| What makes a meeting truly
stand out from others? It's not necessarily how much money was spent
but how many positively memorable moments the attendee recalls.
Many conferences involve a theme, reinforced through a logo, theme,
events, and speakers to create an overall "feel" and value
throughout the convention. Why not further reinforce your meeting
content and mood by enveloping attendees in planned sequences of
memorable moments that involve sensory combinations of smells, tastes,
sounds, sights, and even "touchable" experiences?
Few meetings can or should be able to compete with the sizzle of
a modern amusement park or an action movie, but meeting planners
and hotel and other site managers can multiply the number of positive
exposures attendees experience and thus increase the possibility
that those attendees will rave about their meeting.
Conduct a Sensory Exposures Audit
To make the most of the event, conduct a "Sensory Exposures
Audit" of all the images to which your attendees will be exposed,
from the pre-meeting mailings and other contacts through the meeting
itself and post-meeting reinforcements. Just as political campaigns
have "advance agents" who walk through every step of an
event ahead of time to consider all that might go right or wrong
(from slippery steps to photo-opportunity backdrops), you can mentally
visualize each "vignette" attendees might experience.
Ask hotel and convention center staff for photos of the actual
colors and patterns most frequently used in their sleeping, eating,
meeting, and gathering spaces, and take notes on the combinations
during your site visit so your theme colors and images are compatible
and even complementary.
Ask the staff where you're going to find the most conflicting and
comforting background sounds from piped-in music, other meetings,
mechanical operations, catering procedures, or beyond-the-facility
noises.
Where do the smells go from the cooking and catering areas?
Are the walkways carpeted?
Is the carpet plush or thin?
Is the facility signage large and easy to understand?
What do the chairs feel like?
Are there many comfortable places to relax and converse between
organized activities?
Is there much access to natural light (to elevate attendees' moods)
during daytime activities?
In short, consider the impact attendees might experience on all
the senses.
Drive and walk through the major and minor "paths" your
attendees will use from the time they leave an airport (if they
use one) to the time they arrive back at the airport. Observe what
sensory delights attendees might receive before they go or upon
their return.
Storyboard the Meeting Experience
Borrow a storyboarding trick from TV advertisement creators. Write
out the meeting "story" as a three-part series of sequences
or "exposures" attendees will experience: pre-meeting,
meeting, and post-meeting.
For each "exposure" that the attendee will experience:
1. Write a brief description of the exposure in chronological sequence,
as the attendee is most likely to experience it, down pages of paper
in one of three columns: positive, negative, and neutral (exposures).
Describe how the exposure is most likely to be experienced. For
example:
* Positive: Candid photos taken as attendees enter the opening-night
mixer, placed in pressed-board white frames inscribed with the meeting
theme and hung on fish line in the buffet breakfast room the next
day for their take-away souvenir.
* Negative: Inevitably long treks between certain meeting rooms.
* Mostly neutral: Conventionally decorated hotel rooms.
2. Then write out what the potential attendee will see, hear, smell,
taste, and/or touch. How many of the senses can you include in each
exposure to make it more positively memorable?
Try creating more "low-tech" sensory experiences, such
as more human touch. Increase the number of times an attendee is
greeted by name or a handshake. Two studies were done in 1996 and
2002 in which two groups experienced the same public event, with
the only difference that people in one group were safely touched
(for example, shaking hands, touch on the top of the hand) just
twice in a three-hour period.
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The so-called "touched
group" described the people sponsoring the event as more intelligent,
caring, and good-looking than did the other group.
Try higher-tech sensory moments, such as scenting a general session
in keeping with the speaker and convention theme, gradually changing
the scent three times -- from lemon to lime to suntan lotion --
during the course of the 40-minute, midwinter, pre-lunch keynote
speech. Lightly scent the handouts to match. Technology now makes
it possible to scent to refresh, relax, or renew -- without allergic
reactions.
You'll begin to see your meeting as a theatrical production, considering
the attendees' every waking moment. The possible payoffs? You'll
find ways to move more of the exposures to the positive side, often
not through more costs but through changes in planning.
Inflame Their Imaginations
For a "negative" exposure such as a long, boring walk
between meeting rooms, you could "Burma Shave" the build-up
of interest and excitement in the trek with a sequence of messages
on stands or on the walls, like the old highway signs of rhyming
phrases car passengers passed on long stretches of road. The messages
could build suspense toward the identity of award recipients, an
entertainment event with a surprise guest, a contest they can win
with the right answer for a vendor, or a trivia contest that encourages
attendees and exhibitors to talk.
Messages could also be placed in sequence around corners and on
the way into meeting rooms, some with cryptic instructions to look
under their chairs for more.
Related messages can also appear on the backs of meeting leaders
at the podium, who turn for attendees to read them, followed by
some of the waiters who appear to serve each other "back"
messages. Other messages and clues and teasers might appear under
attendees' hotel room doors while they sleep, next to their plates
at lunch, or on the seminar handout on their seats.
Prior to the meeting you might send a "Burma Shave" series
of postcards (sending them with increasing frequency as the event
approaches) offering more reasons to attend and to sign up early.
For example, the first postcards for a midwinter meeting in a sunny
locale might be a series with images of blue water and yellow sun,
messages to come prepared for warm sun and sizzling topics, and
scented with coconut suntan lotion.
