Show me another medium where you could be having this conversation.
The lowering of barriers to competition shouldn't only worry associations. The barriers to creating successful conferences have already disappeared in certain segments of tech (social networking, open source code). It will likely happen with marketing and PR soon. And grow from there as blogging/Web 2.0 gains wider acceptance.
Thought leaders who've built loyal followings through blogs will have the necessary ingredients to put together successful conferences and small exhibitions. This is why IDG, MediaLive and others have been working to develop content-driven blogging strategies that will keep their audiences tuned in.
Does the World of Concrete need to worry about blogging today? No. There's no urgency because the blogging virus hasn't yet spread to their audience. And there's simply not much content to link with to start compelling conversations. But there are other shows out there - including some biggies - where market conversations are taking place around them (and without them). Those are the events that should start thinking about Hugh's membrane analogy.
I just did an interview for an article on blogging for an upcoming issue of EXPO. I mentioned that there were a number of good reasons to start blogging right now. But I also opined that our reality is that wide acceptance of event blogging won't happen until the revenue model is proven. That's just the way most in our industry have been trained to think: If it's not going to show a profit, don't do it.
But for many outside the events industry, blogs aren't about revenue in and of themselves. Rather, they're platforms for building loyal audiences, not unlike other media, but without the infrastructure costs that require revenue from ad sales. It's not the ad revenue that matters so much as the ability and desire to influence the agenda.
And while that may sound altruistic from a traditional trade show perspective, once a sizeable audience is in place, anything can happen. If it wanted to AdRants could do a advertising conference next week to challenge AD:TECH, even though AD:TECH has a widely-read blog (but not as widely-read as AdRants). Likewise, Hugh McLeod at GapingVoid could launch a executive marketing confab to challenge some of AMA's vertical conferences on branding and advertising and he'd do very well.
Taking it to more mainstream categories, CoffeeGeek could launch a show to rival SCAA. Not that they'd want to given the support they provide SCAA, but should a rift occur over policy or other matters, CoffeeGeek could launch in a heartbeat. SCAA does have some insulation because of its hugely popular interactive online forum, with more than 15,000 posts. But again, if SCAA crosses the line with its membership, there's someone else who can pick up the dissatisfied members and create a new event immediately.
Possibly the multiple bloggers behind Daily Bread could get together and create a more democractic alternative to FancyFood, a top show where only association members can play. A site like DailyBread probably couldn't go head to head with a TS200 event, but it might find openings by launching smaller regional events that take the 'essence' of a FancyFood to mid-America. You can find other examples of blog communities that are strong and powerful enough to support events in most retail-oriented segments. Not so much in trade/B2B, but that's changing too.
Point is, the people who are driving online communities that comprise Web 2.0 aren't thinking like you are when it comes to giving their audiences what they want. Their motives are different. They're usually willing to share what they know for free and start conversations that affect changes in the way markets operate.
And it could be your market next.
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