01. Copperberg Podcast
Episode 03
The Power of 50: Inside the Event Format Connecting Manufacturing’s Top Leaders
Running a smart and agile manufacturing operation
On the third episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, we take an inside look at the journey behind Copperberg’s “Power of 50” event format, an exclusive gathering designed to bring together 50 top leaders in manufacturing for one day of immersive on-site activities encompassing keynote speeches, roundtable discussions, and networking.
02. CONTENT
From navigating the turbulent period of the COVID-19 pandemic to rethinking how events should drive value.
Lisa Hellqvist and Malin Mostofi provide a transparent account of the resilience and strategic thinking that helped establish “Power of 50” as a standout format in the manufacturing industry. Their reflections highlight how exclusive, well-curated events provide senior leaders the opportunity to connect with peers and exchange insights in a neutral setting—transforming the event into a “massive workshop for leaders,” as Lisa Hellqvist describes it.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode:
- The Evolution of Copperberg’s Event Model: How the pandemic forced Copperberg to adapt its strategy and led to the birth of the “Power of 50” format.
- The Power of Intimate Gatherings: Why smaller, high-impact events can spark deeper conversations and generate lasting value for leaders in manufacturing.
- Creating Conversations That Matter: How Copperberg balances the needs of event partners with the interests of delegates to ensure meaningful, actionable dialogue.
- The “Aha” Moment: The signals that show an event is working and how the “Power of 50” format creates those moments where everything just clicks.
- The Lasting Impact of ‘Power of 50’: Why this format continues to resonate with attendees and how it fosters lasting connections and industry insights.
Creating the “Power of 50” event format wasn’t an overnight success—it’s a story of overcoming challenges, tough decisions, and ultimately, a shift in focus to deliver what really matters.
03. Speakers
Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters is your go-to podcast for candid discussions with the industry’s top thinkers and innovators.
04. Listen now
The Power of 50: Inside the Event Format Connecting Manufacturing’s Top Leaders
Our guests, Lisa Hellqvist, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Copperberg, and Malin Mostofi, Marketing Director at Copperberg, share the story behind this exclusive event experience and the challenges that shaped its creation.
05. Transcript
Nina Roper Yearwood (02:28)
Yeah, so like what I alluded to earlier, let’s start by going on a time machine. I’d love to hear your personal journey. How did you get into the events industry? So just take us down memory lane, what your journey looked like and how did you end up here at Copperberg?
Lisa Hellqvist (02:47)
Maybe I can start because I think I ended up in Copperberg before Malin. So-so, but our, of course, paths, you know, met later on. But yeah, I graduated university, I hardly remember which year, but it was in the mid-2000s at some point. Started my first job, real job, after graduation as a CEO assistant in the construction industry actually. But that was a temporary position, so you know the time was coming to an end and I was looking into working in international positions basically that kind of triggered me a bit. I was very fond of marketing, I have a finance and economics background actually, but somehow the marketing sort of trade felt very appealing and I applied for a position as a marketing manager in a Stockholm-based – the office was in Stockholm – but an international events organizer, that it was a multi-national events organizer and one of the leading ones on the planet, I would say. So I ended up actually getting that position and was executing, I wouldn’t say large-scale events to start, but mostly Swedish public sector events for the healthcare system predominantly here in Sweden. I did that for a few years until I was actually, one could say, headhunted through other relations over to a smaller Swedish provider of events that was at that time called Midfield Media. And Midfield Media was doing events that was everything from, I would say they were mainly doing Nordic or Swedish business technology events like business intelligence, IT security, hospital IT and so forth.
And I started there as the marketing director in 2009. That was also the mother organization of Copperberg. So I started as marketing director, and quite quickly we started spanning out to pan-European events. We were picking up the service and aftermarket topic line. I guess we will come to that later on as well on how the actual birth of our now events came to the market. And we were growing quite quickly there, we did quite well. Things happened, maybe a little bit like it is now with the sort of natural knock-on effects after the Lehman Brothers crisis. So in 2009, we were feeling really the effects of that, and we span out to the aftermarket segment. And then in 2012, we had built up such an independent portfolio of events that focused on that specific segment and that business model because it was very much focused on, you know, events are spanning over a few days, different logic and methodology. We realized that we needed to fund basically or found an independent company that could drive this portfolio itself. And that then became Copperberg and I became the managing director in 2012. And not too long after, we headhunted dear Malin from her position or headhunted, but we also have some common acquaintances because it turns out that my first company in the conference industry and Malin’s first company in the conference industry was actually the same, just different locations. So we were working for the same organization in different countries over quite a few years. But never met before that, never got to know each other, but we’ve had the same mentors, the same trainers, the same sort of marketing gurus, if one may. Some of them were actually really good that we were trained by.
