Miles Franklin, the Australian writer and feminist best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, wrote the above words in her autobiography. Like Miles, I believe that all people want and need opportunities to share how they’re thinking and feeling.
Meetings of every kind offer these opportunities. When I walk into our tiny town rural post office, I sometimes see folks for whom a conversation about almost anything with the sole postal worker is clearly important. Perhaps that customer will have little or no other human contact that day. What is talked about is far less important than the act of telling.
Personal meetings like these, whether brief or extended, between good friends or strangers, are fundamental. Many of us are lucky enough to have “someone to tell it to,” though some do not.
Someone to tell it to at conferences
Conferences, whether in-person or online, are also potential arenas for conversations. They are places for participants — who have something in common with each other — to find someone to tell it to. Even if the teller believes that they weren’t fully heard, the act of telling is valuable. (Otherwise, people wouldn’t journal and practice self-affirmations.)
But some conferences offer better opportunities than others. Traditional events relegate conversations to the hallways, to breaks and socials. No conversations occur during lectures. Even post-presentation Q&As rarely evolve into a conversation, which is always between the presenter and a succession of audience members.
Given the fundamental human need to tell, meeting stakeholders owe it to participants to create opportunities and environments for rich conversations in the sessions, rather than just the gaps between them. I have been doing this for 33years, and it’s clear that meeting designs that integrate meaningful conversations into sessions have a transformational effect on almost all participants. (Read any of my books to learn specific techniques and designs that create meaningful and valuable conversations during meeting sessions.)
In 2006, Cory Doctorow wrote: “Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.” Content is everywhere, but conversations require tellers and listeners. While telling something to ourselves is better than nothing, it doesn’t compare to telling it to and being heard by another human.
Let’s give attendees the priceless gift of someone to tell it to at our events.
Children listening to each other image (cropped) by J. Verkuilen, licensed under (CC BY 2.0)
How can you support a community online? Over the last few weeks, I’ve run numerous online Zoom meetings for support groups and local, social, and professional communities. In the process, I’ve learned a lot about what makes these meetings most useful for participants.
I’m sharing what I’ve learned (so far) here.
Key takeaways
• Breakout room functionality is essential for your online meeting platform.
Small group conversations are the core components of successful online meetings. (If your meeting only involves people broadcasting information, replace it with email!) Unless you have six or fewer people in your meeting, you need to be able to efficiently split participants into smaller groups when needed — typically every 5 – 10 minutes — for effective conversations to occur. That’s what online breakout rooms are for. Use them!
• It’s important to define group agreements about participant behavior at the start.
For well over a decade, I have been asking participants to agree to six agreements at the start of meetings. Such agreements can be quickly explained, and significantly improve intimacy and safety. They are easily adapted to online meetings. (For example, I cover when and how the freedom to ask questions can be used when the entire group is together online.)
• Use a process that allows everyone time to share.
You’ve probably attended a large group “discussion” with poor or non-existent facilitation, and noticed that a few people monopolize most of the resulting “conversation”. Before people divide into small breakout groups, state the issue or question they’ll be discussing, ask someone to volunteer as a timekeeper, and prescribe an appropriate duration for each participant’s sharing.
• People want and need to share how they’re feeling up front.
I’ve found that pretty much everything important that happens at these meetings springs from people safely sharing at the start how they feel. They learn that they’re not alone. I ask participants to come up with one to three feeling words that describe how they’re feeling: either right now, or generally, or about their personal or professional situation. They write these words large with a fine-point permanent marker on one or more pieces of paper and share them, one person at a time, on camera or verbally. (Elaborations come later.)
• Sharing what’s working is validating, interesting, and useful.
In my experience, most people have made some changes in their personal and/or professional lives. Sharing these in small groups is a supportive process that’s well worth doing.
• Consultations are a powerful small group activity.
Set aside time, if available, for a few group consults on individual challenges. Ask for volunteers. They will receive support, and their small group of impromptu consultants will feel good about helping.
• Don’t forget to provide movement breaks.
Occasional movement breaks are even more important for online than face-to-face meetings. Participants can feel trapped sitting in front of their cameras. Schedule a break every 45 minutes.
• Check before moving on to a new topic.
If you are on video, ask for an affirmative sign (thumbs up or down), or use Roman voting. On audio, ask “Who has more to contribute to this?”
