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"I realized this morning that your event content is the only event-related 'stuff' I still read. I think that's because it's not about events, but about the coming together of people to exchange ideas and learn from one another and that's valuable information for anyone." — Traci Browne

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You're in the right place for the latest posts on conference design, facilitation, peer conferences, associations, consulting, and stories like being trapped in an elevator with a Novel Prize winner.

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Authentic connection platforms: the future of disintegrating social media

Authentic connection: A bonfire of the icons of major social media platforms—Facebook, X, TikTok, etc. In the clear blue sky above hover icons for the Fediverse and social media platforms Mobilizon, Mastodon, and Pixelfed.The social media platforms we once relied on for authentic connection are disintegrating. My ikigai—the reason I get up in the morning—is facilitating connection. But today’s major social media platforms—Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, et al.—are all owned by billionaires and tech bros who impose their political leanings on their users and/or seek to make massive fortunes from revenue streams such as ads and selling user information.

These monolithic platforms increasingly control what can be posted via opaque and ever-changing algorithms, while reducing or eliminating moderation of trolls and spammers. Bots abound, pouring AI-generated slop into users’ feeds. Though X is the most prominent example, Facebook has abandoned its fact-checking program and drastically reduced the reach of posts to followers, and platforms like LinkedIn have tuned their algorithms to reduce the reach of posts that include off-site links.

The dumpster fire will continue

Major social media platforms are a dumpster fire, and there’s no quick fix. Users remain on these platforms due to their network effect advantage; i.e. their value increases as more users join. For example, though I find Facebook’s ethical choices increasingly repulsive, I still use the platform sparingly because it is the only online service that some friends and family use, and a few of its local and professional groups have no significant online competition.

A corollary of the network effect is that as networks grow they become full of strangers, less coherent, and harder and more expensive to moderate effectively. Large platforms also become attractive places for those who need to feel important by having many followers, and who concentrate on broadcast communication rather than two-way connection.

If you, like me, are interested in authentic connection with people in ways you determine, unfiltered by secret algorithms constantly tuned to maximize revenue or political ideologies, the future is bleak.

Except…

Read the rest of this entry »

Are for-profits muscling in on association events?

A cartoon of two people in business suits walking towards each other in front of a conference venue displaying a banner "The Association Conference". The woman on the left is smiling and carrying a briefcase labeled "Revenue Opportunities". The man on the right is nervously clutching a folder labeled "Community Mission".Are for-profits stepping into territory traditionally held by associations? Lately, I’ve seen signs that they might be. Recently, I’ve received inquiries from suppliers of products and services wanting to hold events for the communities they serve.  In fact, I’m currently designing an event for a for-profit client that directly competes with association conferences in their profession.

Suppliers have held client events for their customers for many years. However, the for-profit supplier event I’m designing includes a small tradeshow with many suppliers of interest to potential professional attendees.

I’m flattered by my client’s belief that the participant-driven and participation-rich meetings I design provide a better experience than competing traditional association events. But, as someone who values the communities that well-functioning associations offer, I can’t help but feel concerned.

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From Heroic Leadership to Collective Heroes

Who are the heroes? A superhero lounges with a cup of coffee, while construction workers work on a building in the background. Do we really need heroes?

Society often glorifies the idea of heroes—individuals who swoop in to save the day and solve seemingly insurmountable problems. We see this dynamic across history, pop culture, and even leadership in our daily lives. But what happens when this fixation on heroism blinds us to the everyday, often invisible, work that prevents those crises from arising in the first place?

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Reducing No-Shows at Free Events: A Bold Approach

Back view of people sitting in rows of chairs in a conference room. One of the chairs is empty and has a sign "No-Show Fee" hanging on the back.Liz Latham, co-founder of Club Ichi and a brilliant event marketer, recently shared an intriguing idea she plans to test to increase attendance at her free events.

Having registrants not show up has become a big problem for the meeting industry, especially for free events. Not long ago, registrants would reliably attend events they signed up for, barring unforeseen circumstances—a far cry from today’s reality. Price incentives for early registration worked, and predicting attendance rate and attrition was a science, not an art.

Those were the days!

