Why This Case Matters
In 2025, Paul Joseph J. Kang was invited to the Seongsu Forum as a keynote speaker.
What he brought to the stage was not a motivational talk, but a strategic question:
“If SXSW, Davos, TED, and Sundance all began as small communities,
why should Seongsu Forum remain only a local event?”
This case documents how bcdW approached Seongsu Forum not as an event, but as an IP in the making—and how a local forum can be redesigned into a global, asset-based platform through agenda design, spatial strategy, and partnership architecture.
The Problem: A Local Event with Global Potential
Seongsu is no longer just a neighborhood.
It has become a natural inbound hub where global brands, tourists, and local creators intersect.
At the same time, the global MICE industry is shifting:
From closed convention centers
To “Town MICE” models, where the entire district becomes the venue
The real challenge was not scale.
It was structure:
How do you turn a recurring event into a sustainable IP?
How do you move from “one-off forum” to year-round platform?
How do you make “going global” mean Seongsu becoming global, not just exporting a Korean event?
Reference Cases: Proof That Communities Become Global Platforms
bcdW’s strategy team framed Seongsu Forum against five historical precedents:
SXSW: From local music meetups to a city-wide creative industry festival
Davos: From a small management seminar to a global policy agenda platform
TED: From a private conference to the world’s largest idea-distribution engine
Sundance: From a regional film screening to the global gateway for indie cinema
Avignon Festival: From a single director’s play to a city-scale performing arts ecosystem
The shared pattern was clear:
None of them started global. All of them were designed into global IPs.
The Strategic Frame: “The Seongsu Standard”
bcdW proposed a three-layer transformation framework.
(1) Content: From Forum to Showcase Platform
Seongsu Forum should not only discuss agendas.
It should launch them.
A Showcase Forum where global brands and creative industries present new products, concepts, and experiments
A platform where Seongsu becomes the place for announcing what’s next in lifestyle, city, creativity, and commerce
Not “the Brooklyn of Korea,” but Seongsu as a brand in itself
A Local-to-Local network connecting Seongsu directly with Tokyo, New York, Bangkok, and beyond
(2) Space: From Venue to District
Instead of one convention center:
A distributed Town MICE model, inspired by SXSW
Galleries, cafes, pop-up spaces, and unused buildings become official venues
Seoul Forest and the Han River integrated as symbolic large-scale event zones
The district itself becomes the stage
(3) Partnership: From Sponsorship to Co-Creation
Public sector (Seongdong District): administrative and infrastructural support
Private sector (Intercom lead the speical committee): agenda design, IP architecture, and global network operations
Brands: not sponsors, but showcase partners in a global-facing platform
The key shift was conceptual:
Not “global expansion,” but “globalization of Seongsu.”
5. Partner Architecture: Why Intercom and Interbridge Partner New York
To make this transformation executable, bcdW structured the partnership layer.
Intercom Convention Service (Korea)
Co-founder and 25-year operator of the World Knowledge Forum
Proven capability in turning forums into long-term IP assets
Extensive experience in year-round secretariat operations (e.g., GBCC)
40 years of trust built through national-level events (G20, Nuclear Security Summit, APEC, etc.)
A partner that brings not just production, but institutional continuity
Interbridge Partners (New York)
Connected as the global expansion and cross-border platform partner
Ensuring Seongsu Forum is designed from day one as a networked global node, not a domestic event
bcdW’s Role: The Meta-Agency Layer
In this project, bcdW did not act as a marketing agency or an event producer.
bcdW functioned as a meta-agency:
Defining the strategic question
Designing the agenda and IP structure
Translating public-sector goals into private-sector execution models
Matching the right institutional partners (Intercom, Interbridge) to the right strategic roles
Building a bridge between policy, industry, and global networks
In short, bcdW designed the system, not just the event.
Designing Events into Assets
This case is not only about Seongsu Forum.
It is about a method:
How a local community event can be redesigned into a global IP, through agenda design, spatial strategy, and partnership architecture.
bcdW will continue to operate as a meta-agency that connects:
Public institutions and private operators
Local ecosystems and global networks
One-off events and long-term assets
Turning ideas into systems, and systems into platforms.
A meta-agency is not a company that simply solves the problems given to agencies.
A meta-agency is one that discovers possibilities first—and then translates those possibilities into strategies, structures, and systems that agencies can actually execute.
Seongsu is full of that kind of possibility.
In fact, it may be too full of it.
When potential becomes that dense, it often becomes hardest to see from the inside.
There is a saying in the West:
“You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.”
Seongsu is that bottle.
The district is already doing the work—naturally blending global brands, travelers, and local creators, quietly becoming more than a place and closer to a platform.
But turning that momentum into a readable identity, and that identity into a repeatable, scalable IP, requires someone to step outside and name what is already happening.
What bcdW did here was not to “fix” Seongsu.
It was to read the label first—and then connect Intercom and the Seongdong Regional Economic Innovation Center to a structure where that label could become a system:
a public–private partnership, a global-facing platform, and a sustainable forum IP.
Cities rarely understand themselves while they are becoming something new.
That is why meta-agencies exist.
Possibility is always born inside.
But turning it into something the world can recognize
always begins from the outside.