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“Conferences that stick to the same lecture style, without more experiential ways of learning, are behind the times.”
ing outlay—but speakers could account for 50 percent of the impact. Given that it is such an important part of the event, it deserves more than 5 percent of the planner’s attention. Meeting planners have been fired for picking the wrong speaker.”
ATTENDEE POV PowerPoint Is
Just Awful. Lynn Grefe,CEO,National Eating DisordersAssociation “The only thing I wouldget off my chest is the complaint of any speaker who reads their PowerPoint—as though we can’t read. I believe PowerPoints should be bullet points, images, etc., otherwise it truly is like reading to an audience: dull, boring— andwhy do we needa speaker then?”
THE CONSULTANT IS IN
of Your Q&A. Samuel J. Smith,Managing Director, Interactive MeetingTechnology “One of the biggest problems that we see—and, in a broad sense, why meetings are terrible—is that they put some speakers onstage, and all they do is let them talk and they assume everyone’s going to connect with the content equally, in the same way—and that they’re going to retain the infor- mation or change their behavior or whatever just because of the presentations. That isn’t the best, most effective way to learn. It’s easy from an organizer’s point of view—very effi- cient—but it doesn’t necessarily generate the best outcomes.” “The No. 1 fear of people is public speaking. And public speaking is putting a person on stage—but it’s also public speaking when you’re asking someone to stand up in the middle of 800 people to ask their question. So when people only use Q&Ain that way, I thinkit’s terrible because they’re missing out on opportunities from people who are just afraid to stand up and talk.” “Q&A’s a big problem. You have these microphone runners, and they run around and they take Betty’s question, and Tom’s question, and they keep running around.Well, guess what: If there are 800 people in the room,
JEFF HURT 60 pcmaconvene December 2011 Your Attendees Are Terrified CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE
how many microphone runners do you need? And you’re only getting the people who are willing to speak, and we have to wait while we watch the person run from place to place. If you could text questions in, then you
can get 800 people texting questions in at once, and then you, as a speaker, might be
able to handle four or five times more. The quality of ques- tions goes up, you cut out the ads—the guy that says, ‘Hi, my name’s Bob Smith and I saved the company $1 billion last year’—it’s faster, and you can just process through more things.”
ATTENDEE POV
Your Networking Opportunities Are Not Working.
Laurie Rinke,CSW,Associate Director, Camp EchoLake “I think that when you go to a conference, andfor me person- ally, to be getting the education you’re looking for is great— but if you don’t have the networking opportunities as well to make connections with other attendees, that to me is a disappointment. I think you can have education sessions that involve roundtable discussions—facilitated interactive discus- sions—where there’s still learning going on, andsharing of ideas, that create more of a networking atmosphere.” “Conferences that stick to the same formulaic, 101-level edu- cation kind of sessions, lecture-style without different, more innovative, interactive, experiential ways of learning—I think those kinds of conferences are sort of behind the times.”
THE CONSULTANT IS IN
Don’t Double-Dip. And, for the Love of Pete, Don’t Entirely HandOver Your Meeting to Volunteer
Committees. JeffHurt, Director of Education and Engagement,Velvet Chainsaw Consulting “One common problem, and a real chal- lenge, is when the conference organizers ‘double-dip’ to make money, and they charge conference speakers to speak. One particular case concerns a group that does lots of state,