Your conference is spreading the cult of myths, traditions and rituals. How so? What do you mean? You ask. Providing conference education is not as intuitive as it seems! Science shows that there is a right way and a wrong way to design, deliver and implement conference education. Unfortunately, most conferences ignore the science. Instead, they sell and promote their unscientific approaches to education. Source: The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in … [Read more...]
Successful Conferences Link Learning To Business Performance
A new study finds that successful businesses focus on linking learning to business performance. And the most successful conferences link their learning opportunities to their target market’s strategic business interest. Ultimately, these conference organizers understand that what happens back in the attendees’ office after the event is much more important that what happens at the conference. Key To Capacity Building: Linking Learning To Performance 50% of the executives surveyed rate … [Read more...]
7 Fundamental Ways To Drastically Improve Conference Breakouts
Concurrent sessions, often known as breakouts, are the meat and potatoes of conferences. They are also one of the most difficult areas for your continuous improvement efforts. In many associations, volunteers vet submissions, decide topics and select speakers for their annual meeting’s concurrent sessions. While well intentioned, volunteer committees rarely are equipped with a big-picture view of 21st-century adult-learning trends. Seven Improvement Trends For Breakouts This past summer, … [Read more...]
Creating A Conference Culture Of Learning: Reflections From Marcia Conner
Check out this abbreviated video from author and learning maven Marcia Conner on conference learning from PCMA's Learning Lounge, Really Live Chat Rooms at Convening Leaders, January 9-11, 2012 in San Diego. Here's a rundown of her video if you want to fast forward to a specific area. 00:10 - A Philosophy Of Learning 01:03 - Creating More Space For Learning At Conferences 02:55 - Creating Cultures Of Learning 04:25 - Creating A Conference Culture Of Learning Marcia is the author of three … [Read more...]
The Conference Session Is Dead
The conference session is not the appropriate shell for most learning experiences. The sixty- or ninety-minute presentation was created for the convenience of the institution, not the learner. The conference session is a triumph of standardization and it is so ingrained in our thinking we still buy and sell seat time rather than performance improvement. It's the industrial revolution model, which puts a higher value of efficiency than on effectiveness. It clearly was not designed for the brain … [Read more...]
