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America has a love-hate-relationship with American Idol.
We boo the negative naysayer and painfully honest founder and judge Simon Cowell. Although we often secretly agree with what he has to say.
We applaud the effervescent Ellen DeGeneres when she says she likes a finalist and compares them to an unripe banana. Although we know she is struggling to find something positive to say when a singer does a poor job.
The entire process of finding the next American Idol is very similar to the process of finding the right speakers for your conference. It takes an extraordinary amount of time. And it can be extremely frustrating as you often have to review a lot of losers before you find a winner.
So how do you identify a winning speaker and know that your audience will agree. Let’s take some tips from the American Idol Playbook to see how those judges sift through the bad and mediocre performers to find the outstanding gems and diamonds in the rough.
1) American Idol judges say: You’re a bit indulgent, aren’t you?
You know these speakers. They’re the ones that are over-the top, selfish and pleasure-seekers. They are there to serve as a mouth piece for their company, their books, and their products. They have the famous bright white speaker smile and handshake.
Speaker selection takeaway: You want a speaker that is transparent and that provides a presentation that is content-rich with relevant information that will help your audience succeed, not one that is clearly there to sell their books.
2) American Idol judges say: That was completely forgettable.
Quickly, can you name one highpoint from the last keynote presenter you heard? Probably not.
But how can we forget, “Yes, we can.” Or “Ask not what you can do for your country.” Those are memorable.
Speaker selection takeaway: Find a speaker that has a memorable presentation that arouses the brain and uses some good adult learning techniques such as repetition, audience participation and storytelling.
3) American Idol judges say: That sounded like a random act of copy cat Karaoke.
It sounds all too familiar, like rehashed, refried, regifted déjà vu and in the end, it’s still just black beans. You might hear an attendee leave this presentation and say something like, “Frankly, we’ve heard better people outside of the subway station on their soapboxes.”
Speaker selection takeaway: Find a speaker that has a message that is unique, compelling and memorable not a carbon copy cookie cutter faux presenter.
4) American Idol judges say: That was very authentic and true to who you are as a performer.
How sincere is the speaker? Does their message feel like a slick, snake-charmer, potion carrying, slimy used car sales approach? Or can you tell by the way the presenter interacts with the audience that they are speaking from the heart, are genuine and the bona fide real thing?
Speaker selection takeaway: Find a speaker that is genuine, realistic, legitimate and sincerely honest. This is one that connects with the audience.
5) American Idol judges say: You have no charisma or stage presence
“I think you are amazingly…wait for it…wait for it…dreadful. I don’t think another human being on the planet will ever sound or act like you.” Ouch! Honest and to the point.
Can you imagine the American Idol judges saying, “Wow, those words were so good, even though you didn’t sing them with much meaning and you couldn’t connect to your audience, you’ll be the next American Idol for sure. America will love you.”
Not! They probably would tell the candidate, you can’t make it on stage but obviously you’re a good song writer, so go write songs.
Speaker selection takeaway: Find a presenter that has great delivery and communication skills such as good eye-contact, appropriate gestures, and correct body language.
Need more help understanding good delivery presentation skills when selecting a speaker? Start with CommCoach: An Online Video and Speech Resource by Professor Corinne Weisgerber for tips on what to seek in a speaker with good delivery.
6) American Idol judges say: Yo Dog, I like you. I like your smile and your look. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very good for me.
We’ve all seen the judges struggling with something positive to say about these finalists. Their looks are attractive and they dress trendy. Unfortunately, it stops there. The judges remind them that it’s a singing competition and in the end, the audience won’t vote for them just based on looks.
Speaker selection takeaway: Choose a speaker that has a memorable message that hits it out of the ballpark. Your attendees want more than just a message that is a bag of air and looks good on stage.
In Conclusion
Ultimately, on American Idol it’s all about viewers picking up the phone or texting their vote for a finalist. For your conference, it’s about your attendees voting by picking up the evaluation and letting you know that they feel as if they got their money’s worth…and returning to next year’s event.
