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Selling the boss on attending Gel 2009
If you need to make the case - to a boss or CFO or other decisionmaker - for attending the Gel 2009 conference, try this. (Feel free to customize to your own use.)
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To: <Boss>
Subject: Training proposal - Gel 2009 conference
Here's why I think we should invest in my attendance at the Gel conference on Thursday-Friday, April 30 and May 1, this year in New York City (http://gelconference.com/c/gel09.php):
What is Gel?
Gel is an eclectic, mind-expanding event that includes presenters from many different disciplines - design, technology, business, and so on - and attracts an audience of similar diversity.
The conference allows creative leaders to network, learn, and expand their horizons in a number of different contexts: workshops, seminars, theater presentations, and networking breaks.
Why should I attend Gel?
The primary benefit of my attending Gel is that I'll get the intellectual energy and inspiration that's so valuable in a challenging market. The current list of speakers for the 2009 conference is all over the board - an anthropologist, the founders of Meetup.com and Treehugger.com, an NYC school principal, an oil painter, a psychology professor, a defense lawyer, and several others. Many of the speakers are from fields that may initially seem unrelated to ours. However, Gel connects all of these speakers, their ideas and their points of view around the common goal of creating excellent user experiences. Unlike "typical" conferences that offer a series of PowerPoint presentations focused on one topic, Gel inspires creative leaders to think about their work in new and creative ways.
I expect that after attending Gel, I will return to work (and life) energized and passionate - with an improved perspective and a focused purpose. I also expect that I'll come back having met a number of other executives, directors, and other influentials at any number of other companies and organizations that we might find are good partners or customers.
(Last year's Gel attendee list - http://gelconference.com/08/attendees.php - gives a good sense of who attends the event... including over 30 CEOs, presidents, founders, and principals; over 20 VPs of marketing, product, UX; and hundreds of client-side companies, partners, vendors, and other orgs.)
Comments from past Gel attendees:
"I found the entire event to be inspiring, edifying and stimulating: qualities that one does not find easily in one's day-to- day existence. I loved the fact that the presenters were in different stages of their lives, from different disciplines and with different perspectives. The conference definitely has a humanitarian focus that is too often lacking in design and technology symposia."
"What a wonderful assembly of thinkers and doers that was just a joy to be a part of."
"It really made me think about the various experiences of my life, especially the good ones, and how I can be truly present with them in a more meaningful way. Also, how to create more of them!"
"it's a pretty sophisticated crowd so the speakers could freely use shorthand for big ideas and people got it pretty quick... there were post-Marx-brothers intellectual jugglers for every session who were their own good experience and who tied all the good experiences together... there was a mix of speakers i would expect to see at a user experience conference and speakers i would likely not get to see anywhere otherwise... I was interested, amused and moved throughout the day"
"Attending the GEL conference helped me to cross what we used to call an 'inflection point' in terms of how I approach and create great customer experiences."
Summary
Gel does a good job of asking the right questions, some of which I hope would be answered by attending:
"Whether you're in business, education, philanthropy, art, design, or any other area, this is a rich challenge for you: how do you create a good experience in what you do? What are the multiple factors that will over-determine that experience? How do you integrate that experience within your larger context (customer needs, business goals, the environment, society at large)?"
P.S. There are several videos of past presentations at gelvideos.com.
