People to Know — Paul Killoran and Exordo

Column Editor: Matthew Ismail (Editor in Chief, Charleston Briefings; Founder, Dost Publishing) <matthew.ismail@icloud.com>

“To date, Ex Ordo has powered research conferences in nearly 60 countries. We count 13 of the top 20 universities and some leading global associations among our customers.” — Paul Killoran, CEO of Ex Ordo

When I chatted recently with Paul Killoran, CEO of the Galway-based company, Ex Ordo, for ATG the Podcast, I was struck by some unexpected aspects of our conversation, such as the effect of Ex Ordo being an Irish company, the influence of having an entrepreneurial father, and the strands of the famous Irish geniality, inventiveness, and storytelling (think: Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, W. H. Auden, George Bernard Shaw…). It is almost always the case, with entrepreneurs in the scholarly communication space, that they drop into that space quite by accident, no matter how large of an impact they may subsequently have — and Paul is no different.

Ex Ordo, as Paul describes it, “is a technology company that works with scholarly conferences. We partner with scholarly societies, because running events at scale is an enormous challenge. And with our platform, through integrations and through our partnering services, we make that so much easier for them.”

So, what background and circumstances might one imagine inspired Paul to found Ex Ordo? A career organizing society journals and scholarly conferences? A career in Silicon Valley? Decades of faculty work? Well, there’s some of that in his background, of course. As Paul said:

“The way that I found myself in this scholarly industry is quite by accident. So, if we roll the clock back to 2006 or so — I probably shouldn’t admit this here — I was submitting to an IEEE conference and I’d missed the deadline and I hacked the system to get my paper in. And it was accepted and published. And, so, then in 2008, when I was invited to work on my first scholarly conference, I remembered the quality of the software that was available. And I told myself, there really has to be a better way than what is available today.

“And that was my motivation. And it remains my motivation because we work with some of the smartest minds on the planet. And when they come together, that is at a conference, that’s the embodiment of a community. And so I don’t want to replace that. I don’t want to digitize that. I famously said, there are certain things we should never digitize. Falling in love is one of them. And that beautiful moment when two peers or researchers come together and discuss their work over a beer or coffee — I never want to get in the way of that. But I want more of that to happen. And the best way we can do that is to make the logistics and the challenges facing societies, make that work easier, make the data flow better. And then we can allow more conferences to happen because the greatest barrier we have is the limited time that the people that work in societies have, and it’s my job to maximize that time.”

Paul’s background in electrical engineering and the conference experience is obviously relevant to founding a software-based company. But it is also interesting to learn that Paul is not the first entrepreneur in his family.

“College Road Florists is a family run business that has been proudly serving the people of Galway since 1982. We believe in the importance of high quality floral arrangements, and our care, attention to detail, and personal touch ensures this quality in every last flower. Whether it’s a bouquet of red roses, lilies, get-well flowers, birthday or funeral arrangements, your satisfaction is our number one priority.

We opened our doors in 1982 and the shop is owned by Mark Killoran.” www.collegeroadflorists.com

Paul’s father, Mark, is the very successful owner of a florist shop in Galway, Ireland, where Paul is also based. And since entrepreneurship is more than domain knowledge — there’s business sense and knowhow, a willingness to work hard and independently of a salary and the protection of a company, the ability to move into a market ripe for one’s attentions, the focus on customers — it’s hardly surprising that Paul grew up in an entrepreneurial atmosphere he describes so beautifully:

“So, I would have grown up looking at my dad, who ran a flower shop here in Galway in the West Coast of Ireland. You know, working long days, evenings, weekends, and it’s all I’ve really ever known … I had the opportunity to take over the shop that my father had created in 1983 and become a florist — and in some ways that would have paid my father a huge level of respect. But the other thing that I could do is truly follow in his footsteps and create something else out of nothing in 2011 … So that’s where my background and entrepreneurial life began.”

Ex Ordo, then, is the product of both domain experience and life’s longer lessons. Paul is no longer motivated to be a conference participant, but rather to solve the interesting problems of how to make conferences work better. He’s no longer a researcher,

“But we [Ex Ordo] do know technology very well. And we do know how to bring people together. Generally, we know what works for conferences, and we know how to get people in and out of systems. We know how to design great user experiences … And we know how to play nicely. Like there’s an ecosystem of tools and services. And there’s so many silos out there. We don’t need to be another island. The onus is on us to connect with our peers so that when a society comes to us, we’re plug and play with the rest of that ecosystem, and they get to use what they know…”

When I ask Paul whether being an Irish company has an effect on how Ex Ordo operates, he has no doubt that this is the case. He remarks that the Irish market is very small, so that he is immediately required to fly out to Europe or the U.S. in order to expand his business. But he also remarks on the fact that Ireland is a country that has a long history of producing great storytellers and is famous for its generous and welcoming spirit–and this spirit comes easily to him and his staff. Whether it is the storytelling that is marketing or the helping spirit of customer support, Paul has no doubt that the Irishness of Ex Odo is helpful.

As we at Charleston were so well aware, COVID created huge problems for conferences and called for a lot of creativity and thinking on-the-go, including creating virtual and hybrid events. But societies have been facing challenges for many years, particularly those that rely on a journal to generate revenue. Societies have also lost some independence by being integrated into big publishing platforms. I asked how Ex Ordo can help societies, and this is where Paul becomes passionate — and you should listen to the podcast to get the full answer — about the possibilities of integrating the annual conference with powerful conference software such as Ex Ordo.

The annual conference has always been the centerpiece of the event planner’s calendar. The society books a venue and then brings in thousands of people from all over the world to meet for a week or so. And then the planning begins again for next year’s conference. What COVID showed us is that, while the annual conference is a wonderful opportunity for colleagues to meet, there are also other opportunities for engagement for societies and journals throughout the year. Why don’t societies use a virtual platform to increase engagement across the year in sync with the research and publication cycle? Why not integrate the society’s journals into a membership fee that would also cover recurring virtual events, allowing members to discuss and critique published materials together in a more ongoing manner?

And are societies not missing an opportunity to regain some of their independence by drawing their members in with such ongoing engagement? Are they perhaps missing opportunities to identify research that could be turned into an article for their journal, to identify engaged researchers who may be able to generate excitement throughout the year–and who may not be able to come to the annual conference at all? And similarly, could societies not benefit from generating data throughout the year through this engagement — about who their members are, what their interests are, where they come from and what virtual events and sponsors they most engage with?

Paul’s focus, when working with scholarly societies, is on adding value. Societies need to think about their members, think about what the new conference technology like Ex Ordo makes possible, and to see how they can innovate to add value to the careers of their members. Subscriptions that encourage engagement throughout the year, employing a platform such as Ex Ordo, sound like a great place to start.