“There’s too much control given to volunteer committees. We think that we’re doing the right thing by allowing them to make these choices, when they don’t have that expertise.”
regional, and national meetings, and whose speakers are also members—vendors or suppliers. This group will sell to the highest bidder every 30 minutes of a half-day meet- ing, to allow these practitioners to get up and present. And sometimes these practi- tioners, these companies, will have six to eight people that will get up in a 30-minute presentation and share their experiences. And it’s just a parade, one after another after another. There’s no thought process whatsoever as to what’s in the best interest of the attendee, or ‘is this meeting the needs of the attendees?’” “There’s too much power and control given to volunteer committees. The intent is good. But too often the volunteer committees become the people who approve what the table- cloths are going to look like, what the food-and-beverage is going to be, whether or not somebody is going to speak. They literally put the entire power into the committee’s hands— which is backwards, particularly if the conference is some- thing that makes revenue for the organization. The intent is good, because we want to get advice from our volunteers, because they’re the ones in the field. But unfortunately, we give them way too much power. And we think that we’re doing the right thing by allowing them to make these types of choices, when they don’t have that expertise.”
ATTENDEE POV
QuitWasting My Time. (But Keep Your Seat.)
Cricket Snearing,Administrative&TeenTravel Director, Sesame/Rockwood Camps “I think I’m more selective about what sessions I go to. If it’s not what I want, I’m sort of like, ‘Ooh, why did wehavethis person?’ And when their presentation is not what the write-up says—when they don’t match—that part bothers me.” “The one thing that I tend not to do—which a lot of people do, and it drives me crazy—is you’re sitting there listening to someone and people start walking out. And I always think, well, almost as bad as somebody is, I’m still get- ting something from it. If I get one idea from somebody, I feel great. I don’t need to have them tell me everything that’s going to change my program.”
CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE
“Sometimes you get there and you think, ‘Okay, this is a waste of my time; we could have done this on a conference call.’ It wasn’t as planned out as somebody thought it was going to be, in terms of just whether it’s a committee meeting,
not so much a session at a conference.” “I want people to know what’s going on and stay on track and havethe information begood and quick—and also begood presenters. I think that’s one of the things with a lot of people who think they know the material but they’re not a good presenter. I don’t have a lot of patience for people who don’t know how to manage an audience.”
THE CONSULTANT IS IN
You AreNot as Important to Your Attendees as You Think You Are. Also, Your Propri- etary Social-Networking Site
Is a Terrible Idea. NathanielWhittemore, Principal, LearnCapital “The thing that I think conference planners have the hard- est time with is that the owners want as much to happen in the context of their conference as possible—they’d like everyone to walk around all year wearing [conference] T- shirts and starting every sentence with ‘I went to this confer- ence….’ Attendees just want really, really basic stuff. This is just a part of their identity, it’s a part of the stuff that they do every year. And this is even the case with the most exclusive, hard-to-get-into events.” “At the end of the day, [conferences] own a very, very small piece of any individual’s mindshare. And so the trade-off between having a Ning network…or their own pro- prietary conference community versus just having a Facebook or a LinkedIn group— I think it’s pretty hard to justify at this point.”