I denne episoden er vi begeistret for å ha Caroline Whittle med oss. Hun er Business Development Manager og Director for Floating Wind Days, et av de mest spennende årlige arrangementene i havvindindustrien.
Denne episoden gir et unikt innblikk i målgruppen for Floating Wind Days, deres formål, og hva som kreves for å organisere et så stort og innflytelsesrikt internasjonalt arrangement. Vi ser på utviklingen av festivalen, fra ide til virkelighet, og hvordan programmet og innholdet blir nøye sammensatt for å maksimere verdi og engasjement.
Vi skal også høre om suksessen til det første året av arrangementet, inkludert økonomisk gjennomgang, publikums tilbakemeldinger, og Haugesunds rolle som en ideell arrangementsby. Caroline vil også diskutere fremtidige planer og mulige endringer for Floating Wind Days.
Til slutt deler Caroline sine personlige råd og innsikter til de som drømmer om å starte sin egen konferanse eller et større arrangement, basert på hennes erfaringer med Floating Wind Days.
Dagen episode er produsert i samarbeid med Gründerloftet- regionens mest inspirerende arbeidsplass for deg som driver din egen bedrift.
I denne episoden er vi begeistret for å ha Caroline Whittle med oss. Hun er Business Development Manager og Director for Floating Wind Days, et av de mest spennende årlige arrangementene i havvindindustrien.
Denne episoden gir et unikt innblikk i målgruppen for Floating Wind Days, deres formål, og hva som kreves for å organisere et så stort og innflytelsesrikt internasjonalt arrangement. Vi ser på utviklingen av festivalen, fra ide til virkelighet, og hvordan programmet og innholdet blir nøye sammensatt for å maksimere verdi og engasjement.
Vi skal også høre om suksessen til det første året av arrangementet, inkludert økonomisk gjennomgang, publikums tilbakemeldinger, og Haugesunds rolle som en ideell arrangementsby. Caroline vil også diskutere fremtidige planer og mulige endringer for Floating Wind Days.
Til slutt deler Caroline sine personlige råd og innsikter til de som drømmer om å starte sin egen konferanse eller et større arrangement, basert på hennes erfaringer med Floating Wind Days.
Dagen episode er produsert i samarbeid med Gründerloftet- regionens mest inspirerende arbeidsplass for deg som driver din egen bedrift.
Welcome to the founding of the success line. In this episode, we are excited to have Carlyn Whittle with us. She is a business development manager and director for Floating Windays, one of the most exciting and long-term arrangements in the sea industry. This episode gives a unique insight into the group of Floating Windays, their goals and what is needed to organize such a large and flexible international arrangement. We look at the development of the festival from idea to reality and how the program and content are newly incorporated to maximize value and engagement. We should also hear about the success of the first years of the arrangement, including an economic transition, public commentaries and the highest-growing role as an ideal arrangement city.
Speaker 1:Carlyn will also discuss future plans and possible changes for Floating Windays. Finally, part of Carlyn's personal advice and insight is to dream of starting a conference or a larger arrangement based on her experience from Floating Windays. Today's episode is produced in cooperation with the founder of the region's most inspiring workplace. For you who are involved, welcome to the studio of the same size as Carlyn. Thank you very much. This is the founder of the podcast and I have never seen you guys be on a foundation podcast in Høgelsund.
Speaker 2:No, it was a bit unexpected, but in a way I understand a lot about what we are doing.
Speaker 1:I think it's very relevant because I am very happy to talk about where I will go to to make a successful niche conference. This is what we are going to talk about today and, floating Windays Right, we will talk about the niche issue and what we can do to make a niche conference and what we can think about, what we can do wrong, what we can do around the economy, all these things. But first we have to clarify some of the concept and some of the structure of the company. Because you are also involved in Norwegian Offshore Wind Correct, can you tell us a little bit about your role there and what you are?
Speaker 2:involved in. Yes, my title of the conference is Business Development Manager, so the management, development and Norwegian Offshore Wind is a business organization, a medium-sized organization that represents the whole of shore wind, so the wind industry in Norway. We have almost 400 mediums and that is actually Norway's biggest industry cluster. We represent everything from the economy the biggest development all down to startups. We actually have our own accelerator program and we are very much involved in startups and with students, with the whole spectrum. But the supply chain itself is what we have the most in the week. Our vision is to build the world's leading supplier chain for the shore wind.
