INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
Yet deciding to abandon a conference programming element can clear the way for new successful traditions to take hold. It is creating a habit of regularly questioning every conference planning practice and programming component that we currently use. MORE
As conference organizers this leads us to bad decisions when selecting speakers and programming where we promote sharing success stories over asking questions, verifying validity and understanding context. Because you could be planning for a problem that doesn’t exist. We love stories. MORE
These mental models are deeply embedded in our conference planning and management practices. Savvy conference organizers realize that their mental models have much more influence over their outcomes than their decisions and actions. Surfacing our cognitive conference constructs. MORE
When Conference Plans Land On Chutes. So many conference leaders, organizers and planning teams are obsessed with details, logistics and planning. Their plans actually obscure their conference’s vision. Putting The Planning Process Before The People. MORE
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.”. They own designing the conference customers experience journey. MORE
Your association, annual conference, and governance are all institutions. One of the sacred cows for associations and their annual conference is attributing notoriety to the office of the president, board chair or annual conference committee chair. MORE
Conference planning is a no easy job. Event planning overall, for that matter, is a stressful job. There is a wide range of conference planning tools in the market that make life much easier for conference planners juggling 10 tasks at a time. MORE
Applying a story arc to the conference can activate participants’ brains. You can use the story arc concept to carefully craft the messages and issues you want your conference participants to explore, experience and learn. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference? MORE
Does your conference committee practice organized abandonment and avoid no-bottom-line-mindsets? How are they at focusing on the purpose, goals and target market of the conference when making decisions? These three principles are vital to maintaining a healthy, strong conference. MORE
Planning conferences and events takes great organizational skill and a close attention to detail. Make plans to cope with all weather extremes, from providing extra drinking water in hot weather to umbrellas in wet weather. MORE
Productivity Excel MORE
Conferences that are like time capsules promote and preserve nostalgia and the past. Conferences that are like time machines teleport people to the future so they can discover what’s next. Conferences that resemble time capsules defend the status quo and traditions. MORE
When planning meetings, conferences and events, ask yourself, “What hammers are these people bringing to this experience? How do we help conference participants place more value on problem identification and less on solutionitis? MORE
We are used to thinking of our conference and its planning process as a one-way transaction from the company to its customers. Sometimes we view the planning process as a backbreaking, arduous, life-draining experience. The Traditional Transactional Conference Model. MORE
Your conference could be a place for your customers to experience unrestricted curiosity and play. Curiosity and play are necessities you can’t afford to avoid at your conference. Creating Conference Spitball Shooting Participants. MORE
Conference organizers and their planning teams should understand, identify and quash organizational debt. Refactoring As A Metaphor For Conference Improvement. Thus we refactor to improve the conference experience for our customers. MORE
Ultimately, if there are no job improvements, then you, your company and the conference organizers have just experienced learning scrap. The Conference Copycat Critter: Quick Just Give Me The Highpoints So I Can Copy Them! Those copycat conference critters become victims of mimicry. MORE
As conference organizers, we frequently ignore the evidence all around us of what’s working and what’s not. Often our conference planning teams and volunteer advisors follow our lead as we give more precedent to what feels right. MORE
Are 50%-80% of your conference attendees in your programming at any given time? One thing is certain, if your conference attendees are not fully engaged in the experience you provide, there is little, if any, chance that they will leave your event with any real ROI. MORE
To paraphrase Hoffer, you can never get enough of conference fads, gimmicks and trends. Unless your a conference participant and we often have had enough!). They also want access to your conference budget. You can never get enough of what you really don’t need says Eric Hoffer. MORE
Everything we take for granted about conferences, and planning them, faces disruption. Participants from all generations and cultures increasingly expect conferences to mirror their work and personal lives. Savvy conference organizers meet these disruptions head-on. MORE
Do your conference learning opportunities—from the general session to networking to breakouts to deep dive workshops—empower registrants to participate in their own learning journey? Or do your conference education sessions motivate participants to see the finish line? MORE
As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? And our planning team members should too. Read more about embracing your conference as a giving field here. MORE
