Author: Dave Lutz


Harness Your Conference Data To Produce Big Insights

Appeasing conference stakeholders has become more complex and difficult in today’s fast changing business climate. Maintaining and growing share of wallet, attention and loyalty requires intentionality. To out maneuver the conference competition, we have to be nimble, decisive and in constant beta mode. To compete today requires identifying, selling and leading change. This is a … [Read more…]

These Factors Contribute To Your Exposition’s Health

Tradeshows have just experienced the highest quarterly increase in eight years says the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR). The Q1 2015 CEIR Index report marks the 19th consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth in the exhibitions arena. Revenue jumped 7.3 percent, net square feet grew 4.1 percent, exhibitor numbers increased 3.3 percent, and attendance grew … [Read more…]

Beguile Potential Conference Attendees

Want to spike your conference registration? Try an emotional call to action. It captivates fence sitters and potential first timers. The only reason anyone does anything is to change the way they feel, says Tony Robbins. With the right emotional call to action, you can help potential attendees begin to experience those feelings right now. … [Read more…]

Four Ways To Attract NextGen Conference Participants

Attracting the next generation of participants is an urgent priority for most professional conference organizers. Too often we think that means injecting conference botox to give our event a more youthful, trendy hip vibe. Yet it is much more than giving our conference a face-lift. The Conference Demographic Bell Curve Recently, I was involved in … [Read more…]

Do Your Suppliers Habitually Skip Out On Your Conference Education?

Do you know where your suppliers are? Seriously, do you? Are they attending your conference education? Or just hanging around for the networking and social events? Side-by-Side Learning Should Be a Must for Suppliers The home page of the Meetings Mean Business website sums up the coalition’s main message: “Great things happen when people come … [Read more…]

Conference Attendance Growth Realized Through Group Plans

Most of the time, we don’t have a good handle on who is truly attending our conference. Seriously, we don’t. But there is a way to glean insight just by using emails provided at registration. Mining Registration Data for Insights One way to mine attendance data is to scrub and normalize company names based on … [Read more…]

The Next Frontier Of Conference Improvement: Conference Education

Traditional conference education models have lost their relevance. The process of distributing a call for session and speaker submissions, selecting experts that transmit and dispense information, and packaging it as professional development for the masses is overdone. One-size-fits-all education doesn’t work anymore. We are in the midst of great workplace disruption, brought on by a … [Read more…]

Borrowing Great Ideas Leads To The Risks Associated With Mimicry

We seem to always be looking for the next quick tip, idea, or feature to implement for our next conference. But not so fast — there’s some work that needs to be done first. Just copying someone else’s success and ideas is an easy way out. Give Me Your Great Ideas…Fast! We like to see … [Read more…]

Growing Conference Technology Competency To Increase Your Value

As a conference organizer, how would you rank your competency regarding conference technologies like registration, speaker management databases, exhibits, conference apps, wayfinding signage, email marketing, CRM data bases and social media? Technology geek, technophobe or somewhere in between? The most effective and valuable meeting professionals are squarely in the middle. Why Two Tech Extremes Don’t … [Read more…]

Your Conference Is Offering Learning Scrap That Is Not Even Worth Recycling

Your conference and association value proposition is under attack! Education and networking are two benefits of conference attendance and association membership. Yet, education is being disrupted in major ways. When employees spend too much time in education offerings that do not translate into increased performance and productivity, it is learning scrap. It’s wasted information, knowledge … [Read more…]