Support Doors
Sponsorship Opportunities
Sponsorhip opportunities at Doors of Perception
What role do sponsors play at Doors?
Why Doors of Perception?
Who speaks at Doors?
Who comes to Doors?
Who are Doors' partners?
How do we promote the conference?
What about the press and media?
Doors' track record
What value is created at Doors?
Primary sponsors
Benefits to primary sponsors
Special event sponsorships
Strategic web sponsors
how to contact us
Sponsorhip opportunities at Doors of Perception
Are you interested in becoming a sponsor of Doors of Perception? If so, read this section carefully. If you want to get in touch directly, contact the Doors of Perception office.
What role do sponsors play at Doors?
Unlike traditional industry events, a Doors conference is about knowledge exchange and building up a community. It is not about hyping or selling products. We want to partner with companies, sympathetic to our approach, who will take an intelligent, long-term approach to communicating with and among the Doors community.We also want to learn from our sponsors, not just take their money. If you can relate to such an approach, and like the look of the content and the crowd at Doors, read on.
Why Doors of Perception?
Doors is the cutting edge meeting place for design pioneers of the internet - and for entrepreneurs and visionaries who would like to work with them. People come to Doors because it looks look that bit further ahead than run-of-the-mill internet events. Doors is not a technology-puish event, and pays attention to future social and cultural needs. Doors is independent: it is about ideas and knowledge-sharing, not about hyping stuff. Most important of all, Doors brings different disciplines and communities together that would not otherwise meet. These connections lead to high-value relationships, projects and new business ventures.
Who speaks at Doors?
A Doors line-up is original, cutting-edge, unique. it typically contains both stars and unknown newcomers. It's the mix that makes Doors buzz. The range of presenters has included writers (Manuel De Landa, Andrew Ross); philosophers (Ivan Illich, Pierre Lvy, Derrick de Kerckhove); architects (Rem Koolhaas, Christopher Alexander, Adriaan Geuze); designers (Bruce Mau); computer scientists (Danny Hillis, Mitchel Resnick), software developers (Kai Krause, Pattie Maes, Mark Pesce); environmentalists (Wolfgang Sachs); economists (Susan George); entrepreneurs (David Liddle); game developers (Sim City's Will Wright, Brenda Laurel); fashion forecasters (Li Edelkoort); Vatican internet experts (Claude Gaignebet); childrens theatre directors (Tony Graham); journalists (J C Hertz, Oliver Morton, Michael Schrage); media artists (Toshio Iwai, Jeffrey Shaw, Gerald Van Der Kaap); museum directors and curators (James Bradburne, Kapila Vatsayan, Paola Antonelli); magazine editors (Chee Pearlman from ID, Louis Rossetto from Wired, Willem Velthoven from Mediamatic).
Who comes to Doors?
The speakers, of course. But Doors participants tend to be just as interesting - people who attend the conference and workshops, visit the website, or read its publications. Our smart and committed community includes designers, entrepreneurs, people from government, education, city councils, science and other knowledge domains. The one thousand delegates to a Doors conference come from 40-50 countries. The same goes for the 500,000 people who visit the website each year.
Who are Doors' partners?
Doors always finds interesting partners for its events: we always connect with interesting new communities and networks. Our content partners for Doors 6 in November 2000, for example, include 02 (www.02.org) - the worldwide network of designers for sustainability; The Natural Capital Institute (www.naturalcapital.org) set up by Paul Hawken whose book, Natural Capitalism, has made such a huge impact. And we will connect with The Viridian Network, the mailing list of internet designers moderated by writer Bruce Sterling.
How do we promote the conference?
Word-of-mouth is by far the most important communication medium for Doors; word-of-email comes second.
What about the press and media?
Interesting and influential journalists come to Doors. Doors is not a trade show scrum, and we are rather picky about which journalists we accredit. We encourage writers and reporters to be as critical and controversial as they wish: their stories and broadcasts keep the debate going. A sample of the best quotes you can find in our press room.
