I am looking for your help to hold workshops that I believe will significantly improve the quality of meetings.
Since 1992 I’ve been developing participation techniques that radically improve conference sessions and entire meetings. Over the last five years, I have run a variety of 3- to 8-hour workshops. Participants learn to facilitate and appreciate many of these techniques through direct experience. People love these meeting industry workshops! (References are available if you don’t know my work.)
I believe there’s a real need for extended versions of these workshops — lasting 1½ – 2½ days — to give meeting planners, facilitators, and presenters a comprehensive interactive learning experience of these simple, yet powerful and effective ways to improve learning, connection, engagement, and action outcomes at our events.
I love designing and running these workshops, and I would like to offer them anywhere in the world there’s sufficient interest. They will typically be small, between 15 to 50 people.
I am not interested in making a ton of money doing this, just covering expenses and my standard fees. The more people who attend a workshop, the less it should cost them.
Looking for help
So I’m looking for partners and volunteers: people and organizations who are interested and willing to help make these workshops happen.
Perhaps:
You know people and/or groups who would want to attend and are willing to solicit them?
Such a workshop would fit into and complement one of your events?
You own a venue where we could host the workshop?
You, and perhaps others you know, want to attend one and have ideas about holding it at your location or for your community?
You can help in some other way?
I’m open to any kind of workable relationships (yes, I will reimburse/pay for your contributions) that make these workshops possible. Although my books continue to sell well and influence event design all over the world, after 30 years I’ve learned that most people only fully understand the value of these eye-opening ways to transform meetings by experiencing them, rather than reading about them.
Would you like to make these workshops possible? Can you help? Then I’d love to work with you. Please contact me at [email protected].
‘Twas the Holiday Season, when all through the net #Eventprofs were stirring, their DMs to get;
The BEOs stored on their iPads with care,
In hopes that the caterers soon would be there;
Attendees were nestled all snug in their chairs;
While visions of aerialists danced in the air;
And friends on their PCs, and me on my Mac,
Were settling our sights on a long winter’s hack,
When out on SM there arose such a clatter,
I stared at my feed to see what was the matter.
Logged in to Mastodon, scanning the stream,
All I could see was a sparkling new meme.
Thank goodness, thank goodness, it wasn’t That Guy,
Though some were expressing dismay on Bluesky;
It had nothing to do with ChatGPT,
Which gives you advice, without guarantee;
Ah, though I would not make a purchase so rash,
It seems it was just one more steep crypto crash.
The glow of the screen on my new M3 keyboard,
Gave a glint of ROI promised reward;
So I opened a Zoom and invited some friends,
With the hope they weren’t burning the candle (alone) at both ends.
To the top of the page! to the top of the list!
Duck under the velvet rope, come to be kissed!
As leaves that before room turnover rise,
When they meet with an obstacle, we all improvise.
So into the Zoom the #eventprofs all flew,
With the click of a mouse and some first-timers too,
Appeared on the screen with a beer in their hand,
Or an old-fashioned cocktail or mocktail as planned.
Oh, who is that sipping a classic martini?
Why it’s none other than Gianna Gaudini!
So come join us shortly if that’s what you’d like,
If we say we can’t hear you please unmute your mike!
We’ll gather together, on this year reflecting,
A bunch of old friends who just love reconnecting;
And you’ll hear me exclaim as I fade the downlight, Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!
[Note: This post gets updated annually, and I share the latest version in December. I don’t have enough rhymes to mention everyone I work with, but, rest assured, I love you all!]
Will Airbnb impact traditional meeting room blocks?Brian Chesky, 32, is the founder and CEO of Airbnb, “a community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world” that was founded in 2008 and, in just six years is expected to become the world’s largest hotelier.
Perhaps the most informative answer to this question to date comes from a study published in December 2013: The Rise of the Sharing Economy: Estimating the Impact of Airbnb on the Hotel Industry by G Zervas, D Proserpio, and J Byers, at the Boston University School of Management <pdf, free download>. The research looked at data collected from Texas hotels between 2008 and 2013 and found that:
Every 1 percent increase in the number of Airbnb bookings led to a .05 percent decrease in hotel revenue;
The impact of Airbnb falls disproportionately on hotels with little or no conference space; and
Luxury and upscale hotels in Texas were not significantly impacted by the arrival of Airbnb.
