Retail innovators, Sy and Marcy Syms were well known for their company slogan, “An Educated Consumer is our Best Customer.” Although, this philosophy was derived from the competitive off-price retail clothing industry, it does have a direct application to the speaker bureau industry. The Speaker Experts believe “An Educated Consumer is in the Best Position to take advantage of industry trends.” Trade and professional association meeting planners strive to schedule speakers that are relevant, timely, and current. This would be a rather simple task if conferences were scheduled weeks or even months in advance. However, the challenge faced by most association meeting professionals and corporate meeting planners is the long-lasting meeting cycle period. Usually, educational programs are scheduled for events that take place 8 – 15 months in advance. Furthermore, unless you have a crystal ball, magic pixie dust, or a leprechaun advising you on the future, this can be a challenging task.
The Speaker Experts have analyzed speaker industry trends for over three decades. During this time, we have seen speaker demand trends come and go, ranging from the early days of Searching for Excellence and Megatrends to more updated topics, such as, Market Disruption, Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence.
We are 5 months into a strong trend of demand for Security related speakers. We believe this trend will last for at least another 12 months and will carry us into the mid-term demand cycle for political and media speakers. If your meeting is taking place within the next 12 months, then exploring a security related theme will be relevant and timely.
Below you will find some of the circuit’s leading security related speakers:
CYBER-SECURITY: Theresa Payton
CORPORATE GEO-POLITICAL SECURITY: Jeffrey “Skunk” Baxter
INDUSTRIAL SECURITY: Cathy Lanier
WHITE HAT SECURITY: Dr. Charlie Miller
FRAUD SECURITY: Frank Abagnale
DATA BREACH SECURITY: Nate Fick
GOVERNMENTAL SECURITY: Michael Daniel
HOMELAND SECURITY: Michael E. Leiter
To borrow and adopt American Economist Paul Samuelson’s quote, “Identifying speaker trend cycles of demand has never been a science and it’s even less now than a few years ago.” We can never report with 100% certainty what the demanded trend will be a year from now, but given the current market landscape you can feel comfortable exploring speaker options in the security space.
– Gary McManis & Jay Conklin
The Speaker Experts 