Live Spark

All events produce an outcome--whether you set it or not. Event truth number 5: Without clear and effective outcomes for your event, your message gets muddled. Every action has a reaction--so when you're not setting outcomes for an event, you're still going to GET an outcome...but it might not be what you want to convey. See how to set good outcomes for your event to make sure that the event is impactful for the company AND the audience. #Eventprofs #LiveSpark #BrainbasedEvents #SalesMeetings

Jan Brady was right: People only remember the first and last things (and neglect the middle). Event Truth number 4: Audiences remember the beginning and the end of a presentation. So how does this square when the meat of the content is in the middle? In normal presentation structures--it doesn't bode well for content retention at all. To mitigate this a presentation should be structured in a brain-friendly way. See what you can do to make sure Jan Brady isn't forgotten about once again. #7EventTruths #eventprofs #BrainBasedEvents

Everyone in your audience is persuaded in a different way. That's event truth #3. And every presentation requires buy-in and persuasion. So how do you get buy-in when you're trying to utilize different persuasion styles? How do you use different persuasion styles in the same presentation? Take a look at our event tips. #eventprofs #persuasionstyles #salesmeetings #brainbasedevents

The Adult Attention Span is 5-7 minutes. That's event truth #2. 5-7 minutes isn't a long time--and we'd bet that most of your event presentations are significantly longer than that. So what happens after 5-7 minutes? "I wonder where they make ballroom carpets..." "Why is there a line across the screen?" "This presenter makes a weird face when they say the word 'project'...." Minds go a-wanderin' and a-roamin' all over the place--but not all over your content. We're not saying that you should have a bunch of 5-7 minute presentations, but we are saying that you should change the way you present every 5-7 minutes to restart the attention clock. Here are some tips and tricks to capture and retain that attention throughout a longer presentation. #eventprofs #7EventTruths #eventproduction #brainbasedlearning

95% of your event content will be forgotten 24 hours later. Event Truth #1. There are a lot of uncomfortable truths about events. 95% of that prepared and delivered content? Gone in 24 hours. What 5% is remembered? Only the most important stuff, right? 🤷♀️ The good news? There are ways to mitigate this content loss AND increase the chances that it's the critical information that's remembered. #eventprofs #Brainbasedlearning #7EventTruths

Do you debrief at your events? The two biggest barriers we see to meaningful debriefing are: Not viewing the experience as a training event The claim of a lack of time So many presentations need to happen. So much information needs to be conveyed. But skipping the debriefing can decrease the impact of the very important presentations and information. If an event isn't viewed as a training experience this isn't seen as a big deal (as long as everyone got to present and everything ran on time, then things were learned, right?) or it simply isn't seen at all. Debriefing should be a part of your event agenda--it's critical to the success of your event and to establish real meaning and connection between the audience and your information. #eventprofs

At Live Spark, your event production is occasionally kitten-powered.

There are 7 Event Truths you need to know to have a successful event. We'll be sharing those over the next few weeks, but here's a teaser: The average adult attention span is 5-7 minutes. Only. This isn't inattentiveness, it's the limitation of the working memory. How does this impact your presentations? What can you do to keep an audience engaged as the minutes tick by? Stay tuned. #eventprofs #7EventTruths #brainbasedevents

Is your event stressing your attendees out? An event can be stressful for attendees. You’re taking them out of their natural work environment, they’re missing the cadence of their regular communication, you’re pummeling them with information back-to-back over hours (often delivered in a deadly-dry way), and they’re told that this information is mission-critical for their jobs and livelihoods over the next year. Sometimes there are unpleasant truths on their minds that never are addressed, and they’re expected to carry on and learn new information. No wonder we hear from attendees, “I felt like I HAD to have a drink at the end of the day.” This is, understandably, a toxic environment for learning. You can’t absorb new information when you’re stressed out about your environment, or when you’re fixating on issues. This is why we emphasize making events less stressful through multiple techniques. 1.    Address issues up front. When we use AniMates, addressing the elephant-in-the-room issues allows presenters to acknowledge that something is on an audience’s mind so they’re receptive to subsequent information. 2.    Incorporate play. Gamification and team competition allow attendees to practice with information in new ways—but that are fun and engaging. Giving them an opportunity to move around, cheer, show off their skills and knowledge relieves the stress of information overload and ALSO helps reinforce content. 3.    Give attendees time to absorb information. Events are an investment, so it makes sense that a lot of clients want to squeeze as much information as humanly possible into the agenda—you have attendees there, why not use every second? However, without giving attendees the ability to reflect on the material in some way—reviews, creating personal take-aways, gamification, etc., they reach information overload and everything washes over them. We normally think of events as a time to reconnect, to motivate, to get on-board with a consistent company message. We don’t generally think of them as stressful, but those stress points in design are exactly what can inhibit the learning objectives of the event. With a little modification, events can become environments that are conducive to learning and lightning rods for shared ideas—instead of places attendees feel glad to escape at the end of the day. For more event tips to transform your event visit www.live-spark.com. #eventprofs #brainbasedlearning #gamification #animates

Your Presentation Is the Ugly Baby There's an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine struggle with their friends' baby being ugly. Their friends think their baby is adorable. Of course--it's their BABY. They viewed it with bias and love and affection, but it was objectively unattractive. This is about 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. 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 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.