My Top 10 Reasons to Attend
What seems like eons ago, I wrote a little ditty called My Top 10 Reasons to Bolt about the things that would make me grab my stuff and run from a session. This week, after reading Chief Marketerâs survey on what makes a conference worth attending, The Association Blogâs Kevin Hollandâs excellent musings on the topic, and Internet guru Dave Taylorâs thoughts on what makes a conference valuable, Iâve been thinking about the top 10 things that would make me come running to an event. Hereâs my wish list:
1. Give me access to big brainsâno, make that big, relevant brains. I donât care if theyâre the keynote speaker, session leaders, or the guy I meet while snagging some coffee, I want to interact with people who will stretch my mind in new directions. Weâre not necessarily talking about top gurus (though Marcus Buckingham alone would probably do the trick for me), but people who really “get” where the attendees are coming from, and where they can go with a little help.
2. Provide content that will wake me up, shake me up, and give me what I need to make me better at what I do. Take me out of my comfort zone, turn my world upside down, and show me what I canât see without climbing out of the rut Iâm in (and most of us are in a rut of some kind, no matter how much we hate to admit it).
3. Show, donât tell. I donât need talking-head dudes and dudettes telling me about the latest developments in an industry. Put my damp little hands on whatever it is and let me take the idea for a test drive. For example: ASAE did a brilliant job of introducing attendees to new tech tools they can use with their meetings by incorporating a show blog, Flickr photo sharing, del.icio.us content tagging, and the social networking tool IntroNetworks into ASAEâs recent annual meeting. Score: 10+.
4. Surprise and delight me (as opposed to surprise and freak/gross me out, like serving green ketchup or inviting giraffes to a reception.) Give me something that reawakens that six-year-old inside, like an unexpected walk through a tunnel of fireflies on a dark summer night.
5. Touch my emotions, ignite my passion. Give me that visceral, from-the-gut connection to the information presented by engaging not just my mind, but also my body and spirit. Make me care, deeply, and Iâll be a lifelong attendee.
6. Make it fun. Make it interactive. Toys are cool, too.
7. Forget networkingâhelp me have meaningful conversations, not business card exchanges. Build into the format opportunities for attendees to connect with each other and the material presented. Thereâs a reason way the “hallway track” is the most popular one at most meetingsâshow me how you incorporate that accidental learning into the very heart of your program, before, during, and after the meeting.
8. Make me feel special just for being smart enough to come to the event. Make me feel that not only is my industry cool and important, Iâm also cool and important, and even cooler than those unfortunates who didnât get to participate. We all want to be recognized for our specialness.
9. Give me takeaways, then follow up to see how Iâm using what Iâve learned. Send me reminders, and give me ways to share how Iâm using the info back in my real, post-meeting life. And, more importantly, how others are using it, so I can continue to learn from the organization and my peers.
10. Blow something upâwhether itâs the standard meeting formats (PowerPoint, anyone?), or a leading misconception, dynamite something to make way for something new. (Iâm also a big sucker for fireworks, if you want to take it literally.)
But thatâs just me. What makes an event a must-attend for you?
Update: At least one person agrees with me on #3.
August 29th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Sue - we love the fact that you think that the introNetwork was a very positive aspect of the recent ASAE Show. We love working with them and had an excellent response from attendees.
I wanted to reply to your section above:
Thereâs a reason way the âhallway trackâ is the most popular one at most meetingsâshow me how you incorporate that accidental learning into the very heart of your program, before, during, and after the meeting.
One of the things in the introNetwork that has been used effectively for just such encounters is the TALK TO ME ABOUT words that are on Page One of the Profile. These words usually appear at the top of someone’s introCard and serve as conversation starters - as in ‘talk to me about martial arts‘, or ‘talk to be about my most excellent new product or service…‘
How this feature was originally deployed was as a direct XML feed to a badge printing system - so your Talk to Me About words were printed below your name, title and company on the badge you wore around your neck.
So, when you were standing in line at the lunch buffet, someone would sneak a peek at your badge and see that you were giving permission to them to talk to you about martial arts, your new product or the weather at the Beijing Airport - whatever it was that you wanted to talk about.
This was first used at the TED Conference and was a huge hit. In fact, we made special lables that people could get that would paste over the original printed ones, in case they wanted to change them during the conference - which they did.
Finally, I want to say that your comment about ‘interesting conversations’ is what the introNetwork is philosophically designed to do. We are NOT a matching system. Instead we beleive that we are in the business of helping people make reasoned decisions about others that they may want to have conversations with - and that the profiles that are built will convey that which is most interesting about us - and hopefully that will be the beginning of many interesting conversations to come.
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