Some conference planning teams get their attendees wrong! So why do we get it so wrong? It has everything to do with the rapid pace of change—the age of discontinuity as Drucker called it—and our default thinking. The heart of our current organizational challenges is that we rarely diverge from our default thinking. We assume that all of our conference attendee challenges can be solved by analyzing our past. We embrace quantifiable metrics which is particularly ill suited for analyzing … [Read more...]
Your Conference Audience Matters More Than You Think!
Having an audience at a conference is no longer a novel idea. It’s expected and a given. Unless you’re a speaker that didn’t resonate with this audience in a past meeting. Then you probably have a very small or limited audience if any. How you define your conference audience defines how you design your event. The audience matters. And the way you define your conference audience matters more than you think! Defining The Audience Most dictionaries define an audience as a group of … [Read more...]
Your Conference Needs A Customer Vision Statement
What is your vision for your conference customer? In case you are confused by the term conference customer, I mean your paying attendee or registrant. What is your vision for your conference customer, the paying attendee? How do you hope to help your paying attendee to grow, evolve or transform? What traits and characteristics do you desire to create in your customers through your conference experience? Those are some tough questions we need to consider. Many conference organizers have … [Read more...]
Designing Conference Customers, Not Just Traditional Conferences
We are thinking about conference innovation from the wrong perspective. We usually think about conference innovation as something we create for our paying attendees. Or we think about innovation as something we design with attendees through crowdsourcing. We need to make a critical leap. Conference innovation is a way to design attendees! Innovation should be treated as a medium and method for (re)desigining customer. ~ HBR author Michael Schrage. Evolving Your Conference … [Read more...]
The Six Types Of Audiences Your Conference Needs To Succeed
Your conference audience is your most important asset. Imagine your conference for a minute without an audience. Imagine exhibitors and sponsors showing up but no audience arrives. What happens? Your conference needs an audience to survive. And you need a loyal audience if your conference is to grow and evolve. Your conference audience is the bedrock upon which your conference is built. The Customer Has The Power Audiences are not owned. It is the individual that decides whether or not … [Read more...]