This doesn’t look too bad for the meetings industry, unless you’re booking room blocks in midprice or value hotels. But I think there are some factors that this excellent study of the past doesn’t include when we attempt to predict the future.
Airbnb is still relatively unknown and is growing incredibly quickly
Airbnb’s growth is commonly described as “hockey-stick” (think Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth). Check out the company’s annual reports for details. Airbnb had booked 5 million cumulative nights by February 2012; by June, it had doubled that to 10 million. A year ago I knew nothing about Airbnb and never considered staying anywhere but a hotel or traditional B&B when I traveled. Having trouble finding conventional accommodation for a trip that met my needs, I joined Airbnb in September 2013, along with 5 million other people that year. Since then I have already used the service four times. What happens as we pass the early adopter stage and move into a world where it’s easy and normal to stay in/rent out residential accommodations for short periods?
I just returned from PCMA Convening Leaders in Boston. I have a local apartment, so I commuted and didn’t stay in the room block. The conference offered block rooms from $175 – $209 per night single/double occupancy. A quick browse of Airbnb turned up several small attractive two-bedroom apartments within a few blocks at $170 per night (for two occupants, $150 for one) with kitchen, internet, and a washer & dryer.
There’s no way that Airbnb can currently match the quantity of hotel rooms available around the Hynes Convention Center. But the offerings I found were extremely competitive on price alone. They also included amenities that are not available for free or at all in most hotels. And given that two employees could stay in separate bedrooms in one of these Airbnb properties, the cost savings become even more attractive.
In my opinion, this is one of the most compelling arguments for an Airbnb impact on traditional meeting room blocks. My older daughter, director of sales for a mid-size company, has started to book larger Airbnb properties when she is attending conferences with several other employees. They like the cost savings, a private common space to meet, and the extra amenities.
Airbnb offers rooming options that are often not available via traditional accommodations
The four Airbnb reservations I’ve made since joining the service have all been in San Francisco. My younger daughter lives within a few blocks of Golden Gate Park. There are only two bed and breakfasts (and no hotels) in her area. Both B&B’s were booked when we wanted to be there, but an Airbnb search turned up many options for staying close to her apartment. Since we didn’t want to share a home with others we searched Airbnb for self-contained apartments. We found two nearby that matched our requirements. If room blocks sell out I believe that the variety of Airbnb choices close to a meeting venue provide an attractive backup. And if room prices are seen as too high, Airbnb makes it easy to search for nearby cost-effective alternatives.
Airbnb makes it easy to look for just what you need
I have a personal story here. Last month, my younger daughter was crossing the street at a crosswalk in San Francisco when she was hit by a car, breaking both her legs. (Luckily she suffered no other injuries, and should eventually be fine.) After surgery and rehab she could not return to her apartment right away, as it is, like many San Francisco accommodations, only accessible via a steep flight of steps. We faced an immediate problem of finding her somewhere to stay. It had to be handicap accessible, in central San Francisco, and close to friends that could assist her for about six weeks until she could weight-bear and get around on crutches.
Short-term rental agents were unable or unwilling to return our calls. Hotels had a few handicap accessible rooms but provided nowhere for her to cook any meals. Craigslist, besides being a potential source of sketchy room listings, presented us with the daunting prospect of calling every potential lister to find out whether the accommodation was accessible.
Airbnb allowed us to quickly search for handicap accessible accommodations for our daughter. Based on the detailed listings and customer reviews we were able to pick several possibilities. We sent messages to the owners asking about access, door widths, etc. As a result we were able to find two three-week rentals that fit our unusual criteria. Without Airbnb I’m not sure what we would have done.
