INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
At a recent conference consultation with a client, a millennial made me think that I wasn’t keeping up with the times. I voiced my strong opinion that conference organizers should embrace inbound marketing (pull) over traditional outbound marketing (push). MORE
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
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
Here are nine mythodologies about conferences. At least half the sessions programmed at traditional conferences are not what attendees want. Mythodology: A “ conference curator ” can improve the quality of your conference content. Reality : Sadly, conference curators don’t exist. Mythodology: Conference programs should be stuffed full of sessions so there’s something of interest for everyone. MORE
It is much more effective to provide opportunities for conference participants to solve their own problems, then telling them how to solve it. Conference organizers automatically assume that if someone is attending their event, they expect the conference to help them solve their problems. 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
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ. 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
A Momentous Catalyst To Conference Attendee Behavior Change. I am often asked how to get conference attendees to adopt 21 st Century learning habits. The majority of conferences treat attendees as consumers of information. Conference Planning Registrants Relabel MORE
We are used to thinking of our conference and its planning process as a one-way transaction from the company to its customers. We may even dread working with a new conference advisory committee due to our negative past experiences. The Traditional Transactional Conference Model. MORE
And I’ve come to learn that I think a desire to learn makes doing something new just a little less scary.” ——Jony Ive, Apple designer Jony Ive explains how ‘teetering towards the absurd’ helped him make the iPhone At conferences we also learn better when we learn in community. MORE
One of the strongest intangible attributes of a healthy conference is how much sharing takes place. Conversely, conferences that have a higher deal-making quotient tend to hold their cards closer to their chests. The post Conferences Need More Sharing appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. MORE
It’s as if Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore’s Experience Economy is just now hitting its stride—for conferences at least. The word is out: we’ve got to create conference experiences, not just conferences that feel like a patchwork quilt of our great grandmother’s dresses. MORE
Your real conference competition is not that event held six months after yours. Today’s technology driven, hyper-connected, instant gratification, real-time world puts you as a conference organizer in a difficult position. Have you normalized conference mediocrity as acceptable? 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. Consider it as your conference source code. MORE
As a conference organizer, how purpose-driven are you? Successful conference organizers are purpose-driven! They design conference experiences that become meaning-making opportunities for their participants. Purpose-Driven Conference Organizers’ Mindset. 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
Ultimately, we must take steps to minimize and prevent accrual of conference organizational debt. Read more about conference organizational debt here , how to refactor organizational debt here and the interest you pay on conference organizational debt here. 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
I spoke at IBTM in Barcelona ( you can read the “review” here ) at the end of November on one of my favourite topics, Meeting Design or fresh formats for conferences. And overall your conference programme should try and have sessions that include at least four of these objectives. 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? Here are six ways to focus on designing your team’s experience during your next conference planning process. 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
Established, successful conferences have leadership that are usually adept at incrementally improving their event each year. Conference organizers must focus on both their customers’ needs—their pain points and problems to solve—and their aspirations—their wants and professional goals. MORE
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. And your customer loyalty is built upon making your common conference uncommon. MORE
Have you ever attended a conference education session because of the presenter and not the content? (I We need more conference facilitated experiences where time flies, everyone present is involved in the work of their own learning and everyone has the opportunity to grow professionally. 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
Likewise, many conference professionals have no idea what embracing the long-tail, pull benefits of content marketing even means. Most marketing and communications teams agree that content marketing serves as the foundation to their conference marketing strategy. MORE
Here’s my article “ Five Reasons to Change Conferences “ , published in the December 2018, NSA Speaker magazine. But our conference programs still focus on lectures, where a few experts broadcast their knowledge to passive listeners. 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
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? After a conference. 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
The mass-personalization wave that is dramatically changing what and how we buy as consumers has application to conferences. Application to Conferences. In my opinion, the first item — individualizing a conference experience for every attendee — isn’t scalable today. MORE
If there’s something strange in your conference-hood. Our cognitive frameworks—our mental models and paradigms—shape our thinking, behavior, operations and success of our conferences. We falsely believe that future conferences are just an extension of the past. MORE
Impact on Healthcare Conferences? Here are four questions (and tips) for your conference committee to consider as they navigate this changing landscape: 1. Tip: have each conference committee member reach out to five to ten key attendees to understand their pressing priorities. MORE
Who owns the overall experience that customers have at your conference? Who oversees and manages the conference customers’ journey? Or perhaps no one is considering the holistic experience of your conference customer? Do you know what your conference target market customer wants? MORE
Conference Related Topics Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 27, 2018
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. And your customer loyalty is built upon making your common conference uncommon.
Conferences that Work
DECEMBER 24, 2018
Here’s my article “ Five Reasons to Change Conferences “ , published in the December 2018, NSA Speaker magazine. But our conference programs still focus on lectures, where a few experts broadcast their knowledge to passive listeners.