• Provide a set of tips and conventions for the online platform you’re using.
Here are mine for Zoom.
• Schedule time for feedback and/or a retrospective.
Key questions: What was this like? Do we want to do this again? If so, when, and how can we improve it?
Preparing for your community online meeting
Key information should be distributed appropriately well in advance of the meeting. Include it in a single online document, and create a descriptive URL shortened link (e.g. bit.ly/ephhfeelings). I suggest you share a short promo for your why? for the meeting, followed by this “complete details” link. Because many people don’t read the details until shortly before the meeting, resend your share closer to the time of the event.
I also like to display the link printed on a card visible in my video feed, so folks who have joined the meeting can catch up. Don’t rely on a chat window for this, since latecomers will not see earlier chat comments in most meeting platforms.
Here’s a sample of what you might want to include in your pre-meeting document for a 90-minute online meeting. My comments are in curly brackets {}.
Sample pre-meeting information document for community online meeting
[Date and start/end time of meeting] [Time when the host will open online meeting] {I suggest opening the meeting platform at least 15 minutes before the meeting starts. This allows people, especially first-time users, time to get online} The meeting starts promptly at [start time]
Please check out the following three links before the meeting:
Why you should attend [meeting title]{audience, rationale, agenda, etc.} How to join this meeting {complete instructions on how to go online} [Meeting platform] tips {make it easy for novices to participate — here are my Zoom tips}
Preparation
Please have a few blank pieces of paper and a dark color fine point permanent marker (several, if you are artistically inclined). Before we start, write large on one piece of paper where you’re calling from. On another, please write (or illustrate) one to three feeling words that describe how you’re feeling: either right now, generally, about your personal or professional situation — you choose.
Schedule
We will open the meeting at 11:45 am EDT.
Please join us before 12:00 if at all possible, so we can start together promptly. We’ll try to bring you up to speed if you join late, but it may be difficult if there are many already online and it will be disruptive for them.
The exact timings will depend on how many of us are present. This plan may change according to expressed needs. All times EDT.
11:45: Online meeting opens.
11:45 – 12:00: Join the meeting.
12:00: Meeting starts. Housekeeping. Where are you from?
12:05: Sharing our feelings words together.
12:10: Preparing for sharing what’s going on for you.
12:15: Sharing what’s going on for you in an online breakout room.
12:25: Group recap of commonalities and illustrative stories.
12:35: Preparing for sharing what’s helped.
12:40: Sharing what’s helped in the online breakout room.
12:50: Break — get up and move around! {Share your screen with a countdown timer displayed so people know when to return.}
12:55: Group recap of what’s helped.
13:05 Preparing for individual consulting. {Ask for a few volunteers.}
13:10: Individual consulting in an online breakout room.
13:25: Group recap of individual lessons learned.
13:35: Group feedback on the session. Do we want to do this again? If so, when, and how can we improve it?
13:55: Thanks and closing.
14:00: Online meeting ends.
Support your community online
Most online meetings do a poor job of maintaining participants’ attention. I’ve found that starting with a quick opportunity for people to share how they’re feeling effectively captures attendees’ interest. And using a platform and process that allows everyone time to share what’s important keeps participants engaged. You might get feedback like this…
“I just wanted to reach out again and thank you for the call today. What an incredible conversation spanning such significant geographical areas. The perspective we gain from discussion like today is priceless. I just got off of another call with [another community] and the vibe was completely different. While everyone was respectful, everyone’s overall sense of well being was generally pretty positive. And that’s where they wanted to keep it.”
—A participant’s message to me after an online meeting last week
Please try out these ideas! And share your suggestions and thoughts in the comments below.
How often have you heard “Any questions?” at the end of a conference session?
Hands rise, and the presenter picks an audience member who asks a question. The presenter answers the question and picks another questioner. The process continues for a few minutes.
Simple enough. We’ve been using this Q&A format for centuries.
But can we improve it?
Yes!
Let’s explore, starting with…
Six criticisms of traditional Q&A
Traditional Q&A reinforces the engrained assumption that the presenter is the expert, and audience members are relative novices. This ignores today’s reality that the smartest person in the room is the room.
Traditional Q&A is a one-to-many process. These days, conference attendees come to learn andconnect. But the only connection going on (if any) during traditional Q&A is between the presenter and individual audience members.
