At last summer’s National Center for Database Marketing conference in San Francisco, I mentioned to one attendee that I was hoping to say hello to a colleague of hers.
“Oh, he’s here,” she replied, gesturing to the sparse crowd milling around the breakfast buffet. “You shouldn’t have too much problem finding him here.”
Ouch.
While marketers still go to the summer NCDM show, there is a palpable lack of enthusiasm among perennial attendees. Speak to them and eventually a litany of comments emerges. “The show serves only as an excuse to gossip with old friends.” “The level of new blood at it just isn’t there.” “It should be combined with its winter counterpart – in short, eliminated.”
The last is the wrong action. In my opinion, the summer NCDM show does not need euthanasia. What it does need is a personality transplant.
First, a raft of disclaimers. I’ve not only attended every NCDM conference during the past eight years, I’ve been serving – and continue to serve — on the programming boards for ‘em. I spoke at the summer conference in 2003. And Direct’s parent company co-sponsors it with the Direct Marketing Association. The NCDM conferences’ success doubtless has an impact on my paycheck, be it ever so humble.
This insider’s view allows me to see the summer show’s potential. The winter show has the benefit of usually being held in Orlando. Marketers often combine their attendance with a family vacation. The summer shows offer programming similar to the winter ones, but without this extra reason for attending.
NCDM summer could offset this by taking on a purpose of its own. I’d like to see the conference add a strong job fair element. The overhauled summer NCDM would serve as a marketplace dedicated to linking direct and database marketing employers with students and marketing professionals interested in entering the field, or changing jobs.
NCDM management would facilitate this by collecting resumes in advance of the show and posting blind versions, along with introductory letters from the candidates, on a searchable Web site. Internal corporate recruiters would then request interviews with candidates by using an alphanumeric code that replaced each candidate’s personal information.
Just as the current show offers attendance rates for exhibiters, NCDM management could create a recruiter’s classification, which would allow a company to ask for up to, say, 15 meetings, with more meetings purchasable for an additional fee.
As with any radically new program, the first few years this is in place will have a strong learning curve. Doubtless a certain percentage of prospects will not show up for their interviews, and corporate recruiters would have to accept that going in. And efforts to coordinate the schedules of dozens of recruiters, and potentially hundreds of applicants, will have some kinks during the first go-rounds. The cost of participating can be adjusted to reflect the number of caveats the first few shows will carry.
But given time, this could not only prove a cost-effective way for the industry to tap top talent but a way of infusing some life into the conference, as students signing up for interviews could be granted access to the various sessions.
To make this most successful, the summer NCDM conference should be moved – definitely in terms of location, but likely in terms of timing as well. It should be based in any of a number of cities that have a concentration of universities with strong undergraduate and graduate business programs, such as Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to move it earlier into the summer, preferably either just before or immediately after the end of the academic year.
There are folks who attend the summer show exclusively, and for them the conference should maintain its educational component. But for industry buzz at large – and to generate reasons anew to attend – a repurposing of the show is worth considering.
So, readers, what opportunities do you see to this little scheme? What drawbacks do you see? And for those of you who will be in the position of having to recruit, what value – a tangential, monetary value – do you ascribe to it? I welcome the start of a public discussion.
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