Speaker 1:I have not thought that there were so many of them. How long have you been working on that?
Speaker 2:The whole story started with our boss, arvid Nesse. He started working with the Met Centre, which you might have heard of. It was the test centre with the flight to Bine, a few kilometres from Karmeg. It went back to 10 years that he started working on it. After that it was obvious that Cluster grew up as it is today. Today I am working with 14 employees in the administration. About half of the party is here at the main office in Høgelsen and then we have four of them at the office in Oslo and then we have the office in Stavanger and Kristiansand. So with the National Cluster and the Medlemavården, we have a large number of Norwegian employees, but we also have foreign employees. We are thinking of global supply chains. We are not only focusing on Norway.
Speaker 1:Are there any other European organisations?
Speaker 2:Not only European. We operate globally. There are Cluster organisations in all the biggest sea markets and the way we operate is based on the same-day-work. We find a partner in the same-day-work when we work in the US and search for them in Japan. One of the first things we do is to look for our type of organisations like us in these countries and then we put together the same-day-work deal and work together with them, with their employees and so on.
Speaker 1:One of the main things we do is to create opportunities for the medlemavården.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what we do. We have different focus areas. We have a lot of focus on Norway and the home market in terms of building up supply chains and building up the competition here in Norway. We also have focus on innovation how we can build up competition, new technology and, of course, our central center. And on the third is the export opportunities. We have work groups from all the biggest markets and more of us have responsibility for different countries. I have Poland, baltic, south Korea and Sweden, which is my market, in addition to building up our floating wind-days range. So you can say it's more pro-tellar than you think.
Speaker 1:It's exciting, isn't it? I think it's a big international market and has a strong competition here in Høgelsund. It's fantastic. How has it built up such an economic medium, but not the majority of the companies we have invested in?
Speaker 2:Our management model is like many other clusters the way innovation builds up the different types when you grow up. I don't want to say how many companies we have invested in, but we get a big share from our mediums. But we are now starting to see which business we are going to invest in. One of them is the self-employed center, which is a company that is self-employed. Then we have self-cluster and medium-sum, then we have floating wind-days as a business and then we have the accelerator program. We have to think about how to build up and create values for our mediums and then we see the possibility that we don't depend on one index.
Speaker 1:The accelerator needs almost its own product. That's a good point we need to talk about.
Speaker 2:Narve and Maris. Yes, Maris is very central.
Speaker 1:I was involved in an accelerator in Oslo called Antler, an international accelerator. I worked with Narve. I met him through that system and I took him back to the office that was a great experience. It's been a great resource. We will talk a little more about the highlight of Norwegian offshore wind. We will go over to Dagen's exciting thing, Floating wind-days. When did you start thinking about?
Speaker 2:that Floating wind-days are in format 1 with the first time in a year, but actually there has been a floating wind conference held in Hugesund for two or three years before that, so it was less version. They held it digitally. I started in Norwegian offshore wind for 14 months 14-15 months.
Speaker 2:I came from Sjöfjärsträktorn. I was a market chef. It was held, but it was a little less version. There were not so many foreign distributors and they had about 300-350 distributors. So it went very well. They had very good ratings and stuff like that. But I was not allowed to build up, as you say, to make a business and make it bigger and actually mandate. Eggfek was created, the most important meeting place internationally for the floating wind-tank in Hugesund.
Speaker 1:That was a fantastic mandate, but you thought it was possible today. They did not start to think that way.
Speaker 2:They are quite visionary, but why not?
Speaker 1:They did not think that way. They did not think that way. Is there something that will make Hugesund a difficult place to arrange such an international conference?
Speaker 2:I had used a part-time job when I went out to the international market and people asked me where I was at Hugesund, and then they started explaining how they came up with it. And it is very possible and it is difficult, but they started to explain how it is very easy to get to Hugesund. If you want it to be a problem, yes, it will be a problem, but we had a very close relationship with good partners in Hugesund. Visit Hugesund, for example, was very helpful how to communicate this well and how to make travel arrangements easier and so on. So it was not a problem.
