On Conference Advisory Boards and Committees

I've worked with conference advisory boards on events serving a number of difference industries. In each case, a group of industry experts came together to determine to most relevent topics and speakers for an upcoming conference. In many instances, the board would also work on strategy and tactics for implementing marketing and sponsorship development programs.

Some of these boards were highly effective, tapping into the collective market intelligence, business networks and functional skill-sets of all board members. Others were less successful, missing production and marketing deadlines, and experiencing gridlock which caused some great ideas to get lost in committee. It occurs to me that the effective boards did indeed function in an advisory capacity and that the failures were...well....committees.

Here are the differences:

An advisory board provides the benefit of their expertise to a conference producer who makes programming decisions based on this collective wisdom and other factors including production deadlines and information gleaned by supplimental primary and secondary market research. One official advisory board meeting is typically all that is required to provide an experienced conference producer with enough information to to complete the research, speaker recruitment, and brochure development tasks associated with a successful event. After the board meeting, the producer calls on individual members of the advisory board based on the individual's expertise, market knowledge and availability.

A committee makes programming decisions during committee meetings (by committee, of course). From my experience, committees meet once or twice per month beginning anywhere from six months to a year prior to the event. Committee members are relied upon much more heavily for inviting speakers and for providing feedback on working conference outlines. Typically, committee approval or consensus is required on agenda items and speakers to be included for keynotes and panels.

High quality conference programs are produced by advsiory boards which have exceptional collective knowledge, perspective and business relationships relative to the topic at hand. The key to a successful conference program is to appoint an conference producer. This person must have the trust of the advisory board. He or she must have the editorial acumen and commercial instincts to funnel all of the board's brain power into a cohesive and compelling agenda that is delivered on time and under budget.