Have you ever thought, “I could answer that question better than [the person on stage]!”? Traditional Q&A provides no opportunity for obtaining answers from audience members.
Who gets to ask questions? The presenter decides, allowing any implicit (and explicit) bias full reign.
How much time is available for questions? Again, the presenter decides. Too little time scheduled frustrates audience members whose questions remain unanswered. Too much time leads to a premature session close.
During traditional Q&A, the questioner is in the audience while the presenter is up on stage. As a result, questioners remain largely anonymous; audience members can’t even see a questioner behind them without turning around.
Ways to improve Q&A
I can think of two fundamental ways to improve Q&A. Here are…
Five ways to refine the traditional Q&A format
Include multiple Q&A opportunities throughout the session. This helps audience members get answers to questions while they’re top-of-mind, rather than waiting until the end of the session. It also increases interaction with the presenter, which can help maintain attendee attention and improve learning.
Instead of the presenter picking the questioners, have an independent third party (a moderator) choose them.
Or you can have the audience submit questions via an app and then vote on the list. This helps uncover popular questions.
If you’re using a moderator, have the audience submit questions in writing or via an app. This allows the moderator to curate questions to be asked. When appropriate, the moderator can combine similar questions.
Instead of taking questions from the audience, have questioners line up at a front-of-room mike so everyone can see them.
Or, we can…
Further improve Q&A by integrating it into a discussion format
Traditional sessions have two parts, first a lecture, and then Q&A. As mentioned above, presenting multiple short pieces of content interspersed with Q&A increases interaction and consequent learning. But we can do better!
Combined with experiential exercises, here’s the approach I use in my Participate! Labs.
Using a facilitated discussion format like the fishbowl sandwich, I create a session that offers Q&A on an as-needed basis. As I share content, attendees can join me on stage at any time for questions or a discussion that I moderate. (Check the link to see how this works.) The session then becomes more like a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) around my content.
Creating a truly participative Q&A in this way lets the resulting questions and discussions reflect the audience’s just-in-time needs, optimizing the value of the session for participants.
Do you have additional suggestions for improving Q&A? Share them in the comments below!
Beware of “experiential” events that are just razzle-dazzle.
“Experiential” has become a buzzword to use to describe hip events. Instead of listening to speakers, you’re going to have — wait for it — experiences! Sounds so much better, doesn’t it?
The problem is that most events touted as experiential simply add irrelevant novelty to a familiar event process.
Sat back to back wearing virtual reality goggles, conversing with one another’s avatar (2015);
Shared an umbrella under fake snow with a stranger (2016); and
Been given the opportunity to talk to four other people while sitting in chairs suspended from the ceiling (2017).
These “experiences” are simply gussied-up conversations held in novel visual and sensory environments. What is the value, other than novelty, created by adding virtual reality to a conversation between two people in the same room? By conversing in a fake outdoors setting rather than taking a walk outside? By talking to people from a chair hanging from the ceiling?
Conversation is a human practice so old we have no idea when it began. C2, and many other “hot” events, add expensive technological glitz to a conversation, slapping a skin of irrelevant novelty onto a core human activity. Rebrand the result as “experiential”, and voilà — you have a hip FOMO event.
All this is a slightly more sophisticated version of what, unfortunately, passes for creative event design these days. Adding an entertaining overlay to what happens routinely at an event and calling it “experiential” is ultimately no different from defining “creative” event design as novel decor, venues, production, or food and beverage.
What to do instead
Every event provides experiences, so all events are experiential! So let’s decouple the term “experiential” from what are actually “glitzy” events. The right question stakeholders need to ask is how well the experiences events provide fulfill attendees’ actual wants and needs.
For example, every event provides opportunities for conversations. So how can we design an event to create the best possible conversations?
You don’t get better face-to-face conversations in virtual reality or by suspending participants from the ceiling.
Instead, focus on finding and offering the best questions and topics for conversation. This includes providing group and session processes that support participants in uncovering and choosing conversations that will be most useful and meaningful to them.
Also, concentrate on providing supportive environments for ad-hoc conversation. So quieten or eliminate background music during meals and socials, supply a variety of quiet places close to session locales for participants to meet, avoid large rounds and assigned seating at meals, incorporate plenty of white space, etc.