Today, with the multiple impacts of easy online registration, FOMO rivalry, and more choices for events than ever, it’s far more likely that registrants don’t appear on the day.

For event conveners, this is at best dispiriting and at worst financially disastrous.

So anything we can do that might reduce the uncertainty and percentage of no-shows is worth considering.

Liz’s idea

Liz noticed a relatively new trend, that you may have experienced too. Some restaurants, fitness programs, hair salons, dentists, doctors, and other types of businesses have begun to charge a fee if a customer doesn’t show up for an appointment.

So Liz is considering taking credit-card information at registration time, and charging a “no-show fee” to the card if the registrant doesn’t attend.

Although this idea may be new to the meeting industry, the above links show that many appointment-based businesses routinely use this approach.

No-show fees aren’t needed for paid events, which can have cancellation policies that offer partial refunds, compensating, at least financially, for no-shows. Rather, Liz is thinking of testing no-show fees for the many free events she organizes, where attendance rates are often well below 50% of registrations.

Could no-show fees work for the meeting industry?

Pros: From a meeting organizer’s perspective, the implementation of a no-show fee may deter folks registering who only expect to attend if nothing better shows up at the time of the meeting. This minimizes waste by better aligning logistical preparations with actual attendance. Implementing no-show fees can also benefit registrants who do show up, since the promoted event size (including, optionally, a list of registrants) is more likely to be accurate.

Cons: Requiring credit card information at registration may frustrate those confident they’ll attend and adds security and logistical challenges for organizers. In addition, the organizers will need to create a refund policy for no-shows with a defined and legitimate reason (such as a death in the family, travel disruptions, etc.), and implementing this could be cumbersome.

Your thoughts?

Do you think implementing no-show fees at free events is an idea worth exploring? Have you tried or experienced no-show fees at a meeting? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

I am a recovering academic

A group of people sitting in a circle of chairs facing inwards. One man is standing, saying "I am a recovering academic."

My social media profiles mention that I’m a recovering academic.

What do I mean by that, and why do I think it’s important?

Becoming a recovering academic

Describing myself as a “recovering academic” reflects my ongoing journey to balance rationality, emotion, and creativity in my life. When I was young, I was taught that rational thinking was the ultimate way to understand and navigate the world. Trained as a scientist, I operated under the belief that thinking and logical analysis should reign supreme.

As I grew older, I discovered that feelings rather than logic often dictated my actions. My emotions weren’t secondary—they drove my decisions and how I connected with others and found purpose. And I realized I am a creative person. Rather than analyzing the world and making (so I thought) “rational” decisions, I started to use creative action to actively shape my life. Creativity has become my bridge between thought and feeling, allowing me to integrate both and approach life holistically.

However, my journey is not without its challenges. Old habits die hard, and I frequently find it difficult to “shut up and listen“. I sometimes respond to interpersonal experiences with a rational, problem-solving mindset rather than empathy, needing to pause and remind myself to approach situations with understanding and compassion rather than detached analysis. The tension between rationality and empathy remains a part of me, but it’s also a source of growth, helping me navigate life with more balance, awareness, and authenticity.

I am not alone.

My name is Adrian Segar and I’m a recovering academic

Being a recovering academic means leaving behind the strict confines of intellectualism that sometimes limits me and embracing a fuller, more integrated way of being. It honors the value of rational thought but also acknowledges the profound importance of emotion and creativity in living a meaningful, connected life. It’s a way of humorously yet honestly reflecting on my journey from living primarily in my mind to integrating my heart and creativity into shaping the world.

To be continued…

How to deal with a “quick question”

An email with the subject line Re: quick question To: Adrian Segar "Greetings Segar Consulting, Did you see my previous email about…? Sender and body of the email have been blacked out.During my 40+ years of consulting, I’ve received countless phone calls and emails that begin with a rushed introduction, followed by the ominous phrase: “I have a quick question.”

Beware!

In my experience, despite some folks’ naive explanations, this seemingly innocent phrase means one of two things:

  1. The person is trying to sell me something, or
  2. They know I charge for my time but want free advice.

The first—quick-question-as-sales-tool—is easy to deflect:

Q. “Can I set up a quick call to tell you about a product or service that will undoubtedly change your life?”

A. “No.”

The second approach is trickier. Perhaps my impressive expertise in answering the “quick question” will magically convince them to pay for my services!