Quirkiness can be compelling
Yes, there are many meeting attendees who want the predictability of a bland hotel room. But the boutique hotel sector is one of the fastest growing, an indication, perhaps that quirky Airbnb accommodations are an attractive alternative for an increasing number of business travelers who enjoy something a little different from the average cookie-cutter places to stay. Airbnb, which offers everything from a couch in a room in someone’s home to modernist architecture, green buildings, and castles has something for everyone.
Conclusion
Clearly I’m a fan of Airbnb. Signing up for the service was reassuringly thorough; the verification process required social media logins—either Facebook or LinkedIn—plus offline proof of ID, a driver’s license or passport (digital scanning included in the Airbnb app) and took about 30 minutes. (If you’re still concerned, you can choose those that have enough satisfied user reviews to reassure you.)
Will Airbnb impact traditional meeting room blocks? I’m a meeting designer who is occasionally responsible for attendee accommodations. I fully understand the reasons for room blocks and will continue to use them myself whenever possible. The question remains whether more meeting attendees will, like me, join the Airbnb bandwagon and add it to their list of alternatives to the room block. Only time will tell. But my gut feeling is that over the next five to ten years Airbnb will noticeably reduce the demand for in block housing, creating a significant impact on how we’ll need to plan our meeting accommodations.
At every event I’ve ever attended, tap water has been free while bottled water usually costs money. Which leads to my Wi-Fi manifesto. I propose that organizers supply Wi-Fi like water at events.
These days, event Wi-Fi is a utility. People need a Wi-Fi connection, even when they are physically together in the same space. I know that providing Wi-Fi costs money—but so does providing water.
I believe that event organizers should, at a minimum, provide base level rate limited free Wi-Fi throughout the meeting spaces of the venue, plus an optional paid higher-performance tier of service.
The free Wi-Fi would be rate limited to somewhere in the region of 100-300kB/sec per device, irrespective of the number of devices each attendee brought. The paid tier would provide a higher bandwidth, appropriate to attendee needs.
“…for a 250-room hotel, the cost is about $2.50-$4.50 per room, per month.”
This infographic breaks down the costs, which work out to 10-15 cents a day. That’s $20-30/day for an event with 200 attendees. (At this point you may be wondering why some hotels charge $14.95/day for internet access per device. This is called “making money hand over fist”.)
None of this is hard anymore
Rate limiting internet bandwidth for individual users is simple due to the incorporation of Quality of Service (QoS) policies in modern inexpensive routers and access points. You don’t even need two sets of access points for different bandwidth tiers; you can support multiple discrete Wi-Fi networks (VLANs) on a single access point. Finally, ramping up bandwidth and reliability for high-demand events is now relatively straightforward because most systems support bandwidth aggregation, allowing multiple internet service providers to seamlessly provide bandwidth from more than one circuit.
Attendees don’t expect events to provide high bandwidth internet access for free (though they’ll love you if you do). But, like a tap to fill your water bottle, bandwidth that’s sufficient for basic tasks like checking email, interacting on social media and light web browsing should be available for free at every event.
Like Water for Chocolate Wi-Fi. That’s my manifesto.
Want to join me—or am I dreaming? What do you think?
I feel irritated when I see so many event professionals focusing on “new” event technology while ignoring existing technology that, in many cases, could greatly improve their events at a fraction of the cost.
There, I said it.
Every year there are plenty of conferences where you can go and see the latest and greatest mobile and gamification apps, attendee tracking systems, registrant analytics, mobile networking, video streaming platforms, etc. Vendors are happy to sponsor these events. They use them to showcase their wares and, hopefully, convince attendees that their new technology is worth buying.
Let me be clear—I have nothing against new technology per se. (If I was I’d be a hypocrite, given that I spent twenty-three profitable years as an information technology consultant.) What’s sad is that too much of event professionals’ limited continuing education time is spent investigating shiny new toys and apps while overlooking inexpensive and proven ways to provide effective learning, connection, engagement, and community building at their events.
Why does this happen? Here are two reasons:
We fixate on the new
“Technology is anything that was invented after you were born.”
