"Beyond Gender." Announcing the theme, city + dates for our 6th annual conference.

The quote above I typed into Twitter two hours ago as part of a #ConvosWithADCOLOR Twitter chat about diversity. They kindly turned it into a little piece of art (thank you, Justin Adu).

It's the perfect cue card to introduce the theme for the 2017 3% Conference: Beyond Gender.

We've become increasingly aware of the danger of agencies solving for the "woman problem" and neglecting diversity in all its facets. So our fall agenda will explore and inspire on all fronts of diversity to make it crystal clear that our tagline -- Diversity = Creativity = Profitability -- is a rally cry that leaves no one behind and no one's needs back-burnered.

Please save the dates: Nov 2-3, 2017 back at the Manhattan Center in NYC.

What's different this year (and what's the same)

We've purposely kept what worked from last year: the themed tracks, caterer, venue and event team (the awesome Proper Planning). Deciding to return to The Manhattan Center meant that for the first year ever, we cannot grow our audience. We sold out in advance last year, with 1,000 attendees, and will likely sell out even earlier this year. After steady audience growth year over year, it's tough to limit our audience. But the 3% team made this decision in unison because:

• It keeps a semi-intimate feeling to the event, just as it swells to a size that can start to feel impersonal
• It enables us to go deep on the themed tracks in ways that makes our programming even more relevant to different job titles

Plus, we're excited to report that we'll be trying out four new things to help extend our reach and impact, despite the venue limitations:

• For the first year ever, we will offer a Live Stream (look for tickets for that to go on sale in the coming months)
• On Day Two of the conference, we will offer $30 tickets for those under 30 to attend the afternoon keynotes (Cindy Gallop!) + a special post-conference party. We're able to do this by utilizing an upper deck of seating that doesn't pose capacity problems related to feeding conference attendees.
• We have booked meeting space at next door's Wyndham Hotel to allow our Manbassadors track to grow (it was Standing Room Only in 2016), plus to continue to grow our HR/Talent track (renamed "Leadership" track for 2017)
• We are creating a "Conference in a Box" offering that lets companies access all programming videos and discussion guides, along with branded presentation templates designed to capture key takeaways from the event and present them to management.

Who's Speaking?

Speakers include:

- Cindy Gallop, Founder of MakeLoveNotPorn
- Luvvie Ajayi, Author of "I'm Judging You" 
- Michelle Ebanks, President, Essence Communications
- Torsten Gross, Executive Planning Director, JWT
- Keith Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus, DDB Worldwide
- Noni Allwood, VP/Senior Fellow, Center for Talent Innovation
- Jennifer Brown, CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting
- Dilam Mattia, ECD, Fluent360
- Tony Prophet, Chief Diversity Officer, Salesforce
- Megan Jones, Producer, The Moth
- Stephanie Peirolo, Founder, UpperHand

We're super excited about 2017 and encourage you to buy your tickets early! One other change you'll notice is our "Group Ticket" pricing has been renamed "Diversity Ticket Pricing." It's meant to remind and suggest that companies sending large groups think about going beyond the "usual suspects" and sending people from all departments, men and women, junior and senior. Diversity is good for the bottom-line so it's only right that it should be good when buying tickets to our event.

We look forward to seeing you on November 2 in NYC!