So we have a few, we share a few war stories from that organization. And I think that organization also shaped a lot of our commercial knowledge. So there’s a lot of good things to be said. Also, the slight differences, of course, that they do events about everything on the planet, basically, that one can do events about. So one really doesn’t, you know, maybe excel topic-wise within that specific domain or area.
But you really learn the craftsmanship of marketing and putting together events swiftly when you work for such an organization. So that’s my journey. And I mean, I haven’t moved since 2012. Copperberg has changed plenty, but I’m still here. Yeah, I’m part of the furniture by now, you know.
Nina Roper Yearwood (07:41)
You are the institution, Lisa. Yes. And Malin?
Malin Mostofi (07:54)
Yes, yes. I mean, as you mentioned in your intro, have been in this industry for almost 20 years now, kind of when I graduated from university, I was at that point in working for a small publishing company whilst I was studying, and I kind of continued there a little bit.
But I wanted, that was a very, very small company, I wanted to kind of, of course, use my new found marketing knowledge somewhere. And the events industry, I guess, seemed like a very good place to really get a broad spectrum of things. As a new grad, I didn’t want to get stuck with just one area of marketing. I wanted to learn everything, you know, I wanted to try everything and see kind of where, what I was good at. But it turns out the broad thing really suited me. So I kind of stuck around. The company that I joined then was the one that Lisa was also at. So she’s right in saying that it was a very good foundation for structure for learning very quickly. It was kind of one of these events machines that you just kind of like you learned, you had to have a very, very strict structure in place for it for that to happen and a good process. So it was a very good foundation for understanding this industry. Since then, I moved to a few other events companies, both in UK and also later on in Singapore and Asia, where I worked for a few others. And then came back to motherland, Sweden, where I came across Copperberg or Midfield Media as it was kind of called at the time or it was somewhere in between the switch I guess it was around 2013 so it was a little bit of both at the time me and Lisa had a launch I believe and I kind of felt straight away that this could be pretty cool because I can use all my events knowledge from various larger companies to this company where I guess anything is possible. I mean, it’s a small yet structured event company where you have the possibility to try and test pretty much anything. So the combination of that, I think was very attractive. And obviously I’ve been around now for… What is it? 11 years? Also kind of getting part of the furniture, I suppose.
Lisa Hellqvist (10:45)
I think we can call you a bookshelf by now.
Malin Mostofi (10:48)
You are right, exactly. Yes. But it is just that there is something with the event industry that and I know other colleagues that have been in the event industries in other companies and really kind of enjoyed that aspect as well. There is something about it that makes people stick around. I think it’s the highs and the lows of things. It’s the hands-on and strategic all in one day. There is just something to that. I don’t know if it’s rare in other companies or other industries because I haven’t worked in many others. But in this, you really get to try and do anything. So that’s pretty cool, I would say.
Nina Roper Yearwood (11:32)
Yeah, pretty cool indeed. And I see here that there is some serendipity and some fate at work here with the full circle moment for you and meeting Lisa and unbeknownst to both of you working together and from a different company. So that’s a really nice thing to unearth. So Lisa mentioned some hard moments back when she was working for Midfield Media and then to Copperberg.
Nina Roper Yearwood (12:02)
Obviously 2009, that’s the financial crisis. We’re way past that. But then another big thing that happened, and around this time, Copperberg is already well established, right, was the pandemic. And that’s when the world literally, quite literally stood still. So can you talk about how you first realized that things just won’t work anymore in the events industry?
Lisa Hellqvist (12:34)
I have this very kind of clear moment. We were executing in an event down in, I think it was Frankfurt, mid-February of 2020 then, I guess it must have been. It was the Spare Parts Business Platform. It was a great event, but we also had a lot of, you know, was a typical tourist, you know, hotel in the city of Frankfurt and there was these buses with people obviously coming from China wearing face masks and taking temperatures in the line and that was already before the sort of elevation or you know it was declared a pandemic in Europe, this was just, you know, weeks before, so we were like getting a little bit, okay, I remember the team got a little bit how are we going to do events if this gets worse because this was just the beginning of everything, right, we didn’t know anything.
And then I actually went on vacation to, I think it was Egypt, and I was traveling back, what I believe was the 16th of March. I remember this, is like, it’s such a dedicated time and day that it was just like, okay.
