My Conspire 2009 Thoughts – Concluding Thoughts
Overall, I think that the Conspire Conference experience for me in 2009 was good. If I were to pick a favourite session or breakout, it would be the general session with Ivy Beckwith and Don Ratcliff. I found myself wanting to hear more from both of them when the time was up. Their simple yet profound insights on spiritual formation were affirming yet challenging. You can check out more of my thoughts here, my summary of the session here, and my live blogging of the session here.
Another thing that was great to see this year was more diversity in topics when it came to breakouts and the special point leader sessions.
One thing that I think the Conspire team needs to consider for future conferences is to find a way to make some sessions (general and breakout) a bit more interactive by allowing for questions and/or discussion. I attended The Idea Camp a few weeks prior to Conspire and was impressed by the concept of an open-source unconference. All sessions were about interaction and discussion. Maybe consider a point leader track that was smaller and allowed for more discussion and interaction rather than your traditional classroom model.
One other thing that I think the Conspire really needs to improve is the use of technology (social media and networking and communication) around Conspire. I know that they tried this year (hey, I got to be a part of some of that with the blogging). A good idea might be talking with the Shift Conference team and gleaning ideas from them when it comes to utilizing social media technology. In addition, I think that live streaming the general sessions would be something really worth considering in order to increase the influence of Conspire as well as widening the appeal of the Conspire brand.
- How about you? Did any of you attend Conspire?
- What were your thoughts about the conference?
- How does Conspire compare to other conferences you’ve attended?
- If you didn’t attend Conspire, is there anything that would make you consider attending in the next year?
- What do you look for in conferences? Are they even beneficial anymore?
I think Conspire lost branding with the name "Conspire" – had to look it up to see what it was first time i saw it. poor name, doesn't reflect what it is. i think their branding is suffering and makes it hard to get what it is about. not a big critism, just think the name is a poor name. I attended in 2007 and enjoyed it, but wasn't wowed. the worship, ironically, was my favorite thing.
I don't know if I agree that their problem is the name. If anything, they just need to work on doing more conspiring at the conference and in how they market. If they took more advantage of social media and the ethos behind it, they would truly be conspiring.
Take a look at Orange. What's that? You have to look it up or hear what it's all about, but they do a good job with how they brand it. They are consistent with what they are saying and how they say it.
I agree that Conspire has a branding problem, but I don't necessarily thinks it's the name. They just have to follow through with what the name implies and what they are saying they want to happen.