If your attendees are like the ones at my conferences or events, they will complete an evaluation if the speaker is outstanding or painfully terrible. If the speaker is really bad, and I mean really bad, you’ll hear about it for sure.
If the speaker is mediocre or average without much depth to their message, the attendees usually won’t take the time to complete the evaluation. They walk away with a “So what, apathetic attitude.” They weren’t moved to tell you how they feel or what they learned. You didn’t move your audience to vote.
So heed some advice from the American Idol judges to move your attendees to vote, return to the next show and find the winning American Idol Conference Speaker.
What other American Idol speaker takeaways would you add to the list? Share them with us.
Consider your association’s education and conference content.
Does it resemble a vibrant, youthful, buzzing community, like the always open 24-7 New York City? Or does it resemble an old ghost town with dust and tumbleweeds, a city stuck in the past refusing to change with the times?
Now let’s take that further. So, which do you prefer for your association to provide at your next annual meeting and programs?
- Content from the “Good Old Days” – featuring sessions and stories from the best of times from past conferences and events, where nothing ever changes, is predictable and always stays the same, the mediocre, status quo average content
or
- Content that features what’s “Now, New, Next” – cutting edge, innovative, fresh content that is unpredictable and full of surprise and that you need in order to keep your business out in front of the competition
Which type of conference content will cause you to commit your time, energy and dollars for registration, travel, lodging and expenses? A conference stuck in the past or one with vibrancy and new life?
Better yet, what type of content will attract more people to your annual conference? What type of sessions will get your attendees talking? Content which is familiar, safe, common and successful from the past? Or content which leads you to the front lines where the action is, the frontier of success and showcases what’s coming down the pike?
So how would you describe your association’s conference content? Is it New York City or a Western Ghost Town?
Consider New York City for a moment. Amazingly, improbably, New York City works.
Vast throngs get from here to there, earn a living, find food, push baby strollers, play softball, bake wonderful breads, walk along at different paces, and, except for occasional outbursts, do so peaceably.
No one factor makes it happen. But one seems critical: this city allows the mighty to fall. Everything can be changed: buildings torn down or renovated, enterprises relocated, vistas altered, land filled, land emptied, streets and neighborhoods given new character, cultural icons like Madison Square Garden moved, Times Square reborn, The Plaza converted to condos.
By allowing even the mightiest to fall, New York City remains alive. Yesterday doesn’t rule today. The dead don’t control the living.
History buffs lament the losses, and former residents seeking nostalgia will find few wafts of yesteryear. But that’s life. That is what it takes for life to happen. Yes, some new buildings and venues are grotesque. But they must die of their own weight, not because the nostalgic prevented them from happening.
Civilizations, institutions and people worry about losing their history, not giving their history its due. As a history buff, I know Santayana’s famous saying about needing to learn from history. The greater danger, however, is losing the future. If New York City couldn’t allow itself to change, if yesterday’s mighty were given control of tomorrow’s needs, the city would die.
Meetings and event organizers are at this very crossroads. Protectionists of the way things were always done, look backward, seeking unalterable truths to make today more certain, less dangerous. Others keep waging the same association and conference wars, as if nothing had changed since they first embraced this or that cause. Today’s association boards often resist change that would welcome tomorrow’s growth. They cling to old ways, old science, old properties, and think themselves righteous for protecting the past.
People want and deserve living bread, living water, living hope, not museum tours and old-school posturing. The mighty do fall, and then life moves on. Conference organizers must embrace the new, try different room formats, pick innovative fresh presentation concepts, and embrace new ideas and ways to deliver content. Associations can’t continue to lament the way things used to be done, better times of the past and let the old dead processes control today’s living.
So is your association conference content a sign of the way things have always been done, protecting the past as the ghosts of yesteryear haunt the conference headquarter halls? Or is your association conference content providing nourishment, new ways, new ideas, new perspectives and what’s coming next? Is your content attractive to the next generation or only those from the past?
