I’m looking back on 2023. And, dear reader, get 20% off my ebooks until the end of the year!
2023 in review
I slowed down in 2023. Before 2020, I was designing and facilitating around a dozen in-person meetings and conferences a year. After COVID decimated the meeting industry, I focused on the design and facilitation of online meetings. In 2023, in-person is back! But our industry still faces ongoing challenges, such as:
- high travel, F&B, and production costs;
- staffing shortages;
- tight client budgets; and
- the rise of last-minute event registrations.
These pressures impact the demand for value-add independents like me. Even though I significantly improve meetings and conferences with better design and expert facilitation, it’s tempting for stressed clients to “just do what we did last year”. So I designed and facilitated fewer in-person events this year, while my online business continues apace. And, you know what? Though I love my work, it was nice to reduce the number of high-intensity workdays booked in 2023!
To give you an idea of what my professional 2023 was like, here are three different in-person events I enjoyed immensely.
#1 • Las Vegas, April: The BizBash Leadership Summit
I always like working with David Adler! The Chairman and Founder of the legendary BizBash, David is smart, curious, creative, energetic, and fun to hang out with. He has stayed on top of new meeting trends and technologies for decades. I don’t know how he does it.
So I was honored when he asked me to design and facilitate a small three-day meeting for movers and shakers working in the events industry (including the heads of events for Google, Meta, Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, The New York Times, Dell Technologies, Fidelity Investments, and Delta Air Lines). And David gave me a free hand with the design. Thank you, David! (And thank you Michela Giovannotto for superb support!)
The design
I designed and facilitated a classic peer conference. We ran The Three Questions on the first day and used the sharing to create three sets of participant-chosen breakout sessions. Something unusual happened, which is a healthy sign when participants create the agenda. The participants decided that the first two time slots would both be plenaries…
- “Share the coolest ideas in meetings/events you’ve seen/experienced recently.” [Everyone had something to share, and we heard some amazing ideas.]
- Generative AI: How do we use it and benefit from it in the world of events?
…with three simultaneous sessions for the last time slot:
- Barriers to get to Yes.
- How can events advance social justice and change the world.
- Managing and incentivizing event and meeting teams.
The next day we held these sessions.
On the final day, I led a personal retrospective and group spective.
The event was a blast, both for me and the participants!
“I raved about the format to my friends!”
—Lesly Simmons, Head of Community Innovation, Amazon
“Thank you to Adrian Segar for getting us to think, share and collaborate – and personally making me step outside my comfort zone…The real tell as to how special this event was: at the end, we all asked for more time.”
—Jessica Connolly, Head of Global Events, Meltwater
The above program was interspersed with interesting visits to venues and fun activities (e.g. David’s trademark Jeffersonian Dinner, helicopter flights over the Strip, and a private dinner on the Raiders Field at Alegiant Stadium). The conversations, connections, and learning were intense, and the group spective feedback was extremely positive.
I loved working on this event, and hope to do more with David and his crew!
#2 • Philadelphia, May: One-day association conference
The majority of my clients are formal communities of practice, aka associations. For over forty years, I’ve enjoyed bringing together groups of people with something in common and giving them the tools and facilitation to create the best possible peer conference for both individuals and the group.
A trade industry group celebrating its 50th anniversary asked me to design and facilitate a day-long conference, culminating in an evening awards gala. The design parameters were interesting. The association wanted to explore the possibilities of creating the future together in a highly dynamic and interactive way, effectively tapping the centuries of expertise in the room. To this end, they contracted a well-known futurist who offered a short opening keynote on how to think about the industry’s future, followed by a panel of leading industry experts who discussed how his ideas could be applied in detail.
Having given the 200+ participants a wealth of information and ideas, my job was to get participants to critically respond to what they had heard. This involved uncovering and processing:
- what was already familiar;
- what had sparked their interest;
- questions involving deeper understanding; and
- puzzles in need of solutions.
Luckily my process toolkit includes RSQP, a powerful method for rapidly exposing all this information and making it visible for all to see. 
