Conferences that Work
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
Software testers do peer conferences right! They even call them a peer conference , rather than unconference , a term I don’t like.) As evidence of software tester conference awesomeness, I offer three examples below. a short history of the peer conference.
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.
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Conferences that Work
JULY 19, 2021
Ever since my first encounter with the hybrid hub and spoke meeting topology at Event Camp Twin Cities in 2011, I’ve been a big fan of the format. Yesterday [see below], I realized that hub and spoke is a great format for purely online meetings too.
Conferences that Work
JANUARY 10, 2022
Most of the event industry and our clients continue to assume that if you can make the meeting bigger it’s a good thing. Online and hybrid meetings have seen less drastic reductions. The event industry unduly focuses on large meetings.
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.
Conferences that Work
JULY 11, 2022
It’s time to stop networking at meetings. No, I’m not saying we should only listen to lectures at meetings. This post was inspired when Victoria Matey shared the following thought about networking at meetings: Random thought.
Conferences that Work
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
What is the mix of presentation versus interaction at your meetings? Traditional meetings focus heavily on presentation. Presentation versus interaction at meetings. But our meeting designs, in large part, haven’t changed to reflect this shift in cultural awareness.
Conferences that Work
OCTOBER 17, 2022
But what does it mean in the context of meetings? Surely we sometimes become attached to people we meet? Isn’t creating and strengthening attachments one of the desirable functions of meetings? Read the full article at Conferences That Work The post Connection, attachment, and meetings appeared first on Conferences That Work.
Velvet Chainsaw
FEBRUARY 16, 2022
High-tech user conferences like Dreamforce and Microsoft Ignite have been designing innovative hub spaces to engage and nurture their top customers for years. A conference hub should be a destination that participants want to go to when not attending sessions or walking the expo hall.
Conferences that Work
JUNE 27, 2022
Want a simple way to improve meeting session learning? Read the full article at Conferences That Work The post Improve meeting session learning with this simple tip! appeared first on Conferences That Work.
Velvet Chainsaw
MARCH 30, 2021
Talk to any meeting owner who has managed a large virtual event this past year using a skilled emcee and he or she will tell you it made all the difference. She is responsible for ensuring that the conference’s objectives are met and that the audience is engaged from beginning to end.
Velvet Chainsaw
APRIL 5, 2022
It’s expected that meetings in Q3 or Q4 will outperform those held in the first half of this year. A lot of meetings operating in Q1 and Q2 ended up extending their early-bird deadlines multiple times. The post 2022 Conference Registration Pacing appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw.
Conferences that Work
APRIL 18, 2022
I’ve been writing about hybrid meetings for a long time; my first post was in February 2010. The COVID19 pandemic created an explosion of interest in hybrid meetings, and the marketplace and event professionals are still defining what “hybrid” means. (No,
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 23, 2020
During my career leading association event teams, I regularly recalibrated and redefined team member roles in order to drive innovation and improve our meeting experiences. We are in the middle, I hope, of an extraordinary time in the meetings industry.
Conferences that Work
AUGUST 9, 2021
Far too much money is spent on meeting glitz at the expense of good meeting design. “There’s no budget” I’ve noticed over the years that every meeting has a budget for F&B. Seth Godin makes an analogous point in this post….
Velvet Chainsaw
AUGUST 3, 2022
With live conferences’ comeback, event organizers need to make complex decisions about how to incorporate digital product extensions into their business model. Conference organizers need to invest significantly in bandwidth, video cameras, lighting, and labor.
Conferences that Work
JANUARY 9, 2023
Meeting professionals rarely talk about status and power issues. This is unfortunate because the ways that status and power manifest at meetings matter. Because a majority of those who attend most meetings have little say over what happens at them.
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.
Conferences that Work
JULY 25, 2022
Event professionals: it’s time to talk about COVID, duty of care, and the meeting industry. Yet the meeting industry seems to be abrogating its traditional responsibilities to keep attendees and staff safe. Meeting industry COVID-19 duty of care long covid meeting industry
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?
Conferences that Work
SEPTEMBER 12, 2022
Though I don’t teach college anymore, I’m interested in educational class design because a class is a meeting. And much of what we can do to design great meetings is applicable to college classes too.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 15, 2022
In my experience, most large conferences this year are realizing about 80 percent of their 2019 revenue performance. For some of the major annual meetings we’re tracking, sponsorship revenue has been a bright spot when compared to exhibit revenue performance.
