We've seen a lot of very unique things at events over the years.

Jugglers.
Ballerinas.
Mountain Climbers.
Bike Building.
Drum Circles.
Astronauts.
Live Monkeys. (And an occasional Monkee.)

You name it. We've seen it. All in the name of providing audience engagement. There is an idea that there has to be a *moment* at an event that stands out--that makes it the "wow".

We love this. But. What about the rest of the event? After the silk scarves settle and the dry ice evaporates...where is your audience at? How do you CONTINUE to engage them past a moment?

If you have the most powerful keynote speaker in the world...and then you go back to PowerPoint after PowerPoint...all you have is that (very impressive, granted) moment.

Interaction.

The key to engaging an audience throughout an event is interaction with the audience. Learning and communication is not a one-way experience; it's a two-way conversation. Audience participation is fundamental to their own engagement.

One way that we engage audiences throughout an event--not just in a moment--is by incorporating gamification. Not only does it provide interaction and engagement, but it enhances the event:
• It's teambuilding that occurs outside a single activity and goes through the event.
• It's reinforcement and review of key content and learning points.
• It's a way to keep energy up during the event--there's not one "fun part" to the whole event...the whole event is fun.

Want to see how you can incorporate gamification at your event? We wrote a guide! Leave a comment or contact us, and for more event tips and tricks check out www.live-spark.com

 

"We have time for one more question..."

...can be every event's worst nightmare.

You're about to leave the event on a high, and then "one more question" turns into a barely-controlled gripe session--sucking the energy out of the room and leaving everyone feeling uneasy.

It's a wah-wah instead of a woo-hoo.

A lot of the times, these last minute questions aren't focused, aren't relevant to the whole audience, or may have nothing to do with the event itself.

You don't have to paper over complaints or issues, but there are ways to handle audience questions in a more focused way that is better for the overall event:

1. Have people available to answer questions/issues throughout the event. One of our clients recently replaced a deadly end-of-event q&a session with a commitment to have their executives visible throughout the event to take questions.

This allowed people to get questions answered that were more personally-relevant to them (and maybe didn't apply to the whole audience) and to direct them to the most appropriate person.

The executives were then able to do a summary statement at the end of the event based on what they'd been hearing--and what was most relevant to the audience.

2. Have a question box. Encourage the audience to write down their questions throughout the event and submit them to a dedicated question box. Commit to answering all questions--even if it's in post-event communication.

This allows you to sort questions for maximum relevance for the whole audience and for the event. You can have short daily q&a sessions based on the questions--or have a final q&a at the beginning of the last day--instead of the event landing with a fizzle at the very end.

3. Start the event with questions. If the idea of allowing for questions is to demonstrate responsiveness and listening, then the event shouldn't wait until the end to catch questions that may have been festering from the start of the event.

If you're willing to be flexible and shape your event around the dynamic needs of the audience as it's happening, this can be a powerful event springboard.

4. Send out pre-event questionnaires. Collecting questions, reservations, feelings, etc., of the audience before the event can, like the last point, help you shape the event to address the needs of the audience. This also gives you control over what you directly address at the event, and what you may choose to address in other communication or programs.


Of course, questions can always come up during an event--hence why the route we typically take is aforementioned question box that allows for an iterative response process. Addressing questions, concerns, and (yes, even) grievances in a thoughtful, PLANNED, way goes a long way to maintaining and focusing the energy & tone of the event, and ensuring its overall success.

For more event expertise, visit www.live-spark.com.

Like a lot of parents since COVID-19 became a global pandemic, I've been doing "distance learning" with my child. What my peer group and I have noticed, universally, is that a lot of kids who were great in school classrooms...are not doing well when removed from the classroom environment.

This isn't just due to one factor, of course, but significant elements that are missing--that are creating a learning gap for kids--are also creating training and working gaps for businesses and employees. Some of these elements can be looked at to make more robust, effective in-person events (when they happen again).

Learning concierge
In the classroom:
Children need a teacher figure or, at the very least, a non-distracted person who is dedicated to their learning; who is there to answer questions, give support, and who proactively reaches out.

Event application:
Having event organizers and trainers onsite who are not only available for questions, but who actively reach out and network with attendees to ensure that they're grasping key concepts (not just "having a good time").

Peer Groups
In the classroom:
Children learn better in peer groups. Solo learning can be intense and studious, but focus can come from the accountability of being in a group of peers. You owe it to your other students to pay attention, settle down, be active so everyone can hear and learn.

