Has your annual conference, meeting or event become predictable?
Predictable Meetings, Routine Conferences
When was the last time you attended a conference or meeting that was unforgettable and full of surprise?
Predictable: can be prophesied; can be foretold; to declare or indicate in advance; especially: foretell on the basis of observation, experience, or scientific reason.
Ok, we’ve all been there and can spout the schedule of the annual conference like our own phone number and address. We know it by heart. Heck, we even plan them. Right?
It starts with an Opening General Session (OGS), where everyone is seated, theatre style facing the front of the room. At the front of the room is a stage with a couple of screens for image magnification. Entertainment opens the session followed by customary welcomes and then a keynote presenter or two, maybe a panel. Or, the OGS may have two or three brief keynote presenters each following each other interspersed with sponsor commercials.
Following the OGS, there are breakouts or concurrent sessions. Most of those rooms are theatre seating as well and people passively listen to speakers or panels. Then there is a break followed by more breakouts. Next is lunch, seated in rounds of ten or twelve. After lunch comes more concurrent sessions.
This pattern is repeated for a couple of days with little variation except that there is a couple hours to visit the tradeshow each day and their might be a couple of evening receptions.
As conference attendees, we all know the drill. We know what is expected of us, where we are supposed to be and when to turn off our imagination or thinking. Our senses are rarely engaged with the exception of hearing and seeing. We file in each room like good attendees and sit in our chairs, partially engaged.
I remember as a teenager going to a summer camp in Saranac Lake, NY. It was an unforgettable experience, full of surprise and wow moments. The typical summer camp schedule was turned on its head from the moment I arrived on the bus, being faux hijacked by camp counselors, forced off the bus at the camp entrance and then marched around to see the camp’s facilities.
As we strutted like little kids giggling with glee through the grounds, we had no idea what lied ahead. Suddenly, two of my friends were no longer in line behind me. I turned around and saw them speed by me on the camp’s water chutes, in their full clothes. I then felt the tap on my shoulder and three guys grabbed me and pulled me into the woods. They asked if I could swim, if I was afraid of heights and if I was ready for the unexpected. Little did I know that I was going to be put into a harness to experience parasailing on the lake in front of my peers in the first 30 minutes on campgrounds.
There was nothing typical about my experience at that camp. Camp organizers might wake us up at 2 am in the morning for a surprise bonfire, marshmallow roast and impromptu fire walking experience. Or we had a lunch where we had to decide what order we wanted our food and utensils by deciphering and prioritizing a menu written in odd code. Nothing like trying to eat green beans without a plate or fork.
My entire experience at that camp is embedded in my mind and I can still see, feel and smell some of its events. Why do I vividly remember it and still giggle with glee as I recall the experience?
It was unpredictable. It was safe yet thrilling. It was unexpected. I was encouraged to relax, enjoy and go with the flow of the finely tuned well-orchestrated experience, with the focus on me the attendee.
Why aren’t annual conferences and meetings like that? Why have they become so predictable and status-quo? Is it because we have become adults and must be adult like. Is it because we fear change? I’ve tried a few things in my years of planning and organizing conferences, some with great success and some not.
What could we do to shake it up a little? How could we create an annual conference that was unpredictable, unexpected and had a huge WOW factor? How could we become less predictable?
What have you done?
One of the things that gets me most excited in life is being surprised–if I want to see a movie, I never read more than a paragraph of the review. There are so few surprises in life, why ruin it!
I completely agree that many conferences are lacking in the unexpected. How do you stimulate attendees? By offering surprises, whether they’re small (e.g. unexpected seating arrangements at the general session) or large (e.g. surprise performance by a huge star). Thinking back, I’m hard-pressed to think of a recent event or conference that truly surprised me–and that’s a bit disturbing!
However, a few months ago I spoke with Mark Bellinger, who runs the Breakthroughs Conference for hospital administrators. I think he’s done a very good job of stimulating new ideas (and building buzz around the conference) because of constantly trying to top himself. What he did in ’08 was find unheard of entertainment, a European performer who “bends” lasers, who got everyone’s attention at the front of the room, and then used lasers to direct attention to the back of the room, where a huge globe flashed key branding messages from the conference (full case study here–scroll down to bottom). I liked the use of special effects to highlight conference messaging, and I’m sure it was a surprise at 8 a.m. in the morning!
However, I think there’s a lot that can be done without huge, flashy pyrotechnics displays, that simply bring people together in unexpected ways to stimulate new ideas. I’d say 10% of the unknown at a conference is the new information you as the organizer are providing. The other 90% is the unknown inherent in the conversations and connections conferences enable–the question is, how do we find better ways of fostering those kinds of connections?
An event I’m attending next week, (for the LA tech, entertainment and media community) specifically markets the mystery of what you’ll get by attending: “Unlike traditional conferences, Twiistup mixes it up with tunes, video, beverages, swag and the unexpected.” I’ll keep you posted on whether they deliver.