A strategic look at your marketing spend, as well as what you spend on your attendee experience, can be telling. According to Convene’s most recent Meetings Market Survey, on average 6 percent of a meeting’s direct expenses fall in the marketing/promotion category. After studying 100 or so meetings’ profit and loss (P&L) statements in great detail, I can confirm that this expense line item varies greatly. Some organizations spend as little as 2 percent and have a very healthy conference … [Read more...]
Even More Buckaroo Breakaway Cadillac Conference Programming Trends – Part 2
Expect the unexpected…just as Buckaroo Banzai did in the 1980s movie of the same name. Buckaroo and his merry band of cavaliers were ready to save the world from whatever came their way. They would embrace the context of each dimension much like you need to embrace these current conference programming trends. While these trends won’t help you overthrow a menacing alien dictator, they will help your participants stay in step with the every changing world around them. Take a look at them. … [Read more...]
Buckaroo Breakaway Cadillac Conference Programming Trends Looming Your Way In 2017 – Part 1
It’s the adventures of your next conference experience across the eighth dimension. Oh, wait. That’s the intro to Buckaroo Banzai about the adventures of the science fiction rock musician and his band of cavaliers. Well, similar to Buckaroo’s adventures, you have the opportunity to take your band of conference participants into the 21st Century conference dimension. These conference programming trends are headed your way. Pick a couple, study them and embrace their underpinnings to provide … [Read more...]
Cultivating A Conference Culture Of Community
To think about a conference is to think about community, networking, peer learning, food and table. In reality, if you are attending a conference and you are not getting hungry for more learning and peer sharing, that conference is missing the mark. Successful conferences provide ample opportunity for attendees to finger tasty ideas and feed their brains, their souls and each other. Your conference needs to introduce a whole new set of table manners. We need to encourage attendees to … [Read more...]
Using The Power Of Stories To Transform Conference General Sessions
We are a story driven world. We are each a story wrapped in a skin says Dr. Leonard Sweet. When we begin to share our journeys, our stories intersect. Our conferences need to create more story people. We need to transition from speakers talking at audiences and experts telling their stories. We need to move from storytelling to story sharing each passing our stories and narraphors to each other like we pass food around the table. Framing General Sessions With Important Stories Here is … [Read more...]
Morphing Attendees into Story People Through Narraphors and Frames
We are wired for stories. Every person you meet is a story wrapped in a skin says author, futurist and sociologist Dr. Leonard Sweet. As our lives intersect, so do our stories. We can encourage conference attendees to transition from story listeners to story sharers. Then our attendees become story people participating in a bigger story. The conference with the best narrative and story sharing experiences wins. Story Driven World Our brains are hard wired for stories. When we listen … [Read more...]
Impotent Conferences Are Powerless To Influence Forward Movement
Imagine a radio station that played adult contemporary, classical, country, dance, electronic, golden oldies, heavy metal, news, pop, R&B, rock, southern gospel and talk alternating between each. What if this commercial radio station tried to appeal to everyone’s musical taste as well as news and talk radio? How successful would it be? It wouldn’t work, you say. We chuckle at that thought that this type of radio station would succeed. No one would even listen to this … [Read more...]
Misguided And Misinformed Conference Barometers
Many of us who plan conferences have become so busy at the logistics of the event that we lose sight of the goal. When planning an event, we immediately go into automatic overdrive. We do the same things we’ve always done because it’s efficient and familiar to us. The over arching goals of the conference—providing networking, education, business leads and making a profit for the host organization—become eclipsed by the expectations of the organizing team. Rarely do we take the time to step … [Read more...]
