Velvet Chainsaw

JULY 23, 2020

Not every effort was a rousing success but attempting to inject new conference elements made us more nimble, creative and smarter as a team. What should we expect for hybrid or virtual conference attendance? How much time can we expect an engaged attendee to participate in a multi-day virtual conference? The post Conference Innovation While Traveling at Warp Speed appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart.

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2020 Travel Conference Speakers 245

Velvet Chainsaw

JANUARY 21, 2019

In physics, the second law of thermodynamics says all things—bodies, businesses, conferences, energy, organizations, relationships—move toward chaos and disorder. As your conference matures, it experiences entropy. As a conference professional, you know this to be true. It is also the natural law of evolution for any conference. Working to create a great conference experience for your customers is no longer a good baseline for success to paraphrase Conrad.

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Conference 2019 Sustainability Conference Planning 282

Velvet Chainsaw

JUNE 17, 2019

But when it gets to “go time,” does that culture manifest at your conferences and meetings? Her boss apparently thought she should spend all her time out “doing meeting planning” and not hanging out in a hotel conference room. Make colleagues and vendors feel welcome and involved in conference operations. Conference staff are not able to do everything! How can you make your conference culture more open and transparent?

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Conference 2019 Conference Planning Hospitality 293

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.

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning Speakers 291

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Virtual events open up a whole new world of possibilities for engaging your attendees. This best practices guide will help you make the most of your online conferences, summits, keynote presentations, and more.

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Conferences that Work

JANUARY 20, 2020

The Association for Software Testing (AST) has just issued a free guide to creating peer conferences. I believe the software testing community adopted my term “peer conference” for their get-togethers after a conversation I had with pioneer software tester James Bach in 2004.

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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.

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning Meetings 322

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.

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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.

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Conference 2018 Meetings Food and Beverage 304

Velvet Chainsaw

JANUARY 31, 2019

However, a conference at rest, tends to die. The enemy of most conferences is the way it’s always been. When inertia influences your conference, it’s planned by the way you’ve always done it, programmed full of (past) best practices and destined to become average, slowly suffocating on its own status quo. Cognitive and organizational inertia keeps an association on its current conference course even when facing disruptive or rapid external changes.

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Conference 2019 Conference Planning Marketing 190

Speaker: Mike Damphousse, Managing Partner of Category Design Advisors and Founder of Green Leads

Business as we know it is never going to be the same. Working from home has become the norm, conferences and meetings are going online, marketing budgets are being shifted, reduced or put on hold – it's time to adapt. Join this insightful and informative webinar with Mike Damphousse, Managing Partner of Category Design Advisors and Founder of Green Leads, who will discuss how businesses can be resilient during these challenging times.

2020

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.

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Conference 2018 Education Conference Planning 198

Event Industry News

JULY 15, 2020

At conferences and other knowledge-driven events, sessions and presentations are always great conversation starters. Contact Conference Compass to find out more. Conference News Event Technology Featured Features News UK and Europe US and Canada Conference Compass conferences event networkingLive events are all about bringing people together.

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Conference Networking Conference 2020 Meetings 68

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.

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Conference 2018 Government Consulting 292

Event Industry News

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Brighton Music Conference (BMC), the UK’s foremost electronic music and networking event will still be going ahead on 1st and 2nd of October but as a virtual only event, streamed live and on-demand.

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2020 Conference Government Speakers 65

Conferences that Work

AUGUST 31, 2020

Please stop treating adults like children at your conferences. So, please stop treating adults like children at conferences. Though I remember a few conferences I attended where such activities would have made a distinct improvement.

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2020 Conference Education Meetings 225

Velvet Chainsaw

MAY 22, 2019

Traditionally teams from organizations attend a conference with a divide-and-conquer game plan, as they split up and attend as many different sessions as they can. What if you flipped that model and designed conferences that offered learning aimed at improving team collaboration and changes back in the workplace? Yet conferences are lagging in meeting the needs of team learning. The post Leveraging Team Learning at Conferences appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw.

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Conference 2019 Attendance Marketing Healthcare 257

Velvet Chainsaw

APRIL 30, 2020

The dynamics that we’re seeing impact conferences and their business models are very similar to the Freemium movement we experienced way back in 2009. Go ahead and read Seth’s post and then come back for the linkage to conference monetization. To best compete: Premium conferences must choose quality over quantity. They’re playing the long-game and offering free or significantly discounted conference offerings.

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2020 Conference 2009 Education 241

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).

