THE KEY TO EVENTS IN 2022: LET'S LEARN FROM TUVALU

I've spent 25 years telling people who hold events that you need to make what happens in the conference room memorable.

That means doing something a least a little differently.

Don't have a procession of people with mediocre presentation skills delivering mediocre presentations, then think that having an awesome dinner that night will somehow make people inspired about what they heard.

Have I had an impact? Well ... you tell me. Think of the last one or two conferences you attended. Did ANYTHING happen during the actual conferencing part of the program that engaged you as a delegate in a more meaningful or memorable way than normal?

I think you'll probably find that most conference days still consist of a series of mediocre presentations from people with mediocre presentation skills.

Or, if they want to be daring and 'mix things up', they insert a panel session somewhere in the program ... which normally is not actually a panel session, but another series of mediocre presentations, differentiated by the fact they these mini presentations are only 10 minutes' long each rather than 40. Then there's a few minutes of carefully curated questions afterwards.

I had honestly believe that event organisers are holding too tightly to the view that 'Business is serious, therefore Business Education must also be serious' (something that was totally disproved in the 1980s by John Cleese and his incredibly successful business training video series), but then, today, I saw this ... from one of the most serious, staid and stoic conferences on the planet.

It was the most absolutely brilliant, eye-catching, illustrative, soul-touching and memorable presentation I can remember seeing. Importantly, I can't see myself forgetting having seen it.

How incredibly powerful was this message?

Was it because the presenter was amazingly engaging and emotive? No. He was a solid performer as a politician, but nothing about him suggested he would be the most memorable presenter at this conference.

You can only imagine the daring decisions that went into developing this idea and selling it. There would have been some resistance ... but daring won out in the end.

With 2022 promising a new beginning for us in the events industry, let's make it our aim to be TRULY daring and give our events something that sets them apart from the past.

Yes, it requires being a bit brave ... but we've all just survived a pandemic. We're pretty steely now and cope with interesting things happening at our events.

Let's start by turning some presentations into engaging interviews. That's easy. Have someone have a great chat with the CEO or the Marketing Manager. You can simultaneously get ALL the important messages across AND showcase some interesting parts of their personality.

Trust me. I've seen it happen. I managed to get a CEO of a very large firm to reveal to an audience of his firm's people that he had once auditioned for a Bollywood movie. Having that memorable fact mentioned became a hook that enabled people to better remember other things that were shared. It's how our brain likes to work. It needs a steady menu of memorable moments to help it maintain memories of the less than memorable moments.

Let's also design our conference programs to have a panel or two ... but GENUINE panels. A full on, vibrant, dynamic conversation amongst a group of people. The rule is there are NO PRESENTATIONS WITHIN A PANEL. That defeats the whole purpose of a panel.

And, let's change things up. Why not start the day by having all of your internal speakers on the stage and, instead of them speaking, have them listening. Give the audience a chance to tell them what they would like to hear. It's easy to do and means that the delegates feel a real depth of involvement and engagement that is hard to replicate. And the speakers now know the most pressing issues they need to address.

Win! Win!

Being brave and coming up with ideas that are different shouldn't be something that is a 'maybe' in the event planning process. And it shouldn't only apply to the dinners and activities on a program.

Anyone can make eating and drinking fun, but it takes a real skilled craftsperson to make learning fun.

Ideally, any brainstorming in this regard should be done early on.

If you've engaged a Professional Master of Ceremonies, get them involved then. They've seen lots of conferences so should have lots of ideas. That's often the litmus test for whether you've engaged a quality professional MC: the professional MC will absolutely want to be involved at this stage (and share their ideas), as their whole motivation is making better educational outcomes possible for the delegates. If your MC only wants to turn up on the day and read the script you've written for them, well then you've got yourself a Professional Master of Reading right there. Which do you think your delegates would prefer to have on the program?

One of my biggest frustrations as an MC is that I'm brought in to the planning process AFTER all the mistakes have been cemented into the program. But it's too late to say anything, as the program is set and speakers have already been briefed.

So, in my round-about, have-a-bit-of-a-rant kind of way, here's what I'm saying:

Let's make 2022 the year when WE are brave and our EVENTS are bold. Let's try do at least one thing in the conference room differently in the new year.

Let's make our events memorable.

Let's work out what our version of delivering a presentation on climate change from a once-dry-but-now-submerged piece of land is.

Darren Isenberg is one of Australia’s most booked and re-booked Corporate MC’s and Presenters. He also speaks to groups on how to improve their Positive Influence and the Presentation Skills.

You can learn more about him by heading to www.dipresents.com.au or by asking his kids. But don’t talk to his mother. She still has no idea … but thinks he’s great at what it is anyway.