When I look around me, I feel like the world is screaming for more interaction and dialog at meetings and events. (In fact, I've been noticing this for years as I mentioned in my first IMT blog post.) There are too many events where attendees are stuffed in chairs, lined up in rows, and forced to listen to speakers talk for hours on end. Doesn't everyone realize that attendees stop paying attention after the first 10 minutes? If they do, then why-oh-WHY do our colleagues continue to tie attendees to chairs in rows for 4-6 hours per day?
The point is, sitting for hours on end is stupid and it needs to stop!
Last month, we helped an association merge their networking reception and general session for 3,000 people into a single event. We developed 10 different interactive experiences that were designed to influence networking, create conversations and connect people to content. We turned attendees into active participants and helped them create a networking and social media buzz.
A few weeks earlier, we helped another association execute their first hybrid event and create conversations.
Every day, we help event organizers take the bold step of moving away from a world of attendees sitting in chairs in neatly organized rows toward a world where event attendees are active contributors. We have worked with national sales meetings, all employee meeting, customer events, galas, road shows, trade show booths, expos and many other types of events.
Today, I want to share our proven formula with you so you too can join our army of people trying to change the world of meetings and events. Please take notes and share these tips with your colleagues. You can save us all.
How do we take an ordinary event from Snoozeville to engaging?
We start by looking at the goals and objectives of the event. It is important to understand our client's audience and ultimately what they want them to do or take away from the event.
How often do you ask yourself those questions when planning your events? It sounds simple, but if this crucial first step is missed, all other efforts are futile.
When preparing for an event, it's important to know who is expected to attend as well as future attendees who are not attending or are disengaged from the event. Once that is complete, we look at the audience by behavioral type.
This step involves doing some secondary research about trends and challenges. Sometimes we have to get other people involved to learn more about the attendee. Useful information includes your audience's demographic makeup, learning needs, challenges and job tasks.
Some clients have lots of volunteers and no budget. Some have budgets but no people. Some clients have a CEO that needs to speak for 90 minutes. Some have agendas that are "filled up and unchangeable." Some have spaces that have challenges or vendors or technologies that we have to work with.
At the same time, we look at the resources. Did someone donate 47 monitors? Do you have as much carpet as you want? Is one of the sponsors a large format printer?
Finally, we get ready to brainstorm. Our goal here is to come up with simple, fun and smart engagement solutions that match attendees' needs and behavior style. Also, we look for ways to pull together a theme that can be carried throughout the entire event.
In this process, we use a set of "engagement cards" that we helped MPI create for their meeting design curriculum. There are about 50 cards that are extremely useful in getting everyone to contribute new ideas for their meetings and events. We recommend allocating 2-4 hours for this step. The output of the step is several different ideas for solutions that hopefully map out to satisfy all of the attendee needs.
Step 5: Piece Together the Event Concept. Challenge Assumptions.
Incorporate notes about light, space, sound, digital and structure. These things matter. For example, if you set the room with chairs in rows — then you are likely not creating space for conversations. In many respects, you literally "set the stage" for the type of engagement your event encourages.
For what it's worth, budgeting can be tricky here, because you are probably coming up with new to the world ideas. How do you figure out how much a laser maze is going to cost? Or, where do you get a custom art piece built? Who can make these concepts a reality?
Technology is not the answer. Ever. Always start with people and process, then get to technology.
Note: For the budget conscious, we packaged our most popular games, interactive touch screens and social media executions into turnkey solutions under our SocialPoint® digital solutions brand. They plug into your event seamlessly and are budget friendly.
In this step, we find it much easier to get senior leaders to sign off on the concepts. This works well when you remind them of the objectives and review how the concepts tie to their vision.
However, the individuals that are part of the execution on the stakeholder side are usually much more resistant…because you are asking them to change what they do. It might be undefined, feel squishy and they might be just plain scared of change.
We get these individuals on board by scheduling smaller meetings with them to review the concept and get their alternative input. In some cases, they approve the concepts-as-is. In some cases, they have lots of creative ideas to make it better based on initiatives that they are doing that nobody on the core team knew about.
Sun-Tzu wrote that the battle is often won before you take the field. In my opinion, the same thing is true when you are turning attendees into participants. By completing the steps above you have already laid out your strategy and won the battle.
So, your goal in this phase is to make sure that nobody unwittingly sends you off course.
Here's how it can happen. You will have experienced people doing new things that they might not be good at, or totally understand. Be sure to allocate extra time in your schedule and keep everyone reminded of your goals and objectives. IF YOU DO NOT YOU MIGHT FAIL.
Also, beware of executives or other stakeholders that want to make late changes. Usually a late addition means removing something and adding something the executive thinks is cool…like a chocolate fountain.
Execution onsite should be similar to what you have seen in the past. Remember to double check that the pieces are coming together as you designed. Allow for extra time during your loading. When you are trying something new like this – be wary of the details – if your room for error is small, details matter.
We like to do follow-up surveys based on the goals and objectives of the event rather than the logistics. For example, if our goal was to improve networking – how will we know if we achieved that goal? Setting specific metrics for measurement beforehand is key to evaluating the effectiveness of an event.
You can save us all from perpetuating the cycle of stuffing people in chairs for hours on end at meetings and events. I need your help!