Why say all this? Because tough times require a tough reliance and devotion to moving forward and not backwards.
How would you describe your association and its education endeavors? What can you do to help your favorite association move forward? How can you help them become more cutting edge?
Imagine the typical conference scene depicting hundreds of people at a convention center doing a variety of interesting meeting and tradeshow things.
Now consider this image is a hand drawn double page spread in large children’s book.
Your task as the reader is to find Waldo, the supplier and exhibitor, at the event hidden in the group. Unlike the famous Waldo with his distinctive red-and-white striped shirt, bobble hat and glasses, Waldo the supplier does not have any distinguishing characteristics. Waldo the supplier looks and acts like all of the other people in the scene. So, where’s Waldo the supplier?
As you intently scan the two-page spread, you realize that the page is full of red herrings involving deceptive use of red-and-white striped objects, just like the real children’s book Waldo. The harder you look, the more you notice that there is really no way to tell who is an attendee or an exhibitor.
Then your eye notices a tiny stripe on each individual’s name badge. Some name badges have green stripes, some yellow and some red. You conclude that attendees have a green stripe, exhibitors yellow and speakers red.
Then your brain notices an amazing pattern. All of the suppliers with yellow stripes congregate in small huddles away from attendees. As you continue to scan the page, you recognize rooms set in theater style with a podium at the front and a speaker. The attendees are all sitting facing the speaker looking at the back of heads of each other. You don’t see any exhibitors sitting with the attendees. The more you analyze the page, the more you detect that the exhibitors rarely are with other attendees, except in the exhibitions hall where they expect the attendees to just come to them.
You chuckle to yourself and say out loud, “Not much different than most conferences I’ve attended.”
A couple weeks ago, Dave and I participated in GaMPI’s Meetings Exploration Conference in Atlanta. At this event, Dave had an interesting observation that reminded me of the “Where’s Waldo” children’s book. He didn’t see many yellow-striped name badge exhibitors attending breakouts. Their absence sent a loud message to attendees. Suppliers want their business, but they don’t want to help them be successful.
As Dave and I presented two sessions on hybrid events, an unusual thing happened. Even though most suppliers are worried about how hybrid or virtual meetings will cannibalize face-to-face events, we found a Waldo, an exhibitor, attending our session. 80% of the exhibitors did not attend any GaMPI education sessions but Megan Maharry, National Sales Director from Disney did. Yes, she could have chose to follow in the footsteps of her exhibitor peers and reply to emails, play Mafia Wars, hang out in their booth or respond to RFP’s that they’ll never win. She wisely chose a different path.
Megan was present in all of the concurrent sessions. She understands that she is in the relationship business and that by attending the breakouts with the planners, she’s growing those relationships and helping attract planners that will later visit her booth. She’s building trust and sharpening her saw so she can better help her clients solve their problems. Megan doesn’t just sell brass, glass and attractions. She sells better meeting experiences. She gets that meetings mean business…that face-to-face matters.
And Megan has a deeper understanding. She really surprised us by asking us the $64,000 question: “How can we help our clients provide Hybrid Meetings along with their face-to-face events? What should we be providing as the venue to support their endeavors?” Wow, that was the right question and she got the right answer too. Megan now has a secret weapon that will help her in her consultative sales approach.
So what makes Megan better than the rest? Is it good training, a genuine interest in helping her clients, a love for the meetings industry or good genes? Dave said “It’s all of the above and I’d put big money on her employer getting more ROI out of their participation in the MEC than their competition.”
The moral of the “Where’s Waldo The Supplier” story? Suppliers, if you truly believe that the meetings and events industry is a relationship business, then you should carefully consider your actions at your next tradeshow. Suppliers don’t build and grow their professional network without taking advantage of participating in every opportunity possible. That includes participating in the breakouts to better understand your customers challenges and opportunities.