Developing Your Conference Story Arc. Conference organizers that grasp our brains’ need for stories can use narratives to help their participants develop and grow. As you plan your conference, take into account one of the biggest challenges that your target market faces. MORE
Many conferences are stuck in the rut of legacy routines, age-old rituals and cloned programming. Conference organizers and its advisors replicate the past maintaining the traditions and well-established procedures of yesteryear. Conference Reform Requires These Leadership Traits. MORE
As you embark on a new vision of conference renovation and reform, you may feel that you are crossing from a comfortable, familiar space to one that is unknown and unsettling. Conference Improvement As Your Threshold To New Growth. What’s your favorite room in your home? MORE
A conference is more than just talks and booths inside a ballroom. This means their experience both during and in-between conference events are in your hands. Conference Events Think Outside the Ballroom. Where to Host Your Next Conference: 8 Best Locations. MORE
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? And who wants to plan or sell one? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences. MORE
Conference organizational debt. Your conference pays the interest on this debt in the form of reduced speed, lack of capacity, diminished engagement, rigidity and stagnate programming. Think of your conference speaker and content RFP process. MORE
The North Star is the perfect metaphor for your annual conference purpose. When your conference purpose serves as a North Star, it guides all decisions, tasks, behaviors and strategy. Uncovering Your North Star Conviction To Find Conference True Target Market. MORE
The future success of your conference will depend on changing your culture to be one of inclusiveness. Want to know more on how you can infuse your conference culture with Radical Hospitality? However, conference radical hospitality welcomes all people, just as they are. MORE
So what does this mean for those of us responsible for organizing and executing conferences and events? What would it take to implement radical hospitality at your conference? We’re lonely. And not just a little lonely. We’re experiencing a global epidemic level of loneliness. MORE
It’s hard for conference organizers to stick to planning the essential elements of their events. As a conference professional, it is your mission each day to keep your focus on the essential elements of your event for your customers’ sake. What is the essence of your conference? MORE
Why do so many people rate the conference experience as stale, predictable and average at best? Why do conference leaders miss the mark at preparing their own unique DNA conference experience? We have lost our way to discovering our own conference DNA! MORE
And just as important, how and what do we think about our conferences and events? How do we understand our conference planning processes, its underlying assumptions, and our customers, partners, exhibitors, and stakeholders? Your Conference Mental Models Control You. MORE
Now imagine someone asking your conference participants that question. Then they would launch into a passionate description of your event’s annual Party with a Purpose, its pre-conference feel-good community service projects and its ongoing student scholarship fundraisers. MORE
Most conference and meeting professionals want the coolest, hippest, latest ideas and trends for their events. We want to know what unique things other conferences are doing so we can borrow their ideas. We pursue fads, gimmicks and trends as the silver bullets of our conference woes. MORE
There is one debt every conference organizer must face and vanquish. It can cripple a conference. Anyone striving to build a 21st century sustainable conference needs to understand organizational debt, how it impacts their event and how to prevent it. MORE
The unique story of any conference should begin with the goal and then a detailed plan on how to reach this goal. If you understand your target audience, it’s not a challenge to build such a conference vision. What is a corporate conference planning checklist? MORE
So is this the right strategy for your association and conference? A large percentage of student attendees won’t make all of your conference constituents happy. Smaller booth sizes and exhibitor churn tend to be attributes of conferences with high student attendance. MORE
Big business, conferences, education, government, medicine, membership associations, nonprofits, professional societies, religious organizations, trade organizations, etc. Yes, your conference and your membership organization are customary, standard institutions. “I’m done with !”. MORE
Just like potholes, conference planning thinkholes can be an expensive problem for your event. They can create some major cavities and damage to your participants’ conference experience. Defining Conference Planning Thinkholes. MORE
Ultimately, weaponizing your conference’s history when making future decisions is lazy thinking. Common Conference Conventional Wisdom. When planning future events and conferences, we stake our claim in conventional wisdom. We’ve always done it this way and it’s worked. MORE
Your conference-slip is showing! Well conference professionals, your conference-slip is showing. Six 21st Century Conference Core Beliefs. Here are six core conference beliefs we must begin to embrace to help our stakeholders succeed in the future. MORE
Conference Planning Related Topics GEVME
JUNE 13, 2018
The unique story of any conference should begin with the goal and then a detailed plan on how to reach this goal. If you understand your target audience, it’s not a challenge to build such a conference vision. What is a corporate conference planning checklist?
