FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
thinkAbout 2011 and beyond

In sharing our thoughts about the future of thinkAbout with various friends of Strategic Horizons LLP over the past year, we have fielded a number of questions about our planned path forward. Here are our responses to some of the most frequently asked questions:

What exactly is happening? How is the new invitation system going to work?
Beginning in 2011, we will only send formal invitations to alumni of the event. Anyone who has come to at least one prior thinkAbout will receive a “chit” that enables them to come to the next year’s event. We will probably send this chit out in electronic form, but may also send a physical version as well, just for the memorabilia possibilities. Each chit will have an identification number associated with a particular alumnus. In order to register for the upcoming thinkAbout event (in 2011 and beyond), this chit (or identification) must accompany one’s admission fee payment.

Does this mean that no new people will ever come to participate in thinkAbout?
No. We certainly want to continue to see new participants join us each year. This is a vital ingredient to keeping thinkAbout fresh and exciting, and for ensuring the networking opportunities for everyone are constantly expanding. What is going to change is how new participants gain access to the event. To join us, they will have to obtain a chit from some alumnus who does not plan to participate in any given year.

How will such new participants gain access to an unused chit?
Alumni who cannot join us for any particular year can give their chits away to fellow workers at their workplaces, or give them to interested customers or suppliers, or to anyone they know from any relationship they have with someone who might benefit from coming to thinkAbout. Ideally, we believe the best new participants will come from those who alumni deem most likely to benefit from, and contribute to, the event. We trust this proves a great way to enrich the quality of new folks who join us each year. (We might even issue two chits per alumnus!)

Can alumni sell their chits?
Why not? We might even help facilitate that by setting up an online clearinghouse for making unused chits available to others. Any alumnus who can’t make one year might use their profit to help pay for coming the following year! In any case, we want alumni to be the vehicle through which anyone new obtains a chit. Maybe we’ll ask sellers to offer one-on-one orientation via a phone-call as part of the sale.

Why the change? Have Joe & Jim been disappointed with some of the most recent thinkAbouts?
To the contrary. We think the last several thinkAbouts have been the best ever. We really do. And we have asked ourselves why this has proved to be the case. Our conclusion: for the past several years we have had record levels of alumni participation (our alumni rolls of course become larger every year!). Those who have come to thinkAbout in prior years contribute greatly to the richness of the experience; they know what to expect (the unexpected!) and really help integrate new participants. We really want to leverage this, not only in having more and more alumni return each year, but also in having our alumni become the very “social network” that invites others to become part of the happening each year.

Might we see yet more changes in the future?
We might one day require each chit to be redeemed each year in order to be issued again in the
following year. But we don’t suspect we’re anywhere near requiring that yet. One change at a time.