Just how sticky is your conference?

Sticky conferences create experiences that last beyond the two to three days of the conference. They focus on creating real relationships with strong connections. It’s about more than speed networking where people just exchange business cards or speed sessions to see how much info people can cram into their brains.

Sticky conferences focus on interactivity of participants. The more interactive participants are; the more engaged they are. The more engaged they are; the more committed they are. The more committed they are; the more empowered they are.

George Mason University Professor Todd Kashdan, author of Curious, shares more about the importance of curiosity, the unexpected and active interactive experiences to create a sticky conference.

Here’s a rundown of his video if you want to fast forward to a specific area.
00:16 – Fostering Connections At Conferences
01:40 – Plan Interactive Experiences Not Passive
03:11 – Creating Disruptions To Keep Attention
04:20 – Creating A Better Signal To Noise Ratio (Too much info at conferences. How do we get good info that is useful?)
05:08 – For More Information On Curiosity & Sticky Conferences

Video edited from PCMA’s Convening Leaders 2012 Learning Lounge Live Chat Room video clip.

What are some specific things you can do to create more sticky conference experiences? How can conference organizers foster an attitude of curiosity from attendees?

Have you ever seen a movie that starts with a fast action scene?

Immediately, you are pulled into the middle of things.

Screenwriters call this media res or in the middle of a plot. They know that they can pull their viewers into the story by placing the action at the beginning. This same principle can be applied to your conference and its space.

Attendees Enter On Action

Conference registration areas that are easy to navigate are critical for registrants to feel safe and welcome in a space. Equally important is having them get excited by the buzz and vibe of community as soon as they enter the scene.

So often our welcome and registration areas are uncomfortably quiet and furniture is removed to accommodate large groups of people. Unfortunately, this sends an unconscious and emotional message that the conference is not well attended, lacks energy and that people are kept away from each other, not invited to connect.

Your welcome area needs activity, energy and music rather than a large massive empty space. That helps your registrants understand the culture of your conference. Then they know that they are to be participants and not just mere passive consumers of the experience.

How do you do that? By providing areas for people to lounge, connect and network with each other. By offering some high-energy participatory, hands-on activities. Think about a carnival midway. As soon as you enter the fair, there is an immediate invitation to dive in and participate.

You don’t want to overdo it. Too much activity or crowds of long lines can also be a deterrent.

Transitions are important as well. Let your customers feel the energy of the space immediately and also allow them to enter it on their own terms. Consider offering a visible threshold between themselves and the action through a different type of floor treatment, a clear glass or plastic wall or even a partial partition.

Provide Room To Think

On the flip side, you also want to create some places within your conference that foster and nurture reflection, thinking and relaxation.

Current brain research shows that insights, ideas and epiphanies occur when the brain is most relaxed. It happens in strange places and unusual environments.

You’ll want to create some non-work environments that encourage relaxation amid the high-energy and fast pace of your conference. Choose a metaphor for your relaxation spaces that align with your theme like spa, yoga studio, Zen garden or forest park bench. Identify the properties that make the space relaxing such as natural or soft light from incandescent lamps, comfortable seating and soft music.

These spaces offer a crucial respite from an open collaborative environment. The more extroverted some of your conference sessions or activities, the more you need these spots of passive, comfortable yin amid the paths of high-energy, brightly lit yang. Keep them low-tech with no electrical outlets.

The Point And Counterpoint For Conference Space And Culture

When designing these spaces, you want to provide strong points and counterpoints. Learning lounges are great because they amplify engagement and participation. Their counterpoints are spaces that invite introversion, reflection and introspection.

Large open spaces should always have smaller, closable spaces available nearby to provide small intimate conversations and an escape from the crowd. You need both in your conference experience.

Identifying the point and counterpoint in both types of spaces provide exciting opportunities to amplify details that scream one thing or another. Consistency of intent creates stickiness. Variation in execution creates conference attendee delight.

When you provide spaces and activities for both action and reflection you’ve created a holistically supported environment. You’re intentionally fostering community and relationships. Then you’ve truly created a conference experience that allows your participants to experience a range of emotions, connect with each other and customize their experience.

What types of high-energy things have you experienced in a conference registration area? What are some examples of reflection areas that you’ve seen at conferences?

Networking: there’s more to it than business professionals speed handshaking while exchanging business cards.

It’s an opportunity to connect and link with others as you share information, services and ideas with each other.

Attendee Networking Expectations Increase

There is no doubt about it. Conference attendee networking expectations are on the rise!

