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When the pandemic started causing conferences to cancel at the last minute, those that quickly went virtual saw a high number of attendees. Some of us sit on video conference calls the better part of the day. As we head into the second half of 2020, it doesn’t look like much will be changing when it comes to working remotely and attending virtual conferences. Have some other tips that have worked to drive up your virtual conference attendance? MORE
Why would only a small fraction of registrants attend the live virtual conference? When attendees assume the conference is a compilation of passively viewed webinar-like sessions, there’s little reason to participate live. MORE
These mental models are deeply embedded in our conference planning and management practices. Savvy conference organizers realize that their mental models have much more influence over their outcomes than their decisions and actions. To be successful in the future, conference organizers must become paradigm busters–examining, challenging and changing their conventional mental models. This is especially true of our conference mental frameworks. MORE
But when it gets to “go time,” does that culture manifest at your conferences and meetings? Her boss apparently thought she should spend all her time out “doing meeting planning” and not hanging out in a hotel conference room. Make colleagues and vendors feel welcome and involved in conference operations. Conference staff are not able to do everything! How can you make your conference culture more open and transparent? MORE
Who says conferences or chapter meetings have to be in traditional meeting spaces? Conference rooms tend to be dark, and participants may find themselves fighting post-lunch naps. Recently, I got a conference promotion with the subject line, “Have you ever had a meeting in a kayak?” Sample your association’s conference for prospective participants. The post Conference Rooms Are Freezing! MORE
Throughout my career, I have been involved in conferences as an exhibitor, sponsor, attendee, volunteer, speaker, and host. No matter the role, conference days are long, but no other role is as demanding as being the conference host. For big conferences, there are a few months build up with weeks before the meeting often being especially stressful — everyone on staff pitches in to help out with the conference in small to mid-size associations. MORE
Not every effort was a rousing success but attempting to inject new conference elements made us more nimble, creative and smarter as a team. What should we expect for hybrid or virtual conference attendance? Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart. MORE
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.”. However, savvy meeting professional know that their conference’s success depends upon moving from customer fragmented touchpoints to designing holistic conference customer experience journeys. They own designing the conference customers experience journey. MORE
Whether a virtual conference is driven by the current virus COVID-19 virus, financial considerations, member outreach, or beneficial global dialogue, the fundamental process for planning and implementation remains the same. These five success factors outline important steps to creating a successful virtual conference. At the heart of a conference’s success is audience participation. Ideally, a virtual conference should have several months devoted to planning and logistics. MORE
Although I didn’t participate in today’s #assnchat about ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference , it still inspired a blog post. Perhaps playing with toys shifts our mindset from serious office mode to relaxed engaged conference mode. The association professionals in today’s Twitter chat had plenty of great ideas (heh heh) for conference creativity rooms and I even have a few of my own. F&B : The Canadians also served poutine at one point during the conference. MORE
However, a conference at rest, tends to die. The enemy of most conferences is the way it’s always been. When inertia influences your conference, it’s planned by the way you’ve always done it, programmed full of (past) best practices and destined to become average, slowly suffocating on its own status quo. Cognitive and organizational inertia keeps an association on its current conference course even when facing disruptive or rapid external changes. MORE
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer’s experience. MORE
Applying a story arc to the conference can activate participants’ brains. You can use the story arc concept to carefully craft the messages and issues you want your conference participants to explore, experience and learn. Your conference narrative can serve as a call to action for your participants to play a pivotal role in resolving that challenge personally and professionally. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference? MORE
Apply these 7 essentials to create long-lasting virtual conference magic Offer a different kind of virtual event experience—one that has the elements that attendees expect and delivers the intangibles that turn events into memorable experiences. MORE
112 A conference that typically draws over 20,000 in-person attendees a year just announced their keynote speakers. Hopefully, virtual conferences will level the playing field for speakers. Related: Chat or no chat at your next virtual conference. MORE
In 2020, attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors were more forgiving of our virtual conferences than they will be in 2021. Use this opportunity to beta test changes that can be carried over to the next in-person conference. MORE
Associations, companies and other organizations have been using conference and video calling to meet and conduct business for many years. Check out these videos of what some of your calls may be like: A conference call in real life: [link]. Association Management Companies CM Services Conference Calls Leadership Meetings Video Calls Virtual Meetings Volunteerism meeting etiquette MORE
