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.

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.