—Alan Kay, from a Hong Kong press conference in the late 1980s
We are enveloped by so much rapidly changing technology that we fixate on what is new.
What was new quickly becomes taken for granted and largely invisible. As David Weinberger remarks: “Technology sinks below our consciousness like the eye blinks our brain filters out.”
Although technology in the form of human tools has existed for over three million years and we’ve had books for over half a millennium, the first history of technology wasn’t written until 1954. Flip charts, 5×8 cards, comfortable seating, room sets, healthy food and beverage, and hand voting have been around for a long time. They are old-fashioned technology to event professionals, so we don’t pay them much attention (unless they can be reframed in a sexy way, e.g. “brain food”). But that doesn’t mean they’re not important. Far from it.
Technology isn’t just manufactured goods and software
Our definition of what is and isn’t “technology” is far too narrow. We tend to think of technology in terms of products and embedded implementations (e.g. software). But this is an incredibly restrictive viewpoint. Kevin Kelly, in his thought-provoking book What Technology Wants, lists three of the most important human technologies:
Language: A technology that “shifted the burden of evolution in humans away from genetic inheritance…[allowing] our language and culture to carry our species’ aggregate learning as well.”
Writing: A technology that “changed the speed of learning in humans by easing the transmission of ideas across territories and across time.”
Science: “The invention that enables greater invention.”
Once we start thinking about technology with a wider lens like this, all kinds of possibilities arise.
Language, writing, and science are outside our conventional, narrow-scope technology. The conventional technology we use to instantiate the sounds, symbols, etc. that they use is secondary. Language, writing, and science are primarily about human process.
When we expand our perspective on event technology to include process, many unexamined aspects of our events come into view. A few examples:
Why do we open conferences with a keynote?
Why do so few people speak during conference sessions?
How do we know if the sessions we’re providing are what attendees actually want?
Why do we provide entertainment during socials?
Are socials the best way to meet other attendees?
Why do we close conferences with a keynote or dinner?
When you start honestly investigating issues like these, instead of simply repeating things the same “safe” way you’ve previously experienced at conferences you’ll discover all kinds of human process technology that can fundamentally improve your event in ways that a new gizmo or app cannot.
So I urge every event professional to re-envisage event technology to include the process used during your events. Concentrate less on improving logistical processes: registration, decor, A/V, F&B, and so on. These are secondary processes, and we know how to do them well. Instead, focus on improving the human process you use throughout the event venue and duration. How you
“All I want is not to be insulted by the people I’m serving by them paying me less than they pay their kids’ piano teachers or their own hair stylists. They can say all the nice things they want when I’m finished. But when they hand me a paltry check, what are they really saying? What do they expect me to conclude about how much they value my work?” —John G. Stackhouse, Jr
I like going to event industry conferences. I enjoy meeting old friends, making new ones, and learning new things. And I love presenting on all kinds of topics that revolve around making conferences fundamentally better for participants and organizers.
But there’s one thing that really bothers me about these events.
The pitiful reality that few meeting conferences offer to pay speakers.
The default offer, often considered generous, is to cover expenses. (Though I receive many invitations to present that don’t even mention that.( Sometimes organizers have tried to get me to pay full registration too!
When you ask whether they will pay a fee, a common response is “Well, we don’t have a budget for that.” Sometimes this is preceded by an embarrassed pause, sometimes not. Hmm, you have an F&B budget, a venue budget, and an administrative budget, but you don’t have a budget for the people whom you’ve invited to fill your event with educational goodness and value? Why not?
Why they don’t pay
One answer, of course, is “We’ve always done it this way.” This is a rationalization for a lot of bad things in this world.
Another is “you’ll get exposure.” Listen up guys: good speakers for your sessions already have exposure—they aren’t relying on free speaking engagements. Yes, I have had presentation opportunities lead to client work, but not to the extent that they’ve even come close to paying the time and monetary costs to a) create a session proposal, b) prepare a presentation (typically five to ten times the presentation’s duration), c) travel to and from the venue, and d) give the presentation.