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2018 Conference Attendance Marketing Social Media 305

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.

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning Management 201

Conferences that Work

DECEMBER 24, 2018

Here’s my article “ Five Reasons to Change Conferences “ , published in the December 2018, NSA Speaker magazine. OUTSIDE IN Five Reasons to Change Conferences Peer sessions provide greater connection around content The most important reason people go to conferences is to usefully connect with others around relevant content. But our conference programs still focus on lectures, where a few experts broadcast their knowledge to passive listeners.

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2018 Conference 2014 Education 190

EventMB

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

Conference Compass is an all-in-one platform that includes mobile and web apps and offers features for virtual, hybrid, and live events. Conference Compass Virtual Event Platform: What Is It?

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2020 Conference Events Event Technology 104

Conferences that Work

JUNE 3, 2019

The first peer conference I convened and designed was held June 3 – 5, 1992 at Marlboro College, Vermont. So, as of today, the community of practice that eventually became edACCESS has enjoyed 27 years of peer conferences. Twenty-three people came to the inaugural conference. 27 years of peer conferences. Read the full article at Conferences That Work The post 27 years of peer conferences appeared first on Conferences That Work.

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Conference 2019 2014 Consulting 160

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.

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Conference Planning Conference 2018 Corporate Events 225

Velvet Chainsaw

APRIL 26, 2018

One of the strongest intangible attributes of a healthy conference is how much sharing takes place. Professions that deliver conference sessions with a high level of sharing – not diluted or generalized from the stage – are often in fields linked to prevention, healthcare, education and philanthropy. Conversely, conferences that have a higher deal-making quotient tend to hold their cards closer to their chests.

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Conference 2018 Education Healthcare 240

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.

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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.

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning Management 207

Velvet Chainsaw

MAY 8, 2020

Webinar description: Monetizing Your Virtual Conference When Competing with Free. Lisa Block, Executive Vice President, Conference Strategy & Design, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting. The post Webinar: Monetizing Your Virtual Conference When Competing with Free appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. COVID-19 Uncategorized digital event monetize pivot from live to virtual virtual conference

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2020 Conference Consulting Speakers 193

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. The event is nothing more than a zombie conference—a conference that appears to be alive yet in reality creates the walking undead. Conference organizers and advisors can breathe new life into their events.

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2019 Conference Conference Planning Events 277

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.

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Conference 2018 Sustainability Conference Planning 219

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.

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Conference 2018 Attendance Marketing Education 257

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?

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning Events 198

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.

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Conference 2018 Conference Planning 211

Velvet Chainsaw

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Here’s what has changed: I’m convinced that “something for everyone” programming — including basic content for the novice or intermediate practitioner — is no longer the right strategy for positioning your conference as a can’t-miss experience. To distinguish your conference from the also-rans, you want your participant’s learning and understanding to grow from the ubiquitous “data and information” categories to “wisdom.” How Conference Sessions Can Deliver on Wisdom.

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Education Conference 2019 2020 192

Conferences that Work

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

Why not make your entire conference a braindate? I like the braindate approach , but it doesn’t have to be something that’s grafted onto a conference. Because good event design is about how a conference works. In addition, the beginning of a peer conference uncovers the topics that people want to talk about, as well as providing plentiful opportunities for participants to discover others who share their challenges and interests.

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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.”. However, savvy meeting professional know that their conference’s success depends upon moving from customer fragmented touchpoints to designing holistic conference customer experience journeys. They own designing the conference customers experience journey.

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Conference 2018 Fashion Education 162

Conferences that Work

JANUARY 6, 2020

A recent Wired article argues that “ Science Conferences Are Stuck in the Dark Ages “ Unsurprisingly, I agree — but there’s some light in the darkness! Read the full article at Conferences That Work The post Are science conferences stuck in the Dark Ages?

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2020 Conference Event Design Events 156

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. Read more about embracing your conference as a giving field here. It may seem paradoxical at first as we are used to focusing outward on the conference outcomes. The post If You Design Conference Experiences, Read This!

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Conference 2018 Conference Design Conference Planning 181

Attendease

JANUARY 22, 2020

The events industry has been behind some of the most innovative tech conferences in the past decade. Opening the doors for new business prospects, these conferences are places where the top professionals meet and showcase their innovative concepts and bold theories for the future.

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2020 Conference B2C Education 102

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. They believe that the conference should provide the answers. Telling attendees the answer is not the key to conference success.

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2016 Conference Education Conference Planning 252