Here is the PowerPoint that Dave and I developed for a nonprofit association strategic planning session recently. You’ll notice three overarching mega trends and 15 trends overall.

What trends would you add to this PowerPoint presentation? What’s your experience with some of these trends?

How transparent is your organization?

In today’s networked world, society wants to engage openly and honestly with organizations. They want to converse in two-way communication with an organization’s leaders and staff. Organization success demands great transparency especially when the organization wants to embrace social networking.

Authors Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine identify three kinds of organizational transparency in their book The Networked Nonprofit. (I’m reading their book for the third time now as I want to internalize the concepts they share. It was well worth the money and one of my favortie summer reads.)

These categories apply to both nonprofits and for profit companies.

1. Fortress Organizations

Fortress organizations use moats and drawbridges to keep others outside their gates. Communication is one-way from their Fortress out with no ability to communicate into the organization. Fortress leadership use bureaucratic red tape with plans developed only by staff, closed meetings, unexplained decisions, and forms, approval processes and committees to keep things tied up and moving slowly. Fortress organizations have a risk-averse DNA, a scarcity mentality and operate from a culture of fear. Leaders and staff are primarily concerned about their own reputations and continued employment.

2. Transactional Organizations

Transactional organizations provide services and programs primarily based on costs. Customers are those that consume their services based totally on price. Nonprofits see people outside of the organization as those with one purpose: to write checks for the organization. Transactional organizations rarely build relationships with others and their services are seen as a commodity. These organizations view ROI as the number of people who attended an event, the number and amount of donations, the number of volunteers,  the number of books sold, the number of lodging nights, the total volume of sales or the number of programs purchased. These organizations view isolated interactions as fulfilling their missions. They don’t serve their members. They sell to them.

3. Transparent Organizations

Transparent organizations are not to be confused with glass houses where leadership sits behind glass walls. Glass houses do not have authentic transparency because walls still exist. True transparent organizations are wall-less and the distinction between inside and outside is blurred. Staffers are let out and people from the outside are let in. Kanter and Fine use a great analogy of transparency like an ocean sponge. These pore bearing organisms let up to twenty thousand times their volume in water pass through them every day. These sponges can withstand open, constant flow without inhibiting it because they are anchored to the ocean floor. Transparent organizations behave like these sponges: anchored to their mission and still allowing people in and out easily. Transparent organizations actually benefit from the constant flow of people and information.

What’s holding your organization back from being more transparent? What concerns you most about society’s expectation for transparent organizations?

Read The Ultimate Transparent Organization Checklist for more information about becoming a transparent organization.

How transparent is your organization?

Defining Organizational Transparency

Transparency is not a fading 2010 buzzword. It is an evergreen concept that members and the public demand. It is the way an organization and its leaders think and behave. It’s how an organization grows trust that is rewarded by loyalty.

An authentic, transparent organization intentionally shares information beyond the board room with members and nonmembers alike. Organizational transparency encourages, honors and engages with public input. It doesn’t ignore it. It doesn’t hide behind the membership wall.

Wikipedia defines transparency as

Transparency, as used in the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning [that] a “transparent” object is one that can be seen through. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc.

An Organization Transparency Checklist

Which of the following items does your organization have?

• Open board meetings
  (Dates, times and locations of open meetings are posted online at least two weeks in advance of the meetings)
• Financial disclosure statements
  (Nonprofits should consider posting their audited financial statements on their website)
• Freedom of information legislation
  (Rules that guarantee access to data held by the state; they establish a “right-to-know” legal process where requests can be made for government-held information)
• Budgetary reviews
• Annual audits
• IRS letter of determination
  (For nonprofits, preferably posted on their website)
• Annual Reports
  (Posted on the organization’s website for easy access)
• Strategic Plans and priorities
• Names of Board of Directors and key staff as well as their contact information
  (Posted on the organization’s website)
• Straight talking leadership
• Open culture and operations
  (many voices on behalf of the organization)
• Disclosed partnerships
• Frank, open communications including the good and bad
• Core values
  (That are easy to understand and posted on the organization’s website) 

Guidestar‘s 2008 The State Of Nonprofit Transparency: Voluntary Disclosure Practices posted in 2009 has some interesting findings .

