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Tom Kay
July 3, 2012
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Suffice it to say, there have been some legendary and influential radio trade conventions over the past 40-50 years ... The Poe Convention, The Gavin, the R&R, just to name a few. So it's somewhat surprising to find that The Conclave -- the regional, educationally-oriented get-together originally called The Upper Midwest Communications Conclave - is the survivor. Even with record company and corporate radio budget cutbacks and a media environment where a radio career is no longer a highly sought-after profession, The Conclave continues to chug along, with its eyes firmly centered on the education of those who still believe in bettering this medium. Here, longtime Exec. Dir. Tom Kay explains how The Conclave has maintained its relevance in the Digital Media Era. ...Just don't call him "My. Conclave," okay?
What were you doing before joining The Conclave?
I was doing radio; I worked in a couple different Minnesota markets as a PD, MD and air talent. I started in 1970 at WJON in St. Cloud, but in 1979 a position opened up at Doug Lee Midwest Promotion. I had met Doug several years earlier, and in 1975 I joined 8-10 other Midwest PDs to join a radio board of an annual event that was we called The Upper Midwest Communications Conclave. When I joined Doug's company, he put me in charge of organizing the group I had belonged to for five years ... and I've been here ever since.
Have the goals of The Conclave changed over the years?
In a sense. When we first met in 1975, our goal was to get the Midwest programming community together - just hold a couple-day meeting to get to know each other. In that first year of the Conclave, 1976, the meeting went so well the folks attending wanted to do it every year. For the first five years or so, we got together in the springtime -- and eventually we moved it to the summer.
In 1970, Brown Institute (now Brown College) stepped up and decided to give away a scholarship through the Conclave. They basically said to us, "Your gang meets every year; maybe we could use your radio connections to bring new people into the industry by offering scholarships." We took those baby steps to become an actual educational organization. Five or six years later, in 1985-86, we decided that we had become more than just a garden club, and by that point we were giving away several scholarships.
The conference was growing to a point where we decided it made sense to incorporate as a nonprofit education organization, helping radio stations fulfill their commitment to serve the public interest. The course we're currently on was really carved out then, although we've continued to grow since then. There are now more scholarship programs, as well as webinars and Net outreach, to help us meet our mission of education.
Did you worry that The Conclave would have a hard time competing against the established radio conventions of the last few decades - and are you at all surprised that The Conclave is one of the few survivors?
Intriguingly enough, one of the people who helped us in our formative years was Bill Gavin, a Wisconsin native himself, whose Gavin conventions were legendary. He and Doug were close friends and because Bill was also putting together regional conferences in the mid-'70s, Bill and Doug decided there was some symmetry there ... so, Bill used the first three Conclaves as regional Gavin conventions. Even after that, he helped us promote them in The Gavin Report, which really helped establish us as a programmers' meeting
Bill provided lots of different ideas on how to present sessions. Ironically, you may not remember this, but one of Bill's original dictates was "No Record People." When Bill proposed that, many industry meetings were quite corrupted. So, we understood his concern. But by the time 1975 came around, labels and label personnel were much more of an ally to radio. The music community here in the Midwest had been very supportive and helpful and had done much to bring all of us together as any entity. So, Conclaves right from the start allowed label professionals to participate as registrants and even feature them as faculty. Initially we had to convince Bill to open it up to the labels; we eventually reached a compromise, where they could come -- but no hospitality suites!
Of course, there came a time when even the Gavin Report was struggling to maintain this independent entity. Bill then retired and Ron Fell succeeded him -- and that was when the music industry became far more involved in the Gavin world, including their conventions. The paradigm that Bill envisioned was shifting because the other conferences started allowing hospitality suites. By that time, The Conclave figured out that it was beneficial to be record industry-friendly; it helped everyone to have a good time and foster better relationships, so we also let them set up label suites. The labels behaved themselves and we were able to stay away from the negativity and party atmosphere that followed some of the other meetings. We took ourselves seriously, and so did the music industry.