The question may be quick, but the answer…

The real issue is that while the question may be “quick”, there’s no guarantee the answer will be short.

Q. What is the meaning of life?

A. ??????? [I’m pretty sure it’s not “42“.]

Occasionally, I don’t know the answer and can quickly tell the questioner, “Sorry, I don’t know about that,” perhaps referring them to someone who can help. But that’s rare. People don’t want to waste time asking someone unlikely to be helpful, so they usually have good reasons for reaching out to me.

Consulting as a dance

I’ve participated in hundreds of client-consultant conversations. I think of them as dances: mysterious, exciting, full of potential for creating something great, and, sometimes, unfortunately, disappointing.

In my experience, these contracting “minuets” can take as little as ten minutes or, let’s just say, far too long.

The Thirty-Minute Rule

So, if the questioner seems sincere, I invoke my Thirty-Minute Rule to avoid a never-ending dance.

The Thirty-Minute Rule is my reasonable compromise between the competing needs of a consultant and a client. It balances generosity with professionalism, while reinforcing the value of my expertise.

In consulting, “quick questions” often tread a fine line between goodwill and professional boundaries. While helping others builds relationships, my time and expertise are valuable. The Thirty-Minute Rule allows me to offer a fair compromise, demonstrating both generosity and respect for my professional worth. By setting clear limits, I ensure interactions remain productive and mutually beneficial.

After all, consulting is a dance that works best when both partners respect the steps.

Nine snippets of wisdom for 2024

nine snippets of wisdom: "The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated." "Humans and stories need each other. We tell them, but they tell us too–reaching with soft hands and wide arms to pull us into their embrace. They do this especially when we have become mired in lives of which we can make no sense. We all need a path, and stories can sometimes usher us back to it." "Covering content does not lead to knowledge retention, understanding of information or how to apply it. It actually serves as a barrier to learning. It is only when attendees become participants with the content and use it, even if just in discussions, that the knowledge is retained and understanding happens." "Leadership is no longer part of a job description: something anointed on the chosen few. Leadership is a role to be adopted when needed, and then passed on when the need has gone. It's a dynamic thing, moving around the organisation, reshaping the organisation as it passes from individual to individual, team to team." "All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished." "If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." "The person you are just about to become is a stranger to you." "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." "It’s easier to act our way into a new way of thinking, than think our way into a new way of acting."Here are nine old and new snippets of wisdom that spoke to me at some point in 2024. And a bonus at the end…

“Leadership is no longer part of a job description: something anointed on the chosen few. Leadership is a role to be adopted when needed, and then passed on when the need has gone. It’s a dynamic thing, moving around the organisation, reshaping the organisation as it passes from individual to individual, team to team.”
“Is your organisation irrelevant?”, Peter Evans-Greenwood, 2012

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
Andre Gide, Treatise on Narcissus [Le Traité du Narcisse] (1891)

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a very loose English paraphrase of his French poem Dessine-moi un bateau, or Make Me a Boat, found in Citadelle, 1948

“The person you are just about to become is a stranger to you.”
David Whyte via Viv McWaters, 2016

“Covering content does not lead to knowledge retention, understanding of information or how to apply it. It actually serves as a barrier to learning. It is only when attendees become participants with the content and use it, even if just in discussions, that the knowledge is retained and understanding happens.”
“Is Your Conference Guilty Of Content Bulimia?”, Jeff Hurt, 2013

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”
Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 2015

“It’s easier to act our way into a new way of thinking, than think our way into a new way of acting.”
Jerry Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance, 2010

“Humans and stories need each other. We tell them, but they tell us too–reaching with soft hands and wide arms to pull us into their embrace. They do this especially when we have become mired in lives of which we can make no sense. We all need a path, and stories can sometimes usher us back to it.”
Michael Marshall Smith, Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, 2017

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.”
— Attributed to William James, 1800s

BONUS: Nine practical tips for letting go in a chaotic world

Learn how to transform conferences with my meeting design workshop

If you are serious about improving your conferences, my meeting design workshop can be the game-changer your organization needs. Here’s what happens at a typical one-day workshop.

