I’m excited to announce that Jeff Hurt has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Education & Engagement at Velvet Chainsaw Consulting!

Jeff has been an indispensable contributor to the VCC team over the past 27 months. His fresh ideas on the future of conferences and learning have been instrumental in helping our consulting clients on a path to re-invent their premium education products and services.

Jeff is a thought leader in our industry. He’s done a herculean job of helping meeting and event professionals better comprehend what makes meetings tick…learning and networking. Since joining Velvet Chainsaw, he’s written over 600 original blog posts and helped educate thousands of association executives and meeting professionals. Several months ago, Jeff was recognized as 2011 Educator of the Year for PCMA.

Jeff’s new title better reflects the exceptional work that he produces each and every day. It also speaks to the importance of professional educators in our industry and their critical role for improving professional conferences. Please join me in congratulating Jeff on his new title and contributions to the success of our company and industry!

This post is for all of us who struggle to navigate an ever-changing and complex world.

It’s for the game changers, challengers and change agents. It’s for the visionaries, leaders and innovators. It’s for anyone trying to make the world a better place.

We Learned Early How To Kill Innovation

Each of us was born into this world with a natural curiosity to explore. As kids, we tinkered with toys and tried new things. We learned by trial and error. We were discoverers and experimenters.

Sometimes our parents stopped that exploration. They asked us to respect their boundaries and limits. Teachers asked us to conform. Unfortunately, from a young age, we learned to stop ourselves. We stopped exploring and experimenting.

During our tweens and teens we learned that knowledge is important. We started emphasizing what we know instead of what we didn’t know. We were taught to find the one correct answer and reject alternatives. So we become increasingly assertive in our knowledge and disinterested in anything that might prove us wrong. We gradually lost our natural curiosity.

Good news. You still have the capability to be a highly, creative, innovative individual. You can become more curious, still experiment and become more of a discoverer. You just need to get out of your own way!

Your Personal Operating System

Consider a computer’s operating system for a moment. It operates in the background and we rarely notice it until something goes awry. It must be working properly or all of the software and programming fails. It’s the same way with how we respond to four critical decisions each day.

Our choices and the patterns that they form describe our personal operating system each day. They isolate the mindset that we have. It’s not the skills that we each have but the underlying assumptions, beliefs and attitudes that guide our behaviors.

Four Critical Choices We Face Each Day

Dennis Stauffer’s Innovation Essentials identifies the route to understanding the thinking processes that lead to innovation. Consequently, he also identifies the processes that stall people into stagnant spirals.

His Innovator Mindset has identified the characteristics that make great, highly effective innovators. These traits reflect the personal choices we make each day. When these behaviors are combined, we can see amazing results.

According to Stauffer, the four critical choices that we face each day are whether we prefer to:

1. Know or imagine.
2. Apply or explore.
3. Validate or challenge.
4. Reinforce or discover.

Know Or Imagine

Imagination is underrated. It can be more valuable than knowledge. We tend not to trust our imaginations because they are not as reliable as knowledge. We don’t trust our own ideas and certainly not the ideas of others because they are not grounded in our knowledge. This is one of the ways we stop ourselves from tapping into our creative genius. As innovators we need to become comfortable with exercising our imagination and valuing what it brings us.

Apply Or Explore

It’s through exploring our ideas and gathering feedback that we are able to improve our imagination. When we only look to knowledge for ideas, we just apply what we know. That can become a limiting factor. Once we realize that there is an uncertainty in any action we take, courage has new meaning. We need to have the courage to explore and the humility to respond to failure. Great innovators have the courage to explore and the humbleness to recognize their mistakes.

Validate Or Challenge

The ability to make accurate observations is probably the most overlooked behavior of innovators. Our observations usually fall short of the truth. Why? We get what we search for and little else. If we are looking for confirmation of our knowledge, we typically find it. Unfortunately, we also miss those exceptions that might prompt us to think again. Making accurate observations is harder than it looks. Learning from feedback requires accurate data. Most of us engage in naive realism. We assume that what we see happened. We also assume that what we didn’t see when we were observing also didn’t happen. One way to remedy this is to compare our observations with those from others. Embracing a healthy skepticism and a willingness to challenge our assumptions leads to innovation.

Reinforce Or Discover

Innovators prefer to discover instead of confirm and reinforce. They are deliberate about actively considering multiple explanations and slow to settle on one right answer. They seek diverse perspectives and alternate interpretations. That’s how they get fresh insights. Sometimes they realize they need to imagine, explore and challenge more before they discover a new breakthrough.