How was The Conclave able to survive when the labels' once seemingly bottom-less expense accounts dried up to the point where they couldn't support conventions and fly in those who wanted to attend?
We fortunately didn't ever totally rely on that one element to generate attendance and participation, the way many other conferences did. A significant part of our funding came from the payment of tuition; later on we found ways to have exhibits and other sponsorships to cover some of our costs. We appreciated any and all label help we received - and there's been lots of it in our history - but we didn't ever rely on the record industry as a "sole-supporter."
What has the Conclave done to spur registration for radio programmers and personnel, who are hamstrung by their multi-tasking jobs, less label sponsorship and very limited expense accounts?
To be honest, we're still dealing with that challenge. We continue to confront radio company policies that make it difficult for their personnel to attend conferences such as ours. Unfortunately, staff education has been severely curbed by current budgets. So, many of our registrants are paying for themselves to attend, and many take personal vacation time to do so. Fortunately, many companies have found ways to get their personnel here, sometimes bucking corporate policy to do so. Our base still includes independently-owned operators and smaller corporations that do allow an easier path for employee participation in an education conference.
At the same time, we want to make sure all the radio companies know that they are always welcome; they're always invited to be included in what we do. We want them to know that The Conclave is different because we're not just focusing on business issues but personal growth, as well. We've never been interested, nor are our attendees, in "corporate secrets" We make sure they're aware of our educational efforts, which can help all their employees get better at their jobs ... which, in turn, helps the company succeed. That's a practice we've been engaged in pretty regularly.
The Conclave seems to have an aggressive Net outreach policy. When did you decide to expand onto that platform - and are you worried that it could hurt attendance at the Conclave?
It was never a question that we'd catch on to the Net; it was more a matter of when. We realized early on that thanks to the Net, we'd be able to expand our mission beyond the three to four days in July that's identified as The Conclave.
Four years ago, webinars became a part of our lifeblood. To the outsider, it perceptually helped us become a year-round organization. Of course, if you've had any experience in putting together one of these things, you realize that a Gavin, an R&R or a Conclave may be a four-day event, but it actually takes whole lot of planning and preparation to put those four days together; it's a year-long process. But through the Net, we were able to quickly augment the annual conference with a barrage of regular education on a twice-monthly basis.
How has The Conclave's Net outreach impacted the convention itself?
It has absolutely changed it. Three years ago, Kurt Hanson -- who has always been a Conclave advocate -- got together with us and we asked him to explore putting together a RAIN summit to be held at The Conclave. It made great sense for both the Conclave and Kurt and RAIN, so we now have that identity with the Net radio folks.
Our agenda has also grown to where we have sessions that are an umbrella for satellite and Net radio interests. To be honest, we want to do a lot more to tap into that crowd and do better by them than what we do right now, so we are taking more steps to make sure they're welcome. As the Conclave and our board grow, it should be reflected in the general membership -- and by attracting more Net parties, it will help us as an organization that offers a great presence to all broadcasting, which has recognized that much of its future will be on the Net, as well
I would imagine that with the Net and other technological interests, the number of radio students has declined of late ... but are today's Conclave students as passionate about this business as students were 10 or 20 years ago?
Your observation about numbers is correct. There used to be a time when broadcast schools had to turn away students because so many wanted to get in the business. For lots of different reasons -- but chiefly through the growth of technologies beyond radio and TV -- the numbers of pure broadcasting students has declined. In spite of that, however, I've found the folks who are current students of broadcasting are every bit as passionate as their counterparts were 20 years ago.
They also understand that the challenges are different now than before. A more rounded education is necessary, because they know the "one-trick ponies" of the past have been supplanted by those who can perform a multiplicity of tasks, and perform them well! The older generations could count on having long careers in just one or two fields of expertise. This generation will burn through dozens. Today's media students will be called on to accomplish many things; they need an education to help them do that. We want to make sure the Conclave will be there to help.
What kind of new panels or events have you scheduled for this year's Conclave?
