How to move people

This year, the organizing team led by Peter Metzinger announced a "new concept based on feedback from participants". After last year's summit, they wanted one thing above all: more networking opportunities and - even more than that - the chance to learn from each other through direct exchange. The organizers took this to heart and presented a highly interactive program. On the evening before the summit, various workshops on specific topics such as crowd funding and political campaigning were held in smaller groups and at different locations. The actual summit at the Swissôtel Zurich continued along the same lines. In addition to the classic presentations, the program included so-called bar camps. These are open workshops that are organized by the participants themselves in order to promote professional exchange. The barcamp topics could be submitted by the participants until the evening before.

Benefiting from lateral thinking

Alexandra Molinaro from Easyvote initiated such a barcamp together with Silvan Zemp. She hoped that her participation would provide "new input on how to encourage young people to vote and feedback on her own ideas". She is satisfied with the result. The main benefit was the creative lateral thinking of the participants: "For example, someone suggested combining the invitation to vote with communal cooking activities. I hadn't thought of that before and I think it's an exciting approach." The atmosphere at the summit was inspiring. "You rarely find new ideas at the office table. It definitely works better here."

The two founders of Sugar Sugar Sugar used their own Barcamp to discuss their (at that time still somewhat improvised) campaign strategy with experts. The man with the stage name Ozanii Bananii and his business partner Matthias Kappeler produce soft ice cream under the Sugar Sugar Sugar brand with exotic flavors such as "saffron champagne" or "cucumber on yoghurt with pumpkin seed oil". The company now also has its own fashion label in the starting blocks. Can soft ice cream be used as advertising for a fashion label? And how is the story then told? They played through these questions with the audience. "It turned out that these different activities can definitely be managed under the same brand," Kappeler concluded after the barcamp.

Between and during the barcamps, five international speakers presented effective techniques on how to move people. Daniel Graf pointed out what characterizes a good online campaign: serially produced but individually variable content and authenticity: it has to look self-made so that people participate. It is also better to create campaigns for a few than for many. US speaker Sid Balman explained how to make your voice heard in Washington D.C. Ralf Stüber from Post Finance and Sunnie J. Groeneveld, CEO of Inspire 925, then focused on corporate development and internal campaigning. US opinion researcher Celinda Lake concluded the event. She used the example of several election campaign surveys in the USA to illustrate how surveys can be used sensibly to develop a good campaign strategy.

Simone Isliker