Your conference is often your stakeholders’ best opportunity to connect in person with thought leaders and colleagues.

While we intuitively know this, networking at most conferences continues to be a random, luck-of-the-draw encounter.

There’s a better way.

Facilitating Planned Networking Serendipity

By definition, serendipity is a happy accident or surprising discovery that comes when we least expect it.

Planned serendipity, on the other hand, is an effort to increase the likelihood and frequency of these discoveries. And it’s happening all around us.

Retail stores collect volumes of your product-purchase data. Suddenly, you’re getting discount offers that mirror the products and services you purchase most.

Have you noticed any changes in your Google-search results? Data from social-media profiles now factor into search results.

When planned serendipity is executed well, customers notice and appreciate far better experiences. When planned serendipity efforts are more obvious or cross privacy lines, customers feel manipulated, even deceived, and relationships deteriorate.

For years, your customers (attendees) have been sharing valuable data with you that can help create the kind of planned-serendipity moments they will prize at your conferences. Have you been paying attention?

Using Data To Foster Planned Serendipity

If you’ve been capturing and analyzing attendee data, you already know what drives people to register for your conference, which sessions they enjoy most, what products and services interest them, and what critical issues are top of mind at any given point. This is precisely the information you need to help identify others they should meet at your conference.

Here are three ways to make those connections more likely:

1. House conference guests on the same floors.

When like-minded attendees are in closer proximity, the chances for them to meet and engage in meaningful conversations increase. Because they’re enrolled in the same learning track, they’ll recognize each other when waiting for the elevator. In social psychology circles, there’s a phenomenon known as the “mere-exposure effect” — people develop preferences for things (or people) simply because they are more familiar with them. The more a person is seen by someone, the more likeable that person becomes.

2. Create small-group seating clusters to spark impromptu conversations.

In meeting rooms, create pod-seating clusters where four to six people can easily gather and chat. Create similar cluster-seating arrangements at restaurants, in lobbies and surrounding all networking receptions. You’ll be amazed at how connections and conversations accelerate.

3. Train staff and volunteers to be connectors.

As participants arrive at sessions and receptions, staff and volunteers need to be on their toes, circulating and engaging in conversations. Show staff and volunteers how to ask participants the kinds of questions (e.g., What session did you enjoy most today?) that can guide them in making valuable introductions to others. This is particularly important for new and introverted members who may not know many people and who would appreciate the extra-mile effort from your team. Create an army of connectors and networking conversations multiply.

Want more information? Download a sample chapter of the new book Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business.

What are some sample questions your army of connectors can ask attendees to connect them with others? What are some other ways you can create planned serendipity at your conference?

Adapted from Dave’s Forward Thinking column in PCMA’s Convene. Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. ©2012.

Joe Pulizzi shares how he uses content marketing to grow attendance at the Content Marketing World Conference.

Here’s a rundown of his video if you want to fast forward to a specific area.

00:10 – Who Is Joe Pulizzi & What Is The Content Marketing World Conference
01:00 – What Is Content Marketing?
02:07 – How To Use Content Marketing To Grow Conference Attendance
03:39 – Tips For Creating Content For Your Conference Marketing
06:59 – For More Information On Content Marketing

Video edited from PCMA’s Convening Leaders 2012 Learning Lounge Live Chat Room video clip.

How does your organization use content marketing to grow conference attendance? What’s the most challenging part of content marketing for your conferences?

I’m feelin’ good from my head to my shoes
Know where I’m goin’ and I know what to do
I tidied up my point of view
I got a new attitude!

Patti LaBelle, New Attitude

As a conference organizer, when was the last time that you had a new attitude about your participants’ conference experience?

Or are you, “Running hot, running cold…running into overload” as you plan your next event.

Shaping Attitudes

Our attitudes steer our decisions. They build momentum in everything we do. Or they can become the barriers that keep us from achieving our best.

A conference experience is at its peak when it encourages participants to behave and act in certain ways that lead to progress. It is inspirational when it promotes and advances specific positive attitudes.

Fostering new participant attitudes is one of the trickiest parts of designing conference experiences. Attitudes are hard to predict. They are even harder to force. And harder still to measure.

Yet a conference experience that shapes and fosters new participant attitudes is worth seeking.

As a conference organizer, it first must start with you changing your attitude. Once you’ve decided to take this new journey, the next step is to define your conference participants’ attitudes. They will become the foundation for your conference culture.

Five Conference Participant Attitudes To Foster

Here are five mindsets or attitudes that strike a balance between being comprehensive and actionable for your conference participants. They are adapted from the d.school‘s cultural mindsets.

