Re: Showcase and Conference (fwd)

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

Hi there.  This is part 1 of a message from James, who has been the head
of the showcase, in response to a note I sent off to the showcase working
group suggesting we might share some resources.  Please do your best to
extract the constructive parts of James' comments, and resist the urge to
throw something at your computer monitor.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 23:05:22 -0500
From: James Purchase <jpurch@interlog.com>
To: Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>
Subject: Re: Showcase and Conference

Erik,

Years ago, in one of my early forays into the "organized hobby", I was
involved with the organization of a marine aquarium conference here in
Toronto (that's where I got to meet folks like Julian Sprung and Albert
Theil). It was a massive (and hugely expensive) untertaking for the Marine
Aquarium Society of Toronto. Having vendors participate was critical - we
were very lucky that the folks pulling it together were very savy about the
industry and had great contacts. It took a lot of work by a lot of people to
pull off.

It never dawned on me that perhaps Charlene was getting negative responses
from vendors due at least in part to my efforts for the Showcase/Contest.
Did she do this stuff all on her own, or did she have help? I don't ever
remember any request on the APD about "helpers needed". While we received
more than enough donations to cover our needs, there are many vendors that
didn't even bother to respond to my request. I expect (and hope) that given
our success with this initial run through, it should be easier next year -
we will have a proven track record and can merely point potential donors to
the web site to show what they get for their involvement. The way you
handled the Prizes page will go a long way to convince more vendors to get
involved next year.

While we might find it easier next year to obtain donations, we will
probably also see an increase in entries (and therefore have need of more
prizes). But given the plain fact that I had contacted 120 companies and
only got donations  from 26, I think that there is lots of room for
expansion in this area. There should be absolutely NO reason why the
Showcase/Contest can't work together with the Conference, to the benefit of
both events.

I still think that the Showcase/Contest can and should be handled so that it
does not act as a drain on the AGA treasury. My biggest disappointment this
year is the fact that we didn't get enough entries to cover the expected
budget.

One thing that will have to be kept in mind however, is that the venues of
the two events is different - the Showcase/Contest is online and donors are
reaching a potential world wide audience of hobbyists, while the Conference
is pretty much limited to being a regional event within the U.S. - how many
people attended the conference? Some vendors might have felt that the size
of the potential audience was not worth their while.

I know that the costs associated with hosting a Confrerence can be very
high. While the AGA is not in the habit of reporting much financial
information to its membership, it is something to keep in mind - how are you
spending the money provided by the members? Are you servicing the maximum
possible number of members with each dollar, or only catering to a select
few? I understand that traditionally, the AGA has placed maximum emphasis on
TAG, and reaching its membership thru the magazine. But the attention that
the hobby and the organization could potentially receive from taking more
advantage of non-traditional media could help both.

I think that it might help the Conference if more of a web presence for it
could be developed - the names of the speakers was available but WHAT did
they talk about, and what did they say? With current and easily available
technology, it should be possible for at least parts of any future
Conference to be available live and online. Last year, a group of my friends
in Vancouver broadcast a birthday party over the web using regular video
cameras. It was done so that friends and family all over North America could
feel like they were there enjoying the fun and it worked really well. More
importantly, it didn't cost anything to do.

For the Conference, the speaker's talks and any workshops could be taped and
broadcast. It would help allow the Conference reach a larger portion of the
AGA membership, who might be interested but not able to attend in person.

>   1) Some shared advertising and announcement resources.  The AGA
> management wants to promote the convention in the big magazines with print
> ads.  The showcase can share this space, as well as reduce the pain in
> getting separate ads to print.  And our (the showcase's) massive club PR
> machine might be used to also announce the convention.

>From the Showcase/Contest perspective, this would be very welcome. I was not
very happy with the editorial space that we got from the "glossies" this
time around, and it seems to me that the magazines give more editorial
support to folks who buy advertizing space.

>   2) Some shared manufacturer solicitations.  Since the companies get
> notified of both events, they know that they're both AGA.  One might want
> to donate to the showcase and also set up a booth at the convention (Kim
> from AH Supply actually did this.  He had a nice booth with his lights on
> display.  Gomberg had a booth at the convention, but no doubt completely
> forgot about donating even a year of PAM for the showcase). Heck, if we'd
> thought about it, we might even have gone and brought some of the prizes
> from David's house during the thing, but our showcase booth was very very
> basic; just a monitor and hand-drawn sign;  all we had time to do given
> the other zillion things.  I think having more manufacturer presence is a
> good thing at these conventions.  People get to poke around during the
> breaks and see what's out there.  There was lots of talk about Flourite at
> the convention, but I wonder if some of the attendees had never seen the
> stuff.

See my comments above. I think that there is a LOT of potential for both
events and I think that BOTH events could be better working together rather
than at cross purposes. It isn't (and shouldn't be) a competition for
attention by either event for the attention of vendors.

>   3) Synchronization of the events, so that the judging is complete by the
> convention.  This would be incredibly cool.  Simultaneous announcement on
> the web and at the convention.  There has been (albeit slim) talk of
> making the convention an international event; originally Neil Frank talked
> with Amano about an international "Summit" each year.  Sounds similar in
> goals to the showcase.

You won't get any argument from me there - I don't know the breakdown of AGA
membership, as far as the percentage of where people are from, but it SHOULD
do everything in its power to knit together the international hobby. I saw
the note from David regarding Amano and his upcoming Contest, and his "no
show" regarding getting involved in the Convention this year. But just
because people like that are hard to reach doesn't mean that we should stop
trying to draw them in - we have a lot to learn from one another.

I think that once a track record is available, it should get easier to
attract the attention of potential speakers (and judges). Finding some way
of encorporating the WWW into the Conference would help with that. It could
provide a permanent "point of reference" that we could direct people to.

> Anyway, it's just some ideas on where to jump off from here.  As I said in
> the Management Committee Wrapup of the convention, think of this as how we
> can raise the bar for next year.

I think that the sky is the limit - if you have the imagination (and can
come up with the people interested enough to devote the time and energy
necessary) you can accomplish whatever you want.

The "PR" machine that you refer to is (I assume) the contact some of the
other committee members made with clubs all over the country. I think that
this could be handled a bit better next year, if we can get someone to do
the groundwork for it. If it was managed in a speadsheet like I used for the
vendor contacts we could make sure that all areas are covered - as good a
job as was done, I'm confident that there is room for improvement. This
could also be expaned to cover clubs in other countries as well as web sites
maintained by individual hobbyists (such as the notices Erik Leung placed on
his site).

For both events, I think that the trick is to get as many people involved as
possible.

James Purchase
Toronto