Expert insights. Personalized for you.
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
At a recent conference consultation with a client, a millennial made me think that I wasn’t keeping up with the times. I voiced my strong opinion that conference organizers should embrace inbound marketing (pull) over traditional outbound marketing (push). 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. Surfacing our cognitive conference constructs. MORE
If you’re tempted to not host a virtual conference, consider these questions before making a final decision Not going virtual with your event(s) shouldn't be an option as you need to stay relevant to your members and market and stay in business. 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? How much time can we expect an engaged attendee to participate in a multi-day virtual conference? The post Conference Innovation While Traveling at Warp Speed appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. 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
The program at a recent conference was nearly perfect. After a long conference day, one night, I fell in with a crowd walking to the reception, and I learned they were some of the conference staff. The conference was beautiful on the outside, but it seemed very broken inside. MORE
Your association, annual conference, and governance are all institutions. One of the sacred cows for associations and their annual conference is attributing notoriety to the office of the president, board chair or annual conference committee chair. 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. 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
76 
Where are young professionals during the breaks at your conference? Young professional pre-conference workshops – invite young professionals for learning opportunities before the conference starts. Are they enjoying quiet time back in their rooms? MORE
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. Have women, industry innovators, busy members, or young professionals been unable to attend your in-person conferences? Related: Chat or no chat at your next virtual conference. A prediction for virtual conferences in the future. MORE
Think beyond the usual online experience for your next virtual conference. Add these four elements to provide a real-life feel and spark good memories MORE
101 
Many associations are missing the mark – and missing revenue potential – when it comes to their conference sponsorship offerings, according to the findings in our new white paper, “The New Sponsorship Model for Virtual Events.”. MORE
Conference organizers and their planning teams should understand, identify and quash organizational debt. Refactoring As A Metaphor For Conference Improvement. Thus we refactor to improve the conference experience for our customers. Consider it as your conference source code. 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. You can never get enough of what you really don’t need says Eric Hoffer. MORE
Here are 14 ways to differentiate your event to create FOMO and ensure it stands out from the typical virtual conference experience Struggling to drive attendance to your virtual events? MORE
103 Attending a conference was about the most uncomfortable thing he had to do as an adult, he said. New and infrequent attendees say that conferences can be nerve-wracking. One happy outcome of the recent online conference trend may be that the people who feel shy, awkward, or overwhelmed at in-person meetings get to experience conferences in a new and perhaps seemingly safer way. Related: Conferences are super awkward for young professionals. 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
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
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
As you embark on a new vision of conference renovation and reform, you may feel that you are crossing from a comfortable, familiar space to one that is unknown and unsettling. Conference Improvement As Your Threshold To New Growth. What’s your favorite room in your home? MORE
The reality of transitioning to a Virtual Conference can be as simple or complex as planning a traditional on-site event, depending on the needs of your organization. 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. 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. 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. 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
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
Now imagine someone asking your conference participants that question. Then they would launch into a passionate description of your event’s annual Party with a Purpose, its pre-conference feel-good community service projects and its ongoing student scholarship fundraisers. 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. 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
If there’s something strange in your conference-hood. Our cognitive frameworks—our mental models and paradigms—shape our thinking, behavior, operations and success of our conferences. We falsely believe that future conferences are just an extension of the past. 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.
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?
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Association Leaders
MARCH 22, 2020
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
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? How much time can we expect an engaged attendee to participate in a multi-day virtual conference? The post Conference Innovation While Traveling at Warp Speed appeared first on Velvet Chainsaw. Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart.
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
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.
|
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
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?
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!
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. So exactly how do you use a story arc for your conference?
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.
|
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.
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. You can never get enough of what you really don’t need says Eric Hoffer.
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.
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?
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. Surfacing our cognitive conference constructs.
Smooth The Path
FEBRUARY 4, 2020
Where are young professionals during the breaks at your conference? Young professional pre-conference workshops – invite young professionals for learning opportunities before the conference starts. Are they enjoying quiet time back in their rooms?
Smooth The Path
FEBRUARY 6, 2020
The program at a recent conference was nearly perfect. After a long conference day, one night, I fell in with a crowd walking to the reception, and I learned they were some of the conference staff. The conference was beautiful on the outside, but it seemed very broken inside.
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
OCTOBER 17, 2018
Your association, annual conference, and governance are all institutions. One of the sacred cows for associations and their annual conference is attributing notoriety to the office of the president, board chair or annual conference committee chair.
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
Membersuite
SEPTEMBER 15, 2020
If you’re tempted to not host a virtual conference, consider these questions before making a final decision Not going virtual with your event(s) shouldn't be an option as you need to stay relevant to your members and market and stay in business.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 13, 2018
If there’s something strange in your conference-hood. Our cognitive frameworks—our mental models and paradigms—shape our thinking, behavior, operations and success of our conferences. We falsely believe that future conferences are just an extension of the past.
Membersuite
AUGUST 31, 2020
Here are 14 ways to differentiate your event to create FOMO and ensure it stands out from the typical virtual conference experience Struggling to drive attendance to your virtual events?
Velvet Chainsaw
OCTOBER 12, 2018
At a recent conference consultation with a client, a millennial made me think that I wasn’t keeping up with the times. I voiced my strong opinion that conference organizers should embrace inbound marketing (pull) over traditional outbound marketing (push).
CommPartners
APRIL 16, 2020
The reality of transitioning to a Virtual Conference can be as simple or complex as planning a traditional on-site event, depending on the needs of your organization.
Membersuite
AUGUST 19, 2020
Think beyond the usual online experience for your next virtual conference. Add these four elements to provide a real-life feel and spark good memories
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.
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. Have women, industry innovators, busy members, or young professionals been unable to attend your in-person conferences? Related: Chat or no chat at your next virtual conference. A prediction for virtual conferences in the future.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 13, 2018
Now imagine someone asking your conference participants that question. Then they would launch into a passionate description of your event’s annual Party with a Purpose, its pre-conference feel-good community service projects and its ongoing student scholarship fundraisers.
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.
Velvet Chainsaw
JUNE 29, 2018
Conference organizers and their planning teams should understand, identify and quash organizational debt. Refactoring As A Metaphor For Conference Improvement. Thus we refactor to improve the conference experience for our customers. Consider it as your conference source code.
Association Success
SEPTEMBER 7, 2020
Many associations are missing the mark – and missing revenue potential – when it comes to their conference sponsorship offerings, according to the findings in our new white paper, “The New Sponsorship Model for Virtual Events.”.
Smooth The Path
MAY 19, 2020
Attending a conference was about the most uncomfortable thing he had to do as an adult, he said. New and infrequent attendees say that conferences can be nerve-wracking. One happy outcome of the recent online conference trend may be that the people who feel shy, awkward, or overwhelmed at in-person meetings get to experience conferences in a new and perhaps seemingly safer way. Related: Conferences are super awkward for young professionals.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Velvet Chainsaw
JULY 24, 2018
As you embark on a new vision of conference renovation and reform, you may feel that you are crossing from a comfortable, familiar space to one that is unknown and unsettling. Conference Improvement As Your Threshold To New Growth. What’s your favorite room in your home?
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.
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