What happens when someone pushes you? How does your body and mind respond? You body gets tense. You try to resist. You become defensive. And sometimes, you react by pushing back. Resistance is common when being pushed. I submit it is actually a form of engagement. If someone only experiences being pushed, they soon feel like pushing back. Or they hold all of their emotions inside until they explode. Or they shut down to protect themselves. They may even respond by challenging the entire … [Read more...]
The One Technology Tool Most Associations And Conferences Need Today
Today's networked individuals have shaped the Internet into something especially hospitable to an emerging class of citizens - the participatory class. The Internet pioneers built into its structure, organization, model of governance and sustainability, the potential for creation, collaboration, sharing and interactive learning. One of the most important characteristics of this Web 2.0 World is its capacity to allow for a worldwide community as well as subsets to build likeminded tribes and … [Read more...]
How Participatory Cultures Are Changing Conferences, Events And Associations
Roughly two-thirds of adult Internet users have created content and media for the web. The number of adults who use the Internet to broadcast or narrowcast to several people or more has gone from less than a tenth of the population in the 1990s to more than half the entire population in the early part of 2010. (Networked Creators, Pew Internet & American Life Project) Nearly three quarters (73%) of online teens and an equal number (72%) of Millennials (18-29) use social networking sites to … [Read more...]
Eight Tips To Encourage Participation, Intimacy, Community In Your Conferences And Events
When was the last time you visited a museum? Nina Simon's Complicity, Intimacy, Community post about fostering personal relationships with visitors in small and large spaces brought back a flood of memories of some of my museum experiences. You should read it and then come back here. Go ahead, I'll be here when you finish. My Museum Experiences In My Twenties In my twenties, I had the pleasure of helping Dallas Natural History Museum plan and create some exhibits. I was a docent, trainer and … [Read more...]
Are We Ready For Annual Conferences In Perpetual Beta To Improve Attendee Experiences?
Change is the constant today. What would happen if conference organizers released information about their annual event and called it a perpetual beta version? What if a specific number of presentations were not identified and instead were labeled beta and the organizers asked attendees to help them co-create the sessions? What if some of the sessions were labeled with controversial topics with a caveat that the information was in beta? What if some of the beta sessions had pre-reading … [Read more...]
