How to Make the Best ToyCon Ever: A Conversation with Arete Passas
This year’s ToyCon was rated by many attendees as one of the best, if not the best, yet. The person who led this year’s (and will be leading next year’s as well) is industry veteran Arete Passas. Arete has worked at Mattel, Binney & Smith, Scholastic and most recently was the CEO of Manhattan Toy.
Because of her leadership experience, Arete was asked to chair ToyCon. I spoke with Arete and she told me emphatically that the COMMITTEE’S job did not end when the last person went home. She feels it is key to follow through by talking to those who did and did not attend in order to find out how to make ToyCon better.
I wanted to assist Arete in getting her dialogue started so here is the transcript of our conversation:
Richard:
How do you feel now that you made it through your first ToyCon?
Arete:
I feel great that based on the early feedback the attendees felt that the conference was worthwhile and that the content was rich in providing thought-provoking ideas on how we can re-invent our businesses. We have sent out an on-line survey to all attendees so that we can further understand what parts of the conference were the most worthwhile and where we can improve our offering.
Richard:
I know I thought it was the best ToyCon I attended and others told me that as well. Why do you think people felt it was a successful event?
Arete:
I think that we provided some untraditional speakers and panelists – individuals that are not in the toy industry and their perspective building a business or thriving in today’s economic climate proved to be insightful and provided a fresh look for folks. There was also a breadth of topics covered including marketing in today’s digital world and understanding how the retailers are evolving how they look at their businesses. Of course we can’t forget the networking which is always such an important and valued part of the conference and that was great this year as in the past.
One of the keys to our success is that we have a dedicated committee made up of industry professionals and we review all the content for the conference, suggest and discuss topics and speakers and work together as a team to put together the best event. It is great to have the different perspectives of a passionate group of individuals.
Richard;
Now that we know if others thought it was successful, how did you measure success this year and did it meet your standards?
Arete:
I think that success is not an end game in this conference but rather an evolving process. We want to constantly improve what we offer at the conference such that we can appeal to a broad enough audience of attendees and continue to make this conference a MUST ATTEND event. I think the ultimate achievement will be that we become constrained by the size of the conference location and have to expand to larger conference centers- We are not there yet. We hope people that have attended these events spread the word on how stimulating it is and others sign up for 2010 and beyond.
Richard:
People can respond to this blog posting but how else can people contact you who want to give you feedback on the conference?
Arete: Of course they can email the TIA directly on their site or email me directly at APASSAS@COMCAST.NET
Richard:
You had four good years as CEO of Manhattan Toy. What’s next for you?
Arete: Given my 30 years of experience in consumer goods and the toy industry, I am looking for opportunities to help companies in leadership with their strategy, vision, marketing, product development and branding. This is an exciting time of so many business in that there is rapid change happening – some not by their choice but it creates new challenges and forces them to explore new areas. I enjoy the challenges of these changes and the opportunity to bring new thinking to companies.
