The posh, predictable world of business conferences

If you’ve seen even one superhero movie in the past 12 months you might agree with New Yorker movie critic David Denby, who claimed recently that Hollywood was killing the movie with its never-ceasing stream of mindless blockbusters. And, if you’ve been to even one conference this year, you might have noticed a similar trend. Business conferences have become big-budget but formulaic, and they don’t do the job they’re designed to do. Nothing dramatic goes down at a conference; no major news is revealed, ingrained assumptions go unchanged, vigorous debate is unheard of. Just where does all this happen in 2012? You might have guessed it: social media. Much like television is moving to supplant film as the center of engaging, challenging storytelling, social media is becoming the new forum where intelligent businesspeople converse.