Get your Adobe Summit Trip Approved and Become a Hero

If you’re working in the digital space in any capacity and use an Adobe marketing tool, then you know about The Adobe Summit 2018. At the same time, you know that proving the value to your organization of attending can be a challenge. With a price tag of $1895, plus travel expenses, it’s not a crazy thought of why your company may be skeptical about approving the expense. Nevertheless, with a little under two months remaining on the clock, there’s still some time left to secure your spot.

In this post, I’ll explore how reporting back your learnings from Adobe Summit is the single best way to, not only prove the ROI of your organization’s investment in you but also to become a hero in the process! I broke this recipe to success into four major ingredients:

Understand current business problems affecting your organization

Don’t wait until after you’ve gone to Summit to figure out how to report back your learnings. Invest time up-front learning about the agenda, available without registration required, and think about how what you learn in any session can be applied in your company to help solve a business problem. For example, I’m familiar with a very common issue for corporations with desktop and mobile properties: reporting on and unifying customer journeys across devices. So I’ve already added S111 – Perfect harmony: Strategies and tips for unifying mobile app and web data to my schedule. What I hope to get out of this session is to learn more about the Adobe Analytics Virtual Report suites feature and any implementation tips to better be suited to set up my clients for alignment between desktop web, mobile web, and apps.

So don’t wait, start now and consider these tactics:

• Find at least one relevant business problem and spend time learning the ins-and-outs of it
• Once you’ve understood the issue well, if you haven’t already found a solution as a result, then browse the session list for potential topics that can help you solve it
• Write down questions around the topic. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can gain from the speaker once you have a goal to aim for, instead of passively listening to the session
• Gather questions from your team as well. The ‘more the merrier’ rule applies here as multiple points of views can help find a solution faster (and hey… if it’s a challenge to approve sending just you… you can incorporate everyone in the process this way!)
• Ask the speaker your questions and gather his/her feedback. Maybe you won’t be able to get in all your questions with the speaker… chat with other people in the session as well, there’s a lot of expertise walking around you
• Make notes and share your newfound knowledge with the team upon your return

Hold a presentation for the broader team

Without a doubt, you will learn tons of new and exciting information during your time at Summit. Just look at the agenda between March 27 – 29: 2 general sessions, 1 sneak-peak session, and over 250 sessions and labs. This doesn’t include any pre-conference labs and learning opportunities while networking with peers in your field. Proposing to your company you will hold a presentation upon returning from Summit with key takeaways will resonate with them.

Consider these tactics:

• Make it less than 60 minutes long, but if you can make it 30 minutes (leave them wanting more!)
• Make it relevant to your audience and touch on key topics
• Relate your findings to business problems with actionable steps for solving them
• Share a potential agenda with your organization before you leave, here’s a starting point:
  • What is Adobe Summit: set the stage to why people should pay attention to what you’re about say
  • 2 actionable take-aways: don’t waste people’s time and give them what they came for: solutions
  • 5 key learnings: distill the 5 main benefits you learned your tool has brought other companies and how it can benefit yours
  • Future Opportunities: this is your chance to inspire and become a “Digital Evangelist” at home. Muse about possibilities if things are ‘done right’

Create an Executive Summary

If you have ever tried holding a conversation with a top-level executive, then you have noticed their limited attention span. In many cases rightfully so: they are worried about improving the bottom line for your organization 24/7, so unless you have something $$$ to say… at least make it quick.

Enter the Adobe Summit Executive Summary.

This document should be a one-pager bullet point list aimed at showcasing your key take-aways from Summit. They should be actionable, and implementable in your organization. Most importantly, keep it short, sweet, and show the benefits. You have spent all this time tweeting, put those skills to work!

Include the opportunities that your company is positioned to take advantage of. Many times, your company is investing money in a powerful tool but isn’t taking advantage of the full potential. This is your chance to shine a light on it and become an agent of change.

Here’s a sample from my first time going as an analytics practitioner, when I referred to Analytics as Omniture. If I were to re-write this I would make it more focused on benefits and less on features, but I hope you get the idea.

And Become a Hero

Will doing these steps guarantee you becoming a hero? Ok maybe not! But they are tactics that can help you get closer to attending Adobe Summit. There is where you’ll meet titans in the industry and absorb knowledge through sessions and networking. It’s this knowledge and personal growth that, by sharing with your team, can inspire others and help you become a hero in your organization.

We all have our reasons to go to Adobe Summit, and I truly recommend anyone with access to an Adobe tool to do so. What reasons do you have to go? How have you convinced the $$$ key holders in your organization in the past? Look me up if you end up going! I would love to hear what you are doing to become a hero in your organization, or if you already are, what did you do? Connect with me on LinkedIn.