• 43% of nonprofits surveyed post their Annual Reports on their website.
• 13% post their audited financial statements on their website.
• 3% post their respective IRS letter of determination on their website.

How transparent and trusted is your organization? What can you do to improve that transparency and trust?  What other items would you add to the transparency checklist?

This spin on cogito ergo sum (English: “I think, therefore I am”) could possibly be a good motto for all conferences and events.

Social Learning

We participate, therefore we are.

Our learning, understanding and knowledge are developed in participation with others. Social learning occurs through conversations about the content and through grounded interactions and engagement with others. Often when we discuss a concept or issue with someone, we are internalizing and integrating it into our own personal framework. It is though social learning that we seek practical knowledge to solve our professional problems.

Many conference organizers know that much of the true learning and understanding happens in the  hallways. Inside the conference education sessions, attendees receive information. Outside the education rooms, attendees start to socially construct their own understanding. Most of what we know, we have learned with and from others.

We, as conference organizers, have to find ways to capture what happens in the hallways and move it into the education sessions.

Moving Hallway Discussions Into Conference Education Sessions

We participate, therefore we are.

That phrase is exactly where I think conference organizers should begin to focus their meeting planning efforts.

• We should be designing conference experiences that encourage registrants to transition from attendees to participants.
• We need to discover new ways to help individuals move from passive attendees to active participants.
• We must shift from planning one-way lectures to more facilitated discussions.
• We need to switch from sixty- to ninety-minute lectures to sessions that provide short spurts (ten- to twenty-minutes) of content that serve as catalysts for seventy- to eighty minutes of discussion.
• We need to move from securing industry experts as speakers to contracting skilled facilitators that can capitalize on industry experienced participants in each session.
• We need to see our conference participants as the industry experts and subject matter experienced (SMEs).
• We must find a balance of the “what,” the content, and the “how,” the learning process.
• We must stop seeing our meetings as containers for distributing information and start seeing them as a process to facilitate learning.
• We must come to grips with the fact that “information” is a commodity and that “education” is something that has significant value.

Traditional Conference Education Strategies

So much of our conference education strategy relies on transmitting explicit information so attendees can amass sufficient amounts of content to their satisfaction. We spend little time on how to apply that information or practice it. We spend little time on helping others retain that content.

Most conference education sessions focus on how to pour knowledge into other people’s heads. We treat knowledge and information as a substance and the brain as a container. Without realizing it, we’ve bought into the concept that a lecturer or speaker is like a faucet. They can spout knowledge and pour it into each attendee’s brain. That’s assuming that there is nothing already in the attendee’s brain and that listening is the best way to distribute that information. Those assumptions are incorrect.

Engagement, through active participation, not passive listening, is critical to learning, retention and understanding. John Seely Brown says, “…We are constructing knowledge all the time, in conversation, through narrative.” 

Brown says that through stories and narratives we construct a framework that our mind begins to understand. It is through conversation with others that we construct our own mental frameworks. It’s in conversations that we create knowledge.

Ratio Of Participants Talking Versus Attendees Listening

So how much time in your annual conference is dedicated to attendee conversations? What is the ratio of listening to speakers versus participating in discussions?

Let’s face it. Registrants come to conference with a list of problems they want solved. It doesn’t matter if our education sessions address those problems or not. Instead of trying to force-feed information and content, let’s create conferences where we see our registrants as a community of practice and learning a process. Then participants, regardless of experience, can use inquiry to ask others about their experiences.

It is up to conference organizers to transition from meetings as containers of commodotized information to conferences as conduits of learning.

Why are so many conference education sessions information data dumps? How can we move registrants from passive attendees to active participants?