Speaker 1:But I think that in the process of development, it is logistics, but it is just one longer stop than Oslo or the Copenhagen. What are the goals here? Is everyone working for HAVIND or do you have a special persona?
Speaker 2:HAVIND is floating. It is quite niche there. There are not so many events in Europe that have focus on them. There are the two biggest events in France and in Aberdeen. What?
Speaker 1:about in France.
Speaker 2:They moved a little around. They have different cities every year and then Aberdeen was just up in October. But the goal group that we want to come to is the whole spectrum of people who have been with HAVIND. We want to have the biggest players and the decision makers and we want to have them as soon as possible. Supply chain is very important, but we also have focus on startups and students. We want to make an ecosystem.
Speaker 2:If we talk more about concepts and how we came up with it, I used a part of the title to go around the competition events, not just the fleet of HAVIND, but HAVIND in general. I came from shipping and I worked in oil and gas. Thank you. It's a lot of blisters. You go to a hotel, to a congress center, to a stage, to PowerPoints, and then there's a coffee break and lunch time at home. It's a lot of blisters.
Speaker 2:If the airport is in the future and you have to create a meeting place, you have to create a environment, you have to create a mood, you have to create an experience and get it to you A little thing. When I worked with Concept it was in the name, as I said, floating Wind Days. The shortlist of that is F double 2D, which is also a shortlist for Forward and our thoughts pushing forward with moving things forward where things happen. Get the right people to meet each other. We have a startup company now which works with new technical, innovative solutions. I have wanted to go to Equinox and mainstream to get the opportunity to see these things, to see and meet these people, people who are doing research. I have wanted them to meet each other because then you get the time in the industry itself and that's very important for us. We don't just want to have presentations, canapes and cocktails, we want to have a part of it.
Speaker 1:So it's a unique arena to make a new innovative connection. Yes, Lückes Liten is being played in a professional podcast studio at H90 in Høgelsund Center. If you want to know more about the creative work environment and the work landscape at H90, check out H90.no H90.no. Have you thought about starting from the first year of the industry next year? Have you changed your concept?
Speaker 2:Yes, what has been fantastic with the gang Backflow to Wind Days is that there are very energetic people with a lot of ideas. When you sit in a room together, you bubble up with ideas.
Speaker 1:We have our own ideas. We start with them.
Speaker 2:We have a fantastic collaboration with Lars Namoral. When we talk about concept development, erik from Lars Namoral has been very, very central to it. But we were very clear about what we wanted to create and how we could do it, and then we had so many ideas of things that we would get into the arrangement and get it open. It was maybe a bit ambitious, with the clear and full of all the things we had, but my God, it was a lot. We had a goal of having 600 people and then we had 720 participants and we could have chosen one more.
Speaker 1:Because you are now starting to have a maximum capacity and the conference is starting.
Speaker 2:Yes, we can come back to that we can come back to that, but next year. I think about thousands of people. But when you ask if we should do something different, I think that we work a lot with how we can get concepts, how to keep and develop concepts, but keep them If you don't need to get better. The more you get, the more you can do it. I think in May we had 20 scenes in use under the arrangement and two sessions per day. We had 126 speakers.
Speaker 1:Simultaneous.
Speaker 2:We had the main stage and then we had the sessions, so we had six scenes at the same time.
Speaker 1:Okay, you really wanted to choose what you wanted to go for.
Speaker 2:And then there were two days and two sessions, or actually four sessions per day. So there was a lot of keeping control and it was difficult to participate. It was a little bit of a question of what they would be doing. I think we should have several scenes but more arrangement and make room for networking, because one thing that was very we're talking about success criteria here. I had been to some of the arrangements so I thought, okay, if I'm going to do business and meet the right people, you get the overview of who the participants are and you go to some of the arrangements. So it's an app. But often these apps are not the best. Maybe you take it in use but no one else takes it in use. But I thought, mm, I have to get this.
Speaker 1:That's a good book to use, for example.
Speaker 2:So I was on the hunt for a solution and we would get that app to get shit-hot and that it would be a tool that would make the house. But I think it was a long story short, but of course it was.
Speaker 1:Did you build the app yourself?