To paraphrase Hoffer, you can never get enough of conference fads, gimmicks and trends. Unless your a conference participant and we often have had enough!). They also want access to your conference budget. Evergreen conference practices that have promising results are often obscured by our obsession with fads and trends. To avoid being fad-like in our conference planning process, here are seven emerging evergreen practices to consider and invest in instead. MORE
In physics, the second law of thermodynamics says all things—bodies, businesses, conferences, energy, organizations, relationships—move toward chaos and disorder. As your conference matures, it experiences entropy. As a conference professional, you know this to be true. It is also the natural law of evolution for any conference. Working to create a great conference experience for your customers is no longer a good baseline for success to paraphrase Conrad. MORE
While things have changed, these tenets will hold true and the principles can be applied to other D&I conferences and events. The six attributes of women’s leadership conferences that have stood out for me: [1] Movement. Women’s conferences are often shorter one or two-day programs. MORE
On the day this posts, my association's Board meeting and Annual Conference will be two short weeks away. This has traditionally been my time to enter what I call my "Annual Conference Mode." Well, the simple rule I try to start following is that if it isn't related to pulling off a successful Board meeting and Annual Conference, then it's going to wait until after the conference is over. MORE
In spite of all the bad, there is also much that is positive for the next phase of association conferences. The post Get Conference Inspiration from Trusted Peer Connections appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Conference Planning Hybrid & Virtual MORE
Virtual conferences also give attendees a view right into speaker’s homes, which can be uncomfortable for some. Related: In-person conference conventions don’t work online. The next huge hurdle for virtual conference engagement. MORE
As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? Here are six ways to focus on designing your team’s experience during your next conference planning process. Read more about embracing your conference as a giving field here. It may seem paradoxical at first as we are used to focusing outward on the conference outcomes. The post If You Design Conference Experiences, Read This! MORE
Engagement is the next big hurdle for virtual conferences. We are starting to see that all the conventions we learned while hosting our in-person conferences might not work online. The post In-Person Conference Conventions Don’t Work Online appeared first on Smooth The Path. MORE
Many conferences are stuck in the rut of legacy routines, age-old rituals and cloned programming. Conference organizers and its advisors replicate the past maintaining the traditions and well-established procedures of yesteryear. The event is nothing more than a zombie conference—a conference that appears to be alive yet in reality creates the walking undead. Conference organizers and advisors can breathe new life into their events. MORE
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. And your customer loyalty is built upon making your common conference uncommon. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences. When your conference experience is no-frills run-of-the-mill…. And when your conference content can be found on the web for free…. MORE
The dynamics that we’re seeing impact conferences and their business models are very similar to the Freemium movement we experienced way back in 2009. Go ahead and read Seth’s post and then come back for the linkage to conference monetization. To best compete: Premium conferences must choose quality over quantity. They’re playing the long-game and offering free or significantly discounted conference offerings. MORE
The North Star is the perfect metaphor for your annual conference purpose. When your conference purpose serves as a North Star, it guides all decisions, tasks, behaviors and strategy. Uncovering Your North Star Conviction To Find Conference True Target Market. Before your conference can find its true target market, you as the conference organizer must find your conviction. What’s your conference conviction? What’s your conference North Star? MORE
At this point, you may have attended a virtual conference, and you’ve probably attended a webinar or two. When you’re at a conference in-person, you attend sessions at a dedicated location and dedicated room leaving (most) of the distractions behind. MORE
According to the Community Brands Member Engagement and Loyalty Study, meetings and conferences, which traditionally have emphasized training and continuing education, are one area where association professionals (Pros) are very focused. The post Continuing Education: Not Just for Meetings and Conferences Anymore appeared first on YourMembership. A recent Community Brands study suggests it may be time for associations to focus on additional learning opportunities for their members. MORE
Related: In-person conference conventions don’t work online. Will members really want to go back to in-person conferences? Your speakers want training before their next virtual conference performance. What happens if we build it, and no one comes? MORE
In-person conferences were generally quite exclusive. Conferences sometimes excluded women with younger children because it is hard for them to travel. Many introverts steer clear of conference social functions because these big group events are awkward to attend. MORE
Great Slideshare from Jeff Hurt proposing radical change for conferences and events: We Need A Conference Revolution from Jeff Hurt. conferences innovation presentations Jeff Hurt I particularly like everything he has to say about the changing role of speakers (as facilitators of learning experiences) and attendees (as co-creators rather than passive consumers). Of course, the question then becomes: how do we get from here to there? MORE
Putting on an in-person conference can be like putting on a show. Remember what it feels like to have people coming into the main session room during the conference opening and finding their seats? Organizations are coding their conference platforms. MORE
