Biggest Mistake Made By Event Organizers, Concert Producers, and Corporate Trainers
I’ve been obsessed recently by the words, front end and back end. Front end is the focus of traditional publicists and marketing professionals, conference organizers and producers of musical events, and workplace trainers. They focus on visibility, the Big Splash, and memorable experience. They delight in airtime, broadcast mediums, and media coverage. Getting on Oprah or playing Carnegie Hall is the Holy Grail.
And what I say is, “Where is the back end?” The back end continues the conversation, the learning, the connections, the joy. The back end engages and turns the one-off experience into a long-term relationship. The back end has the ability to transform.
Digital immigrants may be socialized to accept the one shot event–a theatre production that comes to town and then leaves, a conference with interesting speakers and a tote bag full of business cards and brochures, a well-done training that inspires for a few days to do things differently, a book signing at a local bookstore. I’ve done my share of all of these.
What digital natives want, and what digital immigrants should want, is more. More connection, more conversation, more of the story behind the story. They want the back end–the virtual gathering place to see what other people thought of that new blues band or additional commentary on that baroque chamber concert by the artistic director. They want to know what else the book author has written and what she thinks about on a daily basis and what her newest project is about. They want to know how they can get involved, even if they had to leave early from the event promoting a social cause. And by the way, they want to see data on how cause is helping others and more about the founders of the cause. They want to continue their learning on the new skills that they picked up at a workshop and ask questions not only of the instructors but also of the other attendees. Did you have as much trouble trying this new stuff out as a I did? They want to see photos and video of the four-day conference that they could only sample for a day. They go online for all of this.
If you want to have real impact in the world, a bigger voice, don’t just focus on front end. Front end without back end is what we’ve been doing forever. It worked before because it’s all we had. We can do more now and our constituents, audiences, readers, community are expecting more.
Front End + Back End = Stunning Results
Tell me your success stories using front end and back end. We need case studies, role models, best practices. Because change is not easy……
Interesting and insightful way of putting a very important idea. I think certain live events will actually have trouble staying afloat unless they start offering people the opportunity to connect–before, during, and after events. Without the connections, many live events can be replaced by technology.
Hi Alli,
I’m fascinated by your last comment that without the connections, many live events won’t be sustainable. Sometimes I think change is so slow and your perspective is pointing to change happening faster than I think. Thanks for the perspective.
This ties into a previous post about the new film “Religulous” and the director’s choice to end the film with a challenge to action, but no back-end support. He did a wonderful job of filmmaking & is clearly passionate about a cause; but what support is in place after folks walk out of the theater?
This discussion is also close to home with several past grass-roots causes in which the goal of the organizing effort was a citizens’ vote, but there was a disconnect post vote, resulting in less than optimal longer-term outcomes.
I’m currently involved with a land preservation effort. It’s a modest deal in the big picture of government, but still a substantial multi-million dollar outlay for a rural township population. If we’re fortunate enough to make a millage election pass, one of the issues we’re emphasizing is that our efforts won’t end with the millage vote.
Our citizen’s group will stay involved to make sure that the new parkland will become a community treasure. We won’t hand off responsibility to government and hope for the best. We’ll take an active role in making sure the land is properly managed.
And perhaps most importantly, we’ll do a better job of keeping intact the key community organizers who can make networking so much easier.
Important issues for our larger community come along every several years. Many of the same key players reconnect, but there’s some measure of “reinventing the wheel” each time we take on these causes. The challenge of keeping good people in contact over time is a big one, especially when some outcomes are “events” & not ongoing interaction. And yet modest work to keep this smaller subset community of key people connected could pay enormous dividends over time.
We know this. And this article is a point of emphasis to share with folks…to make us ponder what the value & common thread is to keep us connected over time.
Hi Dave,
How wise you are to ensure that you create a community that stays engaged for the long haul–not just for a one-time vote, but for the sake of creating a place where you all want to live, ongoing.
Thanks for sharing!