In a world where passive listening no longer satisfies attendees, traditional lecture-based conferences are ineffective and outdated. Today’s participants crave authentic engagement, meaningful connections, and interactive learning experiences. Are your conferences delivering the engagement, learning, and connection attendees expect? My meeting design workshops equip event professionals with the tools and techniques to create truly participatory and impactful experiences.

I’ve spent years helping organizations transform their events into connection-rich, engaging experiences through my hands-on meeting design workshops. Every workshop is customized to align with the organization’s goals and stakeholders’ wants and needs.

Here’s a peek behind the curtain!


Program for a typical one-day meeting design workshop

“You don’t take a workshop. You are part of one.”
Seth Godin

A diagram of the core process in Adrian Segar's meeting design workshops: cycles of workshop experiences, subsequent debriefs, and associated theory and backgroundThis one-day workshop offers a hands-on opportunity to learn through direct experience of participatory meeting formats and techniques. Participants will engage in cycles of interactive experiences followed by debriefs, interspersed with short “theory bites” that provide critical background knowledge and concepts. These formats will be introduced in the approximate order they might appear during a typical participatory and connection-rich event.

The following program is designed for a one-day, eight-hour schedule.

Opening

Workshop Introduction, Overview, and Agreements (~20 minutes)
Establishing explicit group agreements ensures a shared understanding of expectations and participant behavior, creating a collaborative foundation for the workshop.

Learning About Who’s in the Room (~60 minutes)
One of the most powerful ways to begin an event is by helping attendees discover key information about each other. This session will explore questions such as:

  • Who are my peers here? Who understands my work because they do what I do?
  • What are the nature and sizes of other attendee groups?
  • Which attendees work across groupings, and how?
  • Who else here lives or works near me?
  • How many years of experience are present? Who are the novices and the veterans?
  • How can we display the degree of consensus on a topic and make visible the distribution of participant opinions?

Using tools like human spectrograms, we will visualize participant data, uncover shared connections, and explore questions suggested by attendees.

Break (~15 minutes)

The Three Questions: Uncovering and Satisfying Participants’ Wants and Needs (~75 minutes)
How can we create a conference that becomes what participants actually want and need? This opening format allows participants to:

  • Learn fundamentally useful information about each individual present.
  • Share personal and collective wants and needs for the event.
  • Uncover the learning resources available within the group.

Insights will inform the design of the afternoon program. The session concludes with a debrief to reflect on the experience.

Lunch and Afternoon Session Determination (~75 minutes)
During lunch, participants will use the Post It! For Programs format to propose session ideas by answering the question: “If you could pick a session to hold at this workshop, using the people and resources around you, what would it be?”

Participants can:

  • Ask for or offer to lead a session.
  • Propose internal topics relevant to the organization or request specific formats, such as:
    • Ask Adrian Anything: (AMA).
    • Fishbowl Sandwich: Facilitating discussions on large group problems.
    • The Solution Room: Obtaining confidential peer-supported advice.
    • Open Space and World Café: Formats for short participant-driven conferences (Open Space) and dialog in small groups about predetermined questions (World Café).
    • Reminders, Sparks, Questions, Puzzles: A short format that allows participants to efficiently engage with and explore presented consent.
    • Voting formats: Exploring techniques like hand/stand, Roman, card, table, dot, and anonymous voting.

The outcome will be a tailored afternoon program that meets the group’s wants and needs.

Middle

The customized afternoon program will feature sessions chosen by participants, including opportunities for facilitated discussions, problem-solving, and peer learning. Breaks will be scheduled as needed. (~130 minutes)

Closing

Personal Introspective (~60 minutes)
This two-part session helps participants reflect on their learning and determine actionable changes to implement. This session may be adjusted or omitted if additional time is allocated to the afternoon program.

Break (~5 minutes)

Group Spective (~40 minutes)
A combination of retrospective and prospective feedback, this plenary session allows participants to share insights about the workshop and collectively reflect on its impact. It also fosters a sense of community and provides valuable feedback for future events.

This one-day workshop promises a rich, participatory learning experience that equips attendees with tools and techniques to create engaging and effective conferences that support the connection and learning attendees want and need.


Why choose a participatory meeting design workshop?