Ironically, such meeting design tweaks cost little or nothing, unlike the flashy C2 examples. So you can provide a significantly better experience for attendees for less cost by applying simple effective meeting design principles. (Unsubtle hint: Working with someone who knows how to design and facilitate relevant attendee experience could be the most cost-effective improvement you could make.)
There’s nothing wrong with novelty. But instead of putting tons of time, effort, and money into dressing-up meetings with novel razzle-dazzle, concentrate your efforts on functional meeting design that provides genuinely useful and meaningful experiences to participants.
Digital tools aren’t always the right choice for events. Every day, I receive a barrage of pitches for event technologies. Each one markets digital tools, like apps for marketing, registration, venue booking, staffing, sponsorship, engagement, etc. Newcomers to the meeting industry who experience this onslaught could be forgiven for believing that digital software and hardware technologies are the only tools available and worth considering for meeting improvement.
Well, no.
The reason that digital tool marketing fills event professionals’ mailboxes and feeds is simply that there’s money to make by selling these technologies. Much more money than from tools like the participation techniques covered in my book The Power of Participation, which require either no “technology” at all or inexpensive tools like paper, Sharpies®, and Post-it® notes.
Yes, digital event technology has had a big positive impact on events. For example, no one (except the companies that printed them) regrets the demise of the massive printed conference guides that attendees had to drag around, most attendees appreciate the quantity and timeliness of information available on their mobile devices from well-designed event apps, and voting apps and throwable microphones allow greater interaction between presenters and audiences.
Nevertheless, in my experience, the human process tools I’ve been using and improving for the last twenty-five years provide more benefits (and, obviously, at a lower cost) than current digital tools.
Let me illustrate with a current story taken from one of my earlier careers.
A massive difference
Before accidentally entering the meeting industry, I spent twenty-three years as an independent information technology consultant. During this period, I was an active member of the global software development community. My friends included some of the leading practitioners of this challenging art.
Large software projects involve teams of programmers who work together to develop complex systems where a single error can have far-reaching consequences. Everyone makes mistakes, and one of the hardest tasks when developing software in teams is to implement a design process that provides the required system functionality while minimizing flaws. Because the system implementation is constantly changing during development, continual software testing is an essential component of the whole process.
As you might expect, software developers are leading-edge creators of software tools. Developers routinely use and constantly improve sophisticated code repositories, automated testing suites, and complex project management tools.
And yet, it turns out, some of the most important tools are not digital. Here’s an illustrative tweet from Mathew Cropper, an Irish software developer, and a follow-up response from Canadian consultant Dave Sabine.
“Last week we moved from a purely digital backlog to using a physical wall. The quality of conversation improved massively. It’s like talking with a different group of people.” —Mathew Cropper tweet
“If a team hasn’t yet tried a big, visible, physical wall of roadmaps/backlog/tasks… then any discussion about digital tools is like buying new tennis shoes in order to quit smoking.” —David Sabinetweet
The most sophisticated digital tools that money can buy are no match for a wall full of sticky notes!
Successful process for software development and meetings
There are many reasons why a wall of sticky notes is a useful and powerful tool for successful team software development and effective conference program crowdsourcing and engagement. Both human process environments thrive because a sticky note wall provides:
One place to easily capture every piece of information that any individual thinks is relevant;
A public display of information that many people can easily view simultaneously for as long as needed;
Simple public manipulation options, such as note clustering, inclusion/exclusion, ranking, and public modification;
Somewhere for appropriate people to document and discuss progress, and develop and implement process; and
A natural focus for easy, spontaneous conversation, communication, and creativity.
It’s hard for current digital tools to provide any of these benefits as simply and well. Let’s compare for each of the points above:
Information capture: Wall capture requires writing with pens on sticky notes. Digital tools require access to a digital device for each attendee, plus the interface knowledge necessary to use it.
Public display: Wall requires a flat surface for notes. Digital tools require a BIG (expensive) screen.
Public manipulation options: At the wall, simply pick up a note and move it. Digital tools would require a big touch screen plus some form of note-dragging interface. [aka Minority Report wizardry]
Documenting and discussing progress & implementing process: Wall layout can easily be repurposed/redesigned whenever needed to accommodate different process tools such as project management or ranking to-dos. Digital tools typically require specific process techniques to be precoded.
