Ever tried to organize an international conference with a couple of hundred attendees coming from say 25 to 30 different countries? My advice: don’t do it. Don’t even think about it!
We had our first talks about organizing the fifth international conference on New Business Models (NBM) in Juli 2020 early this year, somewhere in February. Everything appeared as a ‘piece of cake’ at that time. We had done this before since we had organized the 1st NBM conference in Toulouse in 2016. So we knew the drill. Made an incredible team, searched a venue, started looking at the website. But after the great success of NBM@Berlin 2019 early July, it was evident that we were heading for a lustrum-edition, one that is going to receive loads and loads of people.
Then we got the support of the Dutch National Research organizations for fundamental (NWO and applied (TNO) research. Great, fabulous, but it meant once more extra people, extra tracks extra what have you.
Xmas 2019 is approaching, fast. We are still in the process of fine-tuning the Tracks and the submission guidelines. In the meantime, people have started to subscribe and submit. It is a little bit like building a boat which is already in the river. But on the other hand, it is excellent we receive so much attention. So we will muddle through and manage, of course.
This 5th edition of NBM@Nijmegen2020 will be fantastic. We’ll be ready in time. An if some details are maybe not perfect, nobody will manage because meeting so many people around the subject of sustainable, circular, and collective business modeling is going to be an enjoyable experience. So, submit your work, come to Nijmegen/Lent and have a good time.
Jan Jonker, initiator of the NBM Conference Series and Chairman of NBM@Nijmegen 2020.