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 21, 2016
When Conference Plans Land On Chutes. So many conference leaders, organizers and planning teams are obsessed with details, logistics and planning. Their plans actually obscure their conference’s vision. Putting The Planning Process Before The People.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 14, 2016
Why do so many people rate the conference experience as stale, predictable and average at best? Why do conference leaders miss the mark at preparing their own unique DNA conference experience? We have lost our way to discovering our own conference DNA!
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 20, 2016
Just like potholes, conference planning thinkholes can be an expensive problem for your event. They can create some major cavities and damage to your participants’ conference experience. Defining Conference Planning Thinkholes.
Velvet Chainsaw
MAY 18, 2018
Does your conference committee practice organized abandonment and avoid no-bottom-line-mindsets? How are they at focusing on the purpose, goals and target market of the conference when making decisions? These three principles are vital to maintaining a healthy, strong conference.
Hubilo Blog
APRIL 3, 2018
Conference planning is a no easy job. Event planning overall, for that matter, is a stressful job. There is a wide range of conference planning tools in the market that make life much easier for conference planners juggling 10 tasks at a time.
Endless Events
AUGUST 29, 2018
A conference is more than just talks and booths inside a ballroom. This means their experience both during and in-between conference events are in your hands. Conference Events Think Outside the Ballroom. Where to Host Your Next Conference: 8 Best Locations.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 7, 2019
Many conferences are stuck in the rut of legacy routines, age-old rituals and cloned programming. Conference organizers and its advisors replicate the past maintaining the traditions and well-established procedures of yesteryear. Conference Reform Requires These Leadership Traits.
Velvet Chainsaw
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
Applying a story arc to the conference can activate participants’ brains. You can use the story arc concept to carefully craft the messages and issues you want your conference participants to explore, experience and learn. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference?
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 10, 2019
It’s hard for conference organizers to stick to planning the essential elements of their events. As a conference professional, it is your mission each day to keep your focus on the essential elements of your event for your customers’ sake. What is the essence of your conference?
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 9, 2019
Do your conference learning opportunities—from the general session to networking to breakouts to deep dive workshops—empower registrants to participate in their own learning journey? Or do your conference education sessions motivate participants to see the finish line?
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 17, 2019
As conference organizers this leads us to bad decisions when selecting speakers and programming where we promote sharing success stories over asking questions, verifying validity and understanding context. Because you could be planning for a problem that doesn’t exist. We love stories.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
To paraphrase Hoffer, you can never get enough of conference fads, gimmicks and trends. Unless your a conference participant and we often have had enough!). They also want access to your conference budget. You can never get enough of what you really don’t need says Eric Hoffer.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 11, 2019
So is this the right strategy for your association and conference? A large percentage of student attendees won’t make all of your conference constituents happy. Smaller booth sizes and exhibitor churn tend to be attributes of conferences with high student attendance.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
Most conference and meeting professionals want the coolest, hippest, latest ideas and trends for their events. We want to know what unique things other conferences are doing so we can borrow their ideas. We pursue fads, gimmicks and trends as the silver bullets of our conference woes.
Velvet Chainsaw
NOVEMBER 6, 2018
Developing Your Conference Story Arc. Conference organizers that grasp our brains’ need for stories can use narratives to help their participants develop and grow. As you plan your conference, take into account one of the biggest challenges that your target market faces.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
When planning meetings, conferences and events, ask yourself, “What hammers are these people bringing to this experience? How do we help conference participants place more value on problem identification and less on solutionitis?
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 17, 2018
Your association, annual conference, and governance are all institutions. One of the sacred cows for associations and their annual conference is attributing notoriety to the office of the president, board chair or annual conference committee chair.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
Conferences that are like time capsules promote and preserve nostalgia and the past. Conferences that are like time machines teleport people to the future so they can discover what’s next. Conferences that resemble time capsules defend the status quo and traditions.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 4, 2018
As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? And our planning team members should too. Read more about embracing your conference as a giving field here.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 27, 2018
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? And who wants to plan or sell one? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 9, 2018
And just as important, how and what do we think about our conferences and events? How do we understand our conference planning processes, its underlying assumptions, and our customers, partners, exhibitors, and stakeholders? Your Conference Mental Models Control You.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 29, 2018
Conference organizers and their planning teams should understand, identify and quash organizational debt. Refactoring As A Metaphor For Conference Improvement. Thus we refactor to improve the conference experience for our customers.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 31, 2018
As conference organizers, we frequently ignore the evidence all around us of what’s working and what’s not. Often our conference planning teams and volunteer advisors follow our lead as we give more precedent to what feels right.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 5, 2018
Conference organizational debt. Your conference pays the interest on this debt in the form of reduced speed, lack of capacity, diminished engagement, rigidity and stagnate programming. Think of your conference speaker and content RFP process.