Speaker 2:No, I was on the hunt and I was at a conference that had used the app and so when I was at that conference in the outskirts and I was looking at the app and I thought this is it, but no one used it On that arrangement I was on, no one used it. So then you have to think how can people use it? 96% of our participants used the app and we had a big tent for dating for meeting and you could book a meeting and dates with anyone at the conference. And the data and the karma effect to those who drive the app. Yes, they love us, but that was a lot about communication, marketing and the application for the conference. We had made a lot of things for people to get in the app, to get in touch, register, get involved.
Speaker 1:So if you have such information in advance, people can use it right. How would they manage the conference?
Speaker 2:And then the whole thing about the conference. What would they do now? Because I had, I mean, there were over 200 people and on day two we took over 500 people out to the conference centre at the same time. Yes, in four days.
Speaker 1:Could you tell us a short story about the Met Center?
Speaker 2:The Met Center is located at Marine Energy Test Center. If you are on the επιพี่, I have heard about you which is linked with the to m ס t. We are also involved in testing our own fluid technology. They book places and test them. Now we have two, but there are only ten of them. All places are closed, with just an endless process with the authorities to get the concession approved. It's a bit of a long time to take, but we also have places in the book. Another place is testing places. The Med Center is the world's leading center. If you're from Asia or the US, you talk about Med Center. People in the industry have heard about it. It's a bit strange that people are locally known to be there, but it's actually an incredibly important and well-known testing center.
Speaker 2:It was a bit of a distraction, but now I know more about it.
Speaker 1:Also here. What's the whole story? We were in the Doc. You had a show in your studio, right? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So taking all the men out. That's something you won't experience in many conferences and which the app was very active If you're going to build a boat and you have to have a record of Kim's. So we used the app to do all these things and the technical, the QA code, when they're out and about it worked very well for us.
Speaker 1:So technical questions. Is there one person responsible for the app who follows along with you and ensures that it's going well?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have a fantastic colleague, martine, who's the first one and she's at Oslo Contour, so she's our app expert and we're in charge of that and this link up to our website and the way we register and stuff, so it's a pretty. I'm not asking too much technical questions.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not, I'm just asking about that. No, it's just a bit of an organization that too. But there were over 200 people and you got more. How did you manage to reach out to the group in the front? You had to do a good job in communication and market management.
Speaker 2:Yes, we used a lot of time on concepts and we used a lot of time on who to reach out to, and I would say, different ways. We did it, of course, through our own channels. So when we had events and when we were going out and presenting and stuff, we had good opportunities through our own channels. We had live and through news, e-poss and stuff like that. And then we had a really good campaign that LASNAMAL helped us with, which would help us to build the brand, and we had specific international markets that we would reach out to and that was a success.
Speaker 2:But you had to be a bit of a mother with it, with how you set up and do stuff like that. But in addition, we are out in the market ourselves and that helps. I could be out in search of work in Japan earlier this year and it's quite a bit of going into different businesses, of show-in associations and sales, and that led to me getting big delegations from Disneyland. So the strongest channel is to go out and have contact in the market and get them here.
Speaker 1:You have to be quite relaxed out there and don't keep your Facebook account here in Nische. But I think one of the reasons I don't get it so well is that there is a Nische conference. I've seen when I was building a which association has often said that I have to start in a very specific Nische, because then you can't go out and do something, and I also have to be able to have an attractive programme for people to come. How did you not get to build up the programme?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm very ready to participate in the programme and come up with a concept, what to create. And then it's what are the main themes? Challenges, what are the things that people are very excited about? And the last thing you can have conferences that are just shows and get a big number of people like, wow, they will come. I want to hear about that. But yes, you have to have that. But what is the most excited about? What are the themes for people to be excited about? So I have an advisory board that consists of important people from the branch that help us to find out and we can decide on which themes we should focus on.
Speaker 2:But that was relevant. It was perhaps the most important Because it was an experience myself to go to other conferences and have this meaning. I wanted people to participate in the programme and then after that it would be a workshop or a meeting, speech or to create discussions and create changes. And we have focus and courage, political decision makers everywhere and our role as a media organisation to challenge. So that is an important part, that it is meaningful, and meaningful to keep up with it, not just like that.
Speaker 1:So that was the programme and I think that was also an important part of the success factor we talked a little about that. You were chosen directly to the group and that was a very exciting programme. What other types of success factors have you pulled from?