Consider them. Alter them. Make them your own. By all means, leave room for them to evolve as you learn along with your participants.

1. Collaborate Across Boundaries

When individuals from different disciplines and varied backgrounds collaborate together the results can be astounding. Often it’s the difference between innovative and conventional solutions. Innovation can frequently be found in the cracks between domain definitions. Bringing people together with wildly different backgrounds increases the likelihood of stumbling on these useful intersections.

2. Show, Don’t Tell

A “show, don’t tell” attitude means creating compelling experiences that enable participants to comprehend the context of the situation. Instead of discussing the idea, demonstrate it and let participants experience it. Creating that experience will reveal details that may not be obvious in the traditional lecture or discussion.

3. Have A Bias Toward Action

Have participants do something first. Then talk and think about it. Don’t let intent and outcome get in the way of exploring the unknown. People will always find a reason not to do something. Biasing toward action depends on being willing to try something to precisely determine what works and what doesn’t.

Action does not overshadow thinking. Participants still have to pay attention and observe. Reflection on what they did is the key to a deeper understanding of the situation.

4. Focus On Human Values

Let your conference participants inspire your work. Design conference experiences that engage others. This means you’ll have to step out of your comfort zone and challenge your own beliefs about how people interact and respond. Close your mouth, listen and observe. Take planning cues from users rather than deferring to last year’s schedule.

5. Invite Failure As Part Of Learning

This means don’t play it safe all the time. Leading directly and knowingly into failure is a counterintuitive attitude that needs to be fostered.

Within the context of business, budgets and timelines, failure often translates into danger. However, in the right experiences, you can achieve a balance between knowing you are going to fail and the fact that the anticipated failure will make the next step more productive. Failure within context can lead to better results. It is part of the learning process.

What new conference participant attitudes would you add to this list? How would you adapt one or more of these attitudes into your next conference planning process?

Do you design your conference meeting space with participants’ behaviors and actions in mind?

Or do you design meeting space based on what is the most efficient and not necessarily the most effective?

Regardless, you have the unique ability to motivate and stimulate your participants’ specific behaviors during your event.

Orienting The Room For Specific Purposes

Orientation is the relative positioning of people and things.

It is the principal vehicle directing human attention. It is also the primary medium used to fine tune human connections with an experience.

Orientation is also the easiest characteristic to manipulate to transform behavior and mood. Often it only requires adjusting the direction in which people are standing or sitting. The arrangement of the furniture reflects the desired engagement between the audience and presenter.

If you want participants to be passive with full attention on one person, you’ll orient the room in a singular fashion, with all the chairs facing a stage and podium.

If you want participants to be active with attention on each other, you’ll orient the room with a multifaceted fashion where everyone is treated equally. No one person is the focus.

Defining Actions

Actions are behaviors and tasks that participants are to use within a space. They are the steps of doing at any given moment.

Identifying the various activities that you want participants to engage in can help you design the space for that purpose.

Six Actions For Conference Participants

In the book Make Space, authors Scott Doorley and Scott Withoft identify six actions that the d.school : The Institute Of Design at Stanford uses to engage others in the creative process. I’ve modified these six actions to apply to conferences and events.

These six basic actions are descriptions of what a conference participant might do during a snapshot of time.

1. Focus

Focus is narrowing attention on a single topic for a sustained period of time. This requires ignoring other activities or topics. It’s working toward an insight or implementing an idea.

The traditional lecture-based theater room set encourages focus on presenters and their ideas. Shifting from receiving information to evaluating ideas would require a different room set.

2. Flare

Generating tons of new concepts and options. Flaring requires ignoring constraints and suspending disbelief in favor of creating something new. Brainstorming and ideating are common ways to flare.

Room layouts need to provide flexible, moveable seating in small groups. The focus should be on engagement with each other through discussion.

3. Realize

Turning an idea or concept into something tangible. This action requires participants to move beyond discussion to actually creating something.

Room layouts need to provide both small group interactions as will as individual, independent stations. The focus is on participants creating action plans and actually designing programs, services and products.

4. Reflect

Reflection is reconsideration of what just happened. It’s to learn, illuminate, capture and evaluate past experiences in light of the new information. It’s about connecting the new information to what is yet to come. It signals a next step, not necessarily an endpoint.

Room sets should provide opportunities for participants to share, discuss and assess past experiences as well as how to connect new information.

5. Saturate

Saturate is the unpacking of information, data and facts. It’s the sharing of information and ideas with each other. Contained within saturation is the revealing and displaying of information through allegories, graphics, illustrations, metaphors, photos and stories.

