Van Heyst Group Aims to Turn Company Events Into Media Gold

Like the founders of the TED conferences after her, Della van Heyst understood the importance of putting smart people in front of an audience to express their ideas.

Back in the digital dark ages of the late 1970s, she introduced a conference that became the influential Stanford Publishing Course, a two-week retreat for people in the publishing industry. Over the years, industry luminaries like Nan Talese, Lewis Lapham and Helen Gurley Brown, as well as rising technology stars like Jeff Bezos, taught at the conference. From that success grew the Van Heyst Group, which Della ran with her daughter, Carrie, to plan conferences for large companies.

But a few years ago, Della was preparing to retire. (She is now 73.) It was then that Carrie faced “a dark night of the soul,” she said, as she wondered whether she could keep running the company.

In 2009, Della was continuing to orchestrate live conversations among business leaders, academics and celebrities, for clients that included Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Fortune over the years. But the recession was unkind to the events business, which is notoriously cyclical anyway. The Van Heyst Group’s revenue plunged when companies cut back on live events.

Her daughter’s concerns went beyond the financial. “The C.E.O.’s we deal with are remarkable people, but I feel like the issues they’re discussing belong to everybody,” Carrie said. “These very important conversations, which were the heart of our business, happened behind closed doors.”

She wondered: Was there a way to open the company’s events to more people? And could she add her own stamp to a business that was closely identified with her vibrant and inventive mother?

Today, Carrie van Heyst, 45, is answering yes to those questions by becoming involved in the media industry’s move toward live publishing — the simultaneous production of live events and spin-off content for print, video, the Web and mobile devices.

In the last few years, publications including The Washington Post, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have introduced or accelerated conference offerings that cover business, political, cultural and other topics.

“It seems counterintuitive that in the digital age, physical events are gaining in popularity,” said Ken Doctor, a media analyst at Outsell Inc., a research firm, adding that, nevertheless, “events have become a significant third stream of revenue, behind circulation and advertising, for media companies.” He predicts that within a few years, live events may account for 20 percent of media company revenue, through a combination of ticket sales, sponsorship and advertising deals.

Some magazines produced conferences in the past, but typically for brand-building, not profit. It wasn’t until the ad drought of 2008 and the rise of social media and mobile computing that companies really started to grasp the potential of live publishing.

The viral success of TED Talks, the slickly produced videos from the TED conferences, helped prove the revenue value of live events combined with online content. One of the most-watched TED talks, by a brain researcher discussing her own stroke, has been viewed more than eight million times.

Although the videos themselves are free, they’ve significantly driven income for the flagship conferences, said Tom Rielly, director of fellows and community at TED.

MR. RIELLY worked with Della van Heyst during her Stanford Publishing days, teaching art directors to use design software. “The course was an elite program that you had to be invited to,” he said. “If you went, you were guaranteed an incredibly high level of schmoozing with movers and shakers in the publishing industry.

“Della was always early on topics,” Mr. Rielly said. “Not too early, but enough to give people a competitive edge.”

After Della left her job as director of strategic planning for the Stanford Alumni Association in 1994  to form the Van Heyst Group, she used her Rolodex to introduce C.E.O.’s and other senior managers to experts in technology and social trends.

At a 1995 Internet boot camp, for instance, she recruited Jerry Yang, a young Stanford graduate student who had just founded Yahoo, to brief Fortune 500 chief executives about the Internet. “I said: ‘Jerry, you have to wear a pressed oxford shirt or these people will not take you seriously. If you don’t have one, I will buy you one,’ ” she said.

Mr. Yang remembers the conversation, but not the shirt.