When I land in Sweden, I mean Sweden has many good things, but it’s also like very rarely do we have a public announcement by the Prime Minister or any of these kind of interventions from the government where they speak to the public. But when I landed at the airport of Arlanda here in Stockholm, the phone goes crazy and I just see that we have now, Sweden has said this is a pandemic, travel restrictions were closing down, you know, it’s all these distance. It’s like, you know, it was the first announcement, not closing everything, of course, but it was the first announcement that we have to go into this kind of mode, right, as a nation. So I just remember I had to walk into the office the next day and just say, okay, we have to cancel everything. We cannot travel. And we had a whole set of events lined up.
And I believe that we just, we were waiting, we were running an event not that long after. I think it was supposed to be in Cologne. And I think we had to cancel it on a Friday and we were supposed to arrive on the Monday because the city of Cologne closed down. So it was just those kind of remarkable quick and agile decisions that was really tough. You know, first is all the money that goes into the event, you know, the venues, the delegates, have they booked their tickets, the speakers needs to be rearranged. We have to make sure that everyone gets this information so no one flies in there without knowing. And all of a sudden you become like a high funk or maybe not functioning, but a high-paced travel agency, right? And that just has to get a hold of everybody.
And then at the same time, you have to make these decisions to reach out to the sponsors, the partners. What is the cost of actually not being able to go there now? What do we do with this? I remember we turned it into an online event with less than 48 hours to opening. Which was, I mean, we managed and all the speakers were there. The most part of the delegates were there. And I think most of the sponsors joined us for that because no one knew what to do, right? So it was also that, you know, surprise element that I think just made people accept that. Then the pandemic itself was just, it was crazy. I mean, from having about maybe 80% of our annual turnover in physical events to moving it to solemnly, you know, going into digital broadcast model. Thankfully, we had the infrastructure like technology-wise because 20% of our revenue was coming from digital activities and it was steadily increasing. But we were a team of almost 30 people. The pandemic of course didn’t justify that kind of back office. There’s a lot of back office to events. Anyone who’s tried to plan a wedding know that or a bigger birthday party. It’s a horrible labor task in that sense. It’s so many back and forth and detailed planning aspects, not to mention the outreach you have to do to get all the delegates on board and all of that. So we went from an organization from about 30 to quite quickly, we were down at around 10, I think, and then we ended up at six in the end, I believe, or five even. So it was a very, very harsh slow down as well and extremely tough and you had to let go of members of the team that you enjoyed working with. And we also had our best year ever the year before the pandemic hit. So we were in an expansion phase, right? So all of this just hit at the wrong time. What is different from today, I would say then that at that point, the financial situation in the overall market was quite stable, before the pandemic hit. People were having marketing budgets to spend and et cetera. So thankfully it happened that sort of up a little bit where it was positive vibe in the market because people now just shifted gears and say okay but then we spend on things virtually so companies like ours could actually survive. There was money still for us somewhere, right, when we had to stop our main product.
Today I think the market is seeing way more knock-on effects of recessions for example and marketing budgets are more cut than it was during the pandemic so it would have been interesting to see what if we would have survived if it was today, but we survived back then in a different shape and form. But it definitely changed the mind and let’s say the core of the organization in that sense. We went from being a very focused event organizer that also provided media and news to being a media platform that also does events. It’s the other way around now.
Nina Roper Yearwood (19:04)
Uh-huh. So it turned on its head almost like the script was flipped essentially.
Lisa Hellqvist (19:08)
Yeah, yeah. In one sense, it was great for our business model. There’s nothing bad that doesn’t come with something good, right? So was great for our business model. We had to sort of structure ourselves to have a more long-term approach around the sort of publishing and the content creation and the media outlet and all of that. But it was definitely hard to juggle that at the same time, the downsizing, the change in strategy, the panic mode that many went into and then balancing that with trying to have a strategy for the new version of Copperberg. Horrible times.
Nina Roper Yearwood (19:44)
And Malin, do you have anything to add to that?
Malin Mostofi (19:46)
Yes. Yeah, I mean, of course, I think Lisa has more of the first-hand experience when it comes from the Copperberg point of view. I was on maternity leave at the time when it broke out. So I kind of left the company that had 30+ people and came back to a company that had like seven. So of course the change was crazy. And I understand there must have been an insane period really to kind of make those day-to-day decisions.
