How to Innovate an Event - Useful Ideas from RSAC CISO Boot Camp ’24

Whenever professionals in the Speaking, Meeting, and Events Industry think about innovating events they think about leveraging technology to enhance the audience experience. But sometimes, innovation has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with reimagining how things could be done to create better human experiences. I recently had a phenomenal experience speaking at the RSAC CISO Boot Camp ’24 and gained some valuable ideas for you to play with for your own events. 

1. Amplify The Care Factor

Over the last few years, humans have become hypersensitive in recognising those who care and don’t care. As I say on stage, ”In today’s world, If people don’t care, nothing happens anywhere.” The Boot Camp organisers took the care factor to a whole new level as you’ll see in each of the elements below. And because they cared so much, they were able to attract a really high calibre of speakers, many of whom appeared purely as a favour to the organisers.

2. Build a Transformative Learning Experience

The goal of the Boot Camp was to equip the attendees with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to move up into senior C-suite positions. The organisers are deeply connected to the Cyber Security Industry and the Boot Camp chairs are currently practicing CISOs. So they sat down and thought long and hard about the knowledge gaps that needed to be filled. That formed the topics on the agenda. 

I feel like many conference agendas don’t have much thought put into them, especially here in Australia. Whenever I sense audience disconnection, it’s usually because the topics aren’t as engaging or interesting as what could really move the needle for attendees. Or perhaps the conference team surveys attendees and they all request “faster horses”. 

There is an incredible opportunity to take things to the next level by approaching your conference agenda as a learning and development exercise as the Boot Camp team did. 

3. Create an Environment of Safety & Security

The Boot Camp was strictly invite-only, and no media, vendors, or outsiders to the industry were able to attend. Attendees had to apply to attend and could only do so if they already had a ticket for the main Cyber Conference during the week. This meant everyone who attended had serious skin in the game and wouldn’t have to be worried about being sold to, or appearing misquoted in random video clips.

The event also adopted the “Chatham House Rule” which meant attendees could use the stories gained from the day but were not allowed to mention who said what, or the name of the organisation involved in the story. This resulted in everyone feeling safe and secure to be themselves and share knowledge openly with others without fear of reprimand or retribution.

4. Provide a “White Glove” Experience for Speakers 

All my keynote presentations involve music as a metaphor, so I always have two AV technical requests:

1. I need a lapel microphone because I move around on stage and use my hands a lot. I also feel super awkward using a headset with my hair and glasses, as well as strapping a guitar on.

2) A Direct Input box so I can plug an acoustic guitar into the PA system

Many event managers that I've worked with in the past during the early ears of my career struggle with these requests because it might cost more money or worse, they’ll confirm everything is set up, but when I get there nothing has been organised and the expectation is that I will just use what is available. 

For Boot Camp, it was a completely different experience. 

Firstly, when I asked for the equipment the response came back - “No problem, all our speakers use Lapel Mics. A guitar, that’s exciting - if there was a keyboard I could play along!” -Wow-

Second, I turned up nice and early for a soundcheck and not only was everything ready, but the AV team worked with me to improve how I sounded for attendees when the music component came up. -Mind Blown-

One of the organisers later explained that her team provides a white glove experience for all speakers. Much like the entertainment industry, some speakers are easier to work with than others, but everyone is treated with the utmost respect and care, and all their requests are met to the best of the team’s ability. It was a level of professionalism that I’ve never experienced before and it blew my mind to hear what life is like on those bigger stages in America. I can't wait to play in that market next year!

5. Contextualise Speaker Introductions

This was an absolute game-changer!

The MCs for the event were also the conference chairs, Grant and Ben. They did something really special when introducing speakers. Instead of reading out bios with qualifications and accomplishments, which usually bore the hell out of audiences, they explained to the attendees why this was an important topic, and why they had chosen that particular speaker to deliver it. This worked brilliantly as attendees really felt they were being guided through the program by trusted leaders. I cannot articulate what a big difference this makes to audience engagement and provides a better experience for speakers too. 

6. Seek Feedback at the Speed of Opportunity

During the event, there was a lot of promotion about the feedback survey and right after the event ended the survey was ready to go. This allowed the feedback to be super relevant as the experience was top of mind. 

I’ve heard other Event Managers send out surveys as soon as attendees leave the venue as it’s the perfect thing to keep them occupied at the airport while they wait for their flights.

I feel like this is a much better way to operate rather than sending out surveys a week later. People’s lives are more complex now than ever and if you capture someone whilst they're still in the moment you will get super useful insights out of them. 

7. Facilitate a Sense of Belonging - The Challenge Coin

The greatest human experiences are those that form bonds with others sharing the same experience. Making your attendees feel like a special tribe who belong at your event is a superpower. A simple way to achieve this is “swag” but Boot Camp took that to a whole new level with the introduction of the Challenge Coin.

This was a tradition that stemmed from the military. It represents camaraderie and proves membership of a certain group. Within this context, attendees were encouraged to use their coin to catch up with fellow attendees and exchange valuable insights that could improve their careers. It was a brilliant way to continue conversations long after the event is over. Also, everyone who has one feels like they really belong to a special club. It's very cool.

8. No Sleepy Time Food

During my 10 years of speaking professionally around the world, I've always seen plenty of pastas and sandwiches served during lunch. This guarantees killing the audience's attention as after a big meal of carbs the body just wants to rest and digest. That’s why after-lunch spots for speakers aren’t the greatest for audience attention. Instead, Boot Camp attendees were served a really simple lunch with a couple of salads, a curry, and a beef dish with a bit of rice. It was the perfect brain food for hungry brains.

All of these little details stacked up and resulted in a fully engaged audience throughout the entire day - something that I’ve never seen before. Putting that much thought and care into the event yielded fantastic feedback as well as a tonne of posts on LinkedIn featuring the iconic Challenge Coin. This was the perfect way to build anticipation and excitement for next year’s event. Pure genius!

I acknowledge not all of these ideas will be applicable to your industry or clients, but the goal is to inspire you to start thinking about how things could be done differently to create better human experiences. This is the real future of the industry that no one is talking about.

One Last Thing…

I’d like to close our time together now with a funny story. 

The night before the event Ben, Britta and I went to dinner where I heard the most amazing stories about the big events that she manages. 

I mentioned that I was so grateful that she said yes to my DI box for my guitar and that a lot of event managers would have frowned upon it.

“Oh, it was fine. I love a good musical act. Here, let me show you the last musician we worked with…”

And she reached into her bag, pulled out her phone and showed me photos of….. Alicia Keys.

Geez talk about raising the bar - no pressure!!!! Hahaha. 

Special thanks to Ben Doyle , Grant McKechnie , Britta Glade and Ally Lorentson Dunn CMP, DES for including me in this year’s Boot Camp and showing me what’s possible in the events space when people care more.

So event managers, go forth, imagine new ways of doing things, and let’s work together to make tomorrow better than today! 🙏🍀

#eventplanning #eventprofs #management #innovation #leadership