Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to be a speaker at Idate – the Dating Industry conference.
What is Idate ?
Idate is held all over the world, usually in America. It is a meeting point for all the big dating experts, matchmakers and dating companies. I’ve wanted to attend for several years now so I was delighted that it would finally be taking place in London.
To begin, some of us did some speed networking. As I’m an old hand at speed dating, it was fun to do this and meet other professionals to discuss collaboration.
I took part in a dating coaching panel alongside other industry experts. In this, we talked about how dating coaches should work alongside dating agencies to get clients better results. Afterwards we took part in a discussion and answered questions from the audience. So far, the feedback has been incredibly positive and my talk went well. I’m very happy so many people enjoyed what I had to say and found it useful!
It was a wonderful opportunity to put some faces to people I’d spoken to over the years but hadn’t yet met. I was even pulled aside a few times by guests who told me they loved what I did and wanted to say hello. I only wish I’d had more time to chat with other people. I suppose there is always next time.
As well as this, I was able to watch several seminars and presentations which were eye opening. Mark Brooks gave a talk about the current state of the dating industry and I learned lots from him. I now know which are the best online dating sites and which are starting to get less popular. As I suspected, dating apps and mobile sites are now being used more often than desktop sites. This really does make sense as we all carry mobile phones around and the internet speeds are getting faster.
At the end of the event I was also interviewed
The next Idate take place in January 2016 and I’m seriously considering flying over just to continue the buzz I got from the London one. If you work in the dating industry I strongly advise you book a ticket now.
James Preece – Dating Guru