Each year, we strive to be new and different. If we offer the same subject as we did a year ago, we make sure to offer it in a more innovative fashion. When it comes to crafting agendas, we always gravitate to what's important to the industry. We're always attempting to reach so many folks in our industry, be they night hosts, daytimers, MDs, PDs and managers. It's always a challenge to find the right combination of sessions and presentations that will be important to a majority of those who would attend each summer.
But each year, thanks to an aggressive board and agenda committee -- and we've got a great new agenda chair for 2012 in Coleman Insights' Warren Kurtzman -- we seem to find the right combination of relevant topics to present. And please know that each year, we're getting attendees' feedback as to how to craft an agenda that helps them do their job better. And that means we attempt to go where few conferences have gone before, recognizing that there is no Bible on how to program more than one station at a time or performing multiple duties for different stations at the same time.
That's why we're attempting to do more management-type sessions, like our time management seminar this summer. And you'll find a multitude of sessions on technology and how to grow and develop new talent.
Speaking of technology and talent, if you haven't noticed, The Conclave is rife with all sorts of important insights in technology and the talent side. Valerie Geller, a Conclave favorite, will be creating a whole talent portion of our agenda this year on how to nurture and discover talent. Certainly we hear about a dwindling talent pool all day long; we hope to have sessions that can help make that challenge a bit easier. In spite of many naysayers, live-and-local talent is still the lifeblood of what we do, so as long as The Concave is around, panels on the growth and development of talent will always be a big part of it. And the challenges of technology serve as a huge backdrop for our Jacobs Media Summer School and the RAIN Summit Midwest!
Now that almost all of the other radio trade conventions have fallen by the wayside, have you altered The Conclave to become more nationwide in scope?
Slowly but surely, we've been on that path for several years, As you know, we used to be the Upper Midwest Communications Conclave , but we dropped the "Upper Midwest" part many years ago, when it became apparent from our attendance that we're not just a Midwest conference anymore.
Where we're currently located certainly does continue to give it a Midwest flavor, but if you rumble around the hallways, you'll see the name badges on people from New England to Arizona, from Alaska to Florida. Over the past decade, we've attracted registrants from 40-plus states and several foreign countries.
But while we'll always be proud of our Midwest heritage, we're just as proud of the fact that we're not just a regional phenomenon anymore. Our Net and webinar efforts have also helped us grow away from that.
Have you ever thought about relocating the Conclave to other Midwest cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee or St. Louis?
We always attempt to keep the Conclave fresh, and each year it becomes more of a formidable challenge to succeed at doing just that. I know the board is looking at all sorts of novel approaches to how we perform our educational mission, but the practicality of it is that folks will be coming to Minneapolis for at least the next couple of years. We'll see where the conference winds up after that.
While it's been on the shelf for the past couple years, our TalenTrak was created to be the "portable" Conclave, moving from city to city on an annual basis, teaching talents of every shape and size, format and company. We've been in Chicago, Detroit, Des Moines, Madison, Sioux Falls, Kansas City and Milwaukee. Once we get that program back on its feet, the Conclave will indeed hit the road!
And what about your future?
The reality is that I can't keep doing this forever. There will come a time when the board and I will decide that it's time to have a new, fresh way of addressing the administrative needs of The Conclave and appoint a new Exec. Director. There's no timetable for that, but even now it's almost uncomfortable to be identified as "Mr. Conclave," because I never wanted this to be thought of as a one-person deal. Mark Bolke and our board do more for The Conclave than I do. I'm just a foot soldier and I take the marching orders from the board.
Once I leave, I have a hunch that the next person, like it or not, will probably become the next "Mr. or Ms. Conclave." Maybe it's just the nature of the beast, but frankly, since I've been around for 37 years, I guess it's okay to be called that. At any rate I'm here for a while ... or at least until the board decides that a new direction needs to be explored. So, stay tuned!
For more info on registering for this year's Conclave, which will be held July 18th-20th at The Doubletree Park Place Hotel in Minneapolis, click here.
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