by Ed Graziano, Corporate Event Interactive
If you are a business professional you more than likely have attended a wide variety of business related meetings and events and I expect you will have many of the same observances that I have listed below, so please feel free to share.
If you want to bore your audiences and ensure a minimum retention of program content at your next meeting please consider the following…
1.) Cram as much content into the meeting as possible. Limit breaks and social opportunities and be sure to cover everything in the limited amount of time a meeting lasts.
2.) Never change your presenters, trainers or facilitators from meeting to meeting. Once you have people who your audience likes, never offer professionals with different perspectives or presentation styles as they might not be received well by your group.
3.) Don’t take risks. If your venue contact, meeting planner or meeting content professional offers some unique but different ideas it is always best to state “our group won’t go for that.”
4.) Consider meeting rooms with no windows or access to outside as the outdoors is just a potential big distraction to the learning process.
5.) Never consider adding an interactive experience or networking opportunity that might reinforce the learning from the meeting itself. Nobody likes to have a little fun when they get together at a meeting and certainly if people are having fun they cannot be learning as well.
6.) Always try to top the last meeting. Don’t worry about cost or that the last meeting was very productive, just focus on making this one bigger and showier.
7.) Never involve participants in the learning process at a meeting. Stay with the traditional “data dump” from speaker to audience as who knows what the audience might say, contribute or do during a presentation or workshop.
8.) Stay away from technology. Technology is scary and not everyone is familiar with the newest trends, applications and gadgets. And certainly there is not enough time or budget to offer “tech” training or rentals as needed.
9.) Don’t mix up your meeting guests so they have opportunities to meet others at the meeting. Let people stay in cliques as they will be more comfortable and enjoy the meeting more.
10.) When planning a meeting only consider the ideas of top management. Don’t bother to survey your audience as top management certainly knows best what the meeting content and design should be.
I am sure you have many other ideas on how to make a meeting as boring/unproductive as possible. Please take a moment and share your ideas below!
