Fostering Hot And Spicy Audiences November 18, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Imagine for a moment that you’re preparing for a presentation for an upcoming conference. Close your eyes and visualize that your audience appears to be actually sizzling in their seats with enthusiasm. They are on fire for your words. Creating Audience Combustible Motivation Now imagine you have that same experience every time you present. This … [Read more…] Filed Under: Speaker Coaching Tagged With: , conferences, presentation best practices, presentation strategies, presenter, professional speakers, speaker, Speaker Emerging Practices, speaker tips
Conference Organizers Top 15 Professional Speaker Pet Peeves November 17, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Recently, Velvet Chainsaw partnered with Tagoras, Inc., a leading continuing education company, to survey conference professionals about their use of speakers. One question asked respondents to share their biggest pet peeves regarding professional speakers. 15 Guaranteed Ways Speakers Destroy Their Marketing Strategy Here are their top 15 most disliked pet peeves about professional speakers. 1. … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education Tagged With: , conferences, presenter, professional speakers, speaker, Speaker Emerging Practices, speaker tips
How Twitter Is Socializing Conferences November 16, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Have you noticed an emerging trend of Twitter and Facebook integrating with TV? Smartphones and tablets are now on coffee tables beside the TV remote. Nielsen says that 40% of television watchers are multiscreening everyday. These couch potatoes have a TV remote in one hand and their mobile device in the other! Why? One-third of … [Read more…] Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , conferences, social conference, social media for events, social technology for events, twitter, Twitter for events
Bite-Sized Conference Sessions: Do They Work? November 8, 2011 by Dave Lutz Shorter education sessions are not the secret sauce for making boring or ineffective conferences appetizing. They may be more innovative and less predictable. They are even more entertaining. Unfortunately, rapid-fire five-to-18-minute presentations don’t improve learning. Unless you intentionally add time for context and meaning making. Shorter Conference Session Trends There is a growing trend for … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education, Experience Design Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference education, conferences, Ignite, meeting planning best practices, Pecha Kucha
Why Your Conference Rots: It Is Just Like School November 7, 2011 by Jeff Hurt What’s wrong with your conference? It’s just like school! Most conference education has adopted bad baggage from America’s education system. Every conference organizer was brainwashed for twelve or more years that our education system works. Every conference host is convinced that education only occurs with a subject matter expert at the front of the room … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference education, conference tips, conferences, meeting planning best practices
Increasing Conference Customers Through Social Media, Reach And Yield November 2, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Where do new conference customers come from? Do you know the cost of acquiring your next customer? Those are the magic questions many conference organizers want answered. Incorporating The FRY Method Author Olivier Blanchard talks about using the FRY method with social media to increase customers in his book Social Media ROI. The FRY Method … [Read more…] Filed Under: Attendance Marketing Tagged With: , attendee growth, conference best practices, conferences, market segmentation, meeting planning best practices, new consumer segmentations, registration
Using Social Media And The FRY Method To Increase Event Registrations November 1, 2011 by Jeff Hurt “It’s all just a numbers game. There’s not a secret to increasing event registration. You just sell more,” says your boss. “You want to increase your sales? Just talk to more people. Pick up the phone and call more potential attendees. Send out more emails. Create more direct mail marketing pieces. Get more eyeballs. That’s … [Read more…] Filed Under: Attendance Marketing Tagged With: , attendee growth, conference best practices, conferences, market segmentation, meeting planning best practices, new consumer segmentations, registration
Your Conference Content Is Cheap! October 31, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Our conferences need less information and more meaning! Information is cheap and easy to find. Meaning is difficult to acquire! Finding Answers Is Easy Google created a program to crawl the entire Internet, collect data and index all the answers. They got us to ask questions. Then they created a map that connected those questions … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education Tagged With: , conference best practices, conference education, conferences, content, content-strategist-curator, meeting planning best practices
Conferences Need Dynamic Planning That Relies On Insight October 27, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Your conference planning process needs a dynamic strategy that relies on insight, not call for proposals and scheduling of speakers. Most meeting professionals who devote their time to the development of detailed conference schedules are destined to eventual disappointment. Why? Because the focus is entirely on the structural framework for the meeting. Until the focus … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference best practices, conferences, meeting best practices, meeting planner, strategic planning
Why Audiences Detest Presenters That Abuse PowerPoint October 25, 2011 by Jeff Hurt Presentations are the business currency of today. PowerPoint is often the legal tender of those presentations. We trade and share PowerPoint presentations like baseball cards, stamps and money. Viewing a presentation without PowerPoint (Keynote or Prezi) is like listening to a TV show over the radio. We expect and want the visual to help keep … [Read more…] Filed Under: Speaker Coaching Tagged With: , conferences, presentation best practices, presentation strategies, speaker tips