Finally, we have the “don’t you want to give to your community?” angle. Yes, I do. Yes, I speak for free or at a reduced rate probably more than I should. I also look for other ways to receive benefits that the conference organizer can provide, e.g. a professional video of my session or a couple of extra hotel nights at a really nice conference location. But, unfortunately, supporting your professional community doesn’t pay the bills.
The next time you (yes, you, you know who I’m talking to) are planning an event, build some money into your budget to pay speakers. When you ask someone to present, offer them up front specific compensation for their expenses and their time and expertise. The message that you value their presence at your event, rather than taking them for granted, will speak volumes.
How can we better support event professionals? was the topic of a fascinating August 5, 2010 #eventprofs chat (archive), moderated by the “Queen of EIR“, Jenise Fryatt. The chat was noteworthy for its energy around two initiatives that emerged during our hour together:
An online resource for answering event industry questions
An online resource for matching volunteer mentors and mentees
Responding to the energy, I registered the domain www.eventprofsanswers.com during the chat and set up a skeleton website. As you can read in the archive, many chat participants were enthusiastic about this action and asked how they could help move these initiatives forward.
Since the chat, I’ve had offline discussions about developing the website. Most correspondents have been positive, though a minority has expressed some reservations.
So, how can we better support event professionals?
Here are some of my conclusions and questions arising from the discussion so far
I think it’s important to have the widest possible initial discussion before proceeding further. We need to find out what other #eventprofs think and hear from professional association members and the associations themselves.
I’m not aware of significant attempts to use online technologies to address the two initiatives, other than the ad hoc use of Tweeted questions using the #eventprofs and allied hashtags. Perhaps there are existing resources we’re not aware of?
There seems to be evidence that some event professionals, especially perhaps those who entered the industry through non-conventional paths (like me), would appreciate a central online location for posting questions and finding appropriate mentors (either online or face-to-face). How easy has it been for you to get your events-related questions answered? What has your experience been with the availability of and satisfaction with existing industry mentoring programs?
I have already received a number of individual and association chapter offers of support (thank you, everyone!) If you would like these initiatives to be implemented in some fashion, what are you willing to contribute to making this happen?
Do you have suggestions for additional online initiatives that would address event professionals’ needs?
I want to make it clear that I am personally completely open to the process and the organizational structure used to implement these initiatives. Perhaps an online resource would be run by a group of volunteers, perhaps it could become part of an existing professional association’s online presence and services, or perhaps it would remain an independent presence that is formally supported by an association’s staff. What do you think?
Lots of questions! I believe the professional events community, would like to know your responses. Either comment below or write me privately if you prefer. I look forward to everyone’s input!
[Written in 2010, I’m keeping this post up because it includes many suggestions that are just as relevant today.]
Here are the slides and resources from my June 18 2010 presentation to the NE/SAE (New England Society of Association Executives) annual meeting held at the Colony Hotel, Kennebunkport, Maine:
NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework helps people navigate the range of approaches that are available to them and make design choices that are appropriate for their circumstances and resources.
Having agreed to moderate an #eventprofs chat this evening, I thought I’d whip up a short, anonymous survey on #eventprofs’ life-work balance. I received 21 responses in the ten hours the survey was open, and here are the results:
1. How many days in a week do you normally work?
2. How many hours in a day do you normally work?
3. How many hours in a day do you spend traveling to work?
4. How do you feel about the amount of time you spend at work?
5. Do you ever miss out any quality time with your family or your friends because of pressure of work?
6. Does your organization offer any of the following options for work/life balance? Are there options you would like your organization to offer?
Other comments:
7. On a scale from 1 (extremely poor) to 10 (extremely satisfied), how would you rate your current work-life balance?
8. Please add any additional comments about your work-life balance here.
So those are the results of my informal poll on #eventprofs life-work balance.
What issues make it hard for event professionals to maintain a healthy work-life balance? What has helped you or others ? Feel free to add your own comments!
I am looking for your help to hold workshops that I believe will significantly improve the quality of meetings.
‘Twas the Holiday Season, when all through the net