The steps above outline our formula for turning passive event attendees into active participants. Of course, there are more details and some secret sauce that we left out. You should be able to get pretty far by following these steps.
Please do me a favor – give this process a try at your next event and share it with your customers and colleagues. Call me if you need guidance.
Good Luck! We are counting on you!
18 Tips To Make Your Event Webcast Rock!
Are you thinking about adding a webcast to your next conference? I feel like "live" webcasts from conferences are popping up everywhere. Just last week, three webcasts caught my attention. I watched the presentations and engaged in discussions about the content.
Though, I was surprised by the lack of standards and best practices. All three webcasts had different formats, used different technologies and created three different experiences for me (the virtual attendee). All three events would have rocked, if a mashup of all three experiences existed.
If webcasts are going to become a standard part of conferences and events – they need to rock! So, I came up with 18 tips that I hope will help the first-time-webcaster get off to a successful start. The tips are divided into 5 categories to make it easier for you to digest them and think about them. If you have additional tips, please add them in the comments section!
1. Think Like a TV Producer. Once you start webcasting you are basically creating a television show. You need to think about your audience and ask yourself: Who is my audience? When will they want to watch my program? What do I need to do in the presentation to keep them from changing the channel? Do I need to make any changes in the introduction, content and wrap up to accommodate them?
2. Pick a Date/Time that works for your virtual audience. If you want your webcast to be seen by a large "live" audience, then air your webcast at a time when the largest virtual audience will be available. Be sure to pay attention to time zone changes between East and West Coast of US and Europe. One recent webcast that I saw was broadcast live at 10AM MTN time on a Sunday morning in the US. People were either attending church, eating brunch or sleeping. It was a terrible time. Another snafu was 9AM EST on a weekday. In Europe that was a great time – middle of the afternoon. However, the westcoasters were still snuggled under the covers.
4. Create a Hashtag for Your Webcast. Use Hashtags to help a community form around your event by aggregating the buzz and user generated content on Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc. Equally important, the hashtags will help people that are talking about your virtual session connect with each other and exchange ideas.
6. Computer Screen Real-Estate: In my dream world, the screen would contain the video, the slides AND a place to see the backchannel. I have yet to see anyone do it. Most vendors provide either the video + backchannel or the Video + slides. Be sure to select a vendor that can integrate 2 of these 3 services on the screen. When you find a vendor that can do all three – tell me!!
8. Don't Use That Auto-Rotating Webcam. In my opinion, a webcam is fine for webcasting breakout sessions or people standing in a stationary position. However, I strongly advise that you stay away from the auto-rotating webcam. They end up focusing on attributes and places that are more distracting than helpful.
9. Include the Slides/Screen Content: If there is a screen that will be broadcasting slides and videos please make sure that the virtual audience can see that content. Most commonly I have seen slides embedded on the screens next to the video or offered as downloadable resources.
10. Introduction and Background: If you are webcasting a single session from your conference, it is important to introduce all speakers, leaders, characters, etc that will be participating in the session to your virtual audience. Most virtual participants will not be familiar with the rituals and customs of your organization or your event. For example, one event had a talking eagle that was probably a hit with the face to face audience. For the online-audience the eagle appeared out of place.
11. Take Some Questions from the Virtual Audience: By including the virtual attendees in the question and answer portion of the session – you ensure that their ideas and points of view are valued.
13. Conclusion and Wrap-up of session: Be sure to plan plenty of time to properly wrap-up and conclude your virtual session. Thank everyone for attending – share next steps, etc. This might sound obvious but I have been to several webcasts where this did not happen, because the technology had a hard cut-off point. If your webcast technology has a hard time cut-off then be sure to start the wrapup early. Otherwise, you could be in the middle of answering questions or just starting your "Thanks for coming" speech and the session immediately cuts off. If that happens it looks really, really bad to the virtual audience.
14. Seating, Podium and Stage Space: Be alert to how your stage setup – seating, podium, backdrop, etc will work on the video. It is sometimes hard to visualize without the cameras. In some webcasts, I have seen the speaker darting in and out of the camera view. In others there were objects in the line of sight of the camera that were distracting to online viewers. Also, you might want to give your speakers instructions of where to stand/walk so their movements do not distract online viewers.
15. Ask your A/V Company To Be Consultants. A/V professionals are experts in production – so be sure to use them as a resource when planning your webcast. They might be able to help you avoid simple mistakes that improve the quality of your presentation. You might not need a lot of help, but by keeping them in the loop – you might avoid some simple mistakes.
16. Archive the Session Video Immediately: People that joined late may want to watch the portion of the presentation that they missed. By offering the archive immediately, they can do this while they are thinking about your event. Others will want to tell their "like minded" friends about the "Awesome webcast" that they missed. Having the archive immediately available helps your participants spread the message of your awesome webcast.
17. Archive the Backchannel Discussion for Future Review. The Backchannel will contain questions, comments, new ideas and additional links to resources. By archiving the backchannel you create another educational resource for participants to use.
18. Look for Blogger Recaps of your Session. Your virtual attendees might write blog posts and other stories about your sessions. Share the links to your archive documents with these bloggers.
There are a lot of ideas and resources in this post. It could be better with your input! Please share your ideas, experiences and additional resources in the comments section. For those of you organizing your first webcast – please use the tips and let me know what is missing. I look forward to your suggestions and contributions!