Behold the Turtle...

The IMRA Marketing Conference ended last night.  It was "my" Conference, and as Conference Chair I pretty much got to set the direction and tone of the event. It's at times like these when you realize you may be the Chair but you're only Window Dressing.  The REAL work is done by IMRA's staff and the Committee members who gave of their time, effort, and money to make things happen.

Being the Bomb-Thrower I am, I decided against a Keynote Speaker.  You know the type--they are Gurus in some discipline and speak to groups from Addis Ababa to Zurich.  They take their 1-hour speech (you know they're gonna be on time because they're constantly looking at their watch) and attempt to be "relevant" to the audience by modifying their stump speech to include a little jargon that we use in our world.

They have all this expertise,  and McDonalds and Hustler and Kim Jong Un swear by their advice. But it usually turns out just like you would guess--somewhat awkward and always barely on point.  Then it's back to the stump speech and then to the airport to speak to Al Qaeda or CPAC or somebody.

I decided the Hell with that.  We're smarter than they are about our business.  

So I decided to write some skits that spoofed situations we face in our daily business lives.  Like suppliers and reps talking about why business sucks.  Or the game of "telephone" that takes one message and turns it into something entirely different.  That sort of thing.

My high opinion of myself never allowed the thought that this might not be "appropriate" for the Conference attendees.  Or that they wouldn't find it as uproarious as I did.  So I forged ahead, no doubt causing poor Karen Renk (Executive Director of IMRA) untold heartburn.

But guess what?  It worked.  The actors hit it clean into the upper deck.  They got a standing ovation from the audience. We're actually gonna go back and re-record the skits for the IMRA website to be used as new-member orientation.

And I learned something--sometimes you have to do what you think is right even if it bucks Conventional Wisdom.  As the old saying goes--"Behold the turtle.  It only makes progress when it sticks its neck out".  Words to live by...


Pete