I've attended more than my share of conferences this year both as speaker and as attendee. Here are seven conference things that annoy the heck out of me! 1. Branded PowerPoint Templates For Speakers Really, I mean really! We know the name of your conference. We know what your brand looks like. Do you want to bore us even further with your branded PowerPoint templates in every presentation? Your branded PPT is useless. It does not serve any objective except to make the audience throw-up in … [Read more...]
Leveraging Six Right-Brain Aptitudes For Successful Conferences
"The future belongs to a different kind of person," Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind. It belongs to "...creative and empathetic right-brain thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't." Pink claims we are living in a different age. A different time that demands different thinking. According to Pink, right-brain creative thinking coupled with left-brain logistical reasoning is the great differentiator that separates the wheat from the chaff. From The … [Read more...]
Five New Tenets For Event Success
Nothing is the way it used to be. Little is the same. Not much is a sure thing. The convergence of the economy, society and technology has turned the old ways of doing things upside down. The old rules for success have changed. Your ability to learn new things and adapt mean the difference between success and failure. Today, a new set of principles drive your event success. You won't find these new tenets in the professional meeting handbook. Yet you need to know these new guidelines to … [Read more...]
Seven Significant Trends Impacting Face-To-Face Meetings
Step into any public venue today and you'll see a variety of technology tools in use. Yet most of our face to face meetings still do not reflect the realities of our time. The Horizon Report 2010 examines key trends that will impact a variety of global sectors in the coming five years. These key trends have significant application for conferences, events and face-to-face meetings. Seven Significant Key Trends 1. The way we think of learning environments is changing. In face-to-face … [Read more...]
In A Sea Of Sameness Is Your Conference Wearing Camo?
Did you happen to see the following string of tweets started by social media community manager Amber Naslund? Pointless Bland Conferences I don't know which conference Naslund was talking about. It obviously struck a chord with several people. Unfortunately, this is not new to many conference participants. Educator Harold Jarche talked about The Conference Rut and how so many feel the same. Marketer Oliver Blanchard (The Brand Builder) has talked about Good Versus Pointless … [Read more...]
Combating Conference Information Indigestion And Filter Failure
Information Indigestion. You can find it in the new book of conference diseases. Information indigestion is a symptom of the conference organizer's inability to filter unnecessary topics from the conference agenda. It is a real dis-ease to conference participants. And the culprit is the conference content organizer. One of the biggest challenges facing meeting professionals and conference organizers is how to get the right topics from the right presenters to the right audience at the right … [Read more...]
I Can’t Get No [Conference] Satisfaction
I can't get no conference satisfaction, I can't get no conference satisfaction, 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try. I can't get no, I can't get no. When I'm sittin' in your session and a man comes on the stage he's tellin' me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination. I can't get no, oh no no no. Hey hey hey, that's what I say. I can't get no conference satisfaction, I can't get no conference satisfaction, 'Cause I pay and I pay and I pay and I pay. I … [Read more...]
Six Steps To Develop A LTR Plan With Your Conference Participants
As you shift from a focus of a short-term, one-night stand conference experience to a long term relationship (LTR) with potential and registered attendees, you need to plan things differently. A LTR view means you look at each year and think about how you can begin to develop, build and maintain a community experience all year long with conference participants. Not just at the annual meeting. So how do you create a LTR strategy with your conference participants? Six Steps To Develop A LTR … [Read more...]
