Even More Buckaroo Breakaway Cadillac Conference Programming Trends – Part 2 January 19, 2017 by Jeff Hurt Expect the unexpected…just as Buckaroo Banzai did in the 1980s movie of the same name. Buckaroo and his merry band of cavaliers were ready to save the world from whatever came their way. They would embrace the context of each dimension much like you need to embrace these current conference programming trends. While these trends … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Experience Design Tagged With: , attendee experience, collaboration, conference organizer, disruption, future-focused conference programming, leadership, meeting planner, strategic thinking, systems thinking, trends
Buckaroo Breakaway Cadillac Conference Programming Trends Looming Your Way In 2017 – Part 1 January 18, 2017 by Jeff Hurt It’s the adventures of your next conference experience across the eighth dimension. Oh, wait. That’s the intro to Buckaroo Banzai about the adventures of the science fiction rock musician and his band of cavaliers. Well, similar to Buckaroo’s adventures, you have the opportunity to take your band of conference participants into the 21st Century conference … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Experience Design Tagged With: , attendee experience, choice architects, conference organizer, conversational intelligence, curators, future-focused conference programming, learning design, meeting planner, trends, We-Centric
Faulty Governance Models Can Obliterate Your Conference June 9, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Does your organization have a permission-withholding culture or a permission-granting culture? One of those cultures is empowering, healthy and life-giving. The other is stifling, frustrating, dysfunctional and can annihilate your conference success. Unfortunately, I’ve found that more organizations have permission-withholding cultures. They foster three characteristics: bureaucracy, control and mistrust. These three dysfunctions disempower leaders and … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , association best practices, association governance, conference best practices, conference governance model, governance model, meeting planner, meeting professional, nonprofit governance
Your Conference Renewal Begins With Wondering April 22, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Where does true conference improvement begin? The conference revitalization process is probably very different than many of your past experiences. It’s so different that we have to view it through new lenses. By taking charge of your own understanding of conference improvement and transformation, you begin a new journey. You are exploring uncharted territory. You … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference improvement, conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, culture of learning, inquiry, meeting planner, meeting professional, reflection, strategy, transformation, wonderings
Rebalancing Conference Vertigo By Starting With Design-Less Strategies April 17, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Leaping to action without a solid comprehension of your conference target market and their needs causes all sorts of mayhem. Some conference organizers and their planning team members don’t even realize they are in the eye of a storm. That mayhem is their blind spot. Planning a conference without a deep understanding of what makes … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design Tagged With: , conference design empathy, conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, constrained collaboration, culture of learning, customer empathy, empathy, learning organization, meeting planner, meeting professional, strategic empathy, strategy
Constrained Collaboration Can Derail Conference Improvement April 16, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Collaboration – it’s one of the buzzwords of business today. Collaboration is when people work together to achieve a goal. Multiple individuals from different departments work together to accomplish a task or project. Evan Rosen in his book The Culture of Collaboration says “[Collaboration is] working together to create value while sharing virtual and physical … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, constrained collaboration, culture of learning, learning organization, meeting planner, meeting professional, strategy
Pivoting Away From Past Procedures To New Conference Horizon Returns April 15, 2015 by Jeff Hurt Your current conference planning and improvement procedures have its roots in industrial revolution models. We are still designing our conference in the exact same way that companies designed their manufacturing production process, to paraphrase Dave Gray author of The Connected Company. We are trying to imitate the industrial age to make our conference networking, programming … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, culture of learning, learning organization, meeting planner, meeting professional, strategy
Helping Smart Planning Teams Learn So That Their Conferences Prosper April 7, 2015 by Jeff Hurt As conference organizers aspire to succeed in tougher and progressively more complex environments, they’ve got to resolve one basic and major quandary: Success today depends upon learning. We can’t continue to do what we’ve always done and expect different results. We’ve got to learn new ways “to conference,” so to speak. Success today depends upon … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , conference organizer, conference planning, conference planning team, culture of learning, learning organization, meeting planner, meeting professional, strategy
Letting Go Of Past Conference Planning Experience To Foster New Ideas December 1, 2014 by Jeff Hurt I have a fairly inquisitive mind. I like to ponder things and ask tough questions. Wondering who, what, why, why not, how and when. I’m always chewing the cud so to speak. Thinking about how to improve things. Make them better. Thinking About Questions And Experiences I think a lot about how to improve a … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , association, conference best practices, conferences, curiosity, leadership, meeting planner
Too Many Conferences Provide Plop, Placate And Pay November 19, 2014 by Jeff Hurt Have conferences become too enthralled with experts and attendees swapping solutions? Have conference organizers resigned themselves to the inertia of the way we’ve always done it? Is the traditional conference experience in danger of being institutionalized which devalues individual expression? Are we addicted to providing passive plop, placate and pay* experiences? Are conference organizers sitting … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning Tagged With: , attendee engagement, conference exper, conferences, curiosity, engagement, meeting planner, presentation best practices, presentation strategies, traditional conferences