As Dave says, “Suppliers, go to more education sessions so you can be more helpful to your clients. You might actually learn something. You might book something. You might even build relationships that pay off for many years.”
What do you think? How can you attract more Waldos in your education sessions? Do you have any advice for the Waldos at your exhibitions or events?
It’s so dreamy, oh fantasy free me
So you can’t see me, no not at all
In another dimension, with voyeuristic intention
Well-secluded, I see all
With a bit of a mind flip
You’re there in the time slip
And nothing can ever be the same
You’re spaced out on sensation, like you’re under sedation
Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Take a step back into time with me. Let’s do the time warp again. “It’s a jump to the left. Then a step to the right.”
Let’s go back to the halls of one of the first education institutions, the university. Let’s say it’s Oxford or Cambridge or the Byzantine University. You decide.
Now, let’s walk down to biology labs. What do you see? If you’re like me, you’d probably laugh aloud or gasp at the sight of the 11th Century biology lab. It was a mix of astrological and religious influences, dead animals, potent chemical brews and intoxicating smells. It looks nothing like the biology labs of today’s high schools and universities. It’s antiquated and archaic. It looks and feels foreign to us.
Now, let’s continue our time warp field trip and move to one of the university’s standard classrooms used for history, math or English. Amazingly, not much has changed from today’s standard higher education classrooms. It’s not as antiquated or outdated.
This classroom feels very familiar and common. It’s home. There’s a podium at the front of the room for the professor to grasp. Chairs are arranged neatly in rows facing the lectern. We can just imagine students listening passively to the teacher while taking notes. The only difference is that there probably isn’t a screen for PowerPoint projection or a wireless lavaliere.
Now, let’s time warp forward to today and into a major convention center or hotel that’s holding an annual conference. Walk down the hallway and in to one of the sessions. It doesn’t look much different than the 11th Century university lecture hall. Besides the fact that the room may be carpeted and the chairs are covered in fabric, not much is different.
Could it be time for a change?
Why is it that with all the education advancements in how people learn we’ve not changed the way we deliver presentations? Why is it that with current neuroscience brain research and reports from major universities on how people learn in a digital age that we continue to promote ballroom presentations where attendees sit in nice rows, look at the back of each other’s heads and quietly passively listen? Why is it that smart conference planners, seat the audience in rounds or pods, but don’t require the presenters to incorporate small group interaction? Why is it that when research teaches us that listening is the least effective way to learn that we continue to make it the primary conference experience? Why is it that at some conferences, attendees learn more from hallway conversations than from sessions? Passive listening is certainly a great way to kill curiosity and the thirst for exploration.
Is it because the general sessions and breakouts with lecture based monologues are efficient and effective? Is it because it’s easy to steer people into large rooms like a cattle drive and compel them to sit quietly, listen and learn? Anyone that ever watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the theatres knows better than to just sit there passively. It’s about participation and engagement.
So who is that efficient and effective for anyway? It’s certainly not efficient and effective for the attendee or their learning. It’s the least effective way for them to learn and the least efficient return on their registration dollar.
“With your hands on your hips. You bring your knees in tight. But it’s the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane, Let’s do the time warp again.” Jump forward into an annual conference of the future. What do you see? Is it still the 11th Century model? Or is it different?
Could it be time for a change? What do you think?
What event professional do you know that takes full responsibility for the entire attendee experience at their face-to-face event or meeting?
What would meetings and events look like if meeting professional’s quit blaming others for the content, programming and experience of the event?
For the past 18 months I’ve consistently heard meetings and event professionals denounce the government and organizations for lack of support of face-to-face meetings and events. I’ve heard them cry and bemoan that their value is not appreciated by their executives, the Board of Directors, the public and even the President. Many have said that our industry associations need to do more to promote the vale of face-to-face meetings.
