Expect the unexpected

When you organize an event with 12,500 daily visitors and 100+ speakers, you can rest assured that something will go wrong. You work hard to organize things well, but you need to accept a certain amount of chaos.

Speakers will miss flights, attendees will lose badges, you’ll have promised and then forgotten at least one thing that will upset a startup. That’s all just part of the process, and something that we’ve gotten used to over the years.

At a certain point you need to stop reaching for perfection; instead aiming for the best you can do – always while preparing for the unexpected. That’s how you achieve a great experience: if everything is perfect then people stop noticing. But when you can improvise, fix, apologize and make up for things on the spot, people are impressed and pleased. The key ingredient here is to show that you care.

You need to make sure people understand you genuinely care about them and the quality of work you deliver. As long as you try your best, are quick to fix things, and show them you are dedicated you’ll be fine.

This is my introduction text for last week’s issue of our TNW Weekly update. You can read the whole newsletter here, or sign up to receive your own copy.