Event application:
Having people together, physically, in the same room creates an environment where success or failure can be won as a team. We often team up attendees for this reason; it's easy for one person to be lost in a crowd, but it's hard to escape accountability in a group of 10 WITHIN a much larger meeting.

Distribution of Responsibility
In the classroom:
Children work together on projects, boosting the collective knowledge of the group by bringing in shared experiences, objections, additions, and brainstorming.

Event application:
Interactive tasks, extra-general session work, etc., can be assigned or completed if given as a team project. Participants are able to do more and interact in a more dynamic way--producing FOR the event--if they're interacting together.

Changing up the Format
In the classroom:
Kids have multimedia, print, lecture, etc.; the typical day is broken up by a variety of sources giving information, connection to the outside world, self-directed research, and different topics that stretch their brains. They can ask questions, guide discussion, etc. It's a vastly different environment than an overburdened Zoom call or infrequently touching base with a teacher.

Event application:
No one is having fun being on 8 hours of Zoom calls a day to talk to their teams. Virtual events are still placing people in one environment; the computer screen. Just like most live events still place their attendees in one format; the PowerPoint presentation. Events would do well to change the physical environment and the variety of ways that information is presented and how people interact with that information.


While kids may or may not go back to school in-person in the fall, and adults may or may not return to in-person events, it's clear that they provide value that contributes to the success and learning of their attendees in ways that virtual environments cannot.

Now that lots of offices are working remotely, co-workers are struggling to connect with each other (both because of all the other pressures in the home--kids, pets, stress, etc. but also because it's just not the same to have a water cooler conversation when the water cooler is your kitchen tap and you might not be wearing proper pants).

Strange times lead to a dearth of connection, and team building is a great boost to office morale--but how do you team build when everyone is in a different space? Here are a few ideas:

Online Competition: Many companies have dipped their toes in virtual competitions already. (Intel, for instance, does a widespread competition for retail salespeople.) Divide offices into teams and host online quizzes, competitions, scavenger hunts, etc. with weekly leaderboard results.


Virtual Trivia: Speaking of online quizzes; having a virtual trivia break at the end of a week is a great way to both review what has been happening that week--getting everyone on the same page even if they've been working remotely--and lighten the mood. Prizes may or may not be involved, but everyone plays along using virtual keypads (see www.learningware.com) for a great virtual (and classroom) game show resource.


Show your Talent: Virtual meetings are giving co-workers tiny glimpses into the personal lives of their peers. Capitalize on that by doing a bit of a talent show. Can someone play the guitar? Can they make up a parody song about virtual work? Do they have a cat that can meow on command? Time to find out!


Video Presentations: Co-workers (or management) can prepare short, entertaining videos, showcasing what's going on with their projects. One of our clients is sending out messages from their AniMated mascot--featured at their face-to-face events--to keep everyone updated in a fun, lighthearted way.


Hangout Happy Hour: My husband's company enacted a virtual happy hour--and combined this with a trivia/icebreaker game. It was a designated time to unwind a bit in a high-stress climate. Cocktails are optional, of course.

Virtual events have one big drawback: you are meeting in a space where people are inherently distracted. In these times, especially, audience members are faced with more distraction than usual (for instance, I'm writing this while my 16 month old takes a nap and I'm plying my 5 year old with her 50th viewing of Wizard of Oz while I'm supposed to be homeschooling her. That's her beside me busting in on a Zoom call I had earlier.)

You won't necessarily be able to control wandering children, but how do you make the best of some of the other challenges of meeting in a virtual space?

What do you do when virtual events are not ideal, but are a necessity? You make the best of it.

Challenge: Attention span in the online space drops from 5-7 minutes to 2-5 minutes.

Solution: Add interactive elements.

In a face-to-face presentation you lose the audiences' attention in 5-7 minutes if you don't change the way you're presenting. You can do this by adding video, telling a story, adding interaction, etc. In the virtual space, this time frame is even less generous, and changing the way you present is more challenging. The audience NEEDS to interact instead of being passive watchers, or they'll disengage faster than you can say "new browser tab".

Challenge: A lack of experiential "wow" or impact.

Solution: Provide an event experience.

Consider having a virtual event EXPERIENCE instead of slapping presentations together and hoping for the best. Consider having an emcee. Interject humor and connect your event elements together. Consider your environment--music, media, other elements. Break up presentations with networking questions. Make attendees part of their own learning experience by engaging their emotion and active participation. 

