Looking for feedback · Oct 25, 09:27 PM

Warning: I’m going to share some of my opinions on the conference. The intention is to acquire feedback and solutions to some questions I have. Here’s the kicker: I want to get more attendees at this event for the attendees’ sake much more than my own. I imagine that’s hard to believe from anyone involved in promotion, but I’ll ask you to believe it anyways.

As a co-host and promoter of XP Day, I’ve been able to attend all five of the XP Day North America conferences. Given that I’m not a recognizable “name”, I really get to enjoy being an observer and a mild contributor, without the pressure of being “on” as the speakers and presenters must surely feel. I’d like to share some of my observations with you and then follow-up with how can we get more attendees at these conferences.

If you were to ask me what benefit XP Day serves to its attendees, my response, as any good consultant’s would be, is “it depends what you want out of it.” Some people come to listen to notable practitioners speak about a certain subject. Others come to post their questions or findings as an open space discussion topic to share with peers. Then you have people that just come to hang out and see if they can pickup a few useful pieces of information that might help them deliver running, relevant software sooner.

I’ve yet to attend any XP Day conference whereby an attendee felt their $250 was poorly spent. At the end of each XP Day NA conference, everyone has an opportunity to share what they got out of the sessions. Not once has anyone said “nothing, this was a waste of my time” or something similar. So what leaves me baffled is: If everyone who has attended has thoroughly enjoyed the conference, why aren’t more attendees flocking to this event?

My guess is momentum. Since consecutive conferences are never in the same city, how does the conference get the public buzz surrounding it? I haven’t seen any discussions on the “international” forums like extremeprogramming that have carried over from the conference. I doubt there’s much I can do about it, but it’s noteworthy to mention that fertile discussion in such a widely read forum would be quite helpful.

Other areas we’re looking at revising to get more attendees are:

  1. Cost. Is $250 too much?
  2. Format. Would more attendees be interested if the conference was purely open space or purely tutorials?
  3. Cities. To date, we’ve selected big cities with a relatively large set of programmers (irrespective if there was a thriving agile group in town, as we really want to appeal to XP curious devs).
  4. Traditional marketing (ads in eWeekly, for example).

J. B. and I are currently looking at modifying all four variables mentioned. But what I’m finding difficult is justifying any decision we make. Without feedback, we really don’t know why the conferences aren’t attracting more attendees. I’m worried that our modifications will be no different than someone who is drowning, flapping their arms around in the water with the hope that whatever they’re doing will save them. Usually, that just gets them killed faster.

So, can anyone throw us a line? Ideas, insights from past attendees and what would be golden would be insights from non-attendees who considered attending and didn’t. Jerry McGuire said it best: “Help me help you.”

— Niraj Khanna

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