So, from my point of view, it’s more of the aftermath. I think I rejoined after my leave somewhere the summer of 2020. And of course it was still in the middle of the pandemic. Things were still very uncertain, but obviously we had made a lot of big decisions already moved into digital. As Lisa said, it was very lucky that we had already started that process. We didn’t have to start it from scratch. So from my point of view, it was more about dealing with what comes next, how do we reshape this company from events organizer that occasionally does digital products to media house or almost like a marketing supplier? And it was a big personal learning curve, of course, which, you know, at the time was a little bit scary, but it was, in hindsight, was almost a little bit needed for us to reshape a bit and maybe rethink and we’re going to get into the format later, but rethink even the format of all of our products in our portfolio, which ones are actually useful, what do people want? You know, we had to kind of start from scratch and almost realized that actually we know quite a lot about this industry, you know, when we started to create pieces of content, etc. So it was a learning curve and almost like a personal development in a sense for all of us that were there. And, you know, also very lucky that we are in an agile company that can, we tested a lot of things. Some of the things didn’t work. Some of them did. And then we kind of moved from there, right? So yeah, it was crazy. And now we have landed on the other side with a bit more confidence in what we can do. Not that we didn’t have that before, but now we’ve had to reshape and we have, I think, a very good portfolio. And we also know that if anything happens, we can change it. And nothing is really set in stone.
Nina Roper Yearwood (22:36)
So it actually emphasized here something about creativity and really forcing everyone to adapt and restructure. So I was gonna lead up to how the business changed during this time. Because coming from the other side where we now see, of course, present time Copperberg has the Power of 50 event format. So for our listeners, that’s an exclusive event capped to only 50 professionals where they will join peer-to-peer discussions and round tables. There will also be keynote speeches that they will be listening to and take part during the Q&A. And then there’s a lot of networking during that very busy, buzzy day. So it’s a really packed day of all of that. So that’s what Power of 50 looks like. I really just wanted to trace the steps to how you got there coming out of this really, really challenging period, not just for the event industry, but personally as well for us as people, as families. And yeah, just walk us through how we got there, how we got to this Power of 50 concept.
Lisa Hellqvist (24:00)
Yeah, it was, I think it was basically, during the pandemic, of course, we got a lot of these, but we don’t do virtual events. We only do physical events and in-person events and these kind of objections from different kind of people in the ecosystem. And that’s fair. It was just for a long period of time, there wasn’t any other option than virtual events. But as we saw the kind of regulations around the pandemic kind of getting a little bit looser, it felt like we had gotten over the biggest bumps and the regulations started to be taken off on different countries, etc.
We of course felt we were quite cautious and we also saw that many in the first round the first summer after the pandemic where people, you know, didn’t really see that the spread of the pandemic that much, people were a little bit overconfident and started launching events that they had to close down, you know, so we felt that we couldn’t afford in that situation because we were so few. We couldn’t wear such a large costume without knowing certainly that we would be able to deliver it, right? We had already spent a huge chunk of our time during the pandemic to make up for the services that we had sold to different people, but that we couldn’t deliver in person anymore, that we now had to transfer. So we had a backlog of like orders that we had to do something with and we didn’t want to end up in that situation again where we were like backlogging because we had to cancel something.
So the Power of 50 was I would say it was a hybrid of three things. One was obviously the idea of what makes Copperberg unique. So the idea and what was also very clear to us during the virtual broadcast hype is that we have great content and we can actually launch and broadcast that to plenty. We had a very loyal community base that watched the virtual broadcasts. What cannot be achieved online is that actual mind share. You can get close, but you will never get as close as the sort of experiential, you know, just the element of being at a physical event and speak to people face to face, you know, it’s a different. It’s a different universe to do that. So, Copperberg has always been known for its kind of, yeah, we’ve been dubbed the friendliest event in Europe, for example, for our pricing events. So, we have this community and this, I would say, structured networking features that we always have incorporated into our agenda that just allows people in almost a predetermined format to meet as many people as possible on-site.
It’s not forced one-to-one meetings or anything like that. It’s just we enabled this interaction through a large chunk of experience we have arrived at this format, where we actually get people to meet everybody in the room and exchange ideas with everybody in the room. And that’s a lot of face time in one day. So we wanted to make sure we had that element of mind share no matter what.
So we started testing around with different formats. Then we had this magical, at least in Sweden, that a group was defined by the number 50 during the pandemic. So, you know, you couldn’t have groups that were larger than 50 for example. So when we, you know, eased into doing events again we said we’ll keep it at 50 because that seems to be, you know, a magic, you know, number according to the health authorities here and we started of course doing events here in Sweden from the start.