In 30 minutes, hundreds of categorized sticky notes were on the wall, and a subsequent gallery walk allowed participants to see what their peers were thinking.
While a set of predetermined breakouts ran, a small group reviewed this display and chose session topics and leaders for two more sets of breakouts. All the resulting sessions were well attended, high-energy, and gathered rave reviews.
A short creative session Let’s Design the Future!, led by association members, and an even shorter plus/delta closed the day.
Feedback
“I’m loving the concept of this conference. I think we’re getting a lot more interactive information, and the ability to participate and meet with others in the field is just wonderful!”
“The concept has been amazing, connecting with great people and fresh ideas. My brain is on fire!”
—Testimonials from two conference participants“This event was everything we dreamed it to be and more! We wanted our industry to talk about and confront the future, and did they ever! The conversations were so rich and so relevant! We MUST do this again! Stay tuned for [our conference] 2.0!”
—Testimonial from the association CEO
Although I don’t usually get much involved in the logistics of the meetings I design, it was the first time this association had put together such an ambitious event. Consequently, I spent more time than usual helping with precon preparation and the real-time run of show to ensure things ran smoothly. The show must go on! But, as always, I loved helping make this event a success.
#3 • Rome, November: Workshop at Bea World – The International Festival of Events and Live Communication
It was exciting to end 2023 with an opportunity to lead a workshop in Rome at the Best Event Awards International Festival. This annual two-day event, first held in 2006, is an opportunity for event agencies from forty countries to present their best projects in person to juries and BEA World delegates. The winners receive the “Golden Elephant” trophy at a black-tie awards ceremony.
For this trip, the first time I’d been back to Europe since an Estonian meeting design conference in 2020, I decided to spend a week in Rome. This gave me time to get over jet lag before the workshop—plus a few days as a tourist!
Typical Participate! workshops last between ½ and 2 days. This one was a little challenging to design since I only had 75 minutes! That was just enough time for agreements, some human spectrograms to get to know each other, pair share work, a fishbowl sandwich, and a closing retrospective plus/delta.
The workshop was great fun, though it was over in a flash.
“Special thanks to the experts that made the Best Events Awards Festival 2023 even more valuable for me…Adrian Segar for an inspiring workshop about meaningful participation at events.”
—Magdalena Olszewska, Brand Engagement Leader Maybelline NY & NYX PM | L’Oréal Poland & Baltics
“I brought with me new knowledge and skills that Adrian Segar conveyed so impressively in the “Meeting Design” workshop and inspired me to implement new event formats [translation from Lithuanian].”
—Aurimas Kamantauskas, Director at ReKurai
The highlights of my trip included meeting old friends (including Jan-Jaap in der Maur, his talented team of moderators at Masters In Moderation, and Tahira Endean) and making some new ones!
I also immensely enjoyed the company of Serena Ferrari, whom I met by chance on Brandt Krueger‘s weekly EventTech Chat. Though we’d never met in person before, Serena, who once lived and worked in Rome, was kind enough to spend a weekend with me exploring the city. It was a treat to hang out with a local, and we became friends.
2023 wrap-up
Well, that’s my summary of some of my professional activities in 2023. I also continued to run a couple of small local associations, actively participated in local civic life, enjoyed plenty of visits with family, and snuck in a few short vacations too!
It was a good year, and I hope that 2024 will be at least as interesting, challenging (in a good way), and fun.
Happy Holidays!
2023 book sale!
(If you skipped straight here, I understand and forgive you 😀.)
I have a hard time offering a sale on my paperback books. Why? Because this blog has a global audience and differing distribution requirements, I can’t offer the same deal in every market. But since I’m the sole source for my ebooks, I’m happy to offer 20% off any ebook (including the already-discounted bundle of all three) until the end of 2023. [Note, only ebooks; this does not apply to ebook/paperback combo purchases.]
Go to my Buy Books page and add the ebooks you want to your cart. Then use the coupon 2023ebooksale at checkout.