August 22, 2005

More on Level 1 & Level 2

Posted by Kevin | Print This Article

Rich and Jeff both had some great comments to my earlier post on “the first ten minutes” which made me think that maybe I hadn’t explained myself quite as well as I thought I did: the educational component of a conference, in terms of being both relevant and stimulating to the people who attend the meeting, is obviously important. Getting that right is what makes a conference a Level 1 event, as I described it earlier (and trust me, I’ve been to lots of meetingts that didn’t hit Level 1 status).

You have to hit Level 1 to reach Level 2. Level 1 engages the intellect and Level 2 engages the emotions. It’s what gets people talking about an event afterwards, and what creates “buzz.” I stand by my contention that the first ten minutes are the key to making a spectacular event because it’s those ten minutes that set the agenda. An exciting educational program can be made more exciting if people are “in the mood.” Moods can be manipulated. (Everybody thinks their emotions can’t be manipulated, but they can. I don’t think anyone ever walks out of an event going, “That first ten minutes made the difference and I learned a lot more because it got me energized and feeling positive about myself and the event itself!” Done right, they will have no idea. In fact, a few of them will think it was kind of silly. But the majority will think it was great and listening to those people’s impressions afterward will actually put the “I-think-learning-should-be-serious-and-dull” people in a better mindset, they just won’t realize it.)

At the same time, the same educational program can be rendered less interesting — or at least, be forced to work a whole lot harder to achieve meaningful impact — if people have to sit through an opening session that doesn’t engage their emotions.

Now, I’ve also been to meetings where they tried to engage the emotions (through “spectacle” or other creative means) without also providing a substantive educational program. These are the events that I think ring hollow — that make us sit and look at our watches or check our calls, as Rich described. It’s not a question of throwing money at a production just because you can. When I say “spectacle” I’m not just talking about exploding lights or whatever — you don’t have to spend a lot of money to engage people’s emotions, and just spending money on neat tricks and fancy videos isn’t going to do it, either.

Rich says the speakers are the most important part, and I get where he’s coming from. Yet the best speaker I’ve ever heard — in terms, not just of presentation, but of actual impact on business and operational life — was Marcus Buckingham. In fact, after hearing him speak, we’ve spent years trying to align our conference schedule with his so he could be our opening keynote speaker (finally happening in 2006). Where did I hear him? At ASAE’s 2002 Conference in Denver. Best keynote speaker I’ve ever heard. As far as the conference itself — well, learned some stuff. Had a good time. I’d say it was worth the money. Yet my overall impression of the conference was one of “blah.” And that’s pretty much what I said about it when I came home.

Comments

Leave a comment

Name (required)

E-mail (required)

URI

Your Comments

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail