Conference planning strategy
The amount of money expended on conferences globally is staggering. I make my living, very comfortably, as a professional speaker at well over 180 events a year, and I’m not even scratching the surface of the industry. Simply put, in this day and age of proper communication being vitally important – conferencing today is possibly […]
Why 95% of conference budgets are wasted
The idea of conferencing isn’t new, but is probably enjoying its most popular period ever. However, as a conference speaker at over 180 events a year around the world, I’m horrified by the wasted expenditure I see in over 95% of most conferences and events. It isn’t good enough anymore to pile people in darkened […]
Want a better conference? Stop preaching
Firstly; let’s talk business – where in the mid 1700’s as the world moved away from the agrarian economy into industrialisation, the birth of business as we still know it today began. Its beginning reference point? At the time the only framework available or known came from what we had; the military. Hence the world […]
Want a great conference? Don’t plan backwards!
We instinctively, as humans, look backwards for answers into the world that has gone before – even as we peer forward into our futures; searching for familiar, ‘normal’, tried-and-tested patterns – as we plot and plan cautiously ahead. Everything we have created and become; even the very framework of our business – stems from a […]
Please don’t organize your own conference
As a professional speaker at over 2500 events in over 40 countries, I’m very used to dealing with all the associated teams of people who contribute and work in all aspects of conferences and events. From the clients and sponsors themselves, to the professional conference organizers, audio visual technicians, banqueting teams as well as both […]
Create targeted, relevant & relentless marketing
We are living in a world that’s much noisier, and way more crowded, than ever. You are one of over 7.3 billion people currently on the planet, with some 200 000 more people (births minus deaths) joining us every day. Around 5.5 billion of these people watch television. Over 4.5 billion people are using mobile phones. […]
Reinvent your next conference
It doesn’t take much to do it. Just a primary reassessment of the key reasons for the event; and that has to begin with the correct way to most efficient way to convey information to the delegates. Let’s face it – conferencing hasn’t changed much in 150 years… and it’s time to do something about […]
Conference messaging: now with impact
The brief: Take two events; one in Milan and one in Vienna in April 2017 – and reinvent the way conference delegates take home the messaging from the keynote sections of the agendas. Avoid the boring, the mundane and the delegates ‘switching off’ by capturing the essence of the event differently. The how: Build better […]
How to implement real, meaningful change immediately. Wake up.
Almost 100% of people who learn any skill automatically drift into the ‘comfort zone’ of what psychologists call unconscious competence about two weeks after mastering it. It’s a dangerous place to be, and it’s the way the world largely functions – which has to be the best news ever. Allow me to explain… As humans, […]
6 Q’s Event Organizers sadly answer ‘yes’
After nearly 3 000 conference days I’ve attended around the world to date as a professional speaker, I’m sorry to say that most events are ‘same-old, same-old’ in the manner in which we line delegates up, schoolroom style in a darkened room, for a data-dump of note. It’s no wonder conferencing is no longer producing […]