So we were like, okay, worse, so it’s a little bit more risk assessment. Like worst case scenario in Sweden for locals, 50 will be a fine number. Then we should be able to deliver an event for 50 people in Sweden, right? So that’s how it kind of arrived at the magic number of 50. But it also has to do with the math of the number of rounds and the number of people to make this algorithm work where everybody meets everybody, right? So it’s also a magic number in that sense the algorithm gets messed up if we add people to the algorithm. And it’s only so many hours in a day. So you can only do five rounds of round tables. And then of course it was the fact that, you know, the resources basically, as we said, we were five people. So now we needed an event format that was easily, you know, produced, that had enough delegates and facetime to make everyone who’s there happy and satisfied and give a chunk of experience to those who are there and bring value to them without exhausting our organization and, you know, or overpromising under-delivering. So we had to build a format where we felt comfortable on the delivery. The other aspect was also that we have to bake as much as possible into one day because we still saw there that budgets and travel restrictions mainly because of money.
We learned that, unfortunately, during the pandemic that, you know, non-necessary business travels got cut even after. So, you know, we can’t really have an event that really, you know, forces the delegates to stay over several days, etc. It’s not the same anymore. So we arrived in the Power of 50, basically based on these three items, but mainly it was, what is it that we can’t replicate online and which size should that be? And that ended up being the Power of 50. And Malin is very happy I didn’t decide that it was the 150.
Malin Mostofi (30:02)
Yeah, the Power of 2000. That would have been a very different event. I mean, those are also possible. A little bit more logistics involved. No, but I think you’ve, I mean, you’ve covered all of it. I think the main emphasis that we got, obviously, as you said, Lisa, our community was craving meetups yet.
Malin Mostofi (30:30)
Our society wasn’t ready for meetups. So we had to do something that wasn’t a combination of that. So we had to really think about what can you do in a day? What can you do with a number of 50 people? Because that’s the current restriction in Sweden. And how can we make sure this day is of value? It should not just be a one-way knowledge-sharing thing where somebody speaks to an audience because you can get that online. It needs to be a two-way conversation and discussion-based. And that’s the kind of magical thing that happened and that’s worked really well, so, we’re keeping it and, you know, again, as I said before, we’ve been testing a lot and this was a test, you know, we didn’t know if it was gonna work, but we knew we had confidence in that we could deliver it and we had confidence in the number and, you know, that we knew what we were doing whether the audience would receive it well or not. I mean, yes, of course, based on what we know, they would, but it really became a success for the audience as well. So that was very reassuring, of course.
Nina Roper Yearwood (31:40)
It’s almost like how diamonds are made, how the Power of 50 came about and how it’s become. I think it’s a unique space actually for people to really engage and have conversations because more than keynote speeches, I think the heart and soul of the Power of 50 are really the peer-to-peer discussions, which later on I want to show you some of the delegate feedback on the recent the Power of 50 event that was the Field Service Forum. I picked out two representatives’ feedbacks from our delegates. So the listeners will also be able to listen to this because we will be playing Hans Göttlinger’s feedback of the Field Service Forum. So he’s from SightCall and he’s been with the Copperberg the Power of 50 events for a little bit. So he has some experience and has seen it evolve as well. So let’s play that.
Hans Göttlinger (32:46)
My name is Hans, I work for SightCall and I’m responsible for the DACH area at the company. I’ve been with the company for six years now and at a number of Copperberg events myself before. Our topic was accelerators and blockers for shifting your field service organization left. So basically increasing the productivity of your service organization without increasing the staff enormously. So this was our topic and we wanted to understand and we did understand from our customers what’s driving them, what’s driving change, but also what’s standing in their way. Extremely insightful, so it was a very trustful atmosphere, I would say. People really opening up, talking to each other, talking to us. Group therapy, I think, covers it pretty well. So everybody recognized their problems in other people. And it did help in coming to certain resolutions in solving those problems.
Nina Roper Yearwood (33:41)
And then the next one that we will be playing for you would be the first time attendee’s feedback of the Power of 50. This is by Maaz Khan from Viessmann Climate Solutions.
Maaz Khan (33:58)
Hi, my name is Maaz Khan. I’m Director of Global Field Services at Viessmann Climate Solutions. Today I had a chance to share insights about how we can maximize the productivity of our field service by going towards more proactive maintenance and also have a chance to enhancing the customer satisfaction. My day today was brilliant. This is my first time, by the way, at the Copperberg conference. I got a chance to look at so many different perspectives from so many industries that you normally on a daily basis don’t talk to. So all in all, talked to lot of technology partners, talked to lot of similar service organizations, and I think I’m taking a lot of things with me.
Nina Roper Yearwood (34:37)
Did you also manage to listen to what they said? So, hearing that, do you feel like this reflects the experience you aim to create with each Power of 50?
