Mumbrella360 – call for curated sessions
I must confess that I didn’t enjoy Mumbrella360 last year.
Having staked our credibility and indeed (although I didn’t like to think about it at the time) the company, on Mumbrella360 being a success, the main thing I actually experienced over the two days was a growing sense of relief that it wasn’t shit.
As each session went well, and people began to come up to me and say kind things, it began to dawn on me that we had pulled it off.
And once the second day of the event had closed, I had the best night’s sleep I’d had all year. Fortunately we hadn’t failed in front of the 800 people whose opinions mattered most to us.
And now we’re ready to do it all over again. This time it’s on June 6 and 7.
And once again, we’re turning to the industry to help us make a success of it.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that when people said good things, a lot of those sessions they were most positive about were those curated by the industry.
A few examples include Naked Communications’ live marketing experiment (the results of which are being presented at the Society of Consumer Pschology Annual Conference this week), the agenda-setting session on media trading curated by Group M, the PHD-led live creation of the Media Manifesto and of course Adam Hunt’s Why is ‘Advertising So Fucking Boring?’ session. Then there was the packed session curated by The Eck Factor on the relationship between Twitter and TV. The CRA’s session on edgy radio was rather excellent too.
Indeed, of the 50 or so sessions, about half were industry curated so I can’t mention all of them here.
And it’s now time for us to make that call again.
If you’ve got a great idea for a subject the industry needs to hear about, the floor is yours.
You’ve got 45 minutes. The topic is up to you, the format is up to you. It’s your chance to lead a debate about something you may feel has been ignored.
If we love your idea, we’ll give you as much or as little practical help as you need to put it on.
The test is a simple one. If you were in the audience – consisting mainly of marketers, agency folk and media people – what would interest you?
Last year we had 120 proposals, so most didn’t make it. Some tips on what cuts through:
- Don’t propose a session that involves presentations from three different members of your own team. That smells like a sales pitch. But we’d love it if you could tap into your networks to get experts for your session that we might be unable to. That might include clients or global staff who might be (or could be persuaded to be) in the country at the time;
- Don’t suggest people you can’t deliver. It was a kind suggestion from one person last year that we should stage a debate between Bill Gates, the boss of Google and Rupert Murdoch, but we weren’t convinced they necessarily had the contacts to get them on the stage;
- Do think beyond the standards formats of three PowerPoint presos from three different people; or four people in a moderated argument. There might be some good sessions like that, but they don’t all need to be. This is a creative industry. The room is yours to surprise.
- Don’t suggest a session in which the main topic is how-the-industry-is-really-lacking-a-particular-product-that-you-happen-to-offer. I’m sure our sales team will be happy to sell you an exhibition stand for that.
- Do sprinkle some magic dust. It’s what our industry does best.
Please feel free to put your idea as an individual, agency, association or organisation.
We’d love to hear from you.
And if you do have a proposal for a curated session, please email my colleague denise@focalattractions.com.au, ideally before March 9.
I look forward to hear what you have in mind. It’ll help me sleep better.
Tim Burrowes
Linkedin
Will your fab interview sofa be on display?
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Can I propose ‘Flash mobs – A Retrospective’?
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Glad to read someone else’s feeling that sense of horror when you launch something new! Haha! Good luck for year 2, it’ll be great!
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