Cultivating Conference Kindness Not Cynicism August 24, 2015 by Jeff Hurt I would enjoy my job more if it weren’t for people, said the meeting professional. Unfortunately, he wasn’t joking. He didn’t like dealing with people, especially disgruntled conference stakeholders. As conference organizers, we can easily fall into today’s culture of cynicism. It’s difficult to be sincere when we are constantly bombarded with an outrage culture. … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference culture, conference design empathy, conference practices, kindness
Rebalancing Conference Vertigo By Starting With Design-Less Strategies April 17, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Leaping to action without a solid comprehension of your conference target market and their needs causes all sorts of mayhem. Some conference organizers and their planning team members don’t even realize they are in the eye of a storm. That mayhem is their blind spot. Planning a conference without a deep understanding of what makes … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , conference design empathy, conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, constrained collaboration, culture of learning, customer empathy, empathy, learning organization, meeting planner, meeting professional, strategic empathy, strategy
Quantitative Or Qualitative Conference Measures. Which Matters Most? April 2, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Many conference organizers and their organizations tend to focus only on linear, incremental improvements. Most of those improvements are transactional in nature. Improving online registration, ecommerce, confirmations, lodging, CEU tracking, etc. Or they tend to copy what another conference is doing. Rarely do they explore the actual reasons behind number trends. Instead, they just twist … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference design empathy, conference empathy, customer empathy, design empathy, empathy, empathy mapping, Qualitative measures, Quantitative measures, strategic empathy
Your Conference Is Unbalanced! April 1, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Your conference is out of balance. And most conference organizers don’t even know it. Sure as a conference organizer you know that creativity and innovation are important to your planning. You probably even realize that collaborating with others on the schedule and programming make for a better conference experience. However, as a conference organizer most … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference design empathy, conference empathy, customer empathy, design empathy, empathy, empathy mapping, strategic empathy
Putting Design Empathy Into Conference Practice March 31, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Empathy is powerful! It plays a fundamental role in our connections, our networking, our learning, our problem solving, our innovation and our collaboration with others. According to research, when we are empathetic, we actually enhance our cognitive abilities. (Decety and Ickes, 2011). Putting ourselves into others shoes helps us improve our thinking. We improve our … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference design empathy, customer empathy, design empathy, empathy, empathy mapping, strategic empathy
Your Conference Needs To Adopt Design Empathy Practices March 25, 2015 by Jeff Hurt The group kept returning to this word. I thought we were finished discussing all of its nuances and implications. Then another small group would underscore its importance. It’s as if this word was a floating bobber in a lake constantly tossed around due to wind and waves. It wouldn’t disappear. Just when we thought no … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference design empathy, customer empathy, design empathy, empathy, empathy mapping, strategic empathy
