I've been thinking about Robert Holland's comment here yesterday that he's become "so used to the hustle" from communication conference organizers that purple marketing prose and other rhetorical trickery doesn't shock him anymore.
I think he's got a point. I think the only thing that could shock consumers of marketing copy now would be an absence of hyperbole in conference promos.
We'd have speaker bios like this:
Connie Consultant has been writing, consulting and speaking about communication for three decades. The truth is, she burned out on it 10 years ago, but it's a living. She speaks whenever she's asked to, and she speaks for free, because getting in front of you and sounding smart is her only method of self-promotion. We've never actually seen her speak before, but she came off as real outgoing during a 10-minute phone conversation we had about her session. Actually, it was an e-mail exchange. But she seems really enthusiastic! 🙂
We'd have session titles like this:
A few ideas about streamlining the approval system, most of which you've heard a thousand times
Random PR case studies that will not be applicable to your corporate culture
Measuring communication ROI: Let's tell each other it's possible until we start to believe it
Another fucking panel on getting a seat at the management table
Social media blah point blah: A professional crackhead spews nonsense in 140-character bursts
There'd be testimonials, and for every, "I learned so much, I come back year after year," there'd be one, "the keynote speaker clung to his boring text like a drunkard to a lamppost."
And at the top of the registration form there would be a prominent star-burst Note to Your Boss that said, "Even with the Early Bird Discount, when you include all the expenses, hidden and otherwise, the conference will cost your company about $10K."
Look, peeps: I know you don't want to be lied to, but trust me, you don't want to be told the truth every time, either.
All sadly true, David. I’m at a conference right now and I’m having the same thoughts I always do: is this really worth the time, travel and expense? Parts of it are, but overall I’m never quite sure.
And, at the risk of opening another can of worms, why is it that so many communicators are such bad presenters? I know it’s hard because I’ve presented. I certainly won’t claim to be great at it by any means. But why aren’t we better at it as a profession? I’m not just talking about presentation style, but more about having a focused message to deliver and knowing how to deliver it. If there was anybody who should know how to do that it should be somebody who is qualified enough to be a communications conference speaker. Every time I see a presenter at a comms conference start reading bullets off a powerpoint slide I wish I had a bucket of rotten veggies I could throw at them.
“And, at the risk of opening another can of worms, why is it that so many communicators are such bad presenters?”
That’s a damn good question. I think the answers are several:
1. They’re cocky. I’ve heard communicator/presenters brag about throwing their talk together on the plane on the way in.
2. They’re terrified. They’re really writers, which doesn’t qualify them to be speakers. They know it, and they know the audience is going to know it soon.
3. They don’t have anything useful to say. Many sessions come out of a germ of an idea from a passing conversation with a conference organizer, which the conference organizer fans into the flames of a session description.
Six months ahead of the event, those half-invented bullet points seem liked they