Does your event have a clear and inspiring purpose? (If you’re shaking your head yes, then what is it?) Now imagine someone asking your conference participants that question. How would they respond? I suspect they would say “Yes, of course it has a purpose!” Then they would launch into a passionate description of your event’s annual Party with a Purpose, its pre-conference feel-good community service projects and its ongoing student scholarship fundraisers. However supporting a good … [Read more...]
If You Design Conference Experiences, Read This!
We design experiences for our customers. So why don’t we design experiences for ourselves? Have we missed the obvious? (I confess: I have!) As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? Well, we can and should! And our planning team members should too. Six Ways To Design Your Experience Too Here are six ways to focus on designing your team’s experience during your next conference planning process. … [Read more...]
Your Conference As A Giving Field
We are used to thinking of our conference and its planning process as a one-way transaction from the company to its customers. Sometimes we view the planning process as a backbreaking, arduous, life-draining experience. We may even dread working with a new conference advisory committee due to our negative past experiences. If this sounds like you, perhaps it’s time to rethink your mental model of your conference and its planning process. Instead, consider your conference as a life-giving … [Read more...]
The Market Shifts That Led to Commission Cuts
Marriott, Hilton and IHG have announced reductions in group-booking commissions from 10 percent to 7 percent for their North American hotels, to take place over a period of time this year and next. Marriott’s has already begun for most intermediaries. A 30-percent cut in one’s business model is a tough pill to swallow for any company. It's even tougher for those independent meeting companies that survive on commissions. Only time will tell what impact these reductions will have on these … [Read more...]
Conferences Can Foster And Reclaim Authentic Conversations, Deep Connections And Transformational Community
One of society’s greatest paradoxes is that we have more connections today than we did in the past but there is less community and conversation. As a conference organizer, you can seed your annual meeting with experiences that nurture authentic conversations, deep connections and community. You don’t have to sacrifice honest talk for today’s casual chat through digital communications or to sidestep sensitive polarizing topics. You can design, structure and facilitate conference experiences … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide: Steps 2-5 To Transition From Conference Touchpoints To Journey Experiences
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer's experience. This is part two, steps 2-5 on transitioning from … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide: From Conference Touchpoints To Journey Experiences Part 1
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. They leave the big decisions about target customers, their needs and their aspirations to the organization’s leaders, the marketing department or even the education division. Sometimes they say, “Well, I’m not in charge of programming, content or speakers. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.” They assume that this default … [Read more...]
The Conference Owner’s Guide To Customer Experience
Who owns the overall experience that customers have at your conference? Who oversees and manages the conference customers’ journey? Is it you or someone else? Or perhaps no one is considering the holistic experience of your conference customer? Are you functioning as a scheduler and executor of the conference with a divide and conquer mentality where every leadership team hands you their planned component and you schedule the details? Do you consider how these pieces fit together creating … [Read more...]
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