The Letter From: What I Learned at the Signal Hill Education Preview Investor Conference
I have gone to one, two or more conferences sponsored by investment bankers showcasing publicly traded firms in education every year since 1991, and have a collection of increasingly elaborate tote bags to prove it. The carriers, used to store the volumes of financial and marketing materials prepared by firms presenting at the conferences, have gone from flimsy cloth affairs with an imprint of the organizers’ logo - perfect for sunglasses, a water bottle and a beach towel - to multi-functional laptop cases with the investment bank's name embroidered in some prominent location. In the 1990’s, I also came home with a nice pen. This last trip to Signal Hill’s November 27 conference yielded a 125MB thumb drive.
Conference freebies have changed, but not the format. CEO/CFO teams give a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation on their firm and its finances. Each of these “dog and pony shows” is followed by a few minutes of questions from the audience. One nice feature of the Signal Hill Conference was moving the presenters to a separate room for more interactive sessions.
An educator, eduwonk, evaluator or k-12 program developer attending the conference would probably be struck by two things.
First, the real substance of the presentations is financial – unsurprising since this is a conference for investors, but nonetheless striking. More on this below.
Second, it’s a very polite affair. Eduwonks and evaluators learn by taking presentations apart, asking pointed questions and lively debate. Investors tend to ask few questions and those are to clarify the financials. This is also my impression listening into the quarterly conference calls firms' schedule for investors.
With training in law and analysis, I learn by asking pointed questions. I’m less interested in the financials – which I can read online whenever I want – than the strength of the business strategies. What I find important about investor conferences is: first, the opportunity to judge a CEO’s grasp of environmental indicators and their implications for the business; and second, the gestalt of the conference, the collective perception of industry status and trends. I also pick up a few interesting factoids that might prove to be indicators of change.
Here’s what I learned from the Signal Hill session:
