Thoughts on Conclave 2011

I was out in San Francisco last week for American Gem Society Conclave, my second Conclave in the nearly four years I’ve worked at National Jeweler.

Conclave is a lot to take in for one person, so I’ve done the best I can to deliver the highlights of the four-day conference. Here are some of my take-aways. Thoughts, comments and differing perspectives from those who attended--or even those who didn’t get a chance to go this year--are always welcome.

-- A simple message. The message delivered by a number of speakers last week seemed to center around one theme: keep it simple. Daniel Pink kicked off Conclave on Wednesday by challenging attendees to come up with one sentence to describe their purpose.

Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh talked about how they narrowed the focus of the company over the years until they had it whittled down to one single purpose that described both their attitude toward employees and toward customers: delivering happiness.

And in a session on getting and keeping customers, hairdresser-cum-sales trainer Patricia Fripp issued attendees a challenge similar to that issued by Pink: come up with a simple phrase that describes your philosophy.

A few retailers in the audience shared their stores’ already-made taglines, including “spreading joy” and “buy locally,” a tagline chosen by the store to set it apart from the chain competitors in the same town.

-- A worthy cause. Diamond Development Initiative Chairman Ian Smillie gave a presentation at breakfast on Thursday describing the mission of DDI and encouraging retailers to take part in the new Friends of DDI program. The mission of DDI is to improve the lives and economic situations of the estimated 1.5 million artisanal diamond diggers in Africa and South America.

With this new friendship program, DDI is asking retailers for monetary contributions and, in return, DDI will supply retailers with materials about the program, including materials they can display at their store to let customers know they are working to improve the lives of a disadvantaged sect of the supply chain.

In my opinion, DDI is a great organization for retailers to become involved with, especially as younger generations of diamond buyers have shown that they have a penchant for choosing products and retailers that make a difference over those that don’t.

For more information, e-mail friends@ddiglobal.org or visit DDIGlobal.org.

-- Surprise honor. One of Conclave’s more touching moments came on Thursday when AGS