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Writer's pictureDavid Thomas

ALADDIN'S NEW LAMP


Some years ago, a very wise man, and universally acknowledged superstar of The Business of Pleasure, said to me:  “Ticketing Conferences should be held every two years.  The Industry, and its technologies, do not move forward enough in twelve months to provide sufficient compelling content to warrant an annual event.”

 

Okay, make that many years ago.  And my how the world has changed since then!

 

Next week will see the excellent Ticketing Professionals Conference’s mid-year conference, 'TPC 20241/2' which has organisations queueing like Ticketing-Swifties in the forlorn hope of cancellations. Whilst, slightly further afield, TPC Australia and New York have also joined the game-changing icketing-conference family.

 

And while each of these events will provide a world-class opportunity to go foraging for newly-observed trends and actionable insights (while networking dawn till dusk) the simple act of allocating time, and energy, specifically for learning, can provide huge benefits to both individuals and organisations alike.

 

For most of our species’ history, we survived by studying the changing landscapes we were perpetually moving through (where to find food? how to avoid becoming food? etc.) and going into learning mode (what variables are operating here,? how can I make them work for me?) can still, to this day, remove a lot of the gravitational pull, the unhelpful stress and anxiety, from most situations.  Like Bruce Springsteen, we may have been ‘Born to Run,’ but we were also born to run a fine tooth comb through every situation we ‘run’ into.

 

And just like our fur-clad foraging forefathers, we never know for sure which direction will yield the best outcomes. How often has the least relevant conference session, attended in error or due to scheduling clashes, surprised you by providing valuable insights?

 

Personally speaking, I feel that I’ve hit pay-dirt when a panel or presentation provokes a question that trashes and/or transforms my understanding of a particular area of the business.

 

Because I firmly believe that, as technology increasingly equalises the distribution of resource (research, market-intelligence, business-tools, etc) across en ever-wider web of prospective competitors, the firms that will thrive (and at worst-case, survive) will be the ones best resourced to ask the best questions.

 

I’m sure that most of us are familiar with Google/Alphabet’s time-honoured Moonshot Question: How significantly would we need to rejig our current business in order to achieve a tenfold increase in a key metric? (output/revenue/profit)

 

And the reverse, counter-intuitive, and often equally-informative.  “What would we need to put in place in order to significantly reduce performance in a key metric?

 

But here’s a few I made earlier to accompany my eggy soldiers…

 

“Has our team of passionate young street-fighters, daily challenging the status quo, hung up their competitive Kalashnikovs because the current (or recent) trading environment comfortably supports a more relaxed, and more life-style-focussed, modus operandi? And if so, what indicators (financial, competitive and cultural) are we actively monitoring to flag-up when we need to change back through the gears?  And with what lead-times?”

 

“Are my firm’s business decisions consistently informed by best-practise (as practised in a spectrum of related industries) or are we merely tracking the behaviours of peers and partners in this particular, possibly peculiar (and potentially Lemming-like) sector?”

 

“Our business may be driven by data, but how frequently do we question, and review, as an optimally wide and inclusive group, the underlying assumptions on which that data is based and framed?”

 

In short, a question draws a theoretical line through a range of possible worlds, or outcomes, but a highly-relevant, well-framed and skilfully-designed question is the first step towards bringing those worlds into being.

 

…although you’ll probably have to give it a bit of a polish before you can free the Genie.

 

DT

11-10-24

 

 

 

 

 

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