Traditional theater room sets allow for saturation of information but not necessarily the sharing of ideas with each other.

6. Synthesize

Synthesizing is clarifying complex and layered issues. It often takes combining available information with other ideas and merging unassociated thoughts from different disciplines. Sometimes it involves rearranging elements to generate new ways of looking at a challenge.

Room sets should encourage collaboration and small group processes.

Which of these actions are most appealing to you for your next conference and why? What barriers keep you from creating more room sets that encourage active participant engagement?

What do vacations and colonoscopies have in common?

More than you think!

Emmy-winning former Wall Street Journal and NBC journalist, author, inventor and business consultant Kare Anderson shares her thoughts on creating a stronger conference story. She discusses the importance of creating conversation threads and a participatory purposeful narrative that invites others to join in discussions.

Here’s a rundown of her video if you want to fast forward to a specific area.

00:30 – Creating A Conference Story
02:49 – The Difference Between Storyboarding And Storytelling
03:46 – Threading And Theming A Conference
04:25 – Creating A Conference Culture Of Learning
05:17 – For More Information On Storyboarding

Anderson’s just released book Moving From Me To We: Succeed And Savor Life With Others is available for your Kindle. It contains more than 300 ways to become more likable, respected and frequently quoted.

Video edited from PCMA’s Convening Leaders 2012 Learning Lounge Live Chat Room video clip.

How important is a conference theme or thread to your planning process? What are some important tips you’ve learned about creating a conference story or theme?

Does your conference education have coming attraction previews?

No, not those stale electronic and printed marketing pieces with descriptions, bios and pictures.

Does your organization provide smart, savvy, provocative short video clips of upcoming education designed to attract buyers?

The Movie Trailer Promotion

When you go to the movies, the first 10-15 minutes before the movie starts is spent on preview trailers of upcoming movies.

Movie trailers serve as short advertisements, commercials and previews for a feature film typically shown at that theater. Historically, those trailers were shown at the end of a movie but patrons were leaving the theater immediately following the film. Trailers were moved to the beginning of the movie and can now even be found on DVDs, Blue Ray and pay per view movies.

Those three-minute trailers are usually high-energy, cleverly edited videos designed to attract us to attend the full length version. Many production companies spend millions on crafting those previews. They even go as far as securing different directors to give it the best spin possible.

Most of us make a quick future purchasing decision based on those three minutes. We look at the emotional tug of the movie, the action, the humor, the context, suspense, setting, the plot, actors and more. There’s a lot riding on those three short minutes.

When an upcoming new movie does not have a coming attraction preview, we question if it’s worth our time and money. We want to see the sneak peek.

Ultimately, we want and need to see coming attractions in order to close the deal. And film producers want and need us to see those previews.

Creating Excited Anticipation With Conference Education Previews

Rarely do we provide learning previews of upcoming attractions notes education researcher Elliott Masie.

Your potential conference registrants seldom, if ever, view an education preview of what they will receive from your conference. What if they could hear the presenter before they made the decision to register? What if they could get a quick context of the content and how it applies to their profession? What if they could see a rapid sequence of the content and the relevant connections?

If they could see an education preview of the conference presentations, it might encourage, or even discourage, them from attending.

In today’s rapidly changing world, potential registrants have a lot of education choices. They can attend live and asynchronous learning opportunities. So how can we help them make the best choice?

Viewing a preview of the conference education could give them an understanding of the experience. They might be able to judge the education’s intensity or restraint. It’s emotional connection or lack thereof. Supervisors might have a clearer understanding of which education opportunities to approve for their subordinates besides a written description and bio.

Is it time to go beyond the conference content description to a richer set of previews? It’s time to create and foster what adult learning expert Malcolm Knowles calls “excited anticipation” prior to the start of the conference education.

Is marketing the conference education something that rests with the marketing department, the meetings department, a combination of both or something different? What do we need to create more education coming attraction previews?

Walk into any space and consciously or not, that space tells us about how to respond.

We internally feel what we are supposed to do there. We read the physical environment like we read another person’s emotions. The context of the space determines what we do there.

Space Matters

Space is the body language of any conference and its organizational culture.

When you walk into most theaters, the space tells you that you will be sitting passively as you’re entertained. When you walk into most offices, the space articulates that the employees work alone behind closed doors. When you walk into most college lecture halls, the space tells you that a subject matter expert is the focus of the room while everyone else listens and observes.

