Creating Content While at Conferences Like #13NTC

Later this week, I’ll be attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis. Aside from the fact that I will be leaving 80-degree, Spring-Has-Finally-Sprung weather in North Carolina for a snow storm in Minneapolis, I am really looking forward to the big show.

I take my reputation as a prolific creator of high-quality content for nonprofits very seriously, and I am also super busy, which means I need to make the most of conferences like this.

Here’s a run-down of what Kristina and I will be doing during and after #13NTC to create content based on the conference. I would love to hear your content-from-conferences tips in the comments!

Create Blog Posts from My Own Session Content

I am speaking in two sessions:

The 5th Annual Marketing and Fundraising Meet and Greet at 1:30 pm on Thursday with Katya Andresen, Farra Trompeter, and Nancy Schwartz. We usually create a handout live during the session, so I’ll share that with you at some point.

Secrets of Content Marketing Sorcerers at 10:30 am on Friday with Robert Rosenthal and Brett Meyer. We’ll load the presentation into Slideshare, and I’ll share that along with some of the highlights from the session with you.

Create Blog Posts from Session Content by Others

I’ve asked Kristina to plan to write at least three blog posts post-NTC. Maybe she will summarize one session per post or maybe she will group some of what she learns in multiple sessions. But she knows she is responsible for creating content based on sessions, so she will make her selections and take notes accordingly. I may or may not do the same — it just depends on which sessions I end up attending.

Interview Nonprofit Comm Staff, with Several Purposes in Mind

This year, Kristina and I will both be recording audio interviews with nonprofit communications and development staff we meet at NTC. I’ve decided to do audio-only this year, coupled with a still photograph because (1) worrying about the video quality is something I’d rather not do this time around and (2) people are less likely to say no if they don’t have to worry about how they look.

We will use SoundCloud to record and share each interview. We’ll post some of them on Twitter and Facebook directly. We will likely do a round-up blog post later. I will also pull answers from the interviews to use in other content I plan to create in the coming weeks and months, so I’m not only creating interesting content now, but doing research for later.

We are going to ask three questions in each interview:

1. If you had one whole free day at work, with no meetings and no interruptions, how would you spend that day?

This is a question I’m personally interested in, and I think might generate some really interesting insights into the life and times of nonprofit communicators today. If so, I can see this leading to some interesting opinion or advice pieces later.

2. What is one of your favorite, can’t-live-without tech tools, including hardware, software, apps, or websites?

This is a tech conference after all, but we are also asking this question because we have a show-and-tell webinar coming up called Tech Tools We Can’t Live Without for our All-Access Pass Holders on April 30, where Kristina and I will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how we do everything we do as a two-person company. I’ll add what we hear as answers to this question into the webinar content.

3. Pick a Random Question!

I asked for additional question suggestions on Facebook and will write a bunch of these and some others we’ve come up with on a set of cards and will ask the interviewee to randomly select and answer a question. We’ll see what comes of this.

Take Photos of Anything Quirky or Interesting

This has not been a real strength of mine in the past, but I’m going to make an effort to snap a picture of anything I find remotely quirky or interesting. When you create as many presentation decks a year as I do, you always need good material. And of course, you can tag on Instagram, so I will probably post there with the #13NTC tag during the conference as well.

Recruit Lots of Guest Bloggers

Finally, it’s always a goal of mine whenever I am out meeting new people to recruit guest bloggers. People tend to get very excited and say “Yes!” (or maybe they are just being nice) and then only maybe a third will actually follow through with a post. But that doesn’t stop me from recruiting nonprofits to share their communications and fundraising stories with you. I am going to try Evernote Hello as a way to keep track of these conversations this year.