Archive for July, 2010

Energize Your Meetings and Events Blog: What’s With the Name Change?

Monday, July 26th, 2010

by Ed Graziano, Corporate Event Interactive

As some of our regular readers and contributors may have noticed we changed our blog’s name from “The Strategic Business Value of Meetings and Events” blog to the “Energize Your Meetings & Events” blog. This is not because we do not see the strategic value in meetings (and events), but instead at the core we understand that our team’s biggest contribution to the meetings and events industry is to add energy to programs – keeping participants actively engaged so they can gain knowledge, network with their peers and enjoy the overall meeting or event experience.

Whether you host or plan meetings (or events), supply products or services for meetings, or you work at a venue, the Energize Your Meetings & Events blog will have value for you!

Please note we continue to welcome posts from our contributors, comments from our readers and suggestions from everyone.

Thank you for your support of our efforts and we look forward to hearing from you!

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Eight Tips To Encourage Participation, Intimacy, Community In Your Conferences And Events

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

by Jeff Hurt, Velvet Chainsaw

When was the last time you visited a museum?

Nina Simon‘s Complicity, Intimacy, Community post about fostering personal relationships with visitors in small and large spaces brought back a flood of memories of some of my museum experiences. You should read it and then come back here. Go ahead, I’ll be here when you finish.

My Museum Experiences In My Twenties
In my twenties, I had the pleasure of helping Dallas Natural History Museum plan and create some exhibits. I was a docent, trainer and event professional in addition to my day job. I hosted many weekend sleepovers for groups of 30, 50 and 100 kids in that museum. Yeah, what was I thinking? Actually, it was awesomesauce for sure. Ok, I digress.

I recall one experience of working on an environmental exhibit about garbage, trash and recycling. As a content expert (I was known as the Garbage Guru back then) and educator, my task was to help the designers dream up large, hands-on interactive exhibits. Those exhibits were to serve as focal points that entertained, educated and allowed multiple people to play with them at one time. These were not to be the typical poster or 3-D mannequin exhibits. They were to be participatory to increase memory retention and learning.

Applying Museum Exhibit Design Thoughts To Meetings
During those brainstorming sessions, the museum exhibit designers taught me a lot. (more…)

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