Your attendees rate the learning impact of “massing” as superior at your event. Massing in the education world is defined as receiving large blocks of information in condensed amounts of time. Attendees feel that the more information they can receive, the higher their performance. Unfortunately, the conference information tsunami is a mirage. It is a … [Read more…]
Do you remember the children’s activity connect the dots? This paper and pencil puzzle contained a sequence of numbered or lettered dots. Your task was to draw a line connecting dots in the right series so that the outline of an object was revealed. As we got older, the dot to dot activities became more … [Read more…]
Imagine going to a party where you meet a bunch of new people. Which faces will you remember? Which names will you recall? You’ll probably remember the woman who made you laugh. The man who accidentally spilled his drink on you. The man who made your face turn red from embarrassment. And the women who … [Read more…]
Is your conference experience one that hurts your participants’ brains or one that helps their brains learn? In other words, is your conference brain-adverse or brain-friendly? Does the experience align with how your attendees’ brains work? Or does it work against the brain’s natural systems, shutting it down from learning? Two Critical Conference Factors To … [Read more…]
Ever been stuck and feel like you can’t get out of your box? Maybe even backed into a corner? I have. And I suspect you have too. Routine Thinking Leads To Being Stuck I believe that often we do the same thing so much that we can’t see another way of proceeding. Our minds really … [Read more…]
I consider myself fairly creative. I am not more creative than you. I’ve just spent a lot of time practicing creativity. And I’ve surrounded myself with people who constantly encourage me that I can be creative. It helps that my parents, family and teachers always encouraged me that I was creative. Believing that inner voice … [Read more…]
Remember kindergarten when we used to play with finger paints, watercolors, crayons, chalk, colored pencils, markers and other fun things. We’d paint with great abandon not worried about what anyone would think about our pictures. And we’d have fun. Our teachers would hang everyone’s art on the bulletin board. They would ask us, “Tell us … [Read more…]
Where does creativity come from? No, it doesn’t come from the strike of lightning bolt or a handful of hallucinogenic drugs. Although the movie Gothic depicting English Romantic poets Mary Shelley and Lord Byron taking drugs on a rooftop in the midst of a thunderstorm might lead you to think so. Dramatic, yes! And far … [Read more…]
Attendees spend about 24 hours physically present in a three-day conference experience. (About eight hours a day, outside of sleep and night activities.) Students who attend school from kindergarten through high school typically spend more than 13,000 hours learning from teachers. 24 hours seem minimal as compared to 13,000 hours. Yet, most conference participants try … [Read more…]
Less is more. Too much, too fast, it won’t last. That’s a favorite adage used by some educators. The underlying concept is that you can present more and faster. But your listeners will simply forget more and faster! Overloading The Mind Organizations and conference planners are often pressured to offer more presentations and content. More, … [Read more…]
