Today’s post by Jeff Jarvis (which I found by way of Sue Pelletier’s blog) is very interesting.

(Side note: by the way, when you arrive at a blog post by way of a mention on another blog, is it proper blog etiquette to link to both blogs? What if I came to the post by way of links through two other blogs? How far back should I credit the find? I wouldn’t link to a search engine to let people know how I came to an article I link to so is this different? Anyone know? It just feels “right” to link to Sue here so that’s what I did.)

Jeff mentions that he was offered a discounted conference pass as a panelist to attend the rest of the conference and is miffed about it and I think he’s got a right to be. My understanding is that this is pretty typical, but if we as show organizers aren’t going to pay the speaker’s travel and expenses, it’s the least we can do to offer a complimentary conference pass. It costs us virtually nothing and goes a long way to promoting goodwill. He may be going a bit far to say he wants a piece of the gate, but it’s an interesting idea.

I operate my conferences as loss leaders (or ideally break-even) propositions so that wouldn’t work in my model. However, we spent over $125,000 promoting the speakers and conference for the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference 2005. There is definitely value in there for the speaker - especially in a new industry like ours (podcasting) where lots of people are trying to establish themselves as experts in various areas.

While I may not pay my speakers in cold hard cash, I am paying them with important exposure. In the past several years, I can attribute several speaker book deals and consulting contracts directly from the exposure speakers got from our conference. It was true with our Online Trading Expo when that industry was just getting rolling and it’s true now with the Podcasting Conference we just finished.

But c’mon - throw in the full-conference pass as a thanks to the speaker - it’s the least you can do. I received over 500 requests to speak for 90 spots at our conference. Could I get away with charging the speaker for the conference? Maybe - but the backlash in the blogosphere would NEVER make the cash worth it. And from a guy who makes most decisions based on “gut” my gut says it feels greedy.