The VVW Grumble Fund
As we convene our workshop attendees, one of our most delicate challenges is to make space for them to discuss why the current system fails them without spiraling into an unproductive airing of the grievances.
To keep the unproductive complaining to a minimum while having some fun — and raising some money for charity — we’re going to use a version of a virtual Swear Jar.
Traditionally, a swear jar works this way:
Every time someone utters a swear word, others who witness it collect a “fine” by insisting that the offender put some money into the box. The container may be made of glass, porcelain, or metal and may have a lid with a slot. From time to time, the accumulated money may be used for some agreed-upon purpose or contributed to charity.
Once we’ve given everyone a chance to complain about what’s not working, we’ll implement our “no whining” policy and introduce the VVW Grumble Fund:
If you complain about a conference or person by name — and are called out by your peers — you have to donate $5 to the Grumble Fund.
Everyone gets one free pass.
At the end of the VVW, we’ll total up the infractions and vote on an access-to-justice nonprofit that’ll get the proceeds.
And if we don’t hear any complaining? Then it’s a Festivus Miracle!
Future Conferences Get Longer and Shorter
Prediction One: In the future conferences become both longer and shorter.
The virtual genie is out of the bottle and we’ll never get her back in. For all of our complaints about virtual conferences, they’ve proven they’re just as effective as in-person events is for presentations: a terrible presenter can read his PowerPoint slides to a distributed audience of multi-tasking attendees just as “effectively” over Zoom as he can in a dim hotel ballroom.
If all of the content can be delivered just as effectively online, why must attendees receive it in a once-yearly fire hose of talks and panels delivered in one spot at one time?
So how do conferences get longer? Imagine if all that amazing curated content was delivered virtually throughout the year, in consumable doses, in multiple ways (videos, podcasts, presentations, white papers, etc.) so people can learn what they want when they want. What once was four days in Orlando might become a twelve-month mix of evergreen expertise and just-in-time updates to traditional conference attendees (as well as those who could never get approval to attend that boondoggle halfway across the world).
And how will conferences get shorter? Once the learning happens online, organizers and attendees can finally admit that the content was the excuse, but connection was the reason everyone wanted to be in-person in the first place. Now the “live” portion of the event is centered on networking, connection, and collaboration (the things that are much better in person than virtually), the five-day conference becomes two delightful days of thinking together and drinking together.
Here you go, Harry. Have a free pen!
I watched the 1974 Movie “The Conversation” the other day, starring Gene Hackman, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Terri Garr, and Cindy Williams.
There’s a scene where Gene Hackman’s character (a surveillance professional) goes to a trade show and wanders the exhibit hall floor. Look familiar?
Has anything really changed in 46 years?
Three Rectangles and Four Circles
If you can draw the format of 75% or more of your event in just three rectangles and four circles, you might want to shake things up a bit!
All that’s missing are the microphones, name tents, water pitchers, and a terrible powerpoint up on the screen.
Same goes for your virtual events!
Rethink the Conference, Part One
What would happen if we jettisoned the in-person content-centered conference model that’s been around for a hundred years and started from scratch?
In the Virtual Value Workshop, we’ll be asking that question as we begin from first principles — and with a blank sheet of paper.
Here’s one model that engages virtual (or even in-person) attendees in a unique problem-solving format while encouraging networking, innovation, and collaboration — all without a single PowerPoint slide:
1. Design Challenges Relevant to Your Audience & Industry: Instead of traditional conference tracks, organize your conference around challenges instead. Frame each Challenge Track using questions relevant to attendees such as: “How might we be more innovative?” or “How might we teach change-resistant lawyers to use new technologies?”
2. Generate Pre-Conference Excitement: Before attendees convene, share the challenges with them in a heavily-promoted (and sponsored) pre-conference session. Pre-record an introduction to each challenge that’s a mix of an inspirational keynote, motivational pre-game speech, and fiery sermon, explaining why the challenge is necessary to address. Use these brief introductions in multiple social channels to drive more interest.
3. Educate Attendees with Insight Sessions: Begin your event with “Insight Sessions” centered on each challenge to educate your audience and even the playing field for those not familiar with the problems you’re solving. Utilize a mix of keynotes, TED-style talks, and panels to address each challenge from multiple angles, share best practices, success stories, tools, etc.
4. Make Time for Reflection & Ideation: After the Insight Sessions, give attendees time to process their initial ideas and questions in an online “Idea Gallery.” In-person, this might be as simple as using post-it notes on a blank wall. Virtually, you can use a tool like Miro or Mural.
5. Select Challenge Teams: Form teams of 5-7 people. Include a mix of vendors and “experts” on each. Allow people to work with friends if they like, but don’t give them long. Then randomly group everyone who’s left, using virtual breakout rooms to do their work.
6. Brainstorm Solutions: Ask the teams to create a solution to the challenge they’ve selected. If you want to have some fun, give each a constraint such as “Your team can’t spend money to solve this problem,” or “Your solution must be implementable in six months.” At Filament, we focus first on “Experiments” and give them tools to guide their discussions.
