by Rosita Carobelli-Zukowski, All in Place Communications and Event Planning

Happy New Year! Did you make New Year resolutions? Have you broken yours already? How many times have you promised yourself that you’ll get into shape? You tell yourself, “This year will be different!”

Researchers have proven that the more fit someone is, the more they achieve mental clarity and perform better at what they love to do. However, everyone knows New Year resolutions aren’t typically met. After a few weeks, people tend to go back to their ‘old ways’. It is hard establishing a new routine; it takes approximately 21 days to build a habit and incorporate it into a new routine.

Wouldn’t it be nice to stick to a work out routine by working out with your co-workers? All of us need to have a motivator to push ourselves more. Some companies have started just this. Boot camp exercise classes for yoga, pilates and cardio are popping up everywhere. Whether one does it with a partner or with a group, the chances of sticking through are better as everyone in the same room is motivated in working towards meeting the same or similar goals. Once everyone is focused on achieving their individual end results, they’ll begin pushing themselves more. As well as working together better. They won’t let each other ‘fall off the wagon’ or accept excuses for skipping classes (even 6am starts!). Instead, a camaraderie will form resulting in healthier working relationships and even friendships. Teambuilding can be found in everyday routines; motivating one another to be the best they can be.

by Jeff Hurt, Velvet Chainsaw

What do the next ten years have in store for conference and event organizers? Plenty.

As 2010 comes to a close, many conference and event professionals have been looking ahead to the 2011. Here’s a look into 2011 and the next decade.

1. Increased complexity and volatility as change is the constant and uncertainty its response.

The successful will be able to navigate rapidly changing times with increased flexibility. The ability to be nimble and make quick midcourse corrections will be highly prized and valued.

Continue reading “14 Conference And Event Trends That Will Shape The Next Decade”

by Rosita Carobelli-Zukowski, All in Place Communications and Event Planning

Planning the same old Holiday Party? Attending the same old Holiday Party? Are you looking to host a party that captures attendees’ attention? No matter how small or large the budget allows for, there are many ways to be creative and inventive. Film festivals are the events to attend these days.  As guests arrive, have a montage of classic Christmas movie moments playing to instrumental ‘winter wonderland’ music in the background. Not only will this instil memories of Christmas’ from long ago, it can be a great conversation starter. Whether it will make guests reminisce about previous Holiday parties (corporate or social) or their own family traditions (Aunt Mary’s shortbread snowmen cookies are a must on Christmas Eve!), it helps set the mood for the event. It will get everyone talking and comparing notes and ideas. And you never know, this may lead to them learning something new about their co-worker or friend that they may have not known before.

Continue reading “Turning that Holiday Party into a Classic”

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!

by Anne Thornley-Brown, Executive Oasis International

Building a Better Business Meeting

Summary: A volume of research is available about the best strategies to engage adult learners. In spite of this, at corporate meetings and during sales rallies, companies continue to subject employees to a series of long, boring presentations delivered by “talking heads”. It’s a dreary and tedious pattern of passive disengagement. There is a better way.

A Broken Business Meeting Model

Our team building firm regularly gets requests from companies that initially request a full day of interactive team building. This is doable with a very short simulation and very specific outcomes but it’s a very tight timeframe. Typically, this time slot is then reduced to 1/2 a day and, ultimately, watered down to a request for a 1 or 2 hour strictly recreational activity after dinner that is, ultimately, awarded to the lowest cost provider. The meeting actually ends up being a series of dry presentations (back to back information dumps). By the time the participants get to dinner, they are exhausted and in bad humour. This pattern has been emerging in Toronto for some time now. We notice that it is also starting to happen with prospective clients in Asia and Dubai. Colleauges in the USA have confirmed that they are seeing a similar pattern. Why is this happening? Companies have indicated that there ends up being way too much content to cover.

Continue reading “Meeting Planning: Troubleshooting the Corporate Meeting”

by Jeff Hurt, Velvet Chainsaw

Adapted from original image by London Permaculture.

Event Organizers Investigated For Not Following FTC Guidelines

Did you know that at a January 2010 event held by Ann Taylor Loft was investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for possible violation of new marketing guidelines which apply to WOM, Social Media, TV, radio and print?
That’s right, the event organizers were investigated.

Why the investigation?

Ann Taylor Loft event organizers invited bloggers to preview their summer collection. They asked them to write about the collection and their experience. In exchange for their blogging they received a free gift and a gift card worth up to $500. 31 bloggers attended the event and received gift cards.

