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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. To be successful in the future, conference organizers must become paradigm busters–examining, challenging and changing their conventional mental models. This is especially true of our conference mental frameworks. 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
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? 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. They believe that the conference should provide the answers. Telling attendees the answer is not the key to conference success. MORE
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? Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart. 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.”. 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. MORE
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. MORE
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. 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. Smith’s year” or “Sally’s year” when referring to past annual conferences. If your conference includes a presidential address, reception, or other similarly branded event, you probably need to make some changes. 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. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer’s experience. 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. Your conference narrative can serve as a call to action for your participants to play a pivotal role in resolving that challenge personally and professionally. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference? MORE
At conferences and other knowledge-driven events, sessions and presentations are always great conversation starters. Contact Conference Compass to find out more. Live events are all about bringing people together. MORE
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. 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. You’re expected to deliver highly participatory, forward-thinking, experience-driven, sensory-laden, learner-centered, performance-focused conferences that move the needle for your customers. Have you normalized conference mediocrity as acceptable? MORE
In 2020, attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors were more forgiving of our virtual conferences than they will be in 2021. Use this opportunity to beta test changes that can be carried over to the next in-person conference. MORE
Over the past nine months, many industry experts have proclaimed that meetings and conferences are forever changed and hybrid is here to stay. Conference content product management requires a good deal of business acumen. 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. Evergreen conference practices that have promising results are often obscured by our obsession with fads and trends. To avoid being fad-like in our conference planning process, here are seven emerging evergreen practices to consider and invest in instead. 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. They expect conferences that are authentic, connected, contextual, mobile, participatory, work-related and transparent. Savvy conference organizers meet these disruptions head-on. Key Drivers To Make The 21st Century Conference An Experience. MORE
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. MORE
While things have changed, these tenets will hold true and the principles can be applied to other D&I conferences and events. The six attributes of women’s leadership conferences that have stood out for me: [1] Movement. Women’s conferences are often shorter one or two-day programs. MORE
In spite of all the bad, there is also much that is positive for the next phase of association conferences. The post Get Conference Inspiration from Trusted Peer Connections appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Conference Planning Hybrid & Virtual 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. 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! 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. 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. MORE
As it becomes more apparent that face-to-face events will return in some form this year, conference organizers have an opportunity to make changes that would have been more difficult to sell up the ladder in the past. Long-term traditions can deter next-generation conference participants. MORE
Webinar description: Monetizing Your Virtual Conference When Competing with Free. Lisa Block, Executive Vice President, Conference Strategy & Design, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting. COVID-19 Uncategorized digital event monetize pivot from live to virtual virtual conference MORE
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. 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. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences. When your conference experience is no-frills run-of-the-mill…. And when your conference content can be found on the web for free…. MORE
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. 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. Before your conference can find its true target market, you as the conference organizer must find your conviction. What’s your conference conviction? What’s your conference North Star? MORE
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. Instead make your entire conference a braindate! MORE
What makes attending conferences worthwhile? As I described in Conferences That Work , the two most common reasons for attending conferences are to learn useful things and make useful connections. But there are numerous other ways that conferences provide value to stakeholders. MORE
She is responsible for ensuring that the conference’s objectives are met and that the audience is engaged from beginning to end. The post Does Your Conference Need an Emcee? Having an emcee at your event was a nice-to-have prior to 2020. Now it’s a must-have. MORE
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. 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. Some of essentialism’s guiding ideas apply well to business and conferences. Most conferences exist to help their primary target markets progress and advance in their industry, profession and trade. MORE
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. 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. We expend resources searching for the mysterious conference trend panacea. Conference trend and fad bandwagons. What was the last conference trend bandwagon that you jumped on? MORE
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. 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. But most conferences are already designed to be configurable, by providing attendees with options — concurrent sessions, pre-conference workshops, and ticketed functions, for example. 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. We have to bust our conference paradigms to avoid seeing our future through the lens of our old paradigms. Here are six conference business paradigms that we should examine, bust and replace with new models. MORE
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. MORE
Conference Related Topics 
Velvet Chainsaw
MAY 20, 2021
As it becomes more apparent that face-to-face events will return in some form this year, conference organizers have an opportunity to make changes that would have been more difficult to sell up the ladder in the past. Long-term traditions can deter next-generation conference participants.
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? Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart.
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Velvet Chainsaw
DECEMBER 3, 2020
In 2020, attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors were more forgiving of our virtual conferences than they will be in 2021. Use this opportunity to beta test changes that can be carried over to the next in-person conference.
Conferences that Work
JANUARY 11, 2021
What makes attending conferences worthwhile? As I described in Conferences That Work , the two most common reasons for attending conferences are to learn useful things and make useful connections. But there are numerous other ways that conferences provide value to stakeholders.
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.
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.
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?
Velvet Chainsaw
FEBRUARY 8, 2021
Over the past nine months, many industry experts have proclaimed that meetings and conferences are forever changed and hybrid is here to stay. Conference content product management requires a good deal of business acumen.
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. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences. When your conference experience is no-frills run-of-the-mill…. And when your conference content can be found on the web for free….
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.
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
OCTOBER 20, 2020
While things have changed, these tenets will hold true and the principles can be applied to other D&I conferences and events. The six attributes of women’s leadership conferences that have stood out for me: [1] Movement. Women’s conferences are often shorter one or two-day programs.
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.
Velvet Chainsaw
DECEMBER 23, 2020
In spite of all the bad, there is also much that is positive for the next phase of association conferences. The post Get Conference Inspiration from Trusted Peer Connections appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Conference Planning Hybrid & Virtual
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.
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. Instead make your entire conference a braindate!
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. COVID-19 Uncategorized digital event monetize pivot from live to virtual virtual conference
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.
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. Before your conference can find its true target market, you as the conference organizer must find your conviction. What’s your conference conviction? What’s your conference North Star?
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. Evergreen conference practices that have promising results are often obscured by our obsession with fads and trends. To avoid being fad-like in our conference planning process, here are seven emerging evergreen practices to consider and invest in instead.
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. Your conference narrative can serve as a call to action for your participants to play a pivotal role in resolving that challenge personally and professionally. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference?
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. We expend resources searching for the mysterious conference trend panacea. Conference trend and fad bandwagons. What was the last conference trend bandwagon that you jumped on?
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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. To be successful in the future, conference organizers must become paradigm busters–examining, challenging and changing their conventional mental models. This is especially true of our conference mental frameworks.
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.
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.
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.
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. Live events are all about bringing people together.
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. Smith’s year” or “Sally’s year” when referring to past annual conferences. If your conference includes a presidential address, reception, or other similarly branded event, you probably need to make some changes.
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. They expect conferences that are authentic, connected, contextual, mobile, participatory, work-related and transparent. Savvy conference organizers meet these disruptions head-on. Key Drivers To Make The 21st Century Conference An Experience.
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.
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. But most conferences are already designed to be configurable, by providing attendees with options — concurrent sessions, pre-conference workshops, and ticketed functions, for example.
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. We have to bust our conference paradigms to avoid seeing our future through the lens of our old paradigms. Here are six conference business paradigms that we should examine, bust and replace with new models.
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. Some of essentialism’s guiding ideas apply well to business and conferences. Most conferences exist to help their primary target markets progress and advance in their industry, profession and trade.
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. You’re expected to deliver highly participatory, forward-thinking, experience-driven, sensory-laden, learner-centered, performance-focused conferences that move the needle for your customers. Have you normalized conference mediocrity as acceptable?
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. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer’s experience.
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