This weekend I’ll be heading off to the Innovations in Social Marketing Conference in Baltimore. Never been to it? Missed the announcement about it? You’re not alone. Since about 2000, the conference has been an invitation-only event for a hand-picked group of social marketers. While I presented a paper at the ISM conference in 1999 in Montreal, before attendance was restricted, I have not been invited back until this year (was it something I said?).
So, I have some mixed feelings about attending. I’m excited about the agenda and the chance to talk to colleagues I haven’t seen in a while (and meet new ones). But it feels awfully elitist, as if I’m the geeky kid who’s finally been invited to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table. I understand the desire to keep the conference small (it’s limited to 125 people) and ensure that participants are knowledgeable enough about social marketing to be able to engage in a high-level discourse about the field. But from the outside, it looks like the same exclusive inner circle of social marketers talking to each other all the time.
Granted, the conference does publish its proceedings in the Social Marketing Quarterly each year, but to me that has always felt like “ha, ha, see what a great conference you missed?” You will be able to purchase the issue with this year’s proceedings for about $50 (though you may as well buy a full year subscription for $34 right now instead).
My purpose in laying out my perceptions of the conference is not to criticize and put down the organizers. Rather, I would love to find ways to be more inclusive and disseminate the content to those who cannot attend. I have received the green light to share information from the conference on this blog, so I will do my best to provide summaries of the sessions from my own limited perspective. Perhaps the conference organizers will also explore ways of providing webcasts or DVDs of some of the sessions so that other social marketers beyond the lucky 125 can benefit from the innovations discussed.
If you will be at the conference and would like to connect in advance, email me. Or if you see me standing by myself in the corner looking lonely, please come up and introduce yourself. I’d love to meet you. If you are in the Baltimore/DC area but not at the conference, and want to get together at some point on Sunday through Tuesday, please let me know as well.
Technorati Tags: social marketing, conference, ism07
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
