Conferences that Work

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

It’s a good time to invite guest presenters into your online classroom. As an experienced facilitator and designer of participant-driven and participation-rich meetings, I love to share what I’ve learned during my four decades in the meeting industry. You won’t get a canned presentation.

Hospitality 189

Hospitality Education Meeting Design Conference 189

Conferences that Work

APRIL 11, 2022

Unfortunately, supplier and practitioner perspectives on having suppliers present don’t usually align. . The practitioner’s perspective on including suppliers at meeting sessions. May not want to talk about supplier products and services when suppliers are present.

Meetings 296

Meetings Conference Meeting Design Advertising 296

Slido

JANUARY 30, 2019

In December 2018, we set out to explore the future of town hall meetings. The goal of our one-day event in partnership with Convene was to show how a successful all-hands could look in 2019 and beyond by using interactive technology and meeting design thinking. It was a new experience for everyone, and the audience loved it.

Speakers 69

Speakers Meeting Design 2018 2019 69

PCMA Convene

MAY 1, 2017

Sperstad will present results from the study at IMEX in Frankfurt, Germany, this month. EVENT DESIGN. “My My first white paper, Mindful Event Design, was really driven around a physical sense of meeting design. The final report, supported by IMEX and PSAV, will be delivered at IMEX America in Las Vegas in October.

Meeting Design 75

Meeting Design Meetings Education Fashion 75

Conferences that Work

MARCH 14, 2022

Even post-presentation Q&As rarely evolve into a conversation, which is always between the presenter and a succession of audience members. I have been doing this for 30 years, and it’s clear that meeting designs that integrate meaningful conversations into sessions have a transformational effect on almost all participants.

2006 162

2006 Meeting Design Conference Meetings 162

Conferences that Work

MARCH 15, 2021

Recently, I’ve been appearing as a guest at college event planning and hospitality courses to talk about meeting design. (I Rather than lecture for an hour, I’ve been using an Ask Me Anything (aka AMA ) meeting format. I love to do this. Teachers, please contact me , it’s free!) Well…sometimes.

Hospitality 169

Hospitality Meeting Design Conference Event Planning 169

Conferences that Work

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

07:45 Behind the scenes: How I got into designing and facilitating participant-driven and participation-rich meetings. 11:00 What participant-driven and participation-rich meeting design means, and the core components. 15:00 Why we need to have participant-driven and participation-rich meetings.

Event Design 156

Event Design Meetings Social Media Meeting Design 156

Conferences that Work

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

An event that: Asks potential presenters to submit pre-event proposals for sessions isn’t an unconference. Includes breakout sessions as well as presentations isn’t an unconference. [No, When this doesn’t happen (sadly, most of the time in my experience) the conference design, no matter how good it is, suffers.

Conference 266

Conference Venues 2023 Consulting 266

Conferences that Work

MAY 11, 2020

Because participants love these meetings ! Now the covid-19 pandemic has forced meetings online. Unfortunately, most online events are still using a traditional webinar/broadcast-style approach: presenters speaking for long periods, interspersed with chat-mediated Q&A. In person meetings have vanished overnight.

Conference 375

Conference 2012 Meetings Meeting Design 375

Conferences that Work

AUGUST 24, 2020

Here are five meeting design books I especially recommend. Into the Heart of Meetings: Basic Principles of Meeting Design ( ebook or paperback ). Into the Heart of Meetings: Basic Principles of Meeting Design ( ebook or paperback ). Intentional Event Design ( ebook or paperback ).

Meeting Design 286

Meeting Design Meetings 2009 2013 286

Conferences that Work

JULY 31, 2017

Although I have good reasons to champion meeting designs where the participants get to choose what they want and need to discuss and learn rather than a program committee , there is invariably a place for some predetermined presentations at conferences. Read the full article at Conferences That Work.

Meetings 196

Meetings Meeting Design Conference Speakers 196

Conferences that Work

JUNE 12, 2017

I love my meeting design clients, but there is one mistake I see them making over and over again. Clients invariably ask me to help design their meeting after they’ve chosen a venue! Face The Fear—Then Change Your Conference Design! Here’s why they do it, and why it’s a mistake.

