All-in virtual. Why we are launching TOA Klub
Context: For those who do not know TOA, below an image and here a video that will transport you back to pre-Covid life.
Looking at this cramped room, the obvious and short answer of why TOA is pivoting its product is obvious: Covid-19. But there is more to it and it’s not the type of pivot you would expect.
The short story of why TOA is not just continuing with its switch to virtual “events” but rather pivoting into an entirely new product taught us a lot.
Be gracious, be bold, be adaptable.
Adaptability is the lesson that TOA, and the entire events industry, had to learn at lightning speed. In the last 12 months TOA went from executing our flagship event together with 500+ vendors passionate for their craft to switching to virtual events to launching multiple new on-off formats and an online chat community. While we saw high engagement and our largest NPS scores to date, we realised that our value proposition in the virtual realm could be a lot bigger if we doubled down on virtual and leveraged technology to the fullest.
We took a minute and asked ourselves how technology could help bring the best out of TOA. What would we create if we started from scratch? We realised that tech can help broaden access to TOA while at the same time bring people together intimately around a specific goal.
The world will come out of this pandemic having digitally aged by decades, not years. Remote work and education, health tech adoption, decentralised technology such as DeFi or NFTs and broad deployments of automation and robotics represent opportunities to some and risks to others. While the complexity of our business environment has greatly accelerated, the half-life of learned skills is now no longer than 5 years.
At TOA this gives our long-time mission of “making people, organisations and the planet futureproof” ever more purpose. It is time for us to leverage technology to deliver on our mission in a more impactful way.
Introducing TOA Klub — A cohort-based learning and doing platform
Klub is a virtual space to connect, grow and forge your own path. 4–6 weeks of curated content and peer-to-peer learning for anyone looking to step up their game, enter a new field or progress on their chosen path.
This new, shiny, TOA Klub was developed from our Klub beta which we launched after the pandemic started in early 2020. OG Klub was created to connect our online community. We observed. We listened. We realised that the heart of the space was missing. A community needs a shared goal, accountability and interaction specific to individual needs. So we designed a completely new 10/10 product which launches today!
In 2008 I started my professional career in the education space. Heading the digital transition of a 50+ year old educational print publishing company was not easy. Education never is. We built a social bookmarking community for teachers and failed with an alpha version of a high school social tv network. The education industry was in the back of my mind ever since and in a way the “event”character of TOA was just another “medium” to provide learning experiences. Print, video, blogs, podcasts, code, events… All media to disseminate knowledge, to inspire and instigate action.
I have now personally come full-circle and am excited to leverage technology to make the promise of TOA ever more accessible. Supporting knowledge-thirsty souls on their path forward is a life’s work!