Send companion messages via email, directing attendees to your
web site for a convention preview and contest.
Use the Suspense-Building Tricks of Blockbuster Movies
As in a blockbuster movie, the most important exposures are the
"opening scene," the handling of potentially slow times,
the climax, and the ending. Many meetings have a slow, unexciting
beginning (hotel check-in, meeting registration, dead time before
the first meeting).
Make Attendees Feel Coddled and Cared For from the First
Moments of Their Arrival
Consider having a team of people greet arrivals at the hotel door(s),
perhaps in costume and certainly giving them a welcoming gift. Make
the gift fun to see, touch, and taste. Have a second gift waiting
for them in their room, perhaps a contest announcement. The more
cared for attendees feel up front, the more they will perceive subsequent
meeting experiences in a positive light, want to participate, and
forgive later mishaps.
"Move" to Emotion and Playtimes
In all waiting times, from registration to coffee areas,
plan amusements that catch the eye or that people can hold or play
with or hear. For example, have modern clowns or ventriloquists
or magicians roam the gathering areas around registration areas
to build movement, excitement, and involvement. Or mimes might follow
and imitate attendees in gentle fun, perhaps giving mementos provided
by exhibitors that make them eligible for a drawing if they visit
the booths.
Let Them Literally "Picture" Themselves Having
Fun
Create ways to get attendees involved and interested soon after
they arrive. The best ways are to get them in motion and to let
them see motion around them, because motion literally increases
the emotion people feel. Here are some examples:
1. A videographer can capture attendees' responses to the interactions
for later use in a continuous-feed loop shown on TV monitors at
eye-level in gathering places between meeting rooms.
2. The videographer can interview people for their opinion on a
meeting topic and/or comments on a favorite co-attendee. Let the
resultant video run as a continuous-feed loop on eye-level TV monitors
for future waiting times.
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3. Several photographers
with digital cameras can photograph groups and individuals and use
the images in a variety of ways. For example, they could show the
images on screens before and after proceedings start in meeting
room or enlarge and print the images as posters to laminate and
display in hallways and waiting areas.
Eavesdropping on Conversations Along the Way
In advance of the meeting, ask your leaders to informally discuss
topics that will interest attendees, such as achievements, humorous
incidents and other news about attendees. These taped segments can
be used as "overheard conversations" for attendees on
portable audiotape and CD machines. Obviously the security of needed
equipment is a consideration, so you'll want to place equipment
where staff or volunteers can see it. Consider the registration
area or inside the doors people enter for banquets.
The "sounds" can be music, related to the meeting theme,
or sound bites of attendees who have been interviewed about their
advice or praise for their peers, or an "Eavesdrop": lively
conversation between meeting leaders about the meeting high points.
Change the tapes sometimes so attendees can look forward to new
experiences.
Sweet Smell of Success
At an association conference designed to strengthen member unity
and celebrate success, our theme was "Success is Sweet."
Here is how it goes:
When participants enter the opening evening's "Five Heavenly
Chocolates" mixer in a ballroom, they are enveloped in the
enticing, wafting scent of chocolate from the AromaSys-designed
scent machines. As they arrive, they are given scented "player
cards" with the name and "stats" of a person's accomplishments,
printed in brown ink in the format of a baseball card, and invited
to find the person who matches the accomplishments. Huge enlargements
of the cards are projected on the walls and constantly changing.
When attendees find their person, they can return to get a new
card for a different person. The ten people who find the most matches
win chocolate player-card prizes and chocolate "MVP" statues
later in the evening. People can use roving mikes to ask for help
in finding their person. As attendees mingle, a singer's song list
naturally features chocolate and athletic themes.
Continue the Story Through the Meeting
At breakfast the next day, all attendees receive two forms: one
to fill out their own MVP player accomplishments and another to
fill out for a colleague they admire, who is attending the convention.
All attendees who fill out forms are eligible to have their photo
taken for their own two-sided MVP player card, enlarged to poster
size. The poster of the attendee who is most written up by his or
her colleagues is blown up to wall size and mounted on a wall the
last day of the convention, when the person's name is announced
with game music in the background and a rally squad dancing to celebrate.
Make Memories Palpable in a "High Touch and "High
Tech" Way
Before the convention even starts, lay out a post-meeting newsletter
filled with comments the speakers will offer, awards announcements,
and news of important dates. Include actions such as signing up
for the next meeting or volunteering for a committee.
Leave places for photos and attendee comments you gather during
the convention. Place them in the holes left in the newsletter,
and then quick-copy and label the newsletter on the last day of
the convention so attendees receive this unexpected "Meeting
Memento" very soon after returning home. Send an email version
of the newsletter, too, with a "Thank you for participating"
message.
Make Meeting Memory Reminders, Sent Home
A week later, send a gift pack of gifts provided by some exhibitors,
along with their product offers, and your message, again thanking
attendees and reminding them of the calls for action on their part.
Few meetings include immediate follow-up to attendees. Fewer still
follow up more than once, soon after a meeting. Stand out in their
senses and their minds, so they'll step forward for your next meeting.
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Want to Learn More?
Here are some great books on making memorable events and settings,
market, sell, and serve, connect and persuade, cooperate and collaborate,
and networking that you can order right now.
Kare Anderson is the founder of the Say It Better
Center, located in Sausalito, CA. She can be reached via email at
kare@sayitbetter.com.
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