Focus for conversation, communication, and creativity: Walls provide all the above functionality simply and in ways accessible to any attendee. So they are natural foci for conversation, experimentation, and creativity. The barriers listed above for digital tools make them far less accessible for such purposes.
Given these significant advantages, coupled with much lower costs, it’s a shame that more conference organizers haven’t discovered the value of simple process tools like sticky note walls and are still seduced by the relentless marketing of digital tool suppliers. To discover many other powerful human process tools, see why they can be the right choice for events, and learn how to use them effectively, buy my “tool chest” book The Power of Participation: Creating Conferences That Deliver Learning, Connection, Engagement, and Action.
Everybody likes me, nobody tweets me, guess I’ll post on LinkedIn.
The effectiveness of Twitter as a connective social media channel is declining
In July I wrote about why 2017 is a tipping point for Twitter, noting that the rate at which users follow established accounts has slowed dramatically. As the year draws to a close I’m seeing further evidence that conversations in the Twittersphere are drying up too.
The evidence for my observations comes from my own Twitter account. My experience may not be representative of other Twitter users. But, as in my tipping point post, there’s a wealth of corroborative evidence from other sources.
The evidence
Here’s what I’m seeing. First, here’s a graph of my cumulative retweets over the last seven years.
Notice the fall off over the last eighteen months?
Second, the same graph for mentions.
Here we see a gradual decline in Twitter mentions for the last three years, one that has become increasingly severe recently.
Unfortunately, what I don’t have is a corresponding graph for the number of Twitter likes over time. If I did, based on my regular observations it would show a significant increase in likes over time. I estimate that the increase in likes is approximately the same as or slightly greater than the decrease in mentions and RTs combined.
To summarize, my tweets are getting just as much or more engagement than before. But much more of the engagement is in likes (“I’m interested in this and approve/agree/will mark it for later study”) at the expense of mentions and RTs (“I want to share your tweet with others/respond to what you said“).
What are the implications for social media marketing and branding?
To me, these findings mean that people are still reading my tweets at the same or higher rates. But they are less likely to interact with or share them.
The effectiveness of Twitter as a social media channel that fosters connection and conversation is declining.
In addition, I doubt that the recent doubling of maximum tweet length from 140 to 280 characters will make any difference to the trends I’ve noted. In fact, it may exacerbate them. I find that I’m less inclined to fully read the longer tweets increasingly showing up on my Twitter feeds.
An alternative channel to consider
Although it is not an especially interactive social media channel, I’ve been finding that sharing my website posts on LinkedIn has led to an increasing number of views and comments recently.
I have three caveats, however:
I don’t recommend posting to LinkedIn Groups anymore, since policy changes have severely limited their effective reach.
Also, I don’t recommend publishing an article on LinkedIn. That’s because your content is now tied to their platform, rather than one you control. This is a mistake.
Finally, when you share a post, be aware that LinkedIn counts as a “view” when the post summary displays on the viewer’s screen. The “viewer” doesn’t have to click through to read the post in order to be counted! So be aware that the number of post “views” reported by LinkedIn exaggerates the number of people who actually see your entire post.
Are you noticing trends that are affecting social media engagement? Share your observations in the comments below!
In less than three minutes, you can use pair share to improve conference sessions. The technique is simple: after pairing up participants and providing a short period for individual thinking about an appropriate topic, each pair member takes a minute in turn to share their thoughts with their partner. (More details can be found in Chapter 38 of The Power of Participation.)
Pair share (aka think-pair-share) is not the same as conversation, because pair share gives each person an exclusive minute of active sharing and a minute of pure listening. This balance rarely occurs during conversation, because typically:
One party speaks more than another, and;
Whoever isn’t speaking is often not fully listening to what is being said because they’re thinking about something they want to say themselves.
Improve conference sessions
Pair share improves conference sessions by:
Resetting every participant’s brain to a state of active engagement;
Providing structured opportunities for participants to share expertise and experience with their partner, and (if built into the subsequent session design) with others in the room; and
Each assigned topic must be central to the session’s purpose;
If the session is presenter-content heavy, hold a pair share roughly every ten minutes to explore and consolidate participant learning; and
Design the session to build on relevant expertise and experience uncovered by each pair-share.
