Conferences Can Foster And Reclaim Authentic Conversations, Deep Connections And Transformational Community February 6, 2018 by Jeff Hurt 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 … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , authentic conversations, community, deep connections, dialogic conferencers
The Conference Owner’s Guide To Customer Experience January 24, 2018 by Jeff Hurt 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 … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Experience Design Tagged With: , conference customer journey, conference experience leader, conference experrience, conference journey, conference owner, conference owner's guide, customer experience, event-customer-experience business
Is Your Conferencing Treating Its Customers As Tourists Or Explorers? January 19, 2018 by Jeff Hurt How does your conference treat its participants? How do you and your leadership team view them? Are your conference customers more like tourists? Seeking conference swag, amenity room drops, welcome bags and quick ideas? Or are they more like explorers? Craving authentic experiences, no matter the size, that enhance their lives and change their attitudes, … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference customers, explorer conference experience, explorers, tourist conference experience, tourists
Creating A Customer-Centric Conference Strategy January 18, 2018 by Jeff Hurt Established, successful conferences have leadership that are usually adept at incrementally improving their event each year. They focus on securing better content and speakers. Or improving registration and marketing practices. Or creating unique receptions and parties. Or decreasing expenses and increasing revenue. One improvement tactic–curating conference programming that meets your customers’ needs–is foundational yet proving … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Experience Design Tagged With: , aspirations, conference strategy, Customer Centricity, customer-centered, customer-centric, customer-centric conference strategy, needs
Learner- And User-Design Key To Next-Gen Audiences January 12, 2018 by Dave Lutz Wikipedia defines design as the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns). So, when you read the word design, what pops into your mind? Artists? Fashion Designers? City planning? Interior design? Graphic … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , attracting millennials, conference designer, generations, learning design, learning experience design, LXD, Millennial, next audiences, next gen, next-generation conferences, purpose and passion, user experience design, UXD
Conferences Can Serve As Friendly Frontiers For The Insatiably Curious To Play September 27, 2017 by Jeff Hurt Your conference could be a place for your customers to experience unrestricted curiosity and play. But most of the time it’s not. Curiosity becomes codified into bureaucratic traditional expert-centric instructional models—lectures and panel discussions. And that passive sedentary process actually controls and squelches most curious thinking. And forget play! Authentic curiosity does not come from … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , better conference experiences, curiosity, deep play, learning, play
A Cautionary Word From Research About Personalization August 3, 2017 by Jeff Hurt Personalization—it seems to be the 2017 buzzword for nonprofit associations and conferences. Everyone seems to be talking about it like here and here. Yet, personalization is more than technology. It means more than our past purchases or posts in social media. We have likes, dislikes, preferences, strengths, weakness, emotions, experiences and knowledge that do not … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , adult education, behaviorial data, conference education, conference personalization, configuation, deep learning, mass personalization, personalization, personalized learning, technology
Flourishing Conference Professionals Lead With Purpose July 31, 2017 by Jeff Hurt As a conference organizer, how purpose-driven are you? Successful conference organizers are purpose-driven! They grow into purpose leaders that influence others with a shared vision and purpose. They evolve into meaning-machines. They design conference experiences that become meaning-making opportunities for their participants. And they make their planning teams’ work important. Not clichéd or trivial. Critically … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference organizer, conference professionals, conference purpose, lead with purpose, meeting professionals, purpose, purpose-driven, purpose-driven conference organizers, purpose-driven conferences
What Type Of Learning Experiences—Shallow, Advancement Or Deep–Are You Serving Customers? July 28, 2017 by Jeff Hurt The world has drastically changed in the past several decades. But most conference experiences have changed very little, if at all. They compete with the Internet to distribute content and deliver information. So what type of conference education are you serving your customers—shallow learning, advancement learning or deep learning? Do you even know the difference … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , advancement learning, authentic learning, conference education, conference learning experiences, deep learning, designing learning experiences, learning design, learning experiences, shallow learning, strategic learning, surface learning
These Conference Big Ideas Are Not For The Trendy Meeting Professional May 4, 2017 by Jeff Hurt Do you remember this Sesame Street song? One of these things is not like the other. Which of these things just doesn’t belong? This list of conference big ideas just doesn’t belong to the traditional, average conference planning process. These ideas are not for the faint-hearted. Nor are they for the meeting professional looking for … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , Big Ideas, conference trends, emerging practices, meeting industry trends
