The Long and Short of It Preparing an abbrevi- ated, passionate pres- entation is super-hard work. Many presen- ters will put eight or more hours into designing and script- ing a five-minute Ignite presentation. That abbreviated Ignite for- mat forces speakers to focus on themain points and tell a com- pelling story. It also helps build their confi- dence. Imagine the bumpin quality if your presenters put that kind of time into future deep-dive sessions.
Dave Lutz, CMP, is managing director of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting (www .velvetchainsaw.com), a business-improvement firmspecializing in the meetings and events industry. His company assists organizations in realizing top- and bottom-line growth by delivering customer- focused solutions in business development, best-practice and process improvement, strategic planning, and training.
People & Processes By Dave Lutz, CMP
Are Bite-Sized Session FormatsaGoodIdea?
Innovative session formats are not the secret sauce for making boring or ineffective conferences appetizing. Sure, it shows that you’re trying to be innovative and less predictable, but rapid-fire five- to 18-minute presentations won’t improve learning without intentionality—and a well- thought-out plan to add context.
There is a growing trend for conference organ- izers to design innovative session formats into their programs. Some of these formats include: TED-Style Talks — A presenter delivers a presentation on an idea or passion for up to 18 minutes. PechaKucha—Twenty slides automatically
advance at 20-second intervals for a total presen- tation time of six minutes and 40 seconds. Ignite—Similar to PechaKucha, but the 20
slides advance every 15 seconds. The talk is five minutes in length. Battle Decks — A form of PowerPoint karaoke improv,where participants extemporane-
2. Topic selection — In order to deliver the
goods, presenters need to speak about a topic that they are extremely passionate about—one that obviously relates to your industry or an individual’s professional development. The best design is achievedwhenyou are able to threadmultiplepre- sentations around a single problem that needs to be solved. It’s hard to accomplish this in a Battle Decks format. If you want learning, scratch that Battle Decks presentation off your list. 3. Set-up and timing—If you select the right presenters, you’re going to have a jam-packed room. Theater-style works best.Addhi-boys (42- inch-high round cocktail tables) to the sides and
If you want learning, scratch that Battle Decks presentation.
ously speak about each slide in a Pecha Kucha or Ignite slide deck that they’ve never seen before.
Have you ever attended one of these sessions?
Doyou remember what you learned? What I’ve observed is that the energy and entertainment value of these bite-sized presenta- tions is very high, but there is very little learning or content recall.Here are a fewtipsonhowto get the best of both worlds: 1. Presenter selection—Search for the influ-
encers or rising stars in your industry.Manyatten- dees select these sessions because the cool kids are going to be there. If you want rave reviewsfor your new session format, you’ve got to nail this one! Hand-pick a great emcee, too.
back of the room. I recommend scheduling these in the last timeslot of the day. That’s when atten- dees will be looking for an energetic presentation after a long day of conferencing. 4. Capture content—No matter what, get a
videocameraonatripodandrecordthesemoments. Video quality matters less than exceptional sound. Brief presentations, deliveredbypassionatemembers, get lots of eyeballs after the conference. 5. Build in discussion time — Depending on
your setup, program five to 10 minutes between each presentation for small-group discussion. If the room is set theater-style, ask participants to con- verse with their neighbors. Share a few of the dis- cussion outcomes with the entire audience and con- sider publishing a written recap.
ON_THE_WEB: Watch this 10-minute video by Bruno Giussani on preparing speakers for a TEDTalk: http://bit.ly/aB51oH. And read “The TED Commandments”: http://bit.ly/KCwv4.
ILLUSTRATION BY BRAD YEO pcma convene October 2011 37