I also like to incorporate a closing pair-share where partners each share three takeaways they’ve acquired during the session. I’ve found that when I use this in a session design like the fishbowl sandwich, participants inevitably stay around deep in conversation after the session is officially over. (That always looks and feels good!)
Finally, you can use pair share as a tool for introductions. Invite everyone to pair up with someone they don’t know and have each person take a minute to introduce themselves to their partner.
Improve conference sessions with pair share: it’s quick, simple, versatile, and effective. Use it!
How do you use pair share? Share with everyone in the comments below!
How do you facilitate change? In this occasional series, we explore various aspects of facilitating individual and group change. In this post, we’ll explore two ways to handle a major obstacle to change.
One of the reasons it’s so hard to change is because so much of what we “know” is tacit. Tacit knowledge is that which cannot be easily shared verbally or in writing—as Michael Polanyi says, “…we can know more than we can tell.” A simple example of tacit knowledge is how to ride a bicycle.
Not only is tacit knowledge hard to transmit, we are often not even aware that we know it ourselves. We all possess unexamined and/or unconscious beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions that can limit our ability to see, question, or act on desirable change in our life and work.
It’s hard enough when we don’t know what we know. But what happens when some of our tacit knowledge is incorrect or inaccurate? Here’s what Chief of Confusion John Seely Brown says:
It turns out that this learning to unlearn may be a lot trickier than a lot of us at first think. Because if you look at knowledge, and look at least two different dimensions of knowledge, the explicit dimension and the tacit dimension, the explicit dimension probably represents a tiny fraction of what we really do know, the explicit being the concept, the facts, the theories, the explicit things that live in our head. And the tacit turns out to be much more the practices that we actually use to get things done with…
…Now the problem is that an awful lot of the learning that we need to do is obviously building up this body of knowledge, but even more so the unlearning that we need to do has to do with challenging the tacit. The problem is that most of us can’t easily get a grip on. It is very hard to reflect on the tacit because you don’t even know that you know. And in fact, what you do know is often just dead wrong. And it is almost impossible to change your beliefs about something that is in the tacit and is different from what you happen to think. —John Seely Brown, Storytelling: Scientist’s Perspective
Tacit knowledge acts like an invisible force that guides and constrains our potential choices and actions. This makes unlearning incorrect or inaccurate tacit knowledge seem like a hopeless task.
Two tools for working with a major obstacle to change
Surprisingly, there are tools available that allow us to become aware of and work with our tacit knowledge. The key insight: we can overcome our inability to reflect on our tacit knowledge, by working with others!
Conversation
While it’s common to think of knowledge as being something an individual possesses, in reality, knowledge is socially constructed with others. (Remember Socrates in ancient Greece, pursuing knowledge through dialog?) This leads us to the first tool to free ourselves from the limitations arising from what we don’t know we know: conversation with others. Other people can see our blind spots and share with us what they see. By reflecting and gently challenging the beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions that form our tacit knowledge, they can help us see what we cannot and provide us an opening to, at least, become aware of what was formerly invisible to us.
Storytelling
The second tool available to us is one of the most powerful ways to see and process the boundaries and consequences of our tacit knowledge: storytelling.
We can explore our tacit knowledge via storytelling in two ways:
By examining honestly the stories we tell others. Ultimately, we are the stories we tell about ourselves. Our own stories illuminate the tacit in us—somehow they craftily bypass our conscious limitations. If we scrutinize our own stories that have emotional resonance, we can learn much that would otherwise stay hidden.
Conversation and stories create frameworks that can help us transcend some of the barriers to change imposed by our tacit knowledge. I think it’s fitting that we need to connect and engage with others to do this important work.
Here’s why this sequence is an important consideration for modern meeting design, and how it’s enhanced by Conference 2.0 designs.
Why should customers buy from you?
Sometimes, business value grows out of the barrel of a gun. When you have a monopoly on a product or service, you can charge as much as the market will bear. But when competition exists, you must use different strategies. For example, you can play race-to-the-bottom: squeezing your suppliers for rock bottom costs that, hopefully, are lower than your competitors. Or, you can differentiate what you offer in many other ways: better service, more options, faster delivery, longer warranties, superior customer support, etc. Thousands of books have been written about how to profitably and consistently market and sell. And, except perhaps for the most cutthroat commodity markets, the ability to build and maintain good relationships with your customers is a key component of most techniques.
