Why Doon Insights?

Our vision for a better events mode

Feb 17, 2021

Even before Covid many felt that the traditional commercial events business model was broken. The pervasive practice of charging large "pay to speak" sponsorship fees resulted in speakers whose primary goal was to sell their companies' wares, not talk about substance. Commercial conference organizers staffed up with marketing and administrative people to chase sponsors and organize the logistics of large in-person events, requiring expensive operating budgets. To sustain this model, attendees were charged very high registration fees for the privilege of being continuously spammed during the sessions. People went to conferences mostly to network, not so much to listen to the program.

Then Covid hit, and everything went online. But being online makes possible a better way to run events. An online format keeps your costs very low, which allows you to avoid the "pay to speak" model. If you essentially ban marketing by speakers, you can choose speakers based on their expertise and focus on substance, so the quality of content improves dramatically. Speakers are happy to have a chance to discuss what they are passionate about, without paying to speak. Attendees are not spammed, they pay a lot less in registration fees, and since the costs are so low they don't feel guilty about listening only to the parts that interest them. Speakers and attendees from all over the world can participate since they don't have to travel to attend. Everyone wins!

So I decided that we should take full advantage of the online format and make our content more accessible to more people around the world. We are starting with a bang -- 4 Workshops this Spring, a Crypto Workshop next Tuesday, an Auto|Mobility Tech Workshop on March 23, Fintech on April 6 and Ag|Food Tech on May 18 (with more planned later this year).

But to do events at this much larger scale and make this into a business I needed help, so I invited my old friend Nick Sramek to join me as a partner in this endeavor. I met Nick when I served on the Board of a large institutional investor association and Nick was the programming director there. Since then Nick has branched out into the world of tech and startups, plus he lives in Santa Cruz, so he was the perfect partner! We are also supported on the web design side by my son Andrew (it's now a family business!) and Kevin Huang in Shanghai.  

Our community of Workshop regulars has been very generous with their time, giving us suggestions about startups and speakers. We have been growing the content organically by crowdsourcing panel themes from both investors and corporates that we work with. Startups across geographies are grateful for the opportunity to reach so many new contacts. It really does feel like an ecosystem that is aligned.  

Of course, with virtual events there is the not-so-little issue of creating real human connections. Pre-Covid, our Workshops at Bonny Doon were intimate gatherings where it was easy to make friends during the breaks, perhaps on the deck overlooking the pond, taking in the sun. How do we re-create that?  

There is no perfect answer, but I would say two things. First, we will eventually return to Bonny Doon when we get past Covid, hopefully by the end of this year. Our plan is to create a hybrid event using Bonny Doon as the stage set for a live-streaming program, with a smaller group meeting there in person. A much larger group will participate online across the world on Zoom.  

In the meantime, in our pure online events we will do everything we can to help attendees connect with each other. We will set up a Slack channel at each Workshop so attendees can communicate before and after the Workshop. In addition, during the breaks we will be offering the use of Gather, a virtual networking platform, so you can walk around a virtual reception room and have video meetings with people you bump into or search out.

Your initial reaction may be to only attend Workshops in your area of focus, but I submit that you might enjoy hearing about tech outside your ordinary path. I think of our Workshops as a kind of general continuing education for people interested in tech. We are truly attracting some of the smartest people in each domain to talk about what they know best, and this is content that is really hard to capture in conventional settings. Given the low costs and flexibility of being online, perhaps you can think of our programs as a long menu of delectable choices that you are free to pick and choose from . . . 

In the vein of broadening our impact, we have been reaching out to universities to make the Workshops accessible to interested students on a very low cost basis, because we think the content should be particularly valuable to young people insulated from the commercial world. (Let us know if your Alma Mater might be interested in such a program.) 

We are working on one other piece of the puzzle. We all know that AI language translation platforms are getting better all the time and high quality voice transcription technology has also been with us for some time. We believe it is only a matter of time before someone will integrate all of this with Zoom, which will permit live content to reach across borders to speakers of all major languages all over the world. Think of the possibilities: all the people who previously did not attend international events because of language barriers will soon be enabled, and indeed speakers can present in multiple languages and carry out a real time dialogue with other speakers in their own tongue (sitting at home or the office). It could be like the UN on steroids! And all of this at a time when communications and information have been cut off because of travel and social barriers imposed by Covid.  

So that is the grand vision. We are just starting out and hoping to build up some momentum. We appreciate all of your support over the years and for this new platform we are building.  

regards

Howard Chao

Managing Director, Doon Insights