Conferences that Work
JUNE 30, 2022
What can meeting planners who support women’s rights do? Here are two concrete suggestions for action: Read the full article at Conferences That Work The post What meeting planners who support women’s rights can do appeared first on Conferences That Work.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
Most conference and meeting professionals want the coolest, hippest, latest ideas and trends for their events. We are on the hunt for the next meeting, seating, session format, technology, and food and beverage fad. 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.
Conferences that Work
OCTOBER 12, 2020
Many event professionals are hoping and waiting for a meeting industry new normal. We want to believe that, at some point, in-person meetings like the ones we’ve held for decades will return. Even in these places, the meeting industry is not back to the “old” normal.
Conferences that Work
FEBRUARY 28, 2022
The old meeting industry normal is long over, and many event professionals are still hoping and waiting for a new normal. In October 2020 I wrote two posts [1 , 2 ] about what a meeting industry new normal might look like. Holding in-person meetings: what do we now know? Here’s a quick overview of what I see as the relative risks involved in attending in-person meetings at this point. Understandably, people want to connect at in-person meetings.
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.
Conferences that Work
AUGUST 30, 2021
The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) has published some useful lessons learned from organizing six online scientific meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Online meetings improve access and attendance. Hybrid meetings in the future.
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. Meetings of the future will be improved and monetized by embracing the tenants of strategic product management.
Velvet Chainsaw
NOVEMBER 16, 2022
Throughout 2022, nearly every meeting service provider continues to be short-staffed and plagued by last-minute no-shows or insufficiently skilled workers. The meeting rooms you contracted for may have been double booked. They likely will be pressed to meet your deadlines.
Conferences that Work
SEPTEMBER 6, 2021
How can we provide new experiences at meetings? Providing new experiences at meetings can be as simple as this. This universal fear is the reason the meeting industry continues to struggle with incorporating new experiences into events.
Conferences that Work
JULY 18, 2022
The words we use for meetings matter. Unfortunately, familiar terms often perpetuate conventional meeting thinking. Here are three examples of better words to use when talking about meetings. Event design connection in-person networking online peer conference unconference
Conferences that Work
JANUARY 25, 2021
How can we design the optimum balance between control versus freedom at meetings? Note that I’m not suggesting meeting professionals give up any attempt to control what happens at their events. Creating events that truly meet participants’ wants and needs.
Conferences that Work
MAY 4, 2020
Providing downtime during any meeting is important , but it’s especially important to schedule breaks during online meetings. What happens if you don’t schedule breaks during online meetings. Hopefully they explained that at the start of the meeting.)
Conferences that Work
AUGUST 10, 2020
Is it possible to routinely start online meetings on time? Think about the last three meetings you attended. Why don’t scheduled meetings start on time? You will have to wait around until the host starts the meeting and lets you in. Only your meetings though.).
Conferences that Work
NOVEMBER 8, 2021
What are the fairest rules to use when running meetings? ” I think it’s reasonable to concentrate on fairness to participants : the majority of those involved with the meeting. Status and power at meetings. I introduce the third agreement at meetings…. …by
Conferences that Work
AUGUST 17, 2020
COVID-19 has virtually eliminated in-person meetings: our industry’s bread and butter. In order to overcome the many significant challenges created by the coronavirus, the meeting industry has made valiant efforts to rethink in-person meetings.
Conferences that Work
MARCH 29, 2021
The essential characteristics of meeting professionals. If there is a heaven on earth in the event industry, there are four essential characteristics of successful meeting professionals you’ll meet there. So, good meeting professionals obsess about details.
Conferences that Work
OCTOBER 11, 2021
I think it’s also a meeting problem: “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.” And so it goes with meetings. It’s why businesses sponsor meetings.
Conferences that Work
JANUARY 18, 2021
Why people continue to speak for free at meeting industry conferences : Another issue of an occasional series— Dear Adrian — in which I answer questions about event design, elementary particle physics , solar hot water systems, and anything else I might conceivably know something about. My post Why don’t meeting conferences pay speakers? But of course, by definition, the meeting gets someone with: little or no speaking experience; no track record; and.
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