This ability is even more crucial in today’s markets, because of four factors:
The increased complexity of products and services.
The increased variety of products and services.
The increased speed of product and service development.
The increased transparency in many marketplaces caused by online customer reviews and feedback.
The first three factors make it harder for potential customers to evaluate whether a specific product or service is a desirable fit for their needs. The last amplifies any deficiencies (perceived or otherwise) that may exist, any of which could prove fatal to sales.
In this new business environment, creating and maintaining good, trustworthy relationships with your customers becomes crucial.
Relationships are the new impressions
In the good old days, the more people heard about your product through broadcast marketing (impressions), the greater your sales. Today, business value, especially for non-commodity products and services, is becoming increasingly linked to the strength and quality of buyer-seller relationships. Traditional marketing can’t manufacture relationships, which are built through conversations between you and potential customers. Some of your conversations will turn into relationships, and some of those relationships will lead to value for your business.
Not all meetings are alike
Meetings provide wonderful opportunities for conversations. But, for two reasons, some meeting environments provide better opportunities than others.
First, for all but very small meetings, the number of conversations doesn’t scale with event size. For example, at a one-day, two-hundred-attendee event you can’t have more ten-minute conversations than you can with a hundred in attendance. In fact, at a large conference it’s often harder to find the people you really want to talk to than at a smaller, more focused event.
Second, Conference 1.0 sessions don’t foster conversations. Conversations only take place during breaks and socials. Compare this with Conference 2.0 designs, which excel at providing opportunities for relevant conversations
How Conference 2.0 designs support conversations
I’ve quoted Howard Givner before and I’ll quote him again. (Why? Because he made this highly positive remark about one of my conferences 😀.)
Why is Howard’s experience a common one at Conference 2.0? Let’s take Conferences That Work as an example. This conference design starts with initial roundtables that not only provide a structured forum for attendees to meet and learn about each other’s affiliations, interests, experience, and expertise but also effectively uncover the topics that people want to discuss and share. Within a couple of hours, every attendee has the initial introductions and information necessary to go out and start the right conversations about the right topics with the right people. Other Conference 2.0 designs encourage fruitful conversations by giving attendees the ability to meet around topics that they choose during the event.
The bottom line: Conference 2.0 formats routinely lead to more meaningful conversations, which in turn lead to more relationships, which in turn lead to more business value.
Does Conversations => Relationships => Value make sense to you?
I do not have a good reaction when someone talks about the return on investment (ROI) from attending an event.
My initial internal response is a rant:
Do we ask for the ROI when we buy tickets to a concert?
How can you evaluate the ROI for learning something new or seeing something in a new way?
And my favorite: So, what is the ROI on a wedding? (Please don’t respond with an analysis of the average value of wedding gifts versus the cost of the wedding. I’d probably argue diminished responsibility at the subsequent trial.)
In some ways, my reaction is alarmingly similar to the message of the brilliant formula for the MasterCard advertisement:
[List of mundane items with $ assigned]
[Intangible item – Priceless!]
The delicious subtext: Forget the money, whip out the credit card, and go to the event anyway!
The morning after
OK, it’s strong black coffee time. Whether the benefits are intangible or concrete, we all know that some kind of calculation goes on when a potential attendee decides whether to attend an event. I’ve written about how existing event ROI methodologies are a noble attempt to quantify this calculation and give it as much respectability and logic as we can. So, enough on ROI; here’s a core component of Conference 2.0.
Conversations => Relationships => Value
In Part 2 of this post, I explain why this sequence is now an important driver of modern meeting design and how Conference 2.0 designs enhance it.
, the Australian writer and feminist best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, wrote the above words in her autobiography. Like Miles, I believe that all people want and need opportunities to share how they’re thinking and feeling.
How can you support a community online? Over the last few weeks, I’ve run numerous online 
How often have you heard “Any questions?” at the end of a conference session?
In less than three minutes, you can use pair share to improve conference sessions. The technique is simple: after pairing up participants and providing a short period for individual thinking about an appropriate topic, each pair member takes a minute in turn to share their thoughts with their partner. (More details can be found in Chapter 38 of 