Which of these four behaviors do you think is most difficult to do? What barriers hold us back from using our imaginations, exploring, challenging conventional wisdom and discovering new ideas?

What is your number one cause for stress? How do you manage your stress?

The walking dead! We see them at every conference we attend.

Eyes glazed over. Faces void of emotion. Weird body twitches from sitting in one position too long. Aimlessly walking the same direction to the next session. Grunts and groans as they salivate for something they will not get–relevant, meaningful information, relationship building activities and unique learning experiences.

Most conferences create a zombie apocalypse with overwhelmed attendees leaving the event wondering what happened the previous three days. They don’t recall much of the content.

Memory is the residue of learning. If you don’t recall anything about the conference content, you didn’t learn it!

How Lectures Create Zombie Attendees

Often our conference education, the traditional lecture, is like a parasite that turns innocent victims into mindless zombies unable to think for themselves. The droning lecture takes over the brain and keeps it from learning anything. The more information that is shoved into our ears and minds, the less we retain.

Sitting passively all day in workshops, seminars and conference education is like a poison that slows our bodily functions. The more we hear from speaker monologues and panel dialogues, the more we enter a trance-like state with no memory. The more we sit and listen, the more the poison floods our body.

And what is often even more frightening than creating zombies? We pay for this experience. And we pay like mindless zombies every year for a repeat of that zombie apocalypse conference experience.

Real Learning Combats Zombie Syndrome

We learn best when we have the time to think and reflect. Our brain must be given time to connect new information to past experiences and knowledge.

Here’s the challenge. You cannot think and listen at the same time. So if the speaker is talking, you are not thinking. If you start thinking about something the speaker has said, you stop listening.

So doesn’t it make sense that the speaker should stop talking sometimes and allow the audience to think, digest, discuss and reflect?

Presenters and their messages are vitally important to conference listeners. When presenters deliver that message with passion and energy AND when they involve their listeners in active learning, they create an unforgettable experience.

The best way to make sure our listeners learn and retain what we share is to involve them in the learning process. It also combats conference zombism!

Wondering where to start with involving learners during a lecture? Try these activities or perhaps these formats.

Where should we start to help presenters move from lectures to audience engagement? What resources have you used to help speakers create audience participation and interaction?

From Velvet Chainsaw’s Managing Director, Dave Lutz.

Donna Kastner

I’m excited to announce that Donna Kastner is joining the Velvet Chainsaw team starting January 8, 2012 as Director, Education & Engagement!

I had the privilege to work with Donna for several years when we were both with Experient. She’s someone that I know well and trust immensely! Donna has multiple talents including training, business development, consultative selling, speaking and writing. Our clients are going to love how she complements our existing capabilities and aligns with our values.

Donna will hit the ground running by helping us in San Diego with the PCMA Learning Lounge project. She’ll be presenting several times in the Designing Education and Experience theaters.

2012 will be an exciting year for our company. Our consulting business is growing and we will be announcing a new venture in the coming months. With the addition of Donna, we’ll be able to stay ahead of our commitments and continue to make a difference in our industry.

Join me in welcoming Donna to the team.

Join me July 13-15, 2010, for ASAE’s Online Conference for Small Staff Associations (nonprofit associations with ten or few staff).    

2010 Small Staff Association Online Conference Topic:

With the rise of social media, mobile technology, and a very vocal blogosphere, it sometimes feels like your members never sleep. How can you engage them nonstop without sacrificing your own shut-eye? More importantly, how can you accomplish this with limited staff and resources? If these issues are literally keeping you up at night, you cannot afford to miss ASAE & The Center’s latest online conference, Creating the 24/7 Small-Staff Association. Learn the essentials that will help you manage an ever evolving landscape with this conference designed specifically for organizations with 10 or less staff members.  

Online Conference Sessions And Presenters

July 13, 11 am – 12 pm ET
Finding Focus in the 24/7 Networked Environment (This is the session I’m presenting.)
While small staff associations have to focus on results, it seems that the demands of managing an organization never stop. Your members communicate with each other around the clock, and you feel you have to stay on top of all those conversations in addition to everything else on your list. Can you find time for Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest while still getting your work done? Seasoned association executives and staff are having a challenging time shifting from the industrial age mindset of logic, certainty and confined restraints to the network gestalt of interaction, self-organization, unlimited potential and unpredictability. The secret to success is having a strategy of doing the right things rather than doing things right and embracing a networked mindset. Knowing your goal will help you to channel your energies on what’s most important to your industry, your organization, and your members.  