Consider turning your virtual event into a team building competition--put attendees on teams and ask game questions in between presentation points. 

Challenge: Virtual presentations can feel canned and not suit the needs of your audience.

Solution: Pare down your presentation and add dynamic elements.

Don't just put a presentation online--create a virtual experience (i.e. play in the space you're in). Brevity has always been the soul of wit, and in the virtual event space time is attention. Focus in on what is absolutely need-to-know and strip out extras. It's even more important to consider what your audience will actually be able to SEE in your presentation, and what will be an eye-chart (or is just your talking points on a PPT slide). Every visual should be clean and have impact. 

Challenge: Lack of accountability.

Solution: Make attendees part of the experience.

Videoconferencing has upped the ante for the webinar (attendees can no longer, for instance, leave the room to go to the bathroom on the call), and some platforms like Zoom let presenters know when their attendees have shifted their attention to other windows. However, a better way to make attendees accountable is to make them part of the experience. Have them craft pieces of a presentation, incorporate training techniques like roleplays, etc., within the event. You can also have quizzes/game questions throughout the virtual event that ensure that attendees are paying attention and accountable for knowing the content. 

In 2008-2010, the events industry went through a heck of a downturn (along with the rest of the country). Companies simply weren't hosting events anymore--whether their business was ailing, they needed to be economically shrewd, or they simply needed to maintain the appearance of austerity.

We discovered that the stopgap measure of virtual or hybrid events was better than nothing--but that no one was ready to give up large face-to-face events. As soon as the economy rebounded, people were meeting again (and more than ever).

There were a few reasons for this:
Face-to-face events provided superior engagement and networking experiences.
Video and virtual events didn't replace human connection.
In-person and destination events were highly motivating and produced a significant return on their investment.

But. Virtual events were better than nothing.

Now we find ourselves unable to physically get together to quell the spread of a pandemic. None of us really know how long or short-lived it will be, or when companies will go back to hosting face-to-face events again. (And it isn't an IF, it's a WHEN.)

In the meantime, we revisit virtual events. Videoconferencing. Virtual tradeshows.

The good thing is: we've learned a few things about best-practices for virtual engagement from the 2008-2010 years. In the next few blog posts we'll cover some of the problems you're likely to come across in the virtual event space--and some of the ways you can mitigate those problems.

There's an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine struggle with their friends' baby being ugly. Their friends, you see, think their baby is adorable. Of course they do. It's their BABY. They viewed it with bias and love and affection (and I'm sure it had many redeeming qualities), but it was objectively unattractive.

The author William Faulkner once said: "In writing, you must kill your darlings." Which was not in reference to characters or themes, but rather in sometimes having to cut a particular turn of phrase or paragraph that you are particularly in love with.

What do these two anecdotes have in common? Perspective. When one is too close to something--when it's their life, their livelihood, their expertise--it is hard to view it objectively. It's tough to see that your presentation baby is ugly and you might need to kill that darling section.

The audience, an overwhelming majority of the time, will come at your presentation with a different view--being on the outside of it--than you have on the inside.

Here are things to consider when crafting your presentation to kill your own darlings, make sure your baby isn't ugly, and keep the audience in mind:

The audience doesn't share your perspective:
Where you may see the beautiful poetry of the R&D story of your product, your audience may see unnecessary background that won't help them sell.

When you are convinced that everyone absolutely must know the last 20 years of sales data for your niche silo, your audience may struggle with seeing the relevance (but succeed at seeing the inside of their eyelids).

Consider your audience first and then think about how you fit into their needs.

Filter what's "nice to know" versus what they "need to know": 
You have limited real estate in your audiences' brains. Use it wisely. Your audience will not be able to take in your 10-point-plan-for-success. They will maaaaaybe remember 3-5 points. But are those 3 points going to be the most important?

How do you make sure the most critical things are remembered? Hone your message down to the truly important--the need-to-know--and include ways the audience can find additional information and detail as their curiosity dictates. (You may even want to play a game to get them familiar with resources they may need to find the nice-to-know stuff.)

Unlimited slides, limited words:
Everyone is familiar with "Death by Powerpoint" as an expression--so we've had clients try to limit their presenter's slides...only to find that their presenters will add more information to each individual slide (we once had a company whose standard practice became a "quad"--4 slides on one--because they limited the slide number but not the content).