Malin Mostofi (34:49)
I mean, absolutely. I think, was it Hans that mentioned group therapy? I think that was a pretty good use, word used to describe it. I mean, you kind of get in front of a lot of people, you realize that people have the same challenges and you can work it out together. And you can hear what how our people, other people have worked it out. I mean, this is kind of the essence of a discussion-based forum, right? So this is really what we want to deliver for them and to hear that we are succeeding in doing that is of course very reassuring. Maaz also mentioned that, you know, he got to meet a lot of people that he normally doesn’t speak to. This is also one of the other important reasons why we do these platforms. Of course, you can go away with your colleagues to resort somewhere and discuss your challenges, but you will not have anybody else’s input. Here you get to meet a lot of other people who have various experiences and challenges, but maybe have handled them differently. So this is also an important point, I would say.
Lisa Hellqvist (36:03)
I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it’s just, it is the group therapy. I think he said it well there, Hans, and I think one very important thing is also like it’s such a different format. But, you know, Hans being in quite a senior position and you know, leading solution provider as well, you know, he goes into something else than a sales role in this exchange. Now he has a topic he wants to discuss with the delegates and they, as he said, openly share. He gets a lot of learnings because he now understands what his potential customers or other service leaders out there are facing as their day-to-day challenges, something that he would probably never get if it was just a sales conversation, right? Because then the guard is a little bit up. It’s a slightly different dynamic, but the format actually sort of enables that mind share. No matter who you are in the ecosystem, even competitors are openly sharing with each other in our format. So I think that’s the beauty of it. And you also decide how much do you want to share. Of course you’re not going to spill all the beans, maybe, that is confidential, but you can definitely share based on your own experience. And I think that is the, or just sit back and listen if you don’t feel comfortable. That’s the beauty of the format.
Nina Roper Yearwood (37:21)
I have a question about this. How much does Copperberg actively take part in shaping the topics to be discussed? So kind of balancing what the partners want to talk about and, finding that sweet spot as well into what actually the delegates, what matters to them? So how do you, yeah, create that?
Lisa Hellqvist (37:39)
In our old company, there’s a process for this. The Events Machines company, have what we call, you know, delegate research and topic briefs and all of this. We have a similar model, of course, but it’s more now aspects of what we do. It’s not necessarily, you know, defined meetings. So you can basically say that the person in charge of creating the agenda, which for the Power of 50s actually is myself at this point, right? I will base the agenda specifics and topics mainly just accumulating all my input that I get from the sort of day-to-day conversations with manufacturers and then try to sort of boil that down into what is actually… There’s some things that would be constant, you know, they’re always top of mind topics. So they should always be on the agenda. That could be things like in terms of technology integration, change management, those are almost always, you know, on there in one way, shape, or form. And then it’s of course, you know, the aspects that I see, okay, this seems to be the buzzwords right now and not buzzwords from the technology side of things, buzzwords in terms of the service leaders.
If I hear, for example, I’ve heard sustainability so much that now I’m doing my own event on it or our own event on it. I call it mine. It’s my pet project. But it’s one of those things where when you heard a thing enough times, it can stand on its own legs. So it’s a lot of what they say in German, fingerspitzengefühl, actually, and being able to take all that conversations and hear what they’re actually saying. And then do what we do, as content writers and marketeers, we actually have to package that into headlines that make sense. And that is relevant to the audience.
So there’s a lot of steps to take to arrive here, but I have come to actually very much trust our own expertise on this, not get so maybe so much inspiration from the outside, but rather actually dive into our own community and see what sparks questions, what sparks discussion, what am I discussing with the numerous people that I sit in these kind of online environments on a sort of almost daily basis with? What do the people say to me when we’re having the after work cocktails after an event? What are some of the main takeaways? You can also hear that if some topics are always popping up during an event, that’s probably something you need to embrace and put on the agenda for next year, because they’re definitely coming, right? Or they need their own, you know, 15 minutes of fame, those topics and actually be addressed. So, I mean, it’s very important to have that mixture of constant pains and challenges and new ways and inspiration to look outside what we’re currently doing and kind of the future. But we cannot only do the future because people don’t have enough to say.
So we still have to make sure that the discussions are very much sort of grounded in the day-to-day business. So that’s kind of the balance that we do, or I do. And then, of course, it’s very relevant to find then leaders and keynote speakers or brands that people associate with these specific competences. So it’s also very much the poster boys or girls of the event. If someone is going to stand on our stage and talk about their predictive maintenance model and uptime contracts and it’s a very high-valued brand and the very senior person that’s obviously going to help Malin reach out to the audience because people want to see this.
