Revolutionize Advisor Events

How do the attendees feel, especially as the day wears on?

Not so great.

I found this observation by communications expert, Judith E. Glaser, chilling:

When we express ourselves, our bodies release a higher level of reward hormones, and we feel great. The more we talk, the better we feel. Our bodies start to crave that high, and we become blind to the conversational dynamics. While we’re being rewarded, the people we’re talking to might feel cut off, invisible, unimportant, minimized, or rejected, which releases the same neurochemicals as physical pain.

I’ve never met an event sponsor whose goal was to inflict something akin to physical pain upon the audience, but that’s a predictable result of the current meeting format.

Why it doesn’t work

There’s considerable controversy over how long we can remain engaged in lectures. Some evidence supports the view that lapses in attention start to occur in as little as 30 seconds and continue throughout the lecture.

Research at MIT found that shorter videos were more engaging. It recommended segmenting videos into chunks of less than six minutes.

Efforts to determine when student attention declines during a lecture have generally failed to reach a precise conclusion.

We don’t need to resolve this issue, because one thing is abundantly clear.

Having an audience sit through 5-7 hours of lectures, even with appropriate breaks, isn’t an effective way to learn.

Lack of purpose

As Parker notes, most sponsors don’t give sufficient thought to the purpose of a meeting.

If you ask them to identify a purpose, they might say: To educate attendees.

If that’s the goal, the current format will fail.

The purpose needs to be something more.

Of course, you want to educate attendees.

But you also want them to identify with your brand and become (or remain) clients. You want them to find your event enriching, valuable and productive.

If these are your goals, your focus on “education” – while still important – is misplaced.

You should want participants to network with each other. That should be your number one priority.

One experienced operator of a popular venue for events made this observation: “Most attendees will only judge the event a success if they were able to connect with like-minded people and valuable contacts.” This view is widely shared.

Others believe encouraging networking at events creates new business relationships, which makes it more likely those attendees will be eager to attend another event sponsored by the same company.

You may even be able to spend less on speakers, venues and food if you create successful networking opportunities.

There are many other reasons why focusing on networking will improve the success of your event, cause the event to be perceived as more valuable and increase the amount of business you will generate.

Yet networking is dealt with as an afterthought, left to chance meetings at breaks and meals, when it’s likely that people who already know each other will congregate together.

This approach ignores the plight of hapless introverts, who are unlikely to feel comfortable introducing themselves to strangers and may already be overwhelmed by being part of a large crowd.

Don’t you have an obligation to make your event meaningful and productive for them as well?

In the new format for meetings, facilitating networking among attendees is the new paradigm.

Pre-event networking

To achieve your new goal, start working prior to the event. This article has a number of suggestions.

I have my own.

Circulate the list of attendees prior to the event.

Ask questions, like:

What would you like to be sure is covered by the speakers?

And these questions:

Are there any attendees you are particularly interested in meeting?

Are there any speakers you would particularly like to meet?

Armed with these responses, you can ensure there’s an opportunity for the requested meetings.

You can also create a Facebook group or other online community for the event.

Event networking

Once you realign your thinking away from lectures and towards networking, the possibilities are endless. This article has 20 tips for encouraging event attendees to network and have fun.

Some are obvious, like name badges, with a twist. You can color code the badges by different roles. You can even organize a breakout session by badge color.

Others require more thought, like pairing attendees with shared interests.

Consider using mobile event apps which facilitate engagement with speakers and among attendees. You can find a list of event apps here.

Break into groups

Once you accept the new primary goal of your event, it’s quite easy to suggest basic changes.

There’s evidence that the maximum number of a people for an interactive meeting is 5-9.

I suggest limiting the total number of attendees for your event to 50 and the number of speakers to 7. Doing so may require you to schedule more meetings to accommodate all those who want to attend.

The attendees would be broken into seven groups of approximately seven people in each group.

The speakers would rotate between the groups, with short breaks between meetings.

The composition of the groups would change, so each participant would be exposed to the maximum number of fellow participants, while still participating in events hosted by each of the speakers. This will increase networking possibilities.

Using meals for meetings

Breakfast, lunch and dinner would be included in the time used for these small group meetings.

The venue for these “meal meetings” would be carefully selected to be conducive to a relaxed conversation, like on the patio of a hotel, or in a private area by the pool or at an interesting restaurant, if it was a dinner meeting.

By taking advantage of meal times, you reduce the number of meetings that need to held during “business hours.”

Change the role of the speakers

Instead of a formal lecture behind a lectern, these small group meetings would be informal, set at a round table, to facilitate interaction.

The speaker would be retrained from giving a lecture to gently leading small group discussions by introducing the topic and then asking a series of soft questions to the attendees, like: Is there anything in particular you would like me to cover? How many of you are already familiar with this subject?

The speaker would encourage not only interaction with him or her but among the attendees. The meeting might be started by asking everyone to introduce themselves. I find a good ice breaker is to ask participants, as part of their introduction, to reveal something about themselves others might be surprised to learn. It’s often unexpected and interesting.

The speaker isn’t abandoning the role of leading the discussion, but the approach is vastly different.

It’s important for the speaker to enforce a strict time limitation on introductions (30 seconds to one minute) so there’s plenty of time to cover the topic at hand.

Speakers should schedule at least one break, so participants can digest and process the information being presented. There’s evidence that much learning occurs during these breaks when participants can think and reflect on what they’ve just heard.

Support for small, interactive groups

My primary recommendation for changing advisor events is to eliminate formal lectures and substitute smaller group discussions, where interaction is encouraged.

There’s ample support for this approach. Both knowledge retention and popularity have been shown to increase in a smaller group setting.

Harvard’s Kennedy School uses small groups to engage students and deepen learning.

Small group discussions were strongly preferred over formal lectures by medical students. The study found it was a more effective instruction tool in “improving the attention span of students, understanding the principles of family medicine, and recall.” Overall learning satisfaction was also found to be “significantly higher.”

Pharmacology students showed a clear preference for small group discussions. They found their interest was significantly increased over lectures. They believed these discussions vastly improved their conceptual thinking.

Event sponsors who are adhering to the didactic lecture format are missing an opportunity to enhance the event experience for participants and elevate their brand.

Different feedback

In the traditional format, the attendees rate each speaker.

In the new format, the feedback is quite different. Attendees are given a form to fill out that measures how successful they were in meeting others and establishing new relationships.

The form can also ask them to evaluate the conference and related questions.

There will be a positive correlation between those who had a successful networking experience and their satisfaction with the event.

Dan trains executives and employees in the lessons based on the research on his latest book, Ask: How to Relate to Anyone. His online course, Ask: Increase Your Sales. Deepen Your Relationships, is currently available.

Read more articles by Dan Solin