I’m back from New Orleans and the ‘polygamous marriage’ of planning, creative and media thrown by the extraordinarily fantastic and generous folk at Trumpet. Without a doubt it was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in a long time that put the usual industry ‘mega’ conferences organized by the usual suspects to shame.
A lot of reasons for this: great, diverse set of speakers; lots of short (twenty minute) provocative presentations rather than a handful of long sales pitches; lots of opportunity for conversation among the attendees; a deliberately manageable size of attendees; an amazing location (an old Masonic chapel rather than the usual anodyne conference room); the fact that there are no answers yet, just lots of experiences and perspective.
But the biggest reason I think for its success was the amazingly generous hospitality, friendliness and energy shown by Robbie Vitrano and the folks at Trumpet who put the event on, and the passion of Michael Karnjanaprakorn for having an idea and making it happen. They not only helped create a forum where a mixed set of experiences and points of view could be shared, but gave us a taste of the resurgent spirit in New Orleans, whether lunch at the brilliant Herbsaint (if you are in New Orleans, you have to go), the pre-conference night at Vaughan’s or the opportunity to talk with a handful of interesting folk from the community (I had a great chat at lunch with the Director of Marketing of the NOCCA Institute who are doing some amazing work to keep the city’s rich musical and art heritage alive).
I’ll put a post up a little later today of what was said during the day but keep your eyes posted on the site where they will be sharing much more detailed content including video of some of the presentations.
Hopefully they’ll be an anniversary next year. And if there is I urge you to go. In fact, the one sad part of the day was the lack of creative and client representation – perhaps if they won’t come to us then we should go to them and have an event that ‘hijacks’ the conferences of these audiences. It’s too important a subject to ignore.
Thanks for coming down Gareth! Really enjoyed your company and hope you had a brilliant experience in the Big Easy!
Posted by: Michael | October 29, 2007 at 12:30 PM