Venues 210

Venues 2010 Meetings Conference Design 210

Conferences that Work

APRIL 1, 2019

Often it is more like a discussion than a presentation, but that is why it is effective. I was an amateur in the meeting industry, and that led to some mistakes, but it also gave me a fresh perspective at a time when meeting design wasn’t really a “thing.” Often, the results are unexpected.

2014 244

2014 2019 Conference Meeting Design 244

Conferences that Work

JUNE 7, 2021

Why am I writing about social learning on a blog that’s (mainly) about meeting design? Which means, to create the best meetings we need to maximize the social learning that takes place. Which means, to create the best meetings we need to maximize the social learning that takes place. Humans’ true superpower.

Meeting Design 284

Meeting Design Conference Meetings Event Design 284

EventMB

JANUARY 8, 2024

Skift Take: In the latest episode of the Skift Meetings Podcast, the spotlight is on Joe Pine, a visionary thinker whose groundbreaking work on the Experience Economy has reshaped the way businesses approach customer engagement. Miguel Neves Read the Complete Story On Skift Meetings

Meetings 150

Meetings Meeting Design Event Design Events 150

Conferences that Work

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

Some say I have high status in the event industry, but when I’m facilitating a roomful of subject matter experts, I’m the most ignorant and lowest status person present. At a traditional meeting, however, perceived status roles rarely change significantly during the event. Here are a couple of my own unhappy experiences.).

Meetings 323

Meetings Conference Negotiating Speakers 323

Conferences that Work

JUNE 3, 2019

At the time, I had no idea that what I instinctively put together for a gathering of people who barely knew each other would lead to: a global design and facilitation consulting practice; over 500 posts on this blog, which has now become, to the best of my knowledge, the most-visited website on meeting design and facilitation; three books (almost!)

Conference 170

Conference 2014 Consulting Meeting Design 170

Slido

NOVEMBER 29, 2018

It had it all: audience voting, dynamic presentations and an inclusive Q&A. Moderator Elaine introduced the topic, presented the question ‘ Should Customer Success Managers have variable compensation ?’ Each of the presentations lasted approximately 7 min. This was feedback from one of our customers recently.

Speakers 42

Speakers Management Meeting Design Meetings 42

Conferences that Work

JULY 3, 2023

Back in 1992 , I developed The Three Questions as a fundamental opening process for participant-driven meetings and conferences. Answering it gives every person present, in turn, an opportunity to share what they would like the ensuing meeting to be about.

Conference 156

Conference 2023 Meeting Design Meetings 156

Gallus Events

MAY 2, 2017

Too many venues, especially hotels, are still designed and to house traditional conferences. If you want to run a creative conference, one that uses Meeting Design you have to find a venue that will really support your conference. In this post I thought I’d add a little Meeting Design Venue Check List!

Venues 164

Venues Meeting Design Conference Meetings 164

Conferences that Work

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

Let’s look at these three conclusions in the context of meeting design. Most meeting presenters still lecture. And most meeting session presenters resort to lecturing as their dominant session modality. Attendees learn more when presenters use active learning modalities.

2012 213

2012 Speakers Education 2019 213

Conferences that Work

DECEMBER 18, 2023

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. 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. .”

2023 208

2023 Conference 2006 2020 208

Conferences that Work

APRIL 9, 2018

Meanwhile, it’s clear from a review of industry conference programs that large numbers of presentations are accepted from employees of sponsors or trade show exhibitors. In my case, the demand for the meeting design and facilitation services I provide has been exploding. (In

Education 185

Education Meetings 2006 2012 185

Gallus Events

JULY 1, 2019

PCMA EduCon took place in Los Angeles in June 2019 and I was lucky enough to be asked to mentor the attendees of PCMA’s Homeless Hackathon and to present a session on online events. . And the best way to get a grip of texturising content is to look at the principles of meeting design. What a packed few days.

2019 113

2019 Meeting Design Speakers Meetings 113

GEVME

DECEMBER 19, 2019

Today, we see professionals from the UX & Design field apply design thinking to meetings to explore how to reinvent them. Kevin Hoffman has written a pretty good book about it: Meeting Design. A facilitator then helps to build a working agenda, breakout sessions and real-time presentations.