And we try to have as many new faces as possible on the stage to make sure there’s a flow of new information as well and not rely on all our loyal speakers. We have plenty, actually. That’s also a luxury. I always have people to call. But I’m always trying to get that new flair into the agendas as well. But it’s, I mean, it’s a weird answer, but it’s a lot of gut feeling nowadays. And then, we rely on our expertise now. That’s it.
Nina Roper Yearwood (42:39)
I think you’ve probably mastered the basics already that you can kind of wing it a little bit.
Lisa Hellqvist (42:44)
I think it is. And, you know, I have people working with me in the content development team, of course, and for them, are structures and, you know, their buzzwords and there are certain, you know, ways to get there. But, you know, it’s the organization of Copperberg knows enough now to be very sort of confident around the topics we produce. We’re really specialized, right? So it’s more about having the ability to listen to people and then digest what they are actually saying. What is it that they’re actually saying? What is this topic? What they’re saying right now? How does that translate into a to the point topic? That’s more of the actual and that’s more of a content writing or journalistic trait. You have to learn that craftsmanship to just take a very, very long explanation and make it into a headline.
Malin Mostofi (43:41)
And I would add as well what you asked earlier, how do we balance what the partner might want to talk about and how do we set our topics? I mean, we had also experienced we’re pretty good at matching that partner with the topic or with the table. We would never have two tables on the same topic, for example.
The partners that have been with us for a while, also then understand the benefit of having a discussion table as opposed to kind of maybe, you know, this is not a sales pitch moment. This is not a place where you’re supposed to do a demo. This is, you know, this is where you can actually learn from your potential customers or your customers who might be sitting around you. So that we obviously, new partners, we informed them of this the ones that have been with us for a while, completely understand this.
So it’s in their benefit to have something that people really want to talk about and discuss and to sit and listen as opposed to moderate. That is the function of the role as opposed to, you know, talk about how great your products are at that specific moment.
Nina Roper Yearwood (45:03)
As we begin to wrap up, I want to ask you something. So, you know, events, there’s a unique energy in the on-site experience. So there is that the room is buzzing, you know that people are engaged, you constantly hear like, you know, some hum of people talking, even if you can’t make out what they’re talking about. And I don’t know, do you ever have that moment where you felt that everything just clicked, especially for the Power of 50? And you know, that aha moment and you sit, you stand or sit wherever you are from that event room and you think to yourself, this is, this is what this is all about.
Lisa Hellqvist (45:48)
It’s a great question. Yeah, but we have a lot of those. What do you say Malin?
Malin Mostofi (45:48)
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I would, I would say yes, we have them, but they kind of come in stages when you do on-site event, because you’re always going to be prepared for something, anything happen along the day. So it’s almost like you’re, you can’t really have it 100% until you’re kind of on the way back to the airport, heading back with all your conference gear, you know, that’s when it’s like that was actually really, really well. But, you know, since we talked in the beginning, of course, both me and Lisa are from various events backgrounds, you know, I’m guessing both of us have had experience with doing, you know, big exhibition style events to smaller events and they are very different depending on what type of event you do.
I mean, when you do exhibition, you kind of get an excitement when you hear start hearing the banging of the build-up. Whereas with the Power of 50, you might have like, you know, when everyone sits at the right place in the room, then you’re like, okay, now, now we can start, now everything is good. So yes, they’re different, but it is, it is a high. And it is something that, you know, you get at various stages, and especially when people start leaving the event and people say “Thank you!” and they show you their notebooks full of little scribbles and notes and they’re going to go back to the office and they’re all excited about all the actions they’re going to do and that is really the biggest high when people leave happy, and they are very, very pleased with the time that they’ve spent at your event. That’s the real testament.
Lisa Hellqvist (47:29)
And I can say it already starts at the registration or the cocktail the night before. You know, there’s so many faces that are well-known to us. They are coming back. You know, there are hugs, there are laughters. You know, I hear Malin and Lena, who’s often at the registration desk, you know, just laughing away with delegates and you know, wow. And I’m often, you know, getting mic’d up to get on stage, but it’s this moment, you know, when you see familiar faces in the audience, but it’s not all familiar, but it’s this great mixture. And, you know, when I open the event, you just see that they look happy at that. It’s also like there’s a certain atmosphere already from the point that they get into the registration desk. It’s very, you know, it’s very light and happy in that sense. We’ve already had normally a little warm-up night before but then as soon as they are you turning around to their first round of round tables, and that’s where we really break the ice on them, right? It’s where they go into their first round and you hear, it’s always a little bit slower, the first round. But now we have so many experienced delegates and partners that it goes way quicker, right?
