INSTORE editor-in-chief Trace Shelton will sit on two panels.

Good advice is worth its weight in gold.

At least, that’s the concept behind The Gold Conference, in its seventh annual iteration conducted by Initiatives in Art & Culture and taking place this week in New York City at The Graduate Center of the CUNY campus.  The conference will tackle a host of issues facing the jewelry industry, with a particular emphasis on the state of the business today and how retailers and manufacturers can adapt.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be asked to participate in two panel discussions.  The first on Thursday is entitled “Cutting Through the Noise: Differentiating Between Editorial and Advertorial in Social Media,” and will be moderated by Donahue Communications’ Peggy Jo Donahue and feature Adornmentality.com’s Barbara Palumbo, Idazzle.com’s Monica Stephenson, and JCK publisher Mark Smelzer.  The second, on Friday, will be “Story Telling: The Importance of Narrative in Today’s Jewelry Market,” moderated by Hill Management Group’s Andrea Hill and featuring designer Wendy Brandes, luxury branding expert Brandee Dallow, Sharing The Rough director Orin J. Mazzoni, III, and Chicago jewelry retailers Steve and Melissa Quick.

“There’s an amazing amount that’s relevant to retailers, which I’m really happy about,” says IAC president Lisa Koenigsberg.  In addition to the two panels listed above, there is one entitled “Transforming Retail” and another called “Strategies for Preserving Multi-Generational Businesses.”

“Our roster is international in scope and has been every year. We do get people from all over coming in for the conference,” says Koenigsberg.  The conference is structured as a conversation rather than a one-way monologue.  “The idea is to erase the so-called boundary that exists between speaker and audience and rather create a larger community of interest.  It’s about carrying forward, paying forward and giving forward.”

It’s an event I’m excited to attend for my first time because it seems to be unlike anything else in the industry just now.  Most industry events are trade shows that revolve around exhibitors – and if there is an educational component, it’s primarily single speakers sharing their expertise. With the jewelry industry in so much flux at the moment, we need both education and conversation.

Lisa was kind enough to extend a special (and significant) discount to INSTORE readers using the promo code INSTOREGOLD.  If you’re in the New York City vicinity or can take a couple of days to fly into New York and discuss and hear ideas about the future of jewelry retailing, I hope I’ll see you there.