This post is by Dave Lutz, Managing Director of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting.

If you’re a show organizer, you’re probably wondering how to best leverage virtual event technology to help drive revenue, engagement and attract new blood. You might consider a virtual event to incubate a new show idea, attract an international audience, bridge the gap between your live events or even help build excitement for an upcoming show. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of great data, handbooks or case studies on what will deliver the best return. We’re still in the early adoption phase, and we are all learning together.

Early data shows that the attraction and satisfaction for virtual events is driven more by educational content than through the virtual tradeshow floor or networking. Exhibitors are not realizing the same return that they receive from live events. Attendees aren’t compelled to spend significant time on the virtual floor. (If you are interested in learning more about virtual events, TSNN is conducting a free webinar on August 4, 2010 at 2pm EST. Click here to register)

I’m a big believer that virtual events, when done well, have the ability to help drive a brand and an attendee’s desire to participate in the face-to-face larger offering. Here are seven areas to consider when designing a virtual tradeshow business model that will deliver results.

1. Product

Multiple single-day, vertical virtual events that include education sessions and a virtual exhibit hall. Make sure the content is live streamed (video) and that it rocks! In the virtual world, not delivering relevance is a major fail.

2. Target Audience

Think segmentation of primary buying groups into vertical markets. Avoid large horizontal groups. Instead of trying to be the “industry show,” try to be the show for “specialist”.

3. Timing

Conducted 16 to 24 weeks before your main show, consider one a week or one every two weeks. Design content that is offered in two time slots as your main attraction with the tradeshow open the entire time. Limit education sessions to 60 minutes (less is better). The entire event should be no longer than three hours.

4. Partners

Solicit exhibitors that offer new products, show specials (like GroupOn Virtual Deals Of The Day) or content (whitepapers, e-books) that are not readily available on other distribution channels. You want to attract buyers and influencers. The incentive to visit booths should be readily apparent as opposed to winning something. Don’t sell booth space to just anyone, make sure that they have compelling information or offers for your target audience. Just like a brick and mortar show, ask your exhibitors to help you spread the word.

5. Marketing Strategy

Consider virtual tradeshows as opportunities to attract and qualify prospects, provide quality leads to your partners and grow desire to attend your live events. If profit is your primary motivator, you’re likely going to get too horizontal and fail. Require minimal demographics upon registration but just enough to know how to market to them in the future. Your no-show rate may be as high as 50% but having good data on your no-shows can be valuable to you and your partners. Use the virtual show as a tool to build your list and position your brand.

6. Funding

Your revenue model can include multiple components, including booth fees (put everyone on a level playing field), sponsorships (education, event, email marketing), banner ads, etc. Make attendance free for attendees/buyers.

7. Platform

With a multiple vertical event strategy, a platform with an annual, all you can eat, license. Ease of use trumps bells and whistles.

How could this model work for you? What recommendations do you have for others considering a virtual tradeshow?

This post was original published on TSNN Blog.

As a child, one minute I would be fighting with my sister over who was going to sit in that special chair. The next minute we would be playing together as if nothing ever happened.

Our disagreements would flare and then we would move on to other things. We were quick to disagree without being disagreeable. Our disagreements did not become barriers to living, playing and working together. Our disagreements were not stopping places for failure.

Who Broke The Lamp?

My sister and I actually have a long-standing disagreement about who broke the lamp. We both smile whenever one of us mentions it.  

I was in elementary school and my sister was just staring kindergarten. We were tumbling and doing cartwheels in the living room. Our tumbling turned into a light-hearted pillow fight. Then one of us accidentally hit a lamp with the pillow. Naturally, it fell off the table and broke. The unfortunate thing was that lamp was a gift from my grandmother to my parents. We both blamed each other for the incident.

What’s amazing about this life-long disagreement is that we joke about it often without pushing each other’s buttons. We have mastered the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable.

Recently two bloggers I regularly read have both addressed the issue of conversations and disagreement.

Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable

Amber Naslund of Brass Tack Thinking wrote Disagreement Vs. Disagreeable.

Amber says, “Conflicting ideas, dissenting viewpoints, differing opinions are healthy and a really good thing. They stretch our minds, broaden our perspectives, and help us understand people and their motivations just a little bit more.” 

I like her statement. I suspect you do too.

She states that sometimes we “…ferociously defend our right.” Yep, I can identify with that statement. And she discusses how disagreements can disintegrate into a “quick to lynch” mentality. I concur and even sometimes resemble that view too. (My bad! Is there a hidden camera in my office?)

Exploring Open Dialogue

 Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent wrote How To Kill A Conversation.

 She says, “I encounter so many who enter conversation as if it were a boxing ring. Rational arguments raised as fists in both a protective and aggressive stance.”

I’ve experienced that when people accuse me of having an ulterior motive or agenda. And, I’ve even been the one with raised fists. I prefer open arms to raised fists any day.

Valeria continues with some great clarifying questions that helps people explore conversations with differing views. She is a wise women.

Social Media Encourages Conversations

Social media opens the door to allowing people to voice their opinions, thoughts and ideas. Sometimes those ideas are contrary to our own thoughts and perspectives. Sometimes they are likeminded. No matter what the perspective, it’s how we respond to differing viewpoints that tell us a lot about ourselves.

Who Really Broke The Lamp?

Oh and regarding that broken lamp. When my sister and I became adults, we found out that Mom actually hated that lamp. She told us that it had a crack in it when she got it. She was actually glad that we knocked it off the table and broke it. I think she actually broke the lamp.

In today’s society of open dialogue and communication, we could all use a little more practice at exploring conversations with differing views. It’s definitely a skill we need to acquire for online and conference conversations. The more we practice it, the better we’ll become at it and the more we all learn. Who knows? We might just discover later that there are other facts we didn’t originally know that would change the entire discussion.

How does your organization invite differing views and perspectives? What tips can you offer for learning to disagree without being disagreeable?

Photo by Kevin Labianco http://www.flickr.com/photos/80031239@N00/120973041/

This week, MPI will have its annual World Education Congress (WEC). As some of you know, I worked for MPI several years ago and even planned content for the WEC in the late 1990s. Many readers remember my feelings about the 2009 WEC Virtual Access Pass debacle.

But this year, MPI created a new WEC fiasco, with its Social Media Guru policy.

WEC 2010 Social Media Guru Policy

For WEC 2010, MPI invited people to apply to be a social media guru (SMG). Those chosen as a SMG received a reduced registration fee in exchange for blogging, tweeting and writing about WEC.

In theory, it’s a great idea. However, there’s a catch. And it’s a defining point in the MPI culture.

The SMG application had the following phrase,  “[Social media gurus are expected to provide] fair and unbiased coverage.” (Paraphrased as original application is no longer available on the web.)

There it was in print. MPI expects “fair and unbiased coverage.” And that phrase was listed twice in the SMG application. That’s not the way most associations communicate with the press. They instead try to influence and guide the coverage based on the best stories available. They don’t demand fair and unbiased coverage.

What Is Fair And Unbiased Coverage?

So what is unfair and biased coverage of MPI’s WEC? If they only want fair and unbiased coverage, who decides what is fair and biased? Isn’t MPI’s suggestion for fair and unbiased coverage a bias? In other words, these SMGs are not allowed an opinion. They cannot have their own perceptions, views or reactions because God, forbid, they might be biased. And guess what, most bloggers are biased and opinionated! That’s how blogs roll!

It’s not like we are used to unbiased media coverage. Just consider the BBC, Fox News and the New York Times. They all have biases. Right?

If you think I’m the only one struggling with this WEC SMG issue, read SMG Vanessa LeClair’s post Being an MPI Social Media Guru Isn’t Without Its Challenges. Obviously, SMG Miguel Nieves has some concerns about this too.