July 13, 3 – 4 pm ET
A Staff of One for a Cast of Thousands: Create and Nurture Online Communities  

Marjorie Bynum (left) and Peggy Hoffman (right)

Presenters:
Marjorie Bynum, senior director education & communications, Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals International (left)
Peggy Hoffman, CAE, president, Mariner Management and Marketing LLC (right)  

July 14, 11 am – 12 pm ET
Mobile Technology Essentials for Small-Staff Organizations  

Ron Wille

Presenter: Ron Wille, MBA, coCEO, NimbleUser, TBD Association Executive  

July 14, 3-4 pm ET
Free and Low-Cost Tools YouCan’t Live Without 

Beth Ziesenissm

Presenter: Beth Ziesenis, Avenue Z Writing Solutions  

July 15, 11 am – 12 pm ET
Virtually Together: How to Operate Your Association Remotely 

Gretchen Jaspering (left), Jay Karen (center), Kevin Meade (right)

Gretchen Jaspering, president, Bailiwick Communications
Jay Karen, CAE, president & CEO, Professional Association of Innkeepers International
Kevin Mead, CAE, president, IGAF Worldwide  

July 15, 3-4 pm ET
Leverage the Voice of Your Association

Bonnie Fedchock (left) and David Harrison

Bonnie Fedchock, executive director, NACE National Association of Catering Executives
David Harrison, president, Harrison Communications   

What’s Involved

Each day, you’ll have two sixty-minute live Webinars. Each Webinar is followed by a sixty-minute online chat with content leaders and peers held within ASAE’s branded small-staff association online conference eCommunity. You’ll also have access to resources, handouts, reference materials and recorded materials for up to one-week after the event.  

Here’s what you need to participate in the online conference:

1. Telephone for audio
2. Internet connection for visual
3. Registration

For more information about the online conference, topics and presenters.  

Register  

• $295 for ASAE Members
• $495 for Non ASAE Members

Questions about the online conference?

Contact  

Brian Kirkland or 202.326.9528  

Mark Milroy at mmilroy@asaecenter.org or 202.326.9509  

Hope to see you online during this conference.

Today I’m facilitating my second Peer2Peer presentation,  for the PCMA Education Conference 2010 in Montreal, Canada on Innovative Techniques In Conference Formats. Here is the brief session description, the learning objectives and the slide deck I used.

In a world of multi-tasking and high-tech innovations, today’s attendee wants a meeting experience which will inspire and influence change.

After attending this presentation, the attendee will be able to:

• Identify which learning techniques work and how to apply them in a variety of situations
• Discover what others are doing to creating engaging learning experiences
• Understand generation learning styles 

What innovative techniques in conference formats have you experienced? Do you think that different generations have specific learning styles? [Hint: that's a trick question and the key words are "learning styles."] What impacts learning of various generations?

It’s time to dust the corner cobwebs, clean the dirty windows and move winter clothes to another part of the closet…so to speak.

We’re making some changes here at Velvet Chainsaw’s Midcourse Corrections blog. During the next few weeks you may see some different things than in the past. We’re testing out some new spring clothes for a new look, “… new hair, new hat, brand ideas,” as Patti Labelle sang.

Don’t worry, we won’t be changing our attitude. We’ll still have that push the envelope, edgy, call it like we see it, ‘tude.

So if you come to the site and it looks totally different and then when you return later it looks the same, know we’re working under the hood, tweaking things. Our new updated look will be here soon.

When used properly, high-tech networking can increase the quantity and quality of professional connections. But to accomplish this, you’ll need an ‘Extreme Networking’ technology strategy — which starts weeks before and culminates in the face-to-face event.

Helping grow a participant’s professional network is a sure-fire way to increase loyalty. Last month, we explored how to do this with low-tech networking strategies. Here, we look at a tech-based “Extreme Networking” strategy. Note that this will necessarily vary from group to group, depending on where your members live their online lives.

Rather than try to do everything, it’s best to choose a few of the following 11 high-tech options and spend the bulk of your time building adoption and engagement – if you do, pretty soon you’ll attain the enlightened state of Extreme Networking.

1. Collect IDs
Use optional fields in event-registration and membership-renewal forms to ask attendees for their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter URLs. Explain the benefits of providing this information, and share your privacy policy.

2. Create event pages 
Encourage attendees to RSVP via LinkedIn and Facebook event pages; updates and posts to these then will display in each person’s network stream. Provide fresh content that will encourage people to participate.

3. Use crowdsourcing
Online polling is a great way to engage your audience before the meeting. It also establishes a conduit for valuable input and a forum for attendees to meet one another.

