Conference Education


Designing Content For The Big Tent General Session

Finding the right keynote presenter that has content specific for your conference audience is frequently as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. Many times the content experts are not the greatest presenters. Yet the good presenters don’t have any content of value to the attendees. So what do you do? How can you design conference content … [Read more…]

Obituary For A Conference Education Session

It was a wasted ninety minutes of life. 5,400 seconds of possibility that are now gone forever without a shred of hope, learning or motivation. It had such potential. It died so quick and so young. No one understood a single thing that was said. The barrage of PowerPoint slides with small fonts, too many … [Read more…]

The Benefit Of Shifting From Presenting To Participating

“Not a presentation, a participation,” says Scott Gould. The Typical Presentation Like Minds Conference founder Scott Gould raised an interesting question on his blog this week.  He was talking to his compadre Robin Dickinson about an upcoming presentation he was delivering. The presentation was on participation. Robin challenged Scott to move from presenting information about participation … [Read more…]

Conference Trend: Taste On A Toothpick

Like moth to the flame, mosquitoes to blood or honey bees to pollen, the mall crowd surrounded the young man. Piranhas Devouring Their Prey They looked like a frenzied group of piranhas, devouring their prey. They were driven by the opportunity for a taste on a toothpick. The chance to sample food. To digest and … [Read more…]

Two Conference Education Extremes: Reports And Stories

Most conference education sessions are broken. Creating The Walking Dead Attendee They are full of the requisite PowerPoint bullet presentations that promote status quo thinking. They lull attendees into a coma-like state of disinterest and boredom so that they become the walking dead. Admit it. You’ve been trapped in those dead presentations before. Even remembering … [Read more…]

Shifting From Serving Attendees To Involving Participants

If you haven’t made the shift from ‘serving attendees’ to ‘involving participants,’ consider this your wake-up call — and your roadmap. The Participatory Class Sociologists identify today’s networked individuals as the participatory class. As part of a participatory culture, we expect to create, collaborate, connect, share, and learn interactively. We feel that our contributions matter. … [Read more…]

Innovative Techniques In Conference Formats For The Participatory Culture

Here is the PPT slide deck from a recent presentation to The Higher Education User Group (HEUG). Innovative Techniques In Conference Formats For The Participatory Culture View more presentations from Jeff Hurt. For more information consider these past posts: How Participatory Cultures Are Changing Conferences, Events And Associations The One Technology Tool Most Associations And … [Read more…]

How To Use Pecha Kucha And Ignite Models Effectively In Your Event

Finding new ways to engage conference participants is a challenge for many conference organizers. Entertainment, the Internet and media have transformed society into the participatory culture. Today’s conference audiences are accustomed to quick action, rapid scene changes, racing soundtracks and the ability to change their direction with a click. They expect visceral stimulation and are … [Read more…]

Leveraging Six Right-Brain Aptitudes For Successful Conferences

“The future belongs to a different kind of person,” Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind. It belongs to “…creative and empathetic right-brain thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn’t.” Pink claims we are living in a different age. A different time that demands different thinking. According to Pink, … [Read more…]

Why Do Conferences Offer Education Sessions?

Breakouts, concurrent sessions, forums, general sessions, Ignite, lectures, Open Space, panels, Pecha Kucha, peer to peer, plenary sessions, round tables, seminars, workshops. Conference education. No matter what we call them, they all have one thing in common: sharing of information with the goal of education and learning. What Is The Goal Of Conference Education? So … [Read more…]