Having an emcee at your event was a nice-to-have prior to 2020. Now it’s a must-have. Talk to any meeting owner who has managed a large virtual event this past year using a skilled emcee and he or she will tell you it made all the difference. An emcee ensures that an event flows seamlessly with all of its threads – content, speakers, audience and suppliers – woven together into a cohesive narrative. That’s why we like to refer to this role as a Content Weaver. The event’s flow and energy … [Read more...]
The Future Conference Is About Increasing Attendees’ ROI
The future conference is not about the environment, the furniture, the venue, the audio visual or the technology. The future conference is about increasing the paying attendee’s ROI. The future conference is about helping the attendee transfer and apply their conference learning to their job. Actually, the fundamental job of future conferences is threefold: To facilitate and guide the social process of attendee’s learning, To help paying attendees remember their new learning and To … [Read more...]
How To Be A Bodacious, Wicked, Totally Tubular Technical Presenter
Highly specialized technical complex topics are often associated with boring, butt-numbing, brain-draining, hum-drum, buzzkill presentations. So how do you tackle complicated technical content head on and still deliver an engaging, memorable and bodacious presentation? How do you move your audience from saying, “I thought that presentation would never end,” to “Booyah! That was totally awesomesauce!” Our Need For Technical Presentations Trade organizations depend upon accuracy, … [Read more...]
Three Conference Speaker Ahas You Need to Know
How does your conference speaker selection process compare to other organizations? What’s working and what isn’t when it comes to selecting and securing industry and professional speakers? The Use Of Professional And Industry Speakers The past summer, Velvet Chainsaw partnered with Tagoras, a leading market research and consulting company for learning, to survey conference professionals about their use of speakers for our second speaker report. This research was initially conducted in … [Read more...]
Conference Speaker Benchmarking Report – Last Chance
Are you responsible for designing the education program for a conference that attracts 500 or more attendees? Does your organization contract professional speakers? Do you manage a call for papers or abstracts? If you answered YES to two or more of the questions above, we encourage you to take 10 minutes and contribute to the Speaker Report Survey. The survey is live through the end of the day on Friday July 12. The responses will be compiled, analyzed and made available to the industry … [Read more...]
Your Conference Speakers’ Skills Gap Is Causing You To Lose Money
The majority of your conference speakers have a major skills gap! They are relying on pedagogical mimicry--presenting the same way that their teachers taught them. That causes you and your conference to rely solely on a foundation of mimicry for education success. And this foundation is the exact the opposite of what your speakers should be doing if the goal is learning! Your dependence on this approach is ultimately causing you to lose money as it does not meet your attendees' needs and it … [Read more...]
Speakers Required To Promote Your Conference In Social Media Must Follow FTC Endorsement Guidelines
We've come a long way, baby! ~ Loretta Lynn The times they are a-changing. ~ Bob Dylan The catch-phrases are abundant that our world and work continues to evolve. The Ever-Evolving Conference Speaker Contract Nowhere is this evolution more evident than some conference speaker contracts. I have personally seen a change in some conference speaker agreements that I sign. I am often now required to do more than just show up and present. I'm being asked to blog on the event, create … [Read more...]
Our Ability To Learn Has Deep Roots In Our Ability To Talk To Others
Listening is often the only thing attendees do in formal learning environments. Speakers talk. Audiences listen. They listen to keynote speakers at conferences. They listen to presenters in workshops. They listen to industry speakers in education sessions. They listen to staff in HR trainings. The truth is that all that listening amounts to very little learning or change in attitudes, behaviors and skills. Talking Is More Important Than Listening Listening should actually be the smallest part … [Read more...]
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