Are you missing in-person conferences? On Friday, June 19, Twitter user Erin Conwell posted that her spouse was participating in a virtual conference for the next few days and what followed was a flurry of responses that brought real-life experiences back into the minds of everyone who has attended any conference ever! Vendor-sponsored happy hours, conference chicken, and lost lanyards…. Want to recreate that same experience for yourself or a loved one? MORE
People from afar like virtual conferences. Young professionals like virtual conferences. Parents and care-givers like virtual conferences. Time-pressed professionals like virtual conferences. When budgets are tight, people like virtual conferences. MORE
Most conference and meeting professionals want the coolest, hippest, latest ideas and trends for their events. We want to know what unique things other conferences are doing so we can borrow their ideas. We pursue fads, gimmicks and trends as the silver bullets of our conference woes. We expend resources searching for the mysterious conference trend panacea. Conference trend and fad bandwagons. What was the last conference trend bandwagon that you jumped on? MORE
The days after a major conference are filled with busy work, attending to all of the things you pushed off leading to the conference. I have 50,000 vendors calling me (yes they call me too, I know how you feel) some from conference and others I politely deferred before conference. The post Turning Post-Conference Euphoria into Action appeared first on YourMembership.com. Membership Management conference social media MORE
Yesterday’s blog post gave a few tips on turning post-conference excitement into action. When you come back from a conference with all of these delicious ideas percolating in your head, it’s hard [.] ( Read more. ) The post Obtaining Post-Conference Buy-In to Innovation appeared first on YourMembership.com. Membership Management conference innovation For most organizations, the challenge is not the innovative thought. MORE
Conference Related Topics Blue Sky eLearn
AUGUST 19, 2020
At this point, you may have attended a virtual conference, and you’ve probably attended a webinar or two. When you’re at a conference in-person, you attend sessions at a dedicated location and dedicated room leaving (most) of the distractions behind.
Velvet Chainsaw
DECEMBER 3, 2020
In 2020, attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors were more forgiving of our virtual conferences than they will be in 2021. Use this opportunity to beta test changes that can be carried over to the next in-person conference.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Blue Sky eLearn
JULY 14, 2020
When the pandemic started causing conferences to cancel at the last minute, those that quickly went virtual saw a high number of attendees. Some of us sit on video conference calls the better part of the day. As we head into the second half of 2020, it doesn’t look like much will be changing when it comes to working remotely and attending virtual conferences. Have some other tips that have worked to drive up your virtual conference attendance?
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 23, 2020
Not every effort was a rousing success but attempting to inject new conference elements made us more nimble, creative and smarter as a team. What should we expect for hybrid or virtual conference attendance? Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart.
With conferences being canceled due to COVID-19, associations need to be nimble by implementing alternative strategies and tactics that can continue to bring value to their members, keep sponsors/exhibitors, generate revenues for the Association.
Smooth The Path
JANUARY 19, 2021
People from afar like virtual conferences. Young professionals like virtual conferences. Parents and care-givers like virtual conferences. Time-pressed professionals like virtual conferences. When budgets are tight, people like virtual conferences.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 21, 2019
In physics, the second law of thermodynamics says all things—bodies, businesses, conferences, energy, organizations, relationships—move toward chaos and disorder. As your conference matures, it experiences entropy. As a conference professional, you know this to be true. It is also the natural law of evolution for any conference. Working to create a great conference experience for your customers is no longer a good baseline for success to paraphrase Conrad.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 17, 2019
But when it gets to “go time,” does that culture manifest at your conferences and meetings? Her boss apparently thought she should spend all her time out “doing meeting planning” and not hanging out in a hotel conference room. Make colleagues and vendors feel welcome and involved in conference operations. Conference staff are not able to do everything! How can you make your conference culture more open and transparent?
Blue Sky eLearn
MARCH 3, 2020
Whether a virtual conference is driven by the current virus COVID-19 virus, financial considerations, member outreach, or beneficial global dialogue, the fundamental process for planning and implementation remains the same. These five success factors outline important steps to creating a successful virtual conference. At the heart of a conference’s success is audience participation. Ideally, a virtual conference should have several months devoted to planning and logistics.
Velvet Chainsaw
DECEMBER 23, 2020
In spite of all the bad, there is also much that is positive for the next phase of association conferences. The post Get Conference Inspiration from Trusted Peer Connections appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Conference Planning Hybrid & Virtual
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 27, 2018
Who wants to attend a common, ordinary, ho-hum, everyday , I’m-just-like-all-the-others traditional conference? Your conference growth and revenue depends upon repeat paying attendees year after year. And your customer loyalty is built upon making your common conference uncommon. Routine Been-There-Done-That Conferences. When your conference experience is no-frills run-of-the-mill…. And when your conference content can be found on the web for free….