And then you just hear the room like zzzz they’re just, you know, talking away and they couldn’t ignore me more. And I’m up there on stage with the microphone and they still don’t hear me, right? So that’s when you also get that, you know, when you hear the laughter in the little groups there and you know, they’re making fun and they are, you know, intensely, you know, discussing things. That’s when you realize that, okay, this worked. And then, you know, when you see also delegates are like, you know, you know, delegate are there alone. They don’t have a travel buddy with them or a company friend, you know, and you see that they are in different little groups at all times. They always have someone to talk to because the format allows you to get introduced to so many people that you’re never alone. You always have, you know, you’re always partnered up with someone.
So that’s also nice, you know, larger events that has a little bit more of slow introduction. You always saw a few people that was like, you know, standing in a corner and looked a little bit, you know, you had to go help them and introduce them. This is a way it falls into place in a way different form actually here. It just happens basically. It’s very experiential. You have to be there. Yeah.
Nina Roper Yearwood (50:09)
Yes, indeed, indeed. This brings me to my last question, because we’ve all listened to the feedbacks together earlier, right? And I want to turn the tables a bit and anchor my final question based on that. In your view, what is the lasting power of the Power of 50?
Lisa Hellqvist (50:17)
I think it is, number one, think it is you had to be there. So that makes it, you know, the scarcity of the events as we always use as a phrase internally. I mean, the fact that it gets fully booked, the fact that it’s only once a year, you have to get yourself a seat at the table, basically, it is an unique experience in itself. And I think that impression lasts long for people.
I have a lot of introductions coming my way or like questions from people that is like, you know, acquaintance to some, you know, to my larger network. And, you know, they always refer to someone that they, you know, heard something about, about our events or they met someone that had been to our events and, you know, recommended them to reach out and etc. So there’s a lot of word of mouth around the events. So they obviously leave an impression. But just as Malin was saying, just the fact that they take these notes and, you know, I mean, it’s like a massive workshop of just leaders that is a neutral ground as well. You know, it’s not your own peers or colleagues. It’s everyone, right? So it’s also very diverse. It is homogeneous enough to make sure that the discussions are relevant. If it’s too diverse on seniority, etc., it might be hard to have a clear path in your discussions, right?
So the group is and the function of the people in the room is homogeneous enough to have common sense in the discussions, but it’s also diverse enough to get new inputs. And I think that is the balance that is so hard to achieve unless you have this kind of structured networking format.
Malin Mostofi (52:05)
Absolutely, I was going to say the same thing. The format itself is a winner. I mean, it’s small enough to be intimate. Everyone gets to meet everyone, but it’s big enough for you to be able to have a varied amount of discussions in just one day at this specific topic at hand. You know, so it’s and the other thing I would mention when it comes to format, I mean, it’s pretty easy to attend because all you have to do is to show up and then we tell you where to be. And I would just think as myself as a delegate, you know, you talked before that people might show up and they don’t really know where to go and someone stands in the corner, don’t know how to speak to anybody. You know, we kind of dictate a little bit where you should be, where you should sit. And as a delegate, I would think that would be super nice not to have to think. Yeah.
Lisa Hellqvist (52:55)
It’s like a wedding, you have your seat, you know, you don’t mess with the seating arrangement.
Malin Mostofi (52:57)
You don’t have to think, you just show up. Exactly. You show up, you get your badge and then somebody tells you like, okay, here, you’re to be here and then you’re going to be here. That would be like a dream day for me. Somebody has to do it for other people. I’ll be like, I just want to show up and somebody tells me where to be. I think people do really appreciate that as well that because it can be probably a little bit nerve-wracking sometimes to go into a room. You don’t know anybody and you don’t know what you’re going to be. How will I contribute to this? But then you sit down and you talk and everyone else is talking and then you kind of get to share. So it’s like a natural icebreaker and you don’t even, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to show up and then you get a good set of notes out of it, hopefully by the end of the day. People really appreciate it and that’s why we will keep them going as long as people want them. That’s kind of the lasting power, I guess.
That doesn’t say that we will not do anything else, but as long as people want these kind of formats, we will do these kind of formats. Again, we’re an agile company. We will do what people want us to do. Yeah.
Lisa Hellqvist (54:04)
Hmm. Very much so. Well spoken.
Nina Roper Yearwood (54:06)
Yes. And wow, thank you so much, Lisa and Malin, for sharing with us some great points on what makes the Power of 50 event format so special. So as we now know, it’s really more than just the event. It’s the people, the relationship, and the ideas that spring out of it. Thank you once again, both of you.
Malin Mostofi (54:35)
Thank you very much, Nina.
Lisa Hellqvist (54:36)
Thank you, Nina.
