A recent Connector showed the following stats for SQLSaturday for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014 and mentioned 86 events completed:
Impressive numbers to be sure, but are we adding events? Kendal Van Dyke sent me this projection he did while on the Board of Directors:
That looks like reasonable growth and shows a healthy franchise based on where we just ended the year.
Two thoughts on the growth and the message:
- I think we’re so immersed in it that we forget to back up and tell the whole story. How was international growth? How many events changed leaders? How many net new locations? What trends are we seeing (is attendance staying same or increasing at existing events? Does it hit a natural ‘cap’?). What lessons learned? Economic impact? New members for PASS? Chapters that hosted an event (or not)? There’s a terrific opportunity here to not just print numbers, but to look at the numbers and tell the story.
- It is reasonable growth. I am, however, often unreasonable. 10-15% growth a year is good, but what would it take to really increase the number of communities we serve as part of a one time push? Could we add 30? 50? What would a multi-year (but not 10 year) plan look like to get us to 200 events a year? There’s plenty of room to do it.
And for all of that, apply the same thing (minus the growth spike perhaps) to Chapters. Tell the story.