7. Pitch the Proposals: After an hour or two, teams must “pitch” their best idea. You can do this “shark tank” style or have a bit more fun by giving awards to the most innovative solution, most creative pitch, or even silliest idea.
8. Close With an Idea Fair: After the pitches, give each team a virtual “table” and ask one of the team members to remain there. Then, allow everyone else to visit the other tables to learn about other solutions. In a large, multi-track conference, you might have separate “fairs” for different challenges.
As you conclude, attendees have had meaningful discussions while you’ve added more networking and collaboration to your event — with space for some traditional conference elements — and built solutions (in a readily sharable format) that will be valuable to everyone. (Originally shared on Twitter.)
One Minute Wins
Here’s a fun, rapid-fire way to share ideas and expertise from dozens of “experts” that works really well at the end of the day in a virtual (or in-person) event:
Select 20-30 attendees, experts, speakers, vendors, etc. who have something interesting to say, have a success story to share, or have solved a problem in a unique way.
Give each of them a minute — and no longer — to introduce their story, talk about the problem they solved, or to share their brilliant idea.
Once their minute is over (being merciless with a bell or a buzzer makes it more fun), tell everyone in the audience that the speaker will be “at table X” if anyone would like to learn more.
Introduce the next speaker, and so on, until all have had their one-minute time in the spotlight.
Then, move to breakout rooms* for the rest of the hour, with each of your “Experts” helming their own. In their breakout, they can elaborate on their story, share more about their idea, etc.
For the remainder of the hour, attendees can “hummingbird” their way from table-to-table, learning more from the experts most relevant to them.
At the end of the session, send everyone a list of the speakers (with their picture, in case people forgot names) and contact information so attendees can connect, follow up and learn more.
* This works best with a tool that allows attendees to move from room-to-room on their own. If you’ve got to manage the breakout room movement, bring the entire group back every 10 minutes or so and allow them to resort themselves into the next room they’d like to join.
A Better Keynote
Here's an "alternative" keynote format we've used at Filament that combines the best of TED Talks, conversational engagement, room for introverts and extroverts to think and process alike, and speaker-audience connection. It is lightly edited from its original form as posted in a Tweet-stream here.
Before the speaker begins, every audience member gets a virtual worksheet with room for notes, a place to doodle, and a few prompts like: What was the most compelling thing you heard? What did you disagree with? What would you like to know more about? etc.
On the agenda, the keynote still takes an hour (so it looks familiar to those too afraid of big changes), but it is broken down differently:
Minutes 1-15: Your “keynote” speaker gets 15 minutes to deliver their talk. Ideally, they’ll focus on making three (or fewer) key points. They can use slides if they want, but it is best to limit the number if you can.
Minutes 16 - 20: Once the speaker's 15 minutes are done, give everyone 5 minutes of silence to contemplate what they just heard and complete a worksheet with a handful of prompts. This is ridiculously hard for extroverts but loved by introverts. It is OK if some take out their phones, though only a few will. (Here’s a worksheet we’ve used).
Minutes 20 - 40: After the silent time is over, break out into small groups for 20 minutes so everyone can talk with one another about what they just heard, what they liked, etc. Ideally, they'll follow the framework from the worksheet, but it’s OK if they do a bit of networking, too. During this time, the speaker can move from breakout-to-breakout and engage one-on-one with audience members who have specific questions. However, each group’s key deliverable during this period is ONE question they'd collectively like to ask the speaker.
Minutes 41-60: Finally, for the last 20 minutes of your hour-long slot, each breakout group can ask a question* of the speaker. If you have a lot of breakouts, challenge them to submit their questions via the chat function for the speaker to answer later if they're able.
We've found this works much better than the traditional "sage on the stage" hour-long keynote. It is easier for the speakers, better for the audience, and more fun to boot! I hope you'll try it and let me know if it works for you.
* In case it’s not obvious, the reason each breakout group must ask a question collectively instead of allowing individual questions is to eliminate the long-winded, self-important audience member from asking their 5-minute, "I'm so smart, don't you agree?" question that bores the rest of the attendees to tears.
Let Speakers Participate in the Watch Party
Taking a page from virtual watch-parties, here’s a simple tip to mix live engagement with pre-recorded conference sessions:
Run prerecorded sessions as live Watch Parties with Live Chat, with the speaker in attendance, chatting along with the audience, and turning on the camera at the start to say hello and the end to answer questions. And whatever you do, don't pretend a prerecorded session is live.
Benefits to this approach: It creates a trigger to watch the session live. It helps the audience form a connection to (and with) the speaker. And it helps the speaker see what resonates, what doesn't, what needs more explanation... based on real-time audience feedback.
A Better Way to Begin Virtual Meetings
Next time you're hosting a video conference call and waiting for everyone to dial in, share your screen and put up an icebreaker question. It helps new callers instantly jump into the conversation while you wait for everyone to arrive.
Ten Tips for Better Virtual Meetings
While we’re here to talk about how to make virtual events better, there are lots of meetings that lead up to each one. Here are ten tips for virtual meetings we developed at Filament. If you like them, here’s a .pdf you can print out yourself).
