What’s the role of the 21st Century meeting and conference professional? In the past, the answer was easy. Perform very straight forward, transactional, functional tasks related to the logistics of conferences, meetings and events. S/He fulfilled the same types of tasks on a daily basis. When asked to make improvements, s/he focused on efficiency and cost savings. Today however, many meeting professionals are being asked to balance new strategic roles while still managing their functional … [Read more...]
In Today’s Economy, Significance Precedes Momentum
So many people ask me, “If ______________ (fill in the blank) is so important for conferences, why aren’t more conferences implementing it?” “So you wait to make changes to your event once you see other conferences are already doing it?” I respond. “You wait to copy someone else instead of being the leader?” Frequently, conference planning teams wait until others have tried something before they’ll embrace it. They are risk-averse followers, gripping on to the status quo instead of … [Read more...]
Impotent Conferences Are Powerless To Influence Forward Movement
Imagine a radio station that played adult contemporary, classical, country, dance, electronic, golden oldies, heavy metal, news, pop, R&B, rock, southern gospel and talk alternating between each. What if this commercial radio station tried to appeal to everyone’s musical taste as well as news and talk radio? How successful would it be? It wouldn’t work, you say. We chuckle at that thought that this type of radio station would succeed. No one would even listen to this … [Read more...]
Faulty Governance Models Can Obliterate Your Conference
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 can crush a conference. Tollbooth … [Read more...]
Your Conference Renewal Begins With Wondering
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 are on a discovery adventure. Where Does Your Journey Start So how do you start this journey of conference transformation? … [Read more...]
Rebalancing Conference Vertigo By Starting With Design-Less Strategies
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 your target market tick is like building a house without a blueprint or foundation. It’s a shaky conference foundation. It’s like the parable of building your … [Read more...]
Constrained Collaboration Can Derail Conference Improvement
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 space.” Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman, sarcastically and succinctly said that the average 45 year old thinks collaboration is teams … [Read more...]
Pivoting Away From Past Procedures To New Conference Horizon Returns
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 and experiences faster and better. I suspect that your conference decision makers have very little solid knowledge … [Read more...]
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