Speaker 2:The biggest thing with Float and Wind Days is that Float and Wind Days are where deals are done. The network is central. It's to put together more than any other conference. The main dream I had was to get a high school degree or Float and Wind Days to be the most important meeting place. I thought to cut the car and cut the place to be, for example, arandalssuke or Davos, if you want. It's not a big city. If you have a CEO of Mainstream who is based in Arandalssuke and you meet the CEO from DNV, it's a small city and a branch can take over the city and the branch feels it it's a big city. You don't get it in Bergen or Stavanger or Oslo. I think that's what's ahead of our focus phase.
Speaker 1:I work in hotel branches. For 10-15 years I work in the Destinations company. I remember we had a lot of big conferences. Often back messages that have been especially big is that I felt that you had the city in those days when we saw the colleagues, they were meeting and talking. They were not having a chat or a restaurant or a coffee or a toast or anything. I felt that the conference was in Huggiesund and that was what made the? City so colorful it's a big city you don't get a lot of things happening today.
Speaker 2:I really wanted to cut the city. This was the first year I was happy with the result and I'm sure people will remember I use a conference called Float on Windage. Float on Windage is a festival, the concept you get in your head is completely different. You don't have to have a blue shirt on you. You might have a festival shirt on you.
Speaker 1:I'm not that good at festival. I'm just curious about what it is. Did people just have a festival or did it go well.
Speaker 2:What was funny was that when I went around and saw it in the front, I could see people looking at me and saying what the hell are you talking about? After that it was like yay, with the meeting.
Speaker 1:You didn't react.
Speaker 2:Yes, and at least with people who, oh, yes, with Tobacco at Huggiesund. They understood that. But the same thing happened with Huggiesund Kommune, with Visit Huggiesund and Huggiesund Centrum. We had a whole street with flags and a fence. We got a boutique in Huggiesund Centrum to make a boutique window A competition. We do a lot of things to do it. We like to make Huggiesund region feel that this can be an exciting event.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's fantastic to be able to get the participants to arrange the best decisions. That's what we do.
Speaker 2:We had the idea of being corrected by innovation. Visit Huggiesund. We worked very closely with Innovationorge to take the arrangements calculator, the VD-shape.
Speaker 2:We got results for that. We got the answer that Floating Wind Days has a VD-shape of 11.5 million for Huggiesund. 96% of our suppliers are local suppliers. Innovationorge had a problem to understand or to take it as true. Yes, because there were audiovisual and all these producers. How did they come from Huggiesund? Everything we had design, market management they were totally surprised. We had a very. We decided to create the VD-shape and make it a team. It's fantastic how we have got local suppliers to participate, all from the hotel. It's been a great time. They have made the right decisions. They have helped me. I think I'm not a demanding customer, but they were fantastic. The other hotels and the over 700 people in the hotel, the garage, the hotel, the hotel. We had used everything.
Speaker 1:Maybe you heard about the localization, but it's like a rustic, special location. What reactions did you get from the local atmosphere? Was it something that was noticed? Yes, and loved it.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's exotic, it's so different you felt. Here in Huggiesund in the west, I was at a conference in shipping and offshore wind. I can't remember which city it was, because it was just as much Hotel, large hall, lovely.
Speaker 1:Can we keep it here? You grow up here over 1000. How much do?
Speaker 2:you solve this? I think creative. But I'm in Huggiesund now in 2024. I think I'm getting a job at how it's been, but then I realize that I get all the hotels and I think creative in a different way. Mechanical means that it's always Huggiesund we can't say it with nationalities but I would say that with the building up now and the team and the society and everything, we would start from scratch in Kristiansand, for example.
Speaker 1:It would have been very difficult. It's easier.
Speaker 2:I think with working together with others and thinking about it. It's not just floating in the air. I think there's a solution and a new idea. There could be other arrangements that look like this, but of course we have plans that Petterlössner has. I look at it and think, wow, it would have been helpful if we had been able to do it. Of course we have ambitions and we have to admit that there is a strong competition in other cities. But if Huggiesund should be the main city for the floating sea, we have to have a very good starting point here and we have to be very happy with the development of the city.
