On Friday 12 December the 3rd Design for Conversion conference was held in Amsterdam. This time it was the Mobile edition. The organisation succeeded again in making the event better and professionally organised than before.
Fun factor
As always, the organisation’s most important goal was to let all the participants have a great time. There is no question that this was easily met.
The typical highly interactive nature of this event is one of the main contributors to its success. In between keynote presentations, participants are working on a real case and have limited time to define the case problem, think about a solution and present the solution to peers and a professional jury.
Furthermore, the venue (Loods 6), the food (served by Smaak) and the music (controlled by DJ Arjan Haring) spiced up the day.
Cases
This time there were two cases that participants could be assigned to. One concerned Rabobank mobile and the other was about reporting crime via the Mobile phone. As always, team captains were assigned to each team to make sure the teams follow the process and actually have something presentable at the end.
Maybe it would have been better to have one or two more cases, but at least the cases were an equal challenge and very well prepared. The briefing and all material was provided upfront and the case owner was present during the team rounds to provide extra information to the teams.
From the ten teams one was announced the winner, judged by their understanding of the problem, the creativity of the proposed solution and of course the way it was presented. The team Mobile Maniacs of team captains Tom Prakke (Backbase) and Mark Kassteen (User Intelligence) scored highest in the eyes of the professional jury. The winning presentation can be viewed on Youtube as well.
Speakers
Four keynote speakers were this time invited to share the latest and greatest on Persuasive Technology, Experience Design and Evidence Based Marketing, the three big ideas behind changing (consumer) behaviour. Jerome Nadel, Erig Siegel, Scott Weiss and Priya Prakash all pleased the audience with considerable insights, although the general feeling of the crowd afterwards seemed to be that none of it was anything of a surprise.
Why Mobile specifically?
This time the DfC conference was organised specifically around Mobile. Unnecessarily, so it seemed! All of the presentations were equally applicable outside of the ‘mobile’ domain and the cases (although clearly labelled ‘mobile’) were really about persuasion and getting people to change behaviour. They could have been of equal value at the previous editions of this conference.
Next editions of Design for Conversion can definitely go without a specific platform or technology label!
Next edition, 2010
Next year the organisation is planning to take the conference to New York City. Very ambitious, but they will probably pull it off, as they have been able to always put an element of surprise in so far.
The DfC events have historically attracted a lot of practitioners from persuasion-related disciplines. It would be great if the conference organisation could persuade more companies and organisations (i.e., the practitioner’s clients) to join the event. They are the ones that need to be persuaded of the great value of this discipline. And they absolutely will, when they make it to the next great DfC event!
Find pictures, video and the buzz report on the DfC website.