4. Compare to connect
Some event-specific solutions allow attendees to compare their existing social networks against your registration list – and reaching out in advance to people you already know is an Extreme Networking best practice. Solutions that allow you to send a LinkedIn message, write on a person’s Facebook wall, or Direct Message Twitter followers are also very powerful.

5. Host Webinars and interviews
Schedule Webinars by conference speakers or locals from the event city who can give tips on restaurants and attractions. A pre-event Blogtalkradio series for speakers and Disney-lovers was a big hit for one association, whose attendees connected via Internet radio and text-messaging during the show.

6. Play matchmaker
Some solutions allow attendees to complete professional profiles and personal itineraries. Participants then use keywords and demographics to search for those with similar interests and schedule a time to meet. Some systems take this further and provide customized recommendations of people, sessions, or products.

7. Deploy PURLs
Powerful new solutions on the high-tech scene are personal Web pages (or PURLs) that aggregate links to session handouts, archives, exhibits visited, and attendees connected with. Oftentimes a proprietary device is used, although lead-retrieval and mobile-based solutions are quickly being adopted.

8. Monitor the hashtag
Some of the best connections come from watching others ask intelligent questions or provide insight on Twitter. Pick a unique hashtag (say, #pcma10), and ask attendees to use this when tweeting about the meeting.

9. Organize a “Tweetup” for Twitter-using attendees.

10. Game on!
Location-based apps with gaming components, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, help increase networking and connections. Encourage your hotels and local attractions to play along, and consider giving out awards to top connectors.

11. Share photos
Sites like Flickr allow attendees to deepen their relationships by sharing digital snapshots – and memories. For real-time memory-making, create a “Twitterfountain” that displays tweets and pics from the event as it’s happening.

Adoption Is Key
Too often, new technology isn’t utilized by enough participants to deliver desired results. Communication, education, and community management are the three pillars of success of encouraging adoption. As such, consider hosting a networking best practices Webinar before your meeting to teach attendees how to maximize their use of Twitter and take advantage of the power of the second degree on LinkedIn.

Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2009 pcma.org

You don’t need a helmet, knee or elbow pads to be an Extreme Networker. Heck you don’t even need to be on Twitter or Facebook (but they’ve been known to help). You just need to jump in and work it baby. Work “Extreme Networking,” that is.

One of the huge differentiators that make live events far superior to virtual is the relationships that are developed and grown in person. That’s where the ultimate trust is realized. For example, I might be impressed with your thought leadership through your online actions or maybe even a phone call together. But if I was considering hiring you, I’m not making that final call until after I look you in the eyes and press some flesh.

Strong relationships forged by face-to-face give you a significant advantage no matter what side of the table you sit on unless you are buying or selling lower priced commodities.

Meeting organizers need to do everything they can to accelerate and increase the networking power of their live events. For most, it’s the greatest reason for attending and for coming back next year. To realize that competitive advantage, connecting your attendees and members needs to be part of your culture. You need to take a no-holds-barred approach to Extreme Networking.

With that in mind, Jeff and I wrote a couple of articles in PCMA’s Convene on tactics for taking your conference networking to new levels. In the January column, Is Your Networking Working? we discussed how conference design and low tech approaches can help spawn more networking. Here’s a recap of the 15 ways to provide more structured networking at your next meeting.

1. Secure volunteer greeters and connectors for each session.

2. Ask speakers to weave a networking activity into their sessions.

3. Take a page from Apple retail stores’ Genius Bars, and secure industry veterans or influencers and staff expert bars.

4. Designate special sections in the hotel’s restaurants for conference guests. Encourage the hotel to seat individual attendees with a group or another party of one from your conference.

5. Rope off special sections in meeting rooms for preferred seating.

6. Hold early-morning coffee klatches.

7. Design a Breakout Café.

8. Plan a table-storming session.

9. Schedule book clubs.

10. Program an “unmeeting” session. Attendees enter a room, put one issue they want to discuss on a sticky note, and post it on a board. Attendees separate into topic-based discussion groups.

11. Hold peer-to-peer roundtable discussions.

12. Create speed-networking sessions. Allot three-minute slots for attendees to meet one-on-one and exchange business cards.

13. Add a team-building or community-service project to your agenda.

14. Use name tents for each attendee at a table.

15. Use meeting room setups that help encourage networking.

What do you think of the recommendations listed? Are there others that you would add?

If you are a regular subscriber to PCMA’s Convene, the February issue should be hitting your desk in the next few days. In that issue we continue the networking theme, but made it all about using technology to help. Be on the lookout.

Parts of this post were reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2009 pcma.org