Speaker 2:I'm very happy for everyone in the administration and the society here in our region who are taking on the challenge and finding solutions instead of getting problems, but it's not something that's going to be good. What do they say about the answers, or the ones that they say are like gliding close to the water? It was strange enough. It wasn't a big mistake, it wasn't. It was something that I was very happy about. You can think of 500 people out there.
Speaker 2:It was a big mistake. It was a big challenge. It was a big day. When I had the tour out I was on board MS Gide and one of the people I had turned to, MS Spide. It was a shame, but what was strange was that when we arrived in the country, many foreign guests had been asked to come. They had to eat on clothes, on bags and jackets. They would go straight to the airport and they would travel straight with the plane. They had just had a terrible experience on the plane. When they arrived at the bus stop, there were thousands of fantastic festivals. They complained to me that they had a special experience.
Speaker 2:I thought I might make a new episode next year, so I survived. A trip to the medicine centre.
Speaker 1:That's good. Have you seen any good economics?
Speaker 2:My boss said that I could go to zero in a year. I was a little over the top so that was great, but now it's all over. When you start, it's a job. If I'm going to live off this, I have to start earning money.
Speaker 1:Maybe you'll get a complete set in floating windows.
Speaker 2:I use a half-time job in the floating windows. It's a bit more than that.
Speaker 1:It's completely up to you. You also have a lot of external resources that help you. You can go to the international. You and I from England, erik, we have been with you. Do you think that you have made the situation a bit more difficult?
Speaker 2:Maybe, but I don't know if I want to say that because I'm an international. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think that you can use an international experience in the city to mix things up. There are many things. It's an international festival. There are many cultures that are going to be included, so it's nice to have more backgrounds.
Speaker 2:I think that with every time I work in a job, I can speak English even better. That makes about 80% of the time in the job, so floating windows is the best for me.
Speaker 1:We're going to the end. If anyone wants to start a festival or conference, we'll do it in a basic way. We have some thoughts I can talk to you about private.
Speaker 2:You're just doing our thing, so that's good.
Speaker 1:Do you have any tips we should think about before we start?
Speaker 2:You said it in a bit of an introduction. First and foremost, people say that they want to have an event, a conference or a festival. But is there a need? I think it's to be brutal. Is there a need? I have a niche product, but is there a need to go around?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:Is there an opportunity? Do you think about the competition? What are the things that make you feel like you're out there? All the things you said in the introduction that there's copy-paste. People don't buy a ticket to go on everything. People are more aware of it. So what are the things you actually want to do? It has to be something that they think is worth it.
Speaker 1:I have to answer that we're going to do a little round. Are you ready for that? I'm going to try. Do you have your favorite work that you don't want to do?
Speaker 2:Monday.
Speaker 1:Monday Do you have a book you can recommend?
Speaker 2:I don't have a book, but it's just a TED Talk. If I'm just looking at it, I just Google it you have a podcast, don't you? I don't.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us about yourself?
Speaker 2:This is a bit difficult. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to answer. I love marketing and always work with marketing, but until I took the job I was very sure I was going to join the military. I was very good, I was the officer in the British Navy. I was very curious about that. I had a business game on the way and I was like I can do this. That's it.
Speaker 1:It's exciting that you can do such a thing you can do small things in life and also change the direction. What is your favorite hobby without marketing?
Speaker 2:I can answer a lot of boring things. It's a lot of work, but if I'm a hiker and go fishing, I think I've found a new hobby to play paddle. I played tennis when I was younger. Paddle is great.
Speaker 1:I played tennis and played a lot of tennis, but it's very good with paddles and social. How many of you played tennis?
Speaker 2:I was 9-17.
Speaker 1:I don't know much about studying. We have a coach in tennis, so maybe they will change.
Speaker 2:Do you know how old I am now? I?
Speaker 1:don't know, have you got any reasons to share?
Speaker 2:Yes, and not just reasons, but it helps me a lot. It's a very simple belief in yourself, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:You've really done that in the floating windows. I'm very excited to see the program next year. It was very fun to have you in the local, so much so that we were sitting there. I'm looking forward to the game of the stable. What date are you from?
Speaker 2:It's May 29th and March 30th, with me coming to the city of Sustuken.
Speaker 1:We look forward to it. Thank you for coming, thank you.