Doors' track record
Doors of Perception first took place in Amsterdam in November 1993. It was organised by The Netherlands Design Institute from 1993-1999. The mission of Doors 1 was is to "explore the design challenges of interactive multimedia and networks". Each conference has had a theme, such as 'home' (Doors 2) 'eco-info' (Doors 3) 'speed' (Doors 4) or 'play' (Doors 5). The average attendance is 1,000 people; they have come from a total 52 countries, the mixture being roughly 50:50 Dutch and foreign attendees.The results of each conference are published on the Doors website, which was visited by 500,000 people in 1999.The website won a 'Peoples Voice Award" at the Webbies (the so-called "Oscars of the Internet) in 1999. In addition, award-winning CDRoms have been published about Doors 1 and Doors 5; Doors 5 was also webcast to an audience of 5,000 people. A new feature of Doors, starting in 1998, was an 'interaction design bazaar' in which graduate design students from seven universities around the world present their latest concepts and projects. And in February 2000, Doors organised a workshop on design and the internet at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India.
What value is created at Doors?
Doors stimulates awareness, connections, actions. Successful collaborations spawned at a Doors conference include (among a much longer list):
worldwide 'collective intelligence' workshops were set up by a leading management consulting firm,inspired by Doors 4 on 'speed'.
Japan Airlines decided to organise a 'virtual airport' seminar attended by its main board;
a new multimedia programme is being set up at a leading Japanese university in Japan by one of our long-tiem collaborators.
the Doors interaction design bazaar has been reproduced (with our support) at two international conferences: DIS2000 (Designing Interactive Systems) in New York; and CHI2000 (Computer Human Interaction) at den Haag;
Doors is supporting a programme called 'Digital Craft' at the Museum for Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt;
Doors community members are behind Europe-wide collaborations Maypole (to do with children and wirelss photography) and Presence (to do with old people and the internet).
Doors also gets copied - which we take as flattery: witness the launch of a weekly internet supplement called 'Doors' in the London Sunday Times, and the recent worldwide corporate advertising of Getronics, whose artwork is remarkably similar to our website!
at an individual level, many people who first met at Doors went on to work together.
there have also been several marriages between people who met at Doors - and we hear the the first 'Doors babies' are begining to arrive.
Primary sponsors
We would like to work with a maximum of six primary sponsors - and to do so over a three year period, from 2000-2002; (that is, Doors 5, 6 and 7). These six companies will enjoy unique exposure at, and association with, Doors - before during and after each conference. We hope our sponsoring partners will set out to develop a relationship with the unique Doors speakers and participants over time.
Benefits to primary sponsors
By far the most valuable benefit will be joining the Doors community, but there are practical benefits, too, including:
1) a 25x25 square feet sponsor area within the conference environment;
2) logo placement and a 200 word text within the conference brochure, on the website and in accompanying conference documentation
3) the right to use the words 'Sponsor of Doors of Perception' in your communications
4) the right to include a paragraph soliciting enquiries in the Doors email newsletter.
5) public relations support: Doors will acknowledge sponsors in its media communications
6) Six complimentary tickets (value $6,000)
Special event sponsorships
On a case-by-case basis, special features of Doors may be sponsored. Among the most popular are the start-of-conference reception; the end of conference party; Open Doors
events which run in Amsterdam after the conference; and - new in 2000 at Doors6, the Interaction Design Bazaar
Strategic web sponsors
www.doorsofperception.com is a popular and widely acclaimed archive of the results of all conferences we've organised since 1993. Our site won a 'Peoples Voice" award at the Webbie - the so-called 'Oscars of the internet' - in 1999. Starting later in 2000, we want to develop the website as a focal point for the Doors community. To achieve our ambitions, we want to work with strategic website sponsors who will help us over the longer term.
How to contact us about partnering with Doors
Contact John Thackara or Kristi van Riet at:
email: john@doorsofperception.com, kristi@doorsofperception.com
address:
Postbus 10164
1001 ED, Amsterdam
The Netherlands
phone: +31 (0)629 535 888
