar. After all, our customers have to install a reliable quality management system in their company. This coincidence was then integrated into the texts of the social media groups.”

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One of the annual pleasures of seeing SIPAwards entries come in is looking out for the creative marketing videos done by Langbehn each year. He wrote in a P.S. for this entry that “the accordion was borrowed from an employee’s mother. I had never played the accordion before. But it is the right instrument for the harbor and for sailors’ songs.” Watch the video here.

Here are some reasons that the Behr’s Verlag annual event drew 55% more registrations with the video marketing:

Take advantage of your location. In 2018 the Annual Conference QM! took place in Hamburg for the first time. “In order to give the participants an extra benefit in addition to the specialist lectures, an external appointment was made at the food import office with customs inspection in the port of Hamburg (Germany’s largest port),” Langbehn wrote. So a marketing video was created at the port of Hamburg to match this topic.

If you have something good, get it out there. In order to increase the attention of potential participants, the marketing video was both added to advertising emails and also posted on their homepage to raise the awareness. In addition it was used in social media groups such as Xing (German LinkedIn equivalent).

Create a winning culture. Langbehn was quick to give credit to his team. “This success is due to all employees involved in conception, production and marketing of the videos and marketing. Here in particular to Deniz Dag from Behr’s Akademie for his ideas and his commitment to this project. We would not have achieved this extraordinary success without him.”

Have a good idea? Go all in! The marketing video starts with music and not just any music but “La Paloma,” a sailor’s song known from the film Große Freiheit Nr. 7 produced in Hamburg. It has been covered several times, among others, by Elvis Presley as “No More” in Blue Hawaii. At the end another well-known sailor song from the film plays: “Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins.” Covered among others, by Marlene Dietrich as “I May Never Go Home Any More” in Witness for the Prosecution.

Now that I have your attention… The music is followed by the benefits for which reasons the customers should attend this conference. At the end there is background music with the main contents faded in.

Videos work. The click rate of the video in the email was 68% above the click rate with text only. In the social media group this marketing video had twice as many views as the group has members. A personalized video was also sent to former participants at the end of the ad campaign.

Content remains king. Langbehn’s accoutrements never overwhelm the message. He’s a fairly serious guy and despite holding the accordion, his marketing message for the importance of this event comes through. “The quality manager is responsible for the safety of products produced in the company,” he wrote. Mistakes in quality management can lead to “considerable damage of the company and the personal liability of the quality manager. In order to protect the quality manager against these dangers he always receives the necessary information and methods at the Annual Conference QM!”