Typically, when event professionals try to educate their boss, executives or Board members on their value, they talk about the value of logistics they perform. You know, cost savings, cost avoidance, those kind of things. Or they state the past conference’s evaluation smile factor. Or they quote the economic impact of meetings as the primary reason to meet as handed down from our industry associations. Or they start talking about the number of jobs each meeting creates.
So what! The publication industry created thousands of jobs and had a positive impact on the economy. But that didn’t stop that industry from experiencing disruptive innovation.
So tell me, how can you prove your value to the CEO or executives if you can’t prove the value of the content or the programming? How do you know that lessons learned at your conference were applied to your attendees’ business? What were the results six or twelve months after your meeting?
How can meetings and event professionals continue to distance themselves from the real meat and experiences of the conference? Are we seriously kidding ourselves that meetings and events, for meetings sake are more important than the content and programming of that meeting?
If that’s the case, then no wonder the government, elected officials, and executives have doubted the value of meetings. We’ve tried to prove the dollar’s worth of a meeting without proving the value of the content of the meeting. That’s like saying schooling is important because it provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and provides a place for our kids to go during the day. Yet, we hold our public schools to a high standard and expect specific outcomes. We’ve standardized the education process and if the kids don’t meet specific knowledge and skills assessments, they fail and the schools fail. And who wants to send their kids to a failing, poor-rated schools?
With limited professional development dollars per head per company, who wants to send their employees to a conference that doesn’t stimulate the heck out of them from a learning perspective? Oh, but the content and learning opportunities are not the meeting professional’s job, you say.
Can you imagine what would happen if the public started failing meetings and events because the content and programming was below expectations? Oh wait, that did happen and we call it the AIG effect. But instead of increasing the value of the content and programming, meetings professionals have cried foul! Or we’ve screamed, “But my meetings aren’t like AIG’s.”
Guess what, the public doesn’t care. Society has moved the goal posts and imposed new expectations on meetings and events. They want new measures of performance! And attendees want content that is relevant, that pushes them to change things up when they get back to the shop. They don’t want another set of meeting rooms with chairs in a row!
When are meeting and event professionals going to wake up and measure the ROI of the content and programming elements that they put into the meeting from the beginning? That means spending more time crafting the right overarching meeting’s experience and education goals. That means allocating additional resources to securing the right speakers that understand the content and good adult learning techniques. That means focusing on the learner objectives of each workshop and session. That means we must also measure the outputs (months after the meeting) to see if the attendees walked away with the right learnings that we intended.
When are we going to take the bull by the horns and help drive the right speakers, programming elements and content for the meeting? Ultimately, that’s what makes or breaks the meeting. Suppliers (including 3rd parties and consultants) attend primarily for networking. Attendees attend primarily for the content, at least that’s how they justify attendance to their boss–by the content. They don’t justify their attendance based on the meeting’s experience, or networking. If you don’t get the attendees there, the suppliers and consultants don’t have anyone to network with.
When was the last time you said, “I’m going to return to that conference? It was so well organized. I didn’t stand in line for registration. The rooms were set perfectly. The closing party was a blast. The food was great. So I’m going to go back again.”
Ha! Not if you are a true attendee. You grade the value of conferences and events on the experience you had, whether the content met your expectations, whether the speakers delivered, whether you had emotional connections or whether you learned anything that can be applied to your business or position.
So when are event professionals going to see themselves as the partner in the attendee’s experience and not just the logistics order taker? When are our meetings industry associations going to step up to the plate and teach meetings professionals how to craft the conference experience appropriately with an emphasis on being attendee-centric and a focus on the education design of the content? [Stop saying that's another department's job. You've just reduced yourself to an administrative assistant to that department!]
I’m tired of watching the meetings and events professionals default to the old way of planning where they distance themselves from the content of the program. If meeting professionals don’t step up to the plate and see themselves as the strategic partner to the program and content, then they will continue to sound like a dripping faucet to the rest of the world.
Just saying…
What say ye?
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