Velvet Chainsaw
FEBRUARY 2, 2018
So what does this mean for those of us responsible for organizing and executing conferences and events? What would it take to implement radical hospitality at your conference? We’re lonely. And not just a little lonely. We’re experiencing a global epidemic level of loneliness.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 28, 2018
There is one debt every conference organizer must face and vanquish. It can cripple a conference. Anyone striving to build a 21st century sustainable conference needs to understand organizational debt, how it impacts their event and how to prevent it.
Velvet Chainsaw
MAY 29, 2018
We are used to thinking of our conference and its planning process as a one-way transaction from the company to its customers. Sometimes we view the planning process as a backbreaking, arduous, life-draining experience. The Traditional Transactional Conference Model.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 18, 2018
Yet deciding to abandon a conference programming element can clear the way for new successful traditions to take hold. It is creating a habit of regularly questioning every conference planning practice and programming component that we currently use.
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 24, 2016
Ultimately, if there are no job improvements, then you, your company and the conference organizers have just experienced learning scrap. The Conference Copycat Critter: Quick Just Give Me The Highpoints So I Can Copy Them! Those copycat conference critters become victims of mimicry.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 21, 2018
The North Star is the perfect metaphor for your annual conference purpose. When your conference purpose serves as a North Star, it guides all decisions, tasks, behaviors and strategy. Uncovering Your North Star Conviction To Find Conference True Target Market.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 16, 2016
Are 50%-80% of your conference attendees in your programming at any given time? One thing is certain, if your conference attendees are not fully engaged in the experience you provide, there is little, if any, chance that they will leave your event with any real ROI.
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 19, 2016
Your conference-slip is showing! Well conference professionals, your conference-slip is showing. Six 21st Century Conference Core Beliefs. Here are six core conference beliefs we must begin to embrace to help our stakeholders succeed in the future.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 30, 2017
Everything we take for granted about conferences, and planning them, faces disruption. Participants from all generations and cultures increasingly expect conferences to mirror their work and personal lives. Savvy conference organizers meet these disruptions head-on.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 24, 2018
As you embark on a new vision of conference renovation and reform, you may feel that you are crossing from a comfortable, familiar space to one that is unknown and unsettling. Conference Improvement As Your Threshold To New Growth. What’s your favorite room in your home?
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 25, 2018
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.”. They own designing the conference customers experience journey.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 12, 2018
These mental models are deeply embedded in our conference planning and management practices. Savvy conference organizers realize that their mental models have much more influence over their outcomes than their decisions and actions. Surfacing our cognitive conference constructs.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 27, 2017
Your conference could be a place for your customers to experience unrestricted curiosity and play. Curiosity and play are necessities you can’t afford to avoid at your conference. Creating Conference Spitball Shooting Participants.
Velvet Chainsaw
NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Big business, conferences, education, government, medicine, membership associations, nonprofits, professional societies, religious organizations, trade organizations, etc. Yes, your conference and your membership organization are customary, standard institutions. “I’m done with !”.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 13, 2018
Now imagine someone asking your conference participants that question. Then they would launch into a passionate description of your event’s annual Party with a Purpose, its pre-conference feel-good community service projects and its ongoing student scholarship fundraisers.
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 20, 2016
The future success of your conference will depend on changing your culture to be one of inclusiveness. Want to know more on how you can infuse your conference culture with Radical Hospitality? However, conference radical hospitality welcomes all people, just as they are.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 13, 2018
Ultimately, weaponizing your conference’s history when making future decisions is lazy thinking. Common Conference Conventional Wisdom. When planning future events and conferences, we stake our claim in conventional wisdom. We’ve always done it this way and it’s worked.
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