Meeting design workshops like these empower event planners and participants to:

  • Enhance Engagement: Move beyond passive listening by learning how to foster authentic and useful participation.
  • Build Meaningful Connections: Help attendees uncover relevant shared interests, expertise, and experience, and develop lasting professional relationships.
  • Maximize Learning: Leverage the expertise and experiences of the group to create valuable, participant-driven sessions that meet their wants and needs.

Every workshop is customized to align with your organization’s goals and the wants and needs of your audience.

By learning how to design participation-rich conferences, you’ll not only meet the expectations to learn and connect of today’s attendees but also elevate the impact and value of your events for all your stakeholders.

Ready to transform your events?

If this outline inspires you, let’s connect! I’d love to discuss how a participatory meeting design workshop can help you reimagine your events and deliver exceptional value to your stakeholders. Contact me today to explore how we can work together to create engaging, effective, and memorable conferences.

On not knowing at conferences

To evaluate an event, conveners focus on knowing key conference metrics. Our analytic minds seek numbers to quantify the experiences of event stakeholders. Metrics such as ticket sales, KPIs, social media mentions, booth visits, and net promoter scores create a picture of event outcomes, satisfaction levels, and areas for improvement.

But is there value in not knowing at conferences?

A poem about knowing

Mary Oliver‘s poem Snowy Night beautifully explores the tension between knowing and not knowing. She describes a snowy evening when she heard an owl:

“I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant.”

Knowing the differences: an illustration of Great Horned and Barred owls Image attribution: https://www.nhpr.org/something-wild/2016-02-05/something-wild-how-owls-spend-the-winterInstead of chasing certainty, Oliver chooses to embrace the mystery:

“But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something…”

Hearing this poem the other day reminded me of a similar tension at conferences—between the need for data and the value of embracing the intangible.

Metrics and their limits

As Oliver writes,

“I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.”

Metrics provide a finite “map” of what happened at a conference. They transform rich human experiences into statistics—valuable, yes, but inherently incomplete. Metrics don’t capture the intangible: the awe, learning, and life-changing connections a good conference can inspire.

As Alfred Korzybski noted, “A map is not the territory.” Metrics are useful tools, but they don’t replace the fullness of the experiences they represent.

Mary Oliver’s poem celebrates the value of wonder and being present over the need to uncover all the “knowable” facts. She writes:

“I love this world,
but not for its answers.”

Let’s keep her perspective in mind when we evaluate a conference.

Otherwise, as Alan Watts warned, we risk becoming “people eating menus instead of dinners“.

In conferences, as in life, there is value in both knowing and not knowing. By balancing data with the immeasurable, we can create richer, more meaningful events.

Maintenance

Definition of the noun "maintenance" from The Cambridge Dictionary: "the work needed to keep something in good condition", superimposed over a photograph of Adrian Segar
Definition of the noun “maintenance” from The Cambridge Dictionary: “the work needed to keep something in good condition”

As I grow older, I spend more and more time on maintenance—not of my home or possessions, but of my body.

My body doesn’t work as well as it used to.

Exercise, stretching, and standing consciously have become essential.

My short-term memory has deteriorated, making it harder to juggle the day-to-day details I once handled with ease.

Sleeping was once effortless, but I must now prepare medications and follow routines to ensure I get enough rest.

I find myself taking more pills than I ever thought I would.

I think to myself, how did I get here?

A photograph of a room with a woman holding a sign that says “How did I get here?”

Silver linings

Aging has brought gifts though. As my professional life slows, I have more time to consciously maintain my body and my relationships. The upside of a worsening short-term memory is that it’s easier to live in the moment!

I’m more aware than ever that I will not live forever.

This awareness brings, at times, some measure of equanimity.

The act of maintenance is inherently paradoxical—it is a fight against entropy, a refusal to let things fall apart. Maintenance implies that we can somehow maintain what we had at an earlier age. This of course is not how it works. Eventually, I will die and maintenance—along with everything else that occupies my attention—will no longer be a problem.

Until then, I will work diligently on maintenance, keeping my life the best it can realistically be.

That is enough. It is more than enough.
Photograph Adrian Segar in Philadelphia, standing in front of the Liberty Bell