After four decades of founding associations, serving on non-profit boards, and designing and facilitating countless association meetings, I’ve seen a lot. Enough, in fact, to spot patterns—especially when things go wrong. Earlier this year, I documented three common-but-overlooked mistakes associations […]
Do I trust you? I live in rural Vermont, so if I want to go to an in-person conference that isn’t close to me, I need to get on an airplane. The closest airport to me is a two-hour drive. […]
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 […]
There’s no shortage of confident futurists. Unfortunately, based on results, we’re not particularly good at predicting the future. Why is Predicting the Future Important? Predicting the future has become increasingly vital as the pace of change in human societies accelerates. […]
Seth Godin points out that many organizations fear connecting because their leadership fears losing control. Even though the control they think they have is a myth. “Organizations are afraid of connecting. They are afraid of losing control, of handing over […]
Connect the dots, not collect the dots. How can we maximize the real value of a meeting? By maximizing how participants “connect the dots”—what they actually learn from their experiences at the meeting—rather than documenting what we or they think […]
Sadly, resolutions rarely work. In 2016 I wrote about the New Year’s Resolutions Effect. [My example was noticing that thousands of people chose to read my old post about cleaning up email on your iPhone every January.] I shared Tom Stafford‘s suggestion […]
Event innovation has to be more than giving attendees souvenirs. Instead, extend your event brand with innovative formats, so those souvenir T-shirts will become something that people will hang onto for years!
All too often, clients planning an event don’t spend enough time making hard but important event choices. What is engagement? A few months ago I designed and facilitated BizBash’s inaugural two-day leadership summit in Puerto Rico. 24 C-Suite executives discussed some […]
These days I am blessed with clients who are a joy to work with. But that wasn’t always true. Here’s how I learned to attract great consulting clients. It shouldn’t need to be said, but I’m going to say it […]