Leading Learning By Jeffrey Cufaude

Take Away

7HabitsofHighly EffectiveMeeting Planners

If your annual meeting met your attendance goals but failed to further your profession, would you call it a success?

Here’s a simple truth with significant implica- tions:Most organizations do not attract themajor- ity of their membership to their annual meetings. Sure, those attending spread the learning by shar- ing with their colleagues, and non-participants also pick up info through hybrid participation or pur- chases of CDs or other packaged content. But you’re still reaching a small percentage of the potential pool of individuals you could impact.

Meeting for a Mission “Begin with the end in mind” is Stephen R. Cov- ey’s second habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effec- tive People. Meeting professionals shouldembrace that approach as a core design principle. An unspoken but understood end goal for yourmeet- ing is to support the mission of your organization, but how overt and intentional are your strategies for doing so? Does your organization’s mission make an appearance in your conference-plan- ning conversations, and if so, howthoughtful are those conversations?Howclear is your organiza- tion on the gap between its mission and vision, and howmethodical are you in trying to bridge this gap through your annual meeting’s design and content? Advancing a profession requires that a critical

mass of professionals embracenewways of think- ing and experimentation with new technologies. Meetings play a key role in making these break- throughs more likely. Does the content of your meeting already reach that mass in a meaningful way, and are they demonstrating better perform- ance as a result of applying the new knowledge? These are the types of questions that meeting

professionals needto be asking—beyondthe well- known menu of learning and logistics conversa- tions. But here is the most important question to use as a catalyst for rethinking your meeting design to be more mission-centered:Howdifferent would your meeting look if your core metric for

success washowwell it enhanced the profession- al practice of a majority of your members?Oreven a significant portion of the profession’s members, regardless of whether they are affiliated with your organization? Bymaking this your clearly stated mission for

your meeting, you’ll need to make progress on a few core goals. While these aren’t necessarily new in terms of our efforts, we need to be more intentional in pursuing them, more effective in exe- cuting them, and more rigorous in evaluating our successes andshortcomings—i.e.,weneed to make them habitual: 1. Identify timeless and timely learning needs,

and craft a conference program that effectively addresses both. 2.Ensure that conference content can be con-

nected to real-practice issues and that it reflects the diversity of the profession and its practitioners. 3. Build a stronger infrastructure to engage

more attendees as communicators and content curators (blogging, tweeting, and photographing their experience) in meaningful ways for non- attendees. 4.Strengthen conversations of the communi-

ty, by the community, and for the community. 5. Help presenters use accelerated learning

techniques and more interactive formats that bet- ter involve participants in learning with — and from—each other. 6.Implementmore widespread hybrid meeting

approaches to expand real-time conference partic- ipation across locations. 7. Curate and distribute conference content

more rapidly, in ways that increase individual and organizational adoption.

Next month, I’ll spotlight some of the ways a

variety of organizations are making progress in these important areas.

ON_THE_WEB: Learn how the National Association of Realtors uses social media to expand the reach of its meetings in this Slideshare presentation: http://slidesha.re/pTjCYV.

42 pcma convene October 2011 ILLUSTRATION BY JEAN TUTTLE

Jeffrey Cufaude is a former higher- education administrator, meeting planner, and association executive. Currently he designs and presents high-impact learning experiences, including engaging conference keynotes and workshops. Learn more abouthis work atwww.idea architects.org or follow him atwww.twitter .com/jcufaude.

Measure Twice, Cut Once Successful confer- ences should include strategies and metrics tied to the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic goals, and not just typical meeting metrics (attendance, high scores on evalua- tions, etc.). These metrics should be incorporated into ongoing perform- ance-evaluation efforts for staff members who are involved in your organization’s con- ference planning and execution.