We never put a limit on the number of slides, but each slide should be clean, clear, and minimalistic.

The audience must be able to see your information.
To that end; Slides shouldn't be fancy. They should be uncluttered, message-supporting (as opposed to message-conveying), and should NOT be speaker notes. Numbers should be easily seen and uninterpreted data charts should be minimized.

It doesn't matter how important your number charts are (and they are!), if the audience can't see them and easily interpret them--they're a distraction.

When my daughter was 4 months old I wrote a blog post about how everything you needed to know about an audience and their needs could be observed through the lens of interacting with a 4 month old baby.

My daughter is now in preschool and I’m once again fascinated by the striking difference in how we prime children to learn and how we inflict learning upon the adults in our organizations. (And, hey, it shouldn’t be that way!)

I was looking at her daily classroom schedule and noting how often they changed up the format. Noting the activities they do. Noting how VERY best-practice-brain-friendly their methods were. Now, the child’s brain is more plastic than the adult brain, MORE primed to learn. But somehow along the way, between nursery school and national adult audiences…we moved from nurturing learning to torturing the learners.

And, spoiler? Adults need just as much from their presentations as kids do. It’s just more obvious when kids tune you out—so we think that everything is fine if we’re boring the snot out of adults because they tend not to wiggle around and act out so much.

We’ve learned control—not a different way to learn.

So. Here’s what I observed from the preschool classroom and ways to apply these principles of learning to your event:

Peripherals.
Everywhere in my kid’s classroom there are bright, striking visuals reminding the students of what they’re learning. Colors. Numbers. The alphabet. What word rhymes with which animal. They are always there…being passively absorbed and as a reminder if the kids need a reference.

At an event, peripherals can accomplish the same thing. Lining the room with key message points, graphics, and ideas provides an environment that nurtures information absorption. Attendees can ADD to these graphics by writing down their own learning. We once had an event where attendees lined the walkway going into the room with their personal takeaways and quotes.

Frequent changes.
At first I was shocked that preschoolers changed lessons every 15-30 minutes. It didn’t seem like enough time to really dig into a topic. BUT, even in a hands-on classroom environment you’re operating within the limitations of the working memory. You simply can’t go heavy into a topic for an hour and expect individuals to take away all the detail you’d cram into that time.

At an event it’s the same story. The limit of an ADULT attention span for a single presentation style is 5-7 minutes (barring novelty and a shift in style). Having a 90 minute presentation, if not meticulously crafted with the adult learner in mind, is a brain-killer.

Stories. Morals. Lessons.
Children learn through stories, morals, fables, lessons. We tell kids stories because it engages their emotion and imagination. Emotion and memory are so strongly linked that to fail to engage emotion is to fail to invest in your information.

Adults are no different. We learn through the story. We remember a story around a piece of information much more easily than we remember a discrete fact. Anything CAN be a story with the right framing; your marketing plan for the year was developed through a story of research and insight. Telling a story also changes up the presentation style—so weaving a story into your data can reset and expand that 5-7 minute attention window.

Interaction and hands-on learning. 
Somewhere in high school we start lecturing kids. Less so, now that we know better, but there’s still a fair amount of presentation=retention thinking. This is not the case in preschool; kids must try something themselves. They must interact, sing, ask questions, participate in the topic in multiple—sometimes tactile—ways.

Your audience craves interaction. Presentation does NOT, indeed, equal retention. To synthesize information your audience needs to work with it in some way. This can be discussing it, writing down key points (prompted, not just giving them notepads and hoping for the best), asking questions, playing games (yes, games), etc.

Curiosity-driven.
While the curriculum is set, kids are always given specific time to explore their own interests where they are then guided and built upon in a more intentional way.

Giving your attendees space and time to explore what they want to seek out is a great way to make the event personal and highly relevant. Ask attendees what THEIR goals are for the event. What problems they would like to solve. Who they would like to meet. Build in networking time and experimentation time.

Elementary learning isn’t elementary. It’s studied, guided, practiced. It is an intentional process built to engage the brain at fundamental levels. And those fundamentals don’t just go away with time. We may fail to engage the adult brain in the same way, but that’s not because the adult brain doesn’t need engaging.

Oh, and recess? Not optional.

Dan Yaman will be speaking at this year's SPINCon 2019, November 3-5th in Monterey, CA. Dan's session will be on November 4th, and you don't want to miss it!

I'll Take Learning for 500: Using Gamification to Engage, Motivate & Train