Some Feel That MPI Is Buying New Media

A very wise friend of mine made this statement about the WEC SMGs: “Wow, nothing like MPI buying the media. Right?”

Whoa, there’s the smoking gun. I didn’t ask that person for their thoughts. I didn’t say anything negative about the MPI WEC SMG application. As a matter of fact, I shared the SMG application via my networks with great excitement. I thought it was a smart move…until I read the application a second and third time.

My friend’s perception was only one of many who felt the same way.

MPI’s idea was a good idea gone awry. MPI is once again attempting trying to control the message. If MPI felt they even had to make that statement that they wanted “fair and unbiased” coverage, then they don’t trust people to cover the event from their own views. That’s a trust issue. That’s a corporate culture issue.

I’ve not seen any other organizations that invite bloggers or the media to their events insist on fair and unbiased coverage. Have you?

So, I didn’t apply. My integrity would not allow me to even consider becoming a WEC MPI SMG. I needed the ability to stay true to myself, voice my opinion and not be bought with a lower registration fee.

SMGs Should Disclose MPI Discounted Reg Fee For Writing About WEC

However, I do feel that every blog post the WEC SMGs write should have a disclosure statement that they received a discounted WEC registration fee in exchange for (fair and unbiased) writing about MPI’s WEC. This would stay true to the spirit of FTC’s Guidelines for bloggers about disclosure and endorsements.

How do you feel about MPI’s WEC social media guru policy of “fair and unbiased” coverage? Do you want WEC coverage that reflects a positive, fair and unbiased view or do you want SMGs that tell it as they see it?

Image by Toronja Azul http://www.flickr.com/photos/37521207@N00/2270965320/

Dear Conference Organizers:

This relationship isn’t working out. You know, the one between us, the attendees, and you the conference organizers. It’s time for us to explore other educational, community-building and networking opportunities. We’ve tried to make it work. But it’s not us — it’s you (really).

We thought we would do things together. We were hoping we could talk more. With you. With your leaders. With your community. With our friends. But that hasn’t happened. We only get to listen.

We are tired of sitting, passively listening to talking head egos drone on about topics that you thought would attract us. We are tired of racing in the hallways to find our community, our like-minded colleagues so we can connect with them. We are tired of attending breakfasts and lunches where you flaunt your relationships with big money and don’t allow us time to talk to the people at our own table.

You monopolize our time when we meet. It’s all about your messages. Your ideas. Your people. Your needs. Your problems. Your partners. Your issues.

It’s all about you. You, you, you.

You just don’t seem to understand our needs. You think you can continue to plan our rendezvous the way you’ve always done them in the past. But those meetings have become too familiar, too predictable. They have lost their spark. Their excitement. Their emotion. Their romance.

You think that paying attention to the details, the logistics, and the specifics will maintain our relationship. You spend more time on the setup than you do on the content of our connections. You think feeding us the latest organic food and greening our meeting will make us want to continue to connect with you. You think that a logistically sound meeting will maintain our relationship.

But that has become old. You’re a one-trick pony without much creative thought into our educational and connecting desires. You think that our relationship is built on minutiae, organization and a glut of information. You’ve spent so much time controlling the particulars of our connections that you’ve forgotten that we are real humans. And you’re expensive for what we are getting in return.

We have feelings. Thoughts. Ideas. Reflections. Our own stories and experiences. We need time to connect with others. Share. Learn. Explore new possibilities. We need to experience things together. We need dedicated time to talk. We need and thrive on conversations. We can’t continue to meet like we have in the past. Frankly, you bore us.

At first, you romanced us. You courted us with your flashy marketing pieces and smooth talk. You went out of your way to meet and connect. We fell for your handsome, beautiful, well-dressed look. But underneath, you were void of substance. It was a good-looking shell absent of any depth. You were offering us very shallow, over-clichéd subject matter. It’s so last century. It feels stagnant, stuck, out of touch with reality.

