Conferences Of The Future

1. The big idea?
Successful conference organisers are focusing on one or two big ideas for their conferences. Every onsite experience and session threads those big ideas in some way. Like a giant Venn Diagram, every conference touchpoint intersects with the big idea and sheds new light on it.

Unlike the hokey conference themes of the past (Sail To Success, Out Of This World, Leaders Of Tomorrow) these big ideas challenge participants to think, act and respond differently. It challenges status quo and conventional thinking.

2. Curation
Attendees can be paralyzed by having too many choices for conference education and experiences. The Walmart all-you-can-eat-super-sized-buffet offerings waters down the quality of the experience. Like museum curators, savvy conference organisers focus on “filtering out the noise” and paring down the choices for a quality experience. Instead of allowing every association member, exhibitor and sponsor a stage to promote their agenda, organisers forgo the politics in favour of the attendee’s experience.
These meeting professionals do not believe in content curation by committee. They allow committee’s to provide feedback, advice and rank potential speakers. However, they act as an auteur, a director that exercises creative control over the attendee’s experience and content selection. Their mantra is “What’s best for the attendee?”

3. Social Objects
A social object is a thing people can form opinions on, agree, disagree and discuss. Basically a social object is anything people are talking about.
Clever meeting professionals see their conferences as the hub of community conversations around the big idea. It’s where the industry’s best and the risk takers converge to converse. The meeting professionals provide provocative social objects for deep discussions.

4. Game Dynamics
Good gamers design a flow that takes a player from Point A to Point B and then from Point B to Point C.
Smart conference organisers are leveraging social technologies to drive attendees through a series of specific experiences. They challenge attendees to play along and compete with each other all while driving conversations, engagement and participation.