Three Lessons from iMedia’s Breakthrough Summit

We recently attended iMedia’s by invitation-only Breakthrough Summit in Austin. The conference offered great content (especially within the mobile space) and networking opportunities. There can be blog posts galore written about each session (and we will try), but we wanted to summarize a few top-level lessons that came through clearly.

Honing your elevator pitch is critical.

Imagine a ballroom filled with hundreds of digital folks doing their best speed-dating dances. That’s because a highlight of the main conference was one-to-one sessions where media buyers and sellers were matched for 10-minute meetings.

Ten minutes may not seem like a lot, but the sellers that did their homework were able to provide a tailored overview of who they are, what they do, and how they are relevant to the great brands we work with. Those who weren’t as prepared essentially squandered their valuable minutes.

Image via Business Insider

Follow PowerPoint best practices.

The conference’s sessions were held in rooms of many sizes – ranging from large ballrooms with capacity to hold 1,000+ people, to small break-out rooms for 50. Lighting, as you’d expect, varied, and this caused havoc for some presentations.

Dark text against light backgrounds was barely visible to the audience sitting in the back. Even more eye-straining were slides where the font size was too small. Presenting to your industry peers is challenging enough – don’t start with a disadvantage by making your content impossible to visually consume.

Austin is a great place for foodies.

On our final night there, we headed out to downtown Austin to sample the great dining options there. We went to Stiles Switch first (good BBQ, but not as fantastically awesome as, say, Franklin BBQ or John Mueller’s, but it’s open at night, an attribute the latter two don’t share) and then Uchiko. The latter is a sushi restaurant that is uber-popular, and deservedly so. If you go, definitely try to sake toro, and also the pork belly rolls.

Image via beenthereeatenthat.net