Your conference-slip is showing! I once worked for a Texas elected official. I quickly learned to tell her if her slip was showing, she had a run in her pantyhose or she had lipstick on her teeth—especially before she went on stage or met with the public. Well conference professionals, your conference-slip is showing. Your organization’s beliefs—as well as your beliefs—about business, connecting, learning, relationship-building, and today’s society, are showing. Your agenda, schedule and … [Read more...]
Using Human Sciences To Navigate Your Conference’s Future Through The Fog
Our linear and rational conference business models are our default thinking. Unfortunately, those traditional models cause us to navigate in a fog when the conference challenge is less straightforward. There are better ways to understand how to grow your conference than what you’ve done in the past. As conference professionals, we are inclined to continue to use models that have always worked enormously well for us. Yet our past has little relevance in the midst of an incredibly shifting … [Read more...]
An Anthropologist Walks Into A Conference
As your conference grows, it faces increased complexity. According to a recent IBM study of 1,600+ CEOs, the biggest challenge their companies face is the complexity gap. Eight out of ten of those CEOs expect their business environment to grow in complexity but less than half are prepared to face that change. Your conference’s growth faces similar complexity gaps. Forward-thinking conference professionals see gathering business intelligence about their target market as imperative. These … [Read more...]