Reid All About it
MARCH 19, 2013
Although I didn’t participate in today’s #assnchat about ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference , it still inspired a blog post. Perhaps playing with toys shifts our mindset from serious office mode to relaxed engaged conference mode. The association professionals in today’s Twitter chat had plenty of great ideas (heh heh) for conference creativity rooms and I even have a few of my own. F&B : The Canadians also served poutine at one point during the conference.
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 8, 2019
Who says conferences or chapter meetings have to be in traditional meeting spaces? Conference rooms tend to be dark, and participants may find themselves fighting post-lunch naps. Recently, I got a conference promotion with the subject line, “Have you ever had a meeting in a kayak?” Sample your association’s conference for prospective participants. The post Conference Rooms Are Freezing!
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 6, 2020
Why would only a small fraction of registrants attend the live virtual conference? When attendees assume the conference is a compilation of passively viewed webinar-like sessions, there’s little reason to participate live.
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 20, 2020
While things have changed, these tenets will hold true and the principles can be applied to other D&I conferences and events. The six attributes of women’s leadership conferences that have stood out for me: [1] Movement. Women’s conferences are often shorter one or two-day programs.
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 15, 2020
Engagement is the next big hurdle for virtual conferences. We are starting to see that all the conventions we learned while hosting our in-person conferences might not work online. The post In-Person Conference Conventions Don’t Work Online appeared first on Smooth The Path.
YourMembership Blog
DECEMBER 17, 2019
According to the Community Brands Member Engagement and Loyalty Study, meetings and conferences, which traditionally have emphasized training and continuing education, are one area where association professionals (Pros) are very focused. The post Continuing Education: Not Just for Meetings and Conferences Anymore appeared first on YourMembership. A recent Community Brands study suggests it may be time for associations to focus on additional learning opportunities for their members.
Smooth The Path
NOVEMBER 12, 2020
Related: In-person conference conventions don’t work online. Will members really want to go back to in-person conferences? Your speakers want training before their next virtual conference performance. What happens if we build it, and no one comes?
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 22, 2020
In-person conferences were generally quite exclusive. Conferences sometimes excluded women with younger children because it is hard for them to travel. Many introverts steer clear of conference social functions because these big group events are awkward to attend.
AssociationChat
JUNE 21, 2020
Are you missing in-person conferences? On Friday, June 19, Twitter user Erin Conwell posted that her spouse was participating in a virtual conference for the next few days and what followed was a flurry of responses that brought real-life experiences back into the minds of everyone who has attended any conference ever! Vendor-sponsored happy hours, conference chicken, and lost lanyards…. Want to recreate that same experience for yourself or a loved one?
YourMembership Blog
AUGUST 7, 2013
The days after a major conference are filled with busy work, attending to all of the things you pushed off leading to the conference. I have 50,000 vendors calling me (yes they call me too, I know how you feel) some from conference and others I politely deferred before conference. The post Turning Post-Conference Euphoria into Action appeared first on YourMembership.com. Membership Management conference social media
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 31, 2019
However, a conference at rest, tends to die. The enemy of most conferences is the way it’s always been. When inertia influences your conference, it’s planned by the way you’ve always done it, programmed full of (past) best practices and destined to become average, slowly suffocating on its own status quo. Cognitive and organizational inertia keeps an association on its current conference course even when facing disruptive or rapid external changes.
Velvet Chainsaw
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
Applying a story arc to the conference can activate participants’ brains. You can use the story arc concept to carefully craft the messages and issues you want your conference participants to explore, experience and learn. Your conference narrative can serve as a call to action for your participants to play a pivotal role in resolving that challenge personally and professionally. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference?
Membersuite
JULY 22, 2020
Apply these 7 essentials to create long-lasting virtual conference magic Offer a different kind of virtual event experience—one that has the elements that attendees expect and delivers the intangibles that turn events into memorable experiences.
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
To paraphrase Hoffer, you can never get enough of conference fads, gimmicks and trends. Unless your a conference participant and we often have had enough!). They also want access to your conference budget. Evergreen conference practices that have promising results are often obscured by our obsession with fads and trends. To avoid being fad-like in our conference planning process, here are seven emerging evergreen practices to consider and invest in instead.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 21, 2018
The North Star is the perfect metaphor for your annual conference purpose. When your conference purpose serves as a North Star, it guides all decisions, tasks, behaviors and strategy. Uncovering Your North Star Conviction To Find Conference True Target Market. Before your conference can find its true target market, you as the conference organizer must find your conviction. What’s your conference conviction? What’s your conference North Star?
