As much as I love visiting New York City, I love visiting it even more to attend Capacity Interactive’s Boot Camp for the Arts. After first attending in 2016, I quickly realized that it was the perfect event to learn about trends in digital marketing. Additionally, the core community of arts and culture professionals made it an ideal audience to introduce to Plank.
Learning Lessons
With Boot Camp back at the Times Centre again, our team set up our booth alongside the other sponsors and alternated between attending speaker presentations and chatting with the attendees. It’s funny because there was a time when I would scoff at more traditional marketing tactics like having a trade show booth as it seemed “too corporate”.
As an introvert, being in a room full of strangers can be tough, so a booth gave me a purpose and the confidence to engage fully. As a result, we had some excellent opportunities to talk with people we had met over the years and to meet some interesting new people. We explore some of the key themes of Bootcamp like leadership, AI or marketing strategies.
Service vs. Hospitality
Of all of the presentations we attended, my favourites were The Magic of Hospitality: Creating Unforgettable Experiences For Our Audiences by Lindsey Peckham and Purpose-Driven Leadership in Uncertain Times, a conversation with Terri Freeman and Priya Iyer Doshi.
Lindsey explored her time at Eleven Madison Park, one of the inspirations for some of the TV series The Bear storylines. While her presentation was meant to inspire arts organizations to think differently about how to take care of their audiences and patrons, it got me thinking about how the examples presented could apply to Plank.
While our team is already really invested in high-quality work and taking care of our clients, we can still do more to surprise and delight them.
Reflecting on Leadership
The conversation between Priya and Terri was special since they took the time to explore purpose-driven leadership and how challenging but necessary it is to stay true to it. I was impressed to see someone so dedicated but humble about her decades of hard work in the face of adversity and multiple crises.
The past few years have been rough on segments of the technology industry, and I have spoken with several other digital agencies about their struggles. While Plank has over this period gotten through it okay, it hasn’t been without our own challenges.
In tough times, organizations can become conservative with expenses and try to cut all non-revenue generated costs. On the other hand, we believe in the importance of continuing to sponsor events like Boot Camp. Investing in communities that matter to us and that the long-term benefit of being present, no matter the immediate hardship, matters more in the long run.
Once we find the communities that matter to us and that we want to be a part of, we should do everything we can to help others selflessly. In the long run, investing in others often leads to shared growth and mutual success.
Balancing Work and Personal Time
On top of being in New York for Boot Camp, I made sure to take some time for myself in the evenings and on the weekend. In addition to a couple of evenings watching the World Series at a local pub, I managed to take a walk from Hell’s Kitchen down to the Lower East Side and back. I made my way along the High Line, through Washington Square Park and stopped in for lunch at Prince St. Pizza. In the afternoon, I spent a couple of hours at the Tenement Museum and then walked back to my hotel via Broadway.
It’s always nice to get in a 20 km walk in October weather in New York City! 🍎