Communication and Motivation Ideas for today’s audiences

After the event … moving things forward

Congratulations for finishing up your latest event! I’ll bet it was non-stop activity right up to the end, including your manager's last-minute change just to test your last nerve. But before that well-deserved rest you’re about to take, I hope you’re also asking yourself: “Now what?”
 
The bad news: There’s more work to do. The good news: What you do afterwards can have a profound effect on the outcome of your event. Post-event activity can take many forms depending on what you’re trying to accomplish and what’s helpful, meaningful to those involved. It’s also where you can play a vital role to keep information and conversations moving forward through some of the following ideas and examples. A good analogy to our role in this process reminds me of a meeting I produced using a navy pilot to deliver the keynote speech and training sessions, and how real-life American heroes can engage audiences.   Read more »

Putting meeting strategy first … and last

My experience with Sun Healthcare Group may be helpful to share here because it reflects the broader value we bring as event planners to the communication process by linking an event to organizational goals and culture.

Its title – Enabling Innovative Thinking on a Large Scale – may even speak for itself. We conducted an experiential session, followed by several hours of brainstorming using an electronic flipchart and captured over 800 ideas. This digital learning experience served an immediate need while also addressing a long-term organizational one: Encouraging a more collaborative, efficient decision-making environment. As the article states, this truly was a collaborative effort and catalyst for change, creating a new brainstorming process with structure and technology that prepared Sun Healthcare Group internally for similar future activities. These types of considerations, in turn, support the many ROI and ROE elements I touched on earlier, and that by having a broader goal in mind during event planning helps achieve, exceed your event goals.   Read More »

The motion and emotion of meetings

I invite you to visit my Keep It Moving Forward blog which grazes on the important role of motion and movement in event planning. Finding ways to keep participants’ energy levels up and people moving is another small gesture you can include to create fluidity between the during/after event phases of your event. It’s where the “what” of your event content meets the “how/when/why” in terms of structure, organization. These not only can help us create a great learning environment, but also provide us with a way to capture vital measurements.
With some thoughtful placement and timing, the role of motion and movement support the two measurable components I mentioned earlier. They serve ROI as an efficiency mechanism, always striving to do things more quickly via technology, organization, and process that help manage our total event resource investment. They equally serve ROE by feeding that emotional factor of action, progress, accomplishment, and physical and emotional energy levels that, at their best and most timely placement, can keep conversations and information moving along.
It’s all relative, too. Achieving the right balance may include deeper, more thorough structural components of how your meeting is organized. Or it may be as simple as piping in music at a specific time, or people rotating among breakout discussion tables to mix up the conversation.
The small gestures you include may lead to some big thinking, and be just the thing participants needed to boost their energy and attitude towards what they’re hearing and doing. Just ask them afterwards! Read More »

Bringing “Kodak moments” to life

Sharing plenty of pictures after an event has many benefits and considerations. Most people enjoy pictures because they can capture key moments, emotions, and the overall spirit of an event through a single visual. Today’s technology also allows far easier access and distribution opportunities than ever. You might evaluate your own event photography needs in terms of talent, topics, and technology.

Talent – Hiring outside support depends on the type of event and budget parameters. LinkedIn might be a great resource to find an independent contractor. Maybe you already have in-house talent through your branding or marketing areas, or a talented colleague with a lot of experience who can help. Such decisions include other things like hosting sites, organization, ease of access. And, of course, your budget!

Topics – Make the most of the event at hand. This means preparing that person with a list of goals, people, activities, and emotions you want to capture not only for your summary write-up, but beyond as well for more targeted strategic messages for a particular group or the organization. Also consider where your pictures will be shared and used, and any distribution and publishing guidelines your company might have

Technology – Organize and share photos so that they’re easy to access and navigate. This may be as simple as posting them to a single site through your photographer or an internal site. You may choose to organize them into sections with captions for browser clarity. Other considerations include the total amount of data you have and through what devices people will want to access them

Photography is a great vehicle and one of those small gestures that, with some thoughtful organization, can have a big impact and carry information and conversations forward.

Sincerely,

Ron Springer