Library cubicles tell us that it’s for independent work. Conference rooms with huge board tables tell us that people are to be separated from one another. Grocery stores tell us that the space is designed for easy access of products.

The Industrial Revolutions Model For Space

Most work spaces were designed based on the industrial revolution labor model.

It was about a time when work was bound to big machines. We were each trained in schools of lined rows of desks so we consumed information and then produced the same thing. Then when moved to factory lines where we repeated a job task and answered to a supervisor.

Most of our traditional conference spaces follow an industrial revolution labor model as well. Attendees listen to an expert as they passively consume information in order to produce a product. Attendees are to sit quietly, be respectful and act courteous as the expert shares.

If we value innovation and collaboration as conference team sports, we have to change the traditional space. We have to do it differently.

Moving From “I” Spaces To “We” Spaces

Collaboration and innovation needs we spaces, not I spaces.

Creation and collaboration are not bound to a specific room set or area. They transition and evolve throughout a space. They evolve as they absorb different people, perspectives and periods.

One of the things that conference organizers need to consider is how to equalize the respective status of attendees and presenters. There has been a fundamental shift that often people in the room know as much as or even more than the presenter. The collective wisdom of the group is important to tap and refine.

Innovation thrives on equality. When you walk into one of today’s conferences and can’t tell who’s the expert presenting and who’s the participant learning, it’s a good thing. People are reluctant to share ideas with an expert standing at the head of the room.

Reconfiguring the physical relationship of the room is a powerful signal that participation is truly welcome. The result is that you get better ideas in the open where they can flourish and grow.

Collaborative Spaces

There’s not just one ideal design for collaborative spaces.

We need lightweight furniture that’s easily moved around the room. We need multiple types of seating and tables. We need to allow collaborative participants to transform the space themselves, moving things around. We need to allow them to create what they need for the experience that they are having at the moment.

Space transmits culture. Conference space can be used not just to represent new cultural values but also to inspire them.

What are some examples of flexible meeting space that has been used effectively for collaboration and innovation? What keeps conference organizers from setting the stage for creative collaborative spaces?

As a conference organizer, what’s your goal when you secure a speaker for a keynote presentation?

Motivation? Humor? Inspiration? Education? To provoke? Entertainment? Complete a schedule? Kickoff an event?

Benefiting The Attendees

If you are really dedicated to helping your conference attendees benefit from a keynote presentation, doesn’t it make sense to know as much as possible about what serves them the best?

Most of the writings about education and training focus on the speaker and instruction design. Rarely do they discuss how the learner internalizes and deals with sensory stimuli.

Without a clear understanding of how humans approach, regard, receive and retrieve the information presented to them, we decrease the probability of successful transformation.

Defining Learning

Basically, learning is change or adaptation.

All organisms are genetically coded to reproduce characteristics of their species. They contain the seeds to reproducing their kind. Apples create apples. Dogs create other dogs. Fish create fish. Humans are not much different.

However, individual members of a species are different from other members in subtle ways. Those variations are critical to survival. As their environment changes, some members of species adapt better to those new conditions than others. This allows species to evolve and survive.

Humans have an enormous genetically coded capacity for adaptation and learning. This allows us to change as we receive information from our environment.

Your job as a conference organizer or keynote presenter is to help people learn. To help them change. Your job is to nurture and facilitate that human transformation. It is not merely to transmit information.

Which Keynote Presentation Was The Most Successful?

Take a look at these results from these three keynote presentations. In your view, which one was the most successful?

Keynote 1

The attendees left the presentation laughing and talking about what the speaker told them about success in their profession. They thought the speaker was humorous, entertaining and fun. The time went by fast.

Keynote 2

The attendees left the presentation with a link to research, the PowerPoint and a list of helpful information about the steps needed to succeed in their industry. They had a strong impression that they would be dealing with a lot of change in the near future.

Keynote 3

The attendees left the presentation with relevant steps to strategically position their jobs in today’s rapidly changing world. They were ready to apply them immediately back in the office and help their employer succeed.

The Results

Keynote 1 was inspirational and fun. The only change or learning noted was a new memory of an entertaining presenter.

Keynote 2 implies that the attendees’ learning was shaped by a lot of resources and research. Their impression was that a lot of change is coming their way.

Keynote 3 created useful transformation in its attendees. They left with two things they didn’t have before the presentation:

1. They have relevant steps to be more strategic in their jobs.
2. They can now help their employees succeed as they apply this learning.

What will it take to transition more keynote presentations from transmitting information to facilitating human transformation? How can we partner with our organization leadership and speakers to ease the way for more attendee learning and adaptation?