Lessons from Helsinki: Kill the Speaker / Attendee Divide
The best bit about Like Minds Conversation Helsinki was when the panel got up and crossed the invisible divide that separates speaker and attendee, and began chatting with the people in the crowd like equals. Because guess what, that’s what they are: equals. Almost a year ago, when I was forming the ideas for Like Minds, I [...]
Let Attendees Be Participants
People remember 20% of what they hear and 70% of what they say. Creating Attendee-centric events is about letting attendees say. Other events are just ego!
People Don’t Remember What Was Said, They Remember How They Felt
This is a photo of me, Chris Brogan and Molly Flatt and the Like Minds Summit earlier this year. Looking at it reminds of one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learnt – namely that what I remember from that day isn’t the content we discussed (despite it being amazing), but it’s the feeling of [...]
The Issue With Social Media Events: They Aren’t Social
Let’s be honest today. The feedback is coming in from some events running right now – SxSWi, SMWF and some reviews from Like Minds, and something is clear to me: we still are thinking top down. Yesterday Valeria Maltoni posted “SxSWi in Quotes“, which comprised mostly of people saying their favourite thing at South By [...]
A Better Way For Event Sponsorship: Partnership
I talked a little with Amber Naslund (Director of Community at Radian6) at the end of last week on a new way to look at event sponsorship, after she sent our a rather wistful tweet, saying she was looking for a “better way.” I agree with her. Let’s put ourselves in Amber’s shoes (and indeed [...]
No More Big Events?
Yesterday Seth Godin rocked the boat with another post that many people disagree with: No More Big Events. This short post said that big events don’t work because they aren’t as good as “frequent cheap communication”. Scott McKain wrote a long response on why he disagreed which is worth a read. I don’t disagree with [...]
Creating A People-To-People Conference
One of the greatest challenges that we face is to deliver on our ideas. On Saturday I asked the question on Twitter, “When it comes to ideas, what’s important? Making them accessible? Uniting people to ideas? Making ideas happen? Having lots, or a few?” The resounding response was “making ideas happens”. The challenge that the [...]
