Meeting Design for Customer Events

Meetings, conferences, conventions... they're important tools of corporations and associations, but sometimes they're not quite what they could be, "broadcasting" to the assembled attendees rather than engaging and connecting with them. Neuroscience researchers Dick and Emily Axelrod developed an approach of "Connection Before Content" which addresses the question of interaction, and how organizations can maximize useful interface with their participating colleagues.  Read more »

More details on how this model can be implemented in your conferences are in Esprit's new whitepaper: Meeting Design for Customer Events which is downloadable (in .pdf format).

Top 10 List of Customer Event Ideas

Here are a few ideas of things to consider to make the participant-program exchange richer, more memorable, and of increased value.   Read More »

Schmoozing…The Art of Connecting and Networking!

A common worry lately is the idea that small talk and conversation is starting to deplete and people are beginning to lose this very important skill. For younger generations, experts place the blame on videogames and texting for the lack of ability to communicate. According to The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “How To Be A Better Conversationalist” by Elizabeth Bernstein, one can develop conversational intelligence. Read More »

The Driveway Conversation

Most of these Postcard sections of our newsletters are about hotels, restaurants, or things to do at a meeting or event.

This month’s Postcard is about what happens in the driveway of your attendees when they come home from one of your customer events and they get a call on their cell phone or their next door neighbor sees them and asks "where are you coming back from?"

Years ago a client of mine used to use this as a gauge on how powerful his agenda was as he put together their customer events list of speakers, entertainment, activities, etc. He always said to himself "what would his attendees say?" in response to their neighbor’s question.

Would they say "oh I just back from a three day meeting and it was boring PowerPoint for hour after hour" or would they say "just got back from this meeting and they this boxing theme and had Sugar Ray Leonard as the guest speaker." Or: "they had this music theme with two actors playing the Blues Brothers and the final night party had the Brian Setzer Orchestra."

The key to these responses is to look at the agenda and add-in part message and part entertainment, or what we like to call "entertrainment". It will keep the message alive long after the event, and keep your customers excited about the meeting and their relationship with your organization.