We are not sure if you’ve noticed, but we actually stopped attending most of your education offerings some time ago. If you had been paying attention, you would see that we are gathering together elsewhere to chat about our issues, our problems, our needs not your industry panel. We went as far as to form our own communities online. When we attend your conferences, we schedule our own meet-ups there. Heck, if you were even present, you would see that sometimes we do a mass exodus from your education offerings because they are mostly information dumps instead of participatory experiences.. But, you don’t even come to see if we are connecting with your friends, family and leaders. You’re stuck in a committee or board meeting. You’re not even supporting us and your most critical offering, our annual meeting.

You would be much better off with finding people that are as enamored with your organization and your messages as you are. You probably will continue to be on the relationship revolving door using people until their eyes are opened.

If you want to keep us, you must change. You must adapt to the 21st century where things are done differently than in the past. You must craft meetings that focus on community building. Meetings that spark conversations about our problems and issues. Meetings that allow us to meet and connect with others. Meeting with less content and more onsite content co-creation.

There, I’ve said it. It needed to be said. I hope you were listening. I hope this is the last Dear John/Jane letter you ever receive. Let us know if you decide to change.

In the meantime, we wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Last year’s conference attendees.

This article was written (well, ghostwritten by me in collaboration with Dave Lutz) for Dave’s People & Processes column in PCMA’s June edition of Convene. 

You’ve convinced your team that providing a hybrid event is good for your organization, your customers and your stakeholders. You’ve alleviated any fears about the virtual experience cannibalizing your face-to-face revenue. You’ve researched how other companies have used hybrid events successfully to serve their members and positively impact future face-to-face events. 

Here’s what you need to know to live stream and extend the reach of your best live meeting content. 

You know that a hybrid event will: 

• Extend the reach of your meeting’s messages and content
• Increase ROI for a remote audience that would not normally attend the face-to-face experience
• Improve your membership value proposition
• Reduce your remote participants’ carbon footprint
• Help convert fence-sitters from remote attendees to live participants.

You’ve weighed all the options of the following five types of hybrid events: 

1. Audiocast — telephone-based conference, sometimes with live Q & A
2. Bannercast — video broadcast in an in-banner ad using streaming technology
3. Backchannel — on-site and remote attendees communicate together about the face-to-face experience, sometimes done through Twitter using a hashtag
4. Live Streaming — live audio and video of face-to-face presentation streamed via the Internet
5. Slidecast — a set of slides broadcast over the Internet with synchronization of video and audio effects 

After careful consideration, you’ve decided that your hybrid event will use a live stream of the general session speakers, along with a moderated backchannel to engage the participants. 

Here’s a checklist of what you’ll need to live stream your face-to-face experience to your remote audience: 

• Digital camera
• Venue with Internet access of at least 512 kbps
• Interface hardware for digital camera to computer
• Laptop or PC
• Online live-streaming provider (there are a variety of free and fee-based options)
• Permission from your speakers and panelists to live stream their presentations
• Twitter hashtag for the backchannel 

Here’s how the live-streaming process works: 

1. Film the event and send it in real time to an online provider via the Internet.
2. The online provider software encodes, compresses and formats video.
3. The online provider transmits video to servers.
4. The video rebroadcasts in real time.

Make sure you check with your meeting venue as well as equipment and service providers before committing to live streaming an event. 

1. How is the room set?
2. What’s the ambient lighting like?
3. Will someone be behind the camera or will it be stationary on a tripod or from a webcam?
4. What’s your Internet access?
5. How fast is your Internet connection?
6. Do you have appropriate PC hardware interface?
7. What live streaming online provider do you use?
8. Is your online provider broadcasts password-protected?
9. Does your online provider integrate with social networks?
10. Are you going to charge for virtual participants? If yes, just nonmembers or members too? And how much?

