IRDC

There's a strange energy that settles over the office here the week before IRDC. There are all kinds of last-minute details to be ironed out, so we're buzzing around taking care of those, but there's also (at least for me) an eerie, electric calm. For the most part, it's out of our hands now. All the major pieces are in place, and now the thing just needs to happen.

Two weeks until IRDC. Two weeks! Holy shnikeys. This is what my current "to do" list looks like, although I find myself adding to it every 4 seconds or so:

Today's blog topic is...pageant sashes! Like this. I've already written about our Iron Merchant Challenge and how goofy we get when we plan that session, and yesterday we had our second conference call with Joe Baer to make sure everything's falling into place. We're down to the last details, including the design of our Iron Merchant 2009 sashes, to be worn proudly by this year's winners.

Thursday morning of IRDC is devoted to the world at large, with one general session and four breakouts focusing on four key regions for global retail. Right now, for me, that means wrangling my nine esteemed designer speakers, who are together responsible for 13 different mini-presentations, and making sure that the session moderators (the VMSD editors) are well-prepared to keep everything under control.

Have you watched our new video yet, in which Neiman Marcus's store design maestro Ignaz Gorischek shows you around his Texas hometown? No? What are you waiting for? Click here.

I had a nice chat with Stanley Hainsworth, our closing keynote speaker, as we were talking through the finer points of his presentation on the importance of defining who your brand is (and how to go about doing that). The very first thing that went through my head afterward was that cheese-tastic scene from "Wall Street" when Charlie Sheen stands on the balcony and emotes: "Who am I?" (Heh.) Then, though, I thought more about some of the retailers he mentioned that do this well.

Like everyone who works around retail these days, I've been thinking a lot about how to shake things up. My conversations with designers, retailers, vendors and other colleagues frequently hit on "what if" scenarios, and a lot of times they're introduced with: "This may sound stupid/crazy/out-of-left-field, but... ." Yet they're always worth listening to, discussing and brainstorming. More often than not, that looney-tunes idea can be shaped into something actionable and worthwhile.

IRDC is a 2-1/2 day program, and we like to stuff it to the gills with diverse speakers, topics and networking opps. But I know how it is: By the end of any show or conference, you're ready to get home, and you're thinking about all those e-mails piling up (the ones too complicated to tackle via BlackBerry) and how the dogs must be missing you, etc.

Well, not exactly "wild" -- but when you unleash a roomful of creative people onto a table loaded with glitter, feathers, swaths of fabric, styrofoam, toys and more, you get a pretty good (read: scary) glimpse at the competitive spirit in action. As promised in a previous post, we've assembled a visual walk down memory lane so you can see how past Iron Merchant challenges have played out.

Anne DiNardo, VMSD's managing editor, put together a lovely article for our July issue that showcases the Dallas retail scene and offers some tourist tips for retailers and designers coming to IRDC. You can check it out here. And if you happen to be from Dallas, or travel there frequently, we'd love to get your insight on great restaurants, retail spots and inspiring locations, as well. You can post them here, or email me at vmsd@stmediagroup.com.

I know I tend to wax rhapsodic about Iron Merchant and the big IRDC party and all the other networking opportunities at the conference. There are two reasons for that. One, the networking -- and believe me, it's real networking, not just socializing -- is frequently cited by attendees as a key reason for attending IRDC. And two ... well, they're fun to talk about. A lot more fun than declining retail sales and store bankruptcies. But don't let that fool you.

Next week, I'm participating in my first Iron Merchant conference call of the year with Anne DiNardo, VMSD's managing editor, and Joe Baer, founder of ZenGenius in Columbus, Ohio.

Whenever my family heads out to eat at our favorite restaurant, my daughter makes a point of drawing my attention to a nearby landmark. "Look, Mom...Anthropologie!" she sing-songs, with a good-natured tease. She knows I'm a sucker for that place, for the clothes, the jewelry, the fun stuff for the home.

Putting together the printed brochure is a huge job, and it's one of the biggest IRDC challenges faced by our copywriter and creative consultant, Betsy Smith, and designer Becky Mengel-Freund. This brochure is for people who design for a living. It'd better look good, right? Right. So Betsy puts a ton of thought into the right approach each year, and it's so much fun going through her big file o' clippings with images, words, catalogs and other things we might draw inspiration from.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone. It's 2pm and I'm already contemplating tonight's margarita in honor of the occasion, which has me also contemplating the site we've chosen for this year's big IRDC bash. That would be Iron Cactus, a three-story restaurant in the heart of downtown Dallas.

So the 2009 IRDC sessions are, for the most part, set, although I'm still filling in speakers here and there for some of our panel discussions. It's a puzzle trying to determine the perfect balance of session topics, speakers, case studies, retail sector coverage, and what-have-you. We also have to follow the tide of our industry's interests from year to year, which we ascertain through IRDC attendee and VMSD reader feedback, in addition to our own retail fact-gathering and firsthand observations.

This year's IRDC is in Dallas, and (as we do every year) the marketing team and I have spent many hours brainstorming the best ways to represent the host city to potential attendees. And I ask you: Do you know how hard it is not to just slap a cowboy hat on all our promotional materials and call it a day?

IRDC 2009 isn’t until the end of September, but we’ve got the program pretty well sketched out already. In fact, now that I’ve filled in an Excel spreadsheet (all color-coded and neatly formatted) with the scheduled daily itineraries, IRDC 2009 officially feels real.