Meetings Mindset founder Jon Bradshaw is testing attendee-performance concepts in seven basic areas: 1. Outcome orientation. “Setting goals, having objectives which can be benchmarked against post-show analysis.” 2. Meeting skills. “Negotiation, selling, body language. Memory improvement, so you can remember people’s names when you meet them. These are the actual practical skills of meeting.” 3. Mental skills. “Using the mind to anchor yourself in a positive mindset—separating the meetings experience from all the other problems or issues going on in your life. It’s about examining your beliefs and giving you practical tools to help you change your emotional states, should you want to do so.” 4. Physical skills. “This is about physical fitness as well as diet. How does nutrition affect your performance? How can you overcome jet lag on an international flight?” 5. Personal brand management. “Not just about how you look, but how you [act]. How do you present yourself, including your online profile? What impression are you giving?” 6. Making it all work on-site. “This takes all the steps and asks, ‘How do we make it work?’” 7. Following up. “This is probably the most important step. What are you going to do afterwards to make sure you achieve your meeting objectives?”
tally preparingmore for conferences? And could that be a key in improving theROI ofmeetings?” Bradshawspent thenext year developing a framework he calls
MeetingsMindset, whichin its first iterationmaps out seven basic areas that affectmeeting performance. (See “First Steps,” at left.) He’ll use these as the basis for “Convening Leaders Orientation: Success at PCMA Convening Leaders — A Users Guide,” at PCMA’s annual meeting next month. Also at Convening Lead- ers, Bradshaw is teaming upwithPCMAto present theMeetings Mindset Lounge, where attendees can relax and recharge with activities that correspondwith the program’s steps. Also in 2011, Bradshaw said, IMEX—a Meetings Mindset
sponsor—will launch a research institute staffed by behavioral psychologistswhowill undertake meetings-industry research.And Bradshawisworking with business faculty atLondon’s University ofWestminster to secure funding for a study ofmeeting-attendee behavior—which, he said,will be the first of its kind. Bradshaw also is field-testing the Meetings Mindset concepts
by asking for feedback from an industry users group, recruited at events as well as through theMeetingsMindset website.“We are verymuch in theprocessof creating this tool,”he said, “rather than saying this is the tool youmust follow.” But Meetings Mindset ismorethan a web-based tool. “It’s very
much an experiential, on-site tool,” Bradshaw said. He added: “This isn’t a boring tool. It’s not saying, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ It’s saying, ‘Consider thiswhenyouwantto performatyour best. Don’t go and get absolutely drunk as a skunk when you’ve got ameeting at half-past six. It can’t be appropriate, can it?’”