Trade Shows 156

Trade Shows 2019 Speakers Meeting Design 156

Gallus Events

MARCH 22, 2016

3 Use meeting design to create the framework for great content. With these first two steps covered: bringing together the content expert and the programme expert, the next step was to add some meeting design. That’s Meeting Design. This included speaking to each other 1.2.1 and in small groups.

Conference 173

Conference Meeting Design Speakers Fashion 173

Conferences that Work

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

After I talked about my meeting design work with pioneer tester James Bach at the 2004 Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference, the testing community somehow adopted the term peer conference for their get-togethers. The queues to briefly present the proposed topics were really long, and the emerging schedule looked amazing.

Conference 156

Conference 2022 2004 Meeting Design 156

Conferences that Work

MARCH 4, 2019

I’m excited to present my Participate! After a highly successful debut in 2018, three Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Chapters — MPI Toronto , MPI Montréal/Québec , and MPI Ottawa — have again joined forces to provide cutting edge, innovative, experiential education at The EVENT.

2012 125

2012 Education 2018 Meeting Design 125

Conferences that Work

MARCH 21, 2022

This coming June will mark my 30th year of designing and facilitating participant-driven and participation-rich meetings. So I designed the workshop as an “ Ask Adrian Anything ” about meeting design and facilitation. I’ve shared the why? and the details of how I typically run this format here.

Meetings 348

Meetings Meeting Design Conference Speakers 348

Conferences that Work

APRIL 16, 2018

Fun fact: the testing community often uses my term “peer conferences” for their get-togethers, due to a chat about meeting design I had with tester James Bach at the 2004 Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference.) Those running stands were able to gather community feedback on their topic.

2018 145

2018 2004 Conference Trade Shows 145

Conferences that Work

MARCH 25, 2019

Though it’s clearly sensible to keep a conference running on schedule, we’ve all attended meetings where rambling presenters, avoidable “technical issues”, incompetent facilitation, and inadequate logistics have made a mockery of the published program. I did so, and noticed that the other presenter did not.

Contracts 175

Contracts 2011 Conference Education 175

Conferences that Work

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

Luckily, this is typically part of good meeting design — it’s not something that you need to awkwardly or artificially introduce. Good large group work includes short breakouts, where impromptu small groups meet, think, discuss, and share. How can we avoid missing the quiet folks in large groups?

Meeting Design 169

Meeting Design Conference Meetings 169

PCMA Convene

JANUARY 16, 2018

When FRESH18 — which bills itself as the first annual conference focused exclusively on meeting design — gets underway Feb. 27-28, it will be showcasing its own solution to a common event-design problem: getting the audience to participate. Photo Credit: The FRESH Conference.

Tourism 79

Tourism Speakers Hospitality Meeting Design 79

Conferences that Work

APRIL 8, 2019

I quickly discover the size and interest of the meetings industry. Due to interest and demand, I become a meeting designer and facilitator of participant-driven and participation-rich meetings. (Five years earlier, self-publishing was a minor industry for vanity projects. Yet another career that had not existed before.

2005 147

2005 2009 Consulting Conference 147

MeetingsNet

MAY 29, 2019

"Conversations & Input" eases presenter pressure, gets all attendees involved, and deepens learning. We're all quite familiar with the Q&A portion of a meeting session: The final few minutes where the audience has its chance to drill down a bit with the presenter. or “What did you find interesting?”

Meetings 83

Meetings Meeting Design Conference Events 83

PCMA Convene

JULY 6, 2020

Unless we intervene, we could be heading in the direction where we’re more self-conscious about how we present in meetings.”. “You can hide yourself, but to see yourself while you’re talking is a source of self-consciousness. I think in this first wave, we’re trying to, in a basic way, replace physical events.

2020 105

2020 Meeting Design Technology Consulting 105

PCMA Convene

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

And in Long Beach, California, which has pioneered a turn-key approach to meeting design, the Long Beach CVB has launched “Long Beach Live,” turning the entire Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center into a multi-camera, multi-space broadcast facility. In Washington, D.C.,

Entertainment 116

Entertainment Technology Venues Meeting Design 116