The FTC was concerned the new media writers did not disclose that they received gifts for posting about the event. Some did disclose the relationship. Some didn’t. The new rules require disclosure.

As reported in Ad Age:
The event and the unusual request for posts to be submitted for a prize received media scrutiny and caught the eye of the FTC. “We were concerned that bloggers who attended a preview on January 26, 2010 failed to disclose that they received gifts for posting blog content about that event,” Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director-advertising practices, wrote in a letter dated April 20 to Ann Taylor’s legal representation.

Event Organizers Investigated Not The Bloggers

What’s interesting to me is that in this case, the FTC did not investigate the bloggers that did not disclose. They investigated the event organizers for securing social media sharers in exchange for gifts and not telling the bloggers they needed to disclose the relationship.

If you plan events, conferences or meetings, that should send up a host of red flags!

Continue reading “Social Media, Events, The Hospitality Industry And The FTC Guidelines”

by Steven Sulkin, MBM Productions International

Up until recently, one could argue that for millennia meetings haven’t changed very much. When I see most in-person meetings, what strikes me is that just like in ancient Greece, we walk onto a stage, head for dead center and orate from a lectern. For a long time now, I’ve wondered why we keep doing this.

Early in my career, in the 1980’s, because of the needs of some high tech clients, I was challenged with breaking out of that mold and broadcasting my meetings rather than presenting them in person. And in those days, well before the Internet was invented, broadcast meant via satellite. The now quaint sounding term for that type of transmission was “closed circuit television.”

For me, because of my production background, broadcast was natural. Imagining the “scene” as it would ultimately appear on a screen was my normal way of looking at communication. Live meeting production was where I had to think differently and put on my theater hat. Live meetings are the business version of theater and virtual meetings are the business version of television.

These days, of course, “television” (meaning all types of professional video) isn’t limited to the big three broadcasters or even to TV at all. Video streaming is ubiquitous, on the Internet, on smart phones and even on gaming consoles. So one would think we’d be, as a society, way ahead of the curve in creating sophisticated TV like business productions and virtual events. But when I observe the vast majority of virtual meetings what I see is the same mistakes made as were made in early 1950’s in TV. In the 50’s, TV producers modeled what they produced after theater, just as virtual events today are often modeled after live meetings. They surmised back then, they could simply stage a theater production and point a camera at it. Watch old black and white footage of the Honeymooners and you’ll see what I mean. It was “deadly” to watch because it was static and didn’t take advantage of multi-camera angles and editing that we now understand is imperative to create a proper broadcast. Eventually, TV evolved into more sophisticated productions.

Today, in the world of virtual events the same 1950’s mistakes seem to be happening all over again. There is the thought that one can simply transmit a slide over the Internet with a synced voice and it’s a meeting. Add a tiny talking head via video or clip art embedded into a drawing of a virtual trade show and the thinking is that creates an engaging virtual event experience. Putting aside the sync problems, which are commonplace as platforms struggle to combine all of these disparate elements, most importantly, this type of virtual event is exceedingly un-engaging to watch, compromising the effect of the virtual experience and ultimately driving people back to rely heavily on travel and live meetings. And most ironically, it’s completely unnecessary as all of the tools to produce engaging video production are at our disposal if we would just take advantage of them. Combine that engaging transmitted video with an in-person meeting and we create ‘the hybrid meeting” – the best of both worlds.

So what should we do in the world of virtual events, Web streaming and online meetings these days? We should learn from and take advantage of the technology that TV and the movies has given us and used for decades. For one, we should abandon the notion of syncing a static slide to voice and a video talking head. There’s no reason to do that. With sophisticated video Web streaming technologies and production “capture” technology (HD cameras, portable lighting systems, etc.) we can create engaging video for the business world, and stream it full screen over relatively modest bandwidth. But this new era of virtual communication demands that anyone involved in the creation of a virtual event must be a video production expert, a meeting planning pro and an IT guru well honed in the science of streaming video over the Web.

There is another lesson of what not to do that we can learn from the early days of television, and it’s about live verses on demand. In the world of TV, even TV news, live is a choice of last resort. No one in TV chooses live unless they have to, as it increases risk, both technical and human. And on the Internet, well over 90% of all video is consumed on demand. Especially in the world of business, minimally for legal reasons to limit risk, we should review every word and every single piece of data before releasing it to the masses. Therefore, except in rare cases and for good purpose, we should pre-record everything we can, every presentation, every word uttered. In the world of pharmaceutical virtual events, this couldn’t be more imperative. The only element, which should be live, is Q and A. With sophisticated platforms that can be achieved with a technique referred to as “SimLive” – the combination of pre-recorded presentations blended with live Q and A.