Velvet Chainsaw
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
Most conference and meeting professionals want the coolest, hippest, latest ideas and trends for their events. We want to know what unique things other conferences are doing so we can borrow their ideas. We pursue fads, gimmicks and trends as the silver bullets of our conference woes. We expend resources searching for the mysterious conference trend panacea. Conference trend and fad bandwagons. What was the last conference trend bandwagon that you jumped on?
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 19, 2020
Virtual conferences also give attendees a view right into speaker’s homes, which can be uncomfortable for some. Related: In-person conference conventions don’t work online. The next huge hurdle for virtual conference engagement.
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 1, 2020
Putting on an in-person conference can be like putting on a show. Remember what it feels like to have people coming into the main session room during the conference opening and finding their seats? Organizations are coding their conference platforms.
Smooth The Path
AUGUST 11, 2020
A conference that typically draws over 20,000 in-person attendees a year just announced their keynote speakers. Hopefully, virtual conferences will level the playing field for speakers. Related: Chat or no chat at your next virtual conference.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 7, 2019
Many conferences are stuck in the rut of legacy routines, age-old rituals and cloned programming. Conference organizers and its advisors replicate the past maintaining the traditions and well-established procedures of yesteryear. The event is nothing more than a zombie conference—a conference that appears to be alive yet in reality creates the walking undead. Conference organizers and advisors can breathe new life into their events.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 25, 2018
Too often conference and meeting professionals assume that their role is best suited to planning and executing the conference. I get that from the education section or the conference technical teams.”. However, savvy meeting professional know that their conference’s success depends upon moving from customer fragmented touchpoints to designing holistic conference customer experience journeys. They own designing the conference customers experience journey.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 12, 2018
These mental models are deeply embedded in our conference planning and management practices. Savvy conference organizers realize that their mental models have much more influence over their outcomes than their decisions and actions. To be successful in the future, conference organizers must become paradigm busters–examining, challenging and changing their conventional mental models. This is especially true of our conference mental frameworks.
Velvet Chainsaw
APRIL 30, 2020
The dynamics that we’re seeing impact conferences and their business models are very similar to the Freemium movement we experienced way back in 2009. Go ahead and read Seth’s post and then come back for the linkage to conference monetization. To best compete: Premium conferences must choose quality over quantity. They’re playing the long-game and offering free or significantly discounted conference offerings.
Spark Consulting
JANUARY 9, 2014
Great Slideshare from Jeff Hurt proposing radical change for conferences and events: We Need A Conference Revolution from Jeff Hurt. conferences innovation presentations Jeff Hurt I particularly like everything he has to say about the changing role of speakers (as facilitators of learning experiences) and attendees (as co-creators rather than passive consumers). Of course, the question then becomes: how do we get from here to there?
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 4, 2018
As conference organizers, why can’t we also have a fun, fulfilling, and collaborative experience planning and designing the conference? Here are six ways to focus on designing your team’s experience during your next conference planning process. Read more about embracing your conference as a giving field here. It may seem paradoxical at first as we are used to focusing outward on the conference outcomes. The post If You Design Conference Experiences, Read This!
Eric Lanke
FEBRUARY 18, 2019
On the day this posts, my association's Board meeting and Annual Conference will be two short weeks away. This has traditionally been my time to enter what I call my "Annual Conference Mode." Well, the simple rule I try to start following is that if it isn't related to pulling off a successful Board meeting and Annual Conference, then it's going to wait until after the conference is over.
Smooth The Path
OCTOBER 22, 2019
Throughout my career, I have been involved in conferences as an exhibitor, sponsor, attendee, volunteer, speaker, and host. No matter the role, conference days are long, but no other role is as demanding as being the conference host. For big conferences, there are a few months build up with weeks before the meeting often being especially stressful — everyone on staff pitches in to help out with the conference in small to mid-size associations.
YourMembership Blog
AUGUST 8, 2013
Yesterday’s blog post gave a few tips on turning post-conference excitement into action. When you come back from a conference with all of these delicious ideas percolating in your head, it’s hard [.] ( Read more. ) The post Obtaining Post-Conference Buy-In to Innovation appeared first on YourMembership.com. Membership Management conference innovation For most organizations, the challenge is not the innovative thought.
Velvet Chainsaw
JANUARY 26, 2018
Once you’ve observed the conference through the lens of your target customer and gained insights from conference data, you can move to the next steps. These steps are critical for you and your conference planning teams to embrace, enlist and employ. You want to move from conference touchpoints to conference customer experience journeys. And remember, someone needs to own and to advocate on behalf of the conference customer’s experience.
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