Badges
Being a conference organizer changes your whole attendee experience when you go to an event: you have a different look on things, especially on the tiny logistical details who are details to the public but crucial decisions to the organizer.
One of the areas where I still hadn’t made a decision for LIFT08 was badges. It might sound exaggerated but badges have a huge impact on attendees experience, because they are the main “navigation tool” and therefore impact the quality of networking.
As usual there are pluses and minuses:
| + pluses • Badges are a very effective way to store business cards. • Badges can be hacked easily, and allow those who want to stand out. Turn your badge around and draw your name with a big red pen. You’re now officially different. • Badges offer status. Speakers feel proud to wear that red badge, and journalists feel feared as they walk through the rooms seeking interviews. • Badges identify people. Simple benefit, quite important though ;) |
- minuses • Chest navigators. People who walk through the conference starring at badges looking for keywords like “CEO”, “Facebook” or “Press”, usually for bad reasons. You end up losing your time with these 95% of the time. • Misconceptions from titles. This is especially painful for people working for big companies where you HAVE to have a lousy and arrogant title. From a really cool dude I met at Leweb working for Microsoft: “People see Microsoft on my badge, so their crap filter goes up one level. Then they see Marketing and they start to draw strategies to get away from me”. The guy is brilliant, open, helpful, all the opposite of the stereotype that his badge could push you into. • Badges are a weak form of ID and give organizers a false sense of security. It’s very easy to give a badge to somebody else, a bit too easy. That’s why identification of delegates should happen somewhere else. |
At LIFT07 we had a logistical problem (actually the Swiss post did) and the badges arrived only on the second day. It took many attendees out of their comfort zone and triggered a few negative comments. On the plus side it created a nice ambiance where you had to rely on your usual judgment to network. This person looks nice and smiles at me, let’s meet (regardless of whether the person is a CEO or not). Less badges equaled more serendipitous encounters.
So I proposed to turn this accident into a feature, making NO badges on purpose. But the idea was not very well welcomed by the team who argued that badges are an indispensable part of networking at conference. We’ll see, and yes I’m speaking about that so you know that this blog’s readers opinion and experiences are more than welcome on the topic.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I agree re: the pluses and minuses of badges. But I’ve always been baffled that tech conferences don’t use more technology to connect participants. Admittedly, I haven’t been to a big tech conference in almost a year (ouch), and I obviously missed out on the summer conference (at Denver was it?) where twitter made a big splash. But having the conference officially encourage twitter (or other light weight communication platform) can be an easy way to achieve some cool stuff:
- You could twitter specific people you are looking for to get in touch with them. Or you can twitter your location for people to find you at specific times/places. (I’ve always found the practice of trying to read people’s badges in mid discussions a little distasteful, though unavoidable.)
- You can have an official conference twitter id following all the participants so people can, for example, live-comment on speakers and sessions. A couple of years ago, I actually talked to someone at etech about doing live chats in conference sessions and showing the chat on a big screen in the room. Obviously there is a risk that speakers / sessions get totally disrupted by this. But it might work well for a conference like lift.
And a company like Twitter could even become a sponsor.
Just some thoughts.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I’m not sure technology can really work as it forces people to turn a device on, etc.. You don’t see things like spotme much at conferences even if it’s a really cool product.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Why not put a badge in the back - worn as a neck-etiquette?
December 14th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
We don’t need no stinking badges! At LIFT07, without the help of badges, I was like a kid in a candy store. EVERYONE was worth talking to. And my friends would talk to people and tell me, oh you HAVE to talk to so-and-so. It worked perfectly.
I hate the dynamic of chest-staring. I vote no badges. Or if badges, they should be something creative and personal, not corporate.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Hi Laurent
Why don’t you make customizable badges. Leave some space on the badge so that people can write whatever they want or have them select some iconography possibly funny and inspiring.
The trick would be to make people understand they’re supposed to customize their badge.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
[…] to BlogTalk Laurent Haug blogs about conference badges and his desire to make LIFT a badge-free […]
December 15th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Give everyone special glasses: when you look at someone you see his name and whatever he decided to display as customizable info ;-)
Ok…… Maybe I know nothing about budget and logistic :-)
More seriously, I think the idea of customizable text is really good and can be fun ! The option to have a writable area on the badge is I think very good. You can then give a prize to the most unique/funny/attractive badge.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Funny, I never thought about the badge effect at conferences until you posted your article. It seems like an innocent detail but apparently it isn’t.
For now, I favour the no badges approach. I think it fits LIFT08’s unity in diversity leitmotif well, which to me is all about discovering people, novelties and how to live life differently.
However, since to wear or not to wear a badge has sparked some discussion, why not let conference participants decide for themselves if they wish to wear a badge or not. Afterall, last year’s no badge experience hasn’t provoked a lot of criticism or did it? The networking experience at the conference was perceived as an effective one by those who were surveyed, if I remember the Benchmark study correctly.
Why not distribute blank badges at registration? My guess is that some peope will like it, some won’t; some will personalise them and others won’t. However, I wouldn’t encourage wearing badges as correct conference behaviour or make wearing and personalising them the subject of a competition in creativity.
On the other hand, it might be interesting for Benchmark to include a question in their next survey about badges. For example, how wearing a badge or not is perceived by participants to have influenced their networking opportunities at the conference? Or some other question that could ferret out just how important or not the wearing of a badge is in this context?
Maybe this is much ado about nothing. After all, it is a detail. I just don’t know how important a detail breaking with well-honed conventional behaviour is.