Takeaways  

• Read the book The Back Channel, by Cliff Atkinson, for tips on how to use a backchannel at your next event.
• Watch Cliff Atkinson discuss how to use a social media and a backchannel at conferences.
• Distribute speaker and presenter Olivia Mitchell’s free eBook, How To Present with Twitter and Other Back Channels to all of your speakers.
• Join the Virtual Edge Institute, an organization for those involved in virtual events and meetings.
• Download The Virtual Edge Institute’s free eBook The Virtual Event Resource Book.

Now that you have your logistics covered, it’s time to think strategically about the differences between your face-to-face and remote audiences. You can’t expect your virtual audience to have the same experience as your face-to-face attendees. We’ll focus on what you can to do onsite to improve your remote audience’s experience while maintaining a quality experience for those attending in person in the next column in Convene.

This post was reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2010

What logistical live streaming tips would you add to this list? What live streaming resources have you found beneficial?

Photo by LiminalMike http://www.flickr.com/photos/revcyborg/5228173

Have you heard of HARO – Help A Reporter Out? We’ll here’s your opportunity to HAPO – Help A Planner Out.

If you have expertise in meetings, events, education, association work, marketing, branding–whatever, think about helping this meetings and education specialist.

Crowdsourcing A Speaker Confirmation Letter

Meet Veronica Bemis, Education Program Coordinator, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Veronica is an avid reader of this blog and active in PCMA. She and her colleagues at AWEA just conducted a competitive analysis on their education events and meetings. Their goal is to improve their attendee’s experience and learning.

So, she’s crowdsourcing her new speaker letter that she’ll be sending to workshop and conference speakers. Remember, the goal is to improve the attendee’s overall experience, education and learning. So she’s asking her speakers to help. She has a new speaker letter.

Traditionally, this speaker confirmation letter just focused on logistics–event registration, lodging, etc. Now Veronica wants to encourage speakers to step up to the plate and deliver differently.

Here’s her speaker confirmation letter. I have some ideas to share with her and will do so later.

So, what advice do you have for her about her letter, process and ideas?

Her Draft Letter

On behalf of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), I’d like to thank you for agreeing to participate in the AWEA Health & Safety Workshop, on October 26-27, 2010 at the Renaissance Hotel in Austin, TX.

This year, AWEA is focusing on shaking up the standard workshop format we’re all used to attending. In addition to the traditional format of speakers lecturing to an audience, we’ve added several components to this year’s program; hands on case studies, interactive sessions and panel discussions, and live demonstrations.

The goal of this effort is to create a more effective education experience and encourage our attendees to become active participants rather than passive attendees. In order for us to reach this goal, we’d like to ask for your help by developing your presentation prior to the workshop (and not on the plane over to Austin!).  I’ve scheduled some conference calls and a web seminar to assist in developing your presentation.

Developing your presentation

1. Introductory conference call with your moderator

• [DATE] [TIME], Please let me know immediately if this does not work for you. The call should be no more than 30 minutes.
• We’ll discuss some background information on the workshop, attendee demographics, and the learning objectives for your session.

2. Collaborative web seminar with your moderator, speakers, and/or panelists

• [DATE] [TIME], Please let me know immediately if this does not work for you. The call should be no more than 60 minutes.
• Evaluation results have shown that sessions in which speakers have collaborated and built their presentations around others’ presentations have performed exceptionally better than those that haven’t.
• Building on the learning objectives for your session, please submit an outline of your presentation by [DATE], these will be complied into a presentation for this web seminar.
• Your outline should be no more than a few bullets; think about three things you want attendees to remember about your presentation.

3. Final conference call and presentation due date [DATE]

• We’ll schedule a conference call with you to review your presentation and provide feedback so that you can make these changes before the final due date.
• Final presentations will be due on [DATE]

4. Please keep in mind that your presentation and the success of your session will be evaluated by your peers both during and after the workshop.

5. Use AWEA staff as a resource!

• We’re here to help you deliver the most effective and compelling presentation to your peers. Need tips or someone to practice with? Just let me know and I’d be happy to assist you.

So, what advice do you have for Veronica? Fire away please. It’s time to HAPO!