The easiest way to add people to your team is to subtract meetings from their calendars: an eight-person, hour-long meeting might only cost you an hour, but it costs your organization an entire day.
At least half of your meetings could have been an email — and your coworkers know which ones. Have the courage to ask them, and your entire organization will profit.
Never send a meeting invitation without telling invitees the meeting's purpose, why it’s important to do it together (and at the same time), and what you'll have accomplished once it's done.
Instead of making every meeting an hour, send two invites: the first for 13 minutes of optional "coffee and chat" and the second for the 47 minutes the meeting actually requires. Bonus: by setting your meetings for odd times, people are more likely to arrive on time.
When is the last time you got high-fives for knowing how to flip on a light switch in a dark room? If you're running a virtual meeting, being good with the technology isn't an accomplishment, it's a requirement.
Favor familiarity over functionality, because no matter the tool you're using for your virtual meetings, at least 1/3 of your audience will struggle with its most basic functions if they don't use it every day.
You'd never present from a stage with a mirror in your hand. In virtual meetings, hide your self-view so you'll focus on attendees more and yourself less.
Zoom hours are like dog years: each one feels like at least three in person. Rediscover the telephone and encourage everyone to walk while you talk. You'll be surprised how engaged your team becomes when they're not staring at a screen for the 7th hour in a row.
At the end of every meeting, make two lists: the decisions you made and the decisions you need -- and be certain there's someone assigned to go "get" the ones on the second list before you meet again.
The best investment you can make in your career is to improve your meeting IQ. When every meeting you run is crisply led and outcome-focused, you'll earn the trust of your peers, the admiration of your leaders, and more than a few extra dollars in each paycheck.
Reimagine the Exhibit Hall, Part One
As everyone has moved to virtual, conference organizers (and their technology platforms) have learned how to deliver presentations and do chat-roulette-style one-to-one networking reasonably well.
However, there's a gigantic problem they've not solved yet: how to deliver value to vendors in virtual events.
"Why care about the vendors?" you might ask.
I'll tell you why: they're the reason your event ticket didn't cost 3-5 times more than it did, and they're also why your nonprofit conference organizer stays solvent and delivers value to you year-round. And after nearly 7 months of virtual conferences, most of them are pissed.
They're not getting the same ROI as before because nobody wants to wander a "virtual" vendor hall and download a whitepaper -- especially when you don't get a 20-cent pen in exchange. ;-)
So what can conference organizers do?
Stop trying to "replace" the vendor hall with a virtualized version of the exact same thing.
Instead, think differently about what vendors and partners want for their dollars and how that might overlap with your budget necessities and attendees' needs.
Here's one way:
First, survey your attendees 3-4 months before the event and find out what they'd like to know and what kind of challenges they're hoping to solve with the things your sponsors/vendors might happen to sell.
Next, synthesize all of those challenges into a bunch of "How might I ..." challenges (such as, How might I migrate my aging, on-premises X to a cloud-based Y?) and then group them into as many logical categories as you can.
Then, send the challenges to your vendors. Tell them they can address as many as they like but will have to pay $ X,000 for each or XX,000 to address all in a category.
Two weeks before your conference, schedule dozens of 20-minute "Challenge Showcase Sessions" that are tied to the "How might I..." challenges you've built. In each, up to 20 vendors who believe their products/services address each challenge can present for one minute apiece.
Publicize the hell out of these sessions to attendees, but don't require registration for people to attend. During each, the vendor uses their minute to share how their solution addresses the challenge (or to trash their competitors -- after all, it's their minute).
While each vendor presents, share a link that allows session attendees to book five more minutes with them -- but no longer -- to learn a bit more, get a downloaded brochure, share contact details for a Starbucks card, etc. Make sure vendors adhere to this time limit!
Gamify the Showcase Sessions, awarding prizes for the funniest/weirdest/best one-minute pitches as voted on by the attendees. Build a "best-of" highlight reel. Give away cool attendance prizes to the attendees (iPad, anyone?) of each Showcase Session, etc.
Rinse and repeat for all the challenges. Then, invite vendors to attend any virtual sessions at the conference that address their focus areas and carve out some time for them to speak since they're not "stuck" on the vendor floor like they are in real events, right?
Finally, don't expect the same people who run your real-world exhibit hall to pull this off -- their expertise lies elsewhere. Hire an expert facilitator instead — and yes, we’re happy to help (just in case you’re wondering).
Originally shared on Twitter, here.
Track the Decisions You Made & the Ones That You Need
At the end of every meeting create two lists: “The Decisions We Made” and “The Decisions We Need.”
On the first list, capture the specific decisions you made in the meeting and the details for each.
On the second, capture the decisions you need from elsewhere in the organization and then assign the responsibility to go “find” that decision (along with the when, the who, and the how) so your team doesn’t get stuck waiting on someone else.
Every time the leader of your team has a meeting with her leader, she should bring your team’s master list of “Decisions We Need” with her so she can “get” the decisions needed to move forward or learn where to find them elsewhere.