Most of the event industry and our clients continue to assume that if you can make the meeting bigger it’s a good thing. It ain’t necessarily so. How we got here The massive disruption of in-person events since March 2020 […]
For better meetings, we need to focus on learning, not education. Yes, sometimes, cultural or professional “requirements” mean we have to provide education. That’s so we can “certify” that we’ve educated attendees to some prescribed standard. But is that all our […]
I’m noticing that event promoters increasingly use “unconference” to describe traditional conferences. Like this one, this one, and this one. . Please stop doing this! There’s a big difference between unconferences and traditional events. Here’s how Wikipedia defines an unconference: […]
How can we provide new experiences at meetings? Not new F&B, decor, or glitz. Something deeper. Here’s a story… A memorial service Last month, I staffed an online memorial service for E, a friend who died tragically, at age 42, of […]
Far too much money is spent on meeting glitz at the expense of good meeting design. Seth Godin makes an analogous point in this post… Good writing is cheaper than special effects “In movies, that’s obvious. It costs far less […]
Is the end of an event important? It’s complicated. years ago, I wrote about how to create especially memorable events. Including many different kinds of short experiences during our meetings, allows us to hack the peak-end rule to maximize the impact of […]
What is humans’ true superpower? [Hint: We’re not more intelligent than other species.] We can make a strong case that humans’ true superpower is social learning. Why am I writing about social learning on a blog that’s (mainly) about meeting design? Because social […]
Are you stuck in a career or life that you are reluctant to leave because it would involve ignoring sunk costs? I frequently meet people who are, and I certainly understand the temptation. Here’s the story of how I liberated my […]
We spend too much time distracting ourselves from what matters. Distraction is fine, up to a point. But when we spend two trillion dollars annually on entertainment, I’d say we are well beyond that point. As Seth Godin puts it: […]
It’s tempting and understandable to concentrate on trying to manage change. After all, we are constantly experiencing change, and attempting to manage it is often unavoidable. But never lose sight of the importance of working on what to change. As Seth […]