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
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
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
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
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.
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? After a conference.
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
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
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
JUNE 4, 2018
As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? Here are six ways to focus on designing your team’s experience during your next conference planning process.
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
OCTOBER 12, 2018
At a recent conference consultation with a client, a millennial made me think that I wasn’t keeping up with the times. I voiced my strong opinion that conference organizers should embrace inbound marketing (pull) over traditional outbound marketing (push).
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 13, 2018
If there’s something strange in your conference-hood. Our cognitive frameworks—our mental models and paradigms—shape our thinking, behavior, operations and success of our conferences. We falsely believe that future conferences are just an extension of the past.
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. Consider it as your conference source code.
Velvet Chainsaw
APRIL 26, 2018
One of the strongest intangible attributes of a healthy conference is how much sharing takes place. Conversely, conferences that have a higher deal-making quotient tend to hold their cards closer to their chests. The post Conferences Need More Sharing appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw.
Gallus Events
DECEMBER 11, 2018
I spoke at IBTM in Barcelona ( you can read the “review” here ) at the end of November on one of my favourite topics, Meeting Design or fresh formats for conferences. And overall your conference programme should try and have sessions that include at least four of these objectives.
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
JANUARY 26, 2018
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ.
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
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
SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
It is much more effective to provide opportunities for conference participants to solve their own problems, then telling them how to solve it. Conference organizers automatically assume that if someone is attending their event, they expect the conference to help them solve their problems.
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
JANUARY 24, 2018
Who owns the overall experience that customers have at your conference? Who oversees and manages the conference customers’ journey? Or perhaps no one is considering the holistic experience of your conference customer? Do you know what your conference target market customer wants?
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
JANUARY 4, 2019
Have you ever attended a conference education session because of the presenter and not the content? (I We need more conference facilitated experiences where time flies, everyone present is involved in the work of their own learning and everyone has the opportunity to grow professionally.
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
JULY 23, 2018
Likewise, many conference professionals have no idea what embracing the long-tail, pull benefits of content marketing even means. Most marketing and communications teams agree that content marketing serves as the foundation to their conference marketing strategy.
Conferences that Work
MAY 14, 2018
Here are nine mythodologies about conferences. At least half the sessions programmed at traditional conferences are not what attendees want. Mythodology: A “ conference curator ” can improve the quality of your conference content. Reality : Sadly, conference curators don’t exist. Mythodology: Conference programs should be stuffed full of sessions so there’s something of interest for everyone.
Velvet Chainsaw
MARCH 6, 2017
Your real conference competition is not that event held six months after yours. Today’s technology driven, hyper-connected, instant gratification, real-time world puts you as a conference organizer in a difficult position. Have you normalized conference mediocrity as acceptable?
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 14, 2017
The mass-personalization wave that is dramatically changing what and how we buy as consumers has application to conferences. Application to Conferences. In my opinion, the first item — individualizing a conference experience for every attendee — isn’t scalable today.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 26, 2017
Impact on Healthcare Conferences? Here are four questions (and tips) for your conference committee to consider as they navigate this changing landscape: 1. Tip: have each conference committee member reach out to five to ten key attendees to understand their pressing priorities.
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. We may even dread working with a new conference advisory committee due to our negative past experiences. The Traditional Transactional Conference Model.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 18, 2018
Established, successful conferences have leadership that are usually adept at incrementally improving their event each year. Conference organizers must focus on both their customers’ needs—their pain points and problems to solve—and their aspirations—their wants and professional goals.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 6, 2018
Ultimately, we must take steps to minimize and prevent accrual of conference organizational debt. Read more about conference organizational debt here , how to refactor organizational debt here and the interest you pay on conference organizational debt here.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 31, 2017
As a conference organizer, how purpose-driven are you? Successful conference organizers are purpose-driven! They design conference experiences that become meaning-making opportunities for their participants. Purpose-Driven Conference Organizers’ Mindset.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 9, 2016
A Momentous Catalyst To Conference Attendee Behavior Change. I am often asked how to get conference attendees to adopt 21 st Century learning habits. The majority of conferences treat attendees as consumers of information. Conference Planning Registrants Relabel
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 28, 2017
It’s as if Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore’s Experience Economy is just now hitting its stride—for conferences at least. The word is out: we’ve got to create conference experiences, not just conferences that feel like a patchwork quilt of our great grandmother’s dresses.
Conferences that Work
DECEMBER 3, 2018
And I’ve come to learn that I think a desire to learn makes doing something new just a little less scary.” ——Jony Ive, Apple designer Jony Ive explains how ‘teetering towards the absurd’ helped him make the iPhone At conferences we also learn better when we learn in community.
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 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.
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