The viewer need not even know the presentation is live or recorded unless one wants to express that. Every day on TV news the limiting of live reporting is a practiced technique. Live news stories include taped sections with the actual live portion being a small element of the segment. Pre-recorded means less risk, more control and lower cost. TV learned that lesson years ago.

I remember when The Tonight Show was live and all the problems that ensued, then soon afterward it went “live to tape” to reduce risk and increase the effectiveness as they could edit and re-do sections they weren’t happy with. One can learn a lot from early TV as we create new axioms in the business of Virtual Meetings and Events –Think Like a Broadcaster and You’ll Find Success.

by Jeff Hurt, Velvet Chainsaw

This spin on cogito ergo sum (English: “I think, therefore I am”) could possibly be a good motto for all conferences and events.

Social Learning

We participate, therefore we are.

Our learning, understanding and knowledge are developed in participation with others. Social learning occurs through conversations about the content and through grounded interactions and engagement with others. Often when we discuss a concept or issue with someone, we are internalizing and integrating it into our own personal framework. It is though social learning that we seek practical knowledge to solve our professional problems.

Many conference organizers know that much of the true learning and understanding happens in the hallways. Inside the conference education sessions, attendees receive information. Outside the education rooms, attendees start to socially construct their own understanding. Most of what we know, we have learned with and from others.

We, as conference organizers, have to find ways to capture what happens in the hallways and move it into the education sessions.

Moving Hallway Discussions Into Conference Education Sessions

We participate, therefore we are.

That phrase is exactly where I think conference organizers should begin to focus their meeting planning efforts.

• We should be designing conference experiences that encourage registrants to transition from attendees to participants.

• We need to discover new ways to help individuals move from passive attendees to active participants.
• We must shift from planning one-way lectures to more facilitated discussions.
• We need to switch from sixty- to ninety-minute lectures to sessions that provide short spurts (ten- to twenty-minutes) of content that serve as catalysts for seventy- to eighty minutes of discussion.
• We need to move from securing industry experts as speakers to contracting skilled facilitators that can capitalize on industry experienced participants in each session.
• We need to see our conference participants as the industry experts and subject matter experienced (SMEs).
• We must find a balance of the “what,” the content, and the “how,” the learning process.
• We must stop seeing our meetings as containers for distributing information and start seeing them as a process to facilitate learning.
• We must come to grips with the fact that “information” is a commodity and that “education” is something that has significant value.

Traditional Conference Education Strategies

So much of our conference education strategy relies on transmitting explicit information so attendees can amass sufficient amounts of content to their satisfaction. We spend little time on how to apply that information or practice it. We spend little time on helping others retain that content.

Most conference education sessions focus on how to pour knowledge into other people’s heads. We treat knowledge and information as a substance and the brain as a container. Without realizing it, we’ve bought into the concept that a lecturer or speaker is like a faucet. They can spout knowledge and pour it into each attendee’s brain. That’s assuming that there is nothing already in the attendee’s brain and that listening is the best way to distribute that information. Those assumptions are incorrect.

Engagement, through active participation, not passive listening, is critical to learning, retention and understanding. John Seely Brown says, “…We are constructing knowledge all the time, in conversation, through narrative.”

Brown says that through stories and narratives we construct a framework that our mind begins to understand. It is through conversation with others that we construct our own mental frameworks. It’s in conversations that we create knowledge.

Ratio Of Participants Talking Versus Attendees Listening

So how much time in your annual conference is dedicated to attendee conversations? What is the ratio of listening to speakers versus participating in discussions?

Let’s face it. Registrants come to conference with a list of problems they want solved. It doesn’t matter if our education sessions address those problems or not. Instead of trying to force-feed information and content, let’s create conferences where we see our registrants as a community of practice and learning a process. Then participants, regardless of experience, can use inquiry to ask others about their experiences.

It is up to conference organizers to transition from meetings as containers of commodotized information to conferences as conduits of learning.

Why are so many conference education sessions information data dumps? How can we move registrants from passive attendees to active participants?

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!

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.

Continue reading “Eight Tips To Encourage Participation, Intimacy, Community In Your Conferences And Events”