This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. This is your brain during a lecture. (See image.) Our Addiction To Lectures We are addicted to lectures. Why? They are easy to plan and schedule for a conference. Release a call for presentation proposals. Select speakers from submitted proposals. Ask speakers to give monologues … [Read more…]
Most conference marketing should say: Come to our Zombie Conference! We want to consume your brain! At least that statement would be more authentic to many conference experiences. Many conference schedules are packed full of education sessions and informative presentations. Organizers rapidly shovel and push information at attendees. It often feels like a medieval joust … [Read more…]
Stories have important psychological advantages that help keep people engaged. Good conferences provide many opportunities to hear and share stories thus increasing engagement. Facts Coupled With Stories Connect Your conference can be full of factual information presented logically and sequentially. But facts alone fall short. They usually don’t persuade someone to change. Information is static. … [Read more…]
It’s time to decide which one your conference is: information dump or learning facilitator. Is there a difference between information and education? Education and learning? A quick review of the definitions for each within the context of meetings helps provide clarity. Information Information is concepts, data, facts and research. Communicating information is normally show-n-tell lectures … [Read more…]
It was a wasted ninety minutes of life. 5,400 seconds of possibility that are now gone forever without a shred of hope, learning or motivation. It had such potential. It died so quick and so young. No one understood a single thing that was said. The barrage of PowerPoint slides with small fonts, too many … [Read more…]
“Not a presentation, a participation,” says Scott Gould. The Typical Presentation Like Minds Conference founder Scott Gould raised an interesting question on his blog this week. He was talking to his compadre Robin Dickinson about an upcoming presentation he was delivering. The presentation was on participation. Robin challenged Scott to move from presenting information about participation … [Read more…]
Like moth to the flame, mosquitoes to blood or honey bees to pollen, the mall crowd surrounded the young man. Piranhas Devouring Their Prey They looked like a frenzied group of piranhas, devouring their prey. They were driven by the opportunity for a taste on a toothpick. The chance to sample food. To digest and … [Read more…]
Most conference education sessions are broken. Creating The Walking Dead Attendee They are full of the requisite PowerPoint bullet presentations that promote status quo thinking. They lull attendees into a coma-like state of disinterest and boredom so that they become the walking dead. Admit it. You’ve been trapped in those dead presentations before. Even remembering … [Read more…]
If you haven’t made the shift from ‘serving attendees’ to ‘involving participants,’ consider this your wake-up call — and your roadmap. The Participatory Class Sociologists identify today’s networked individuals as the participatory class. As part of a participatory culture, we expect to create, collaborate, connect, share, and learn interactively. We feel that our contributions matter. … [Read more…]
I love these ten TED speaker commandments. If you’ve not seen them before, make them part of your conference speaker packet! The TED Speaker Commandments Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick. Thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared … [Read more…]
