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"MY FRIEND IRMA"
by DVDJ MEDIAPAR (BRUCE APAR > dvdj@optonline.net) This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Good News About Oil Prices This year, for example, we learned from a commodities consultant that the smart money is on oil prices dropping considerably, to $30 a barrel by 2010, says James Virosco of Nexant, who forecast that they will stay at that reasonable level for quite a while. He explained that since 80% of the cost of polycarbonate – the compound used in digital video disc – is in raw materials, there’s not much price elasticity or margin with which to shave costs. The rarefied IRMA Management Summit crowd typically numbers in excess of 100 senior executives from major replicators and their vendors, content holders, blank media marketers, package suppliers, technology and raw materials providers, and service vendors. In addition to healthy servings of market data and analysis, they get to network, explore dealmaking opportunities and IRMA directors convene an elections meeting of the international board. Secrets of Smart Conference Planning IRMA and its Management Summit attendees have progressively benefited the last few years from a conference programming partnership with Understanding & Solutions, the U.K.-based research consultancy. Under the guidance of his boss, U&S managing director Jim Bottoms, my mate Bill Foster – who makes effective use of his engineering and journalism training – gets better each go-round at assembling a very relevant series of presentations delivered by recognized experts. Bill keeps the proceedings at a brisk pace and isn’t shy about politely and professionally easing off a speaker who’s overstayed his or her welcome. His attention to such detail – and sensitivity to audience tolerances – serves to remind that staging informative, well-produced industry conferences is a lot more difficult than meets the eye or ear. The Keynote as Infomercial? T&E-privileged conference warriors will be quick to tell you that too many sessions they attend easily get dragged down by poor presenters or misplaced sales pitches from the podium. As good as this IRMA Management Summit was overall – and it was one of the very best in recent memory -- there was grumbling about just such a keynote that was disappointingly short on insight and surprisingly long on career credentials. One board member was heard to ask an IRMA official, only partly tongue-in-cheek, “How much did he pay us for that infomercial?” Such are the pitfalls even of the most diligent conference planning. There’ll always be the speaker who submits one presentation but then, owing to last-minute changes and perhaps corporate pressure, ends up delivering a different speech altogether. The mortified people with their jaws hanging open in the back of the room are the conference producers, making a mental note, “Move this speaker from A list to blacklist.” One way around that is to focus on panel discussions and avoid stagey presentations, during which audiences may recoil – or nod off – at the most tedious or self-serving, which are all too common. Digital Hollywood, Here We Come! Panel discussions are the heart of the successful conference formula developed by Digital Hollywood and its founder Victor Harwood. That’s why DVD Association (and my consultancy Mediapar) are excited to be working with him as we host a Next-Generation Consortium at Digital Hollywood Spring 2006, March 28-30 at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California. We’ll be announcing more details soon, and in the meantime visit http://www.digitalhollywood.com to register and see the jam-packed agenda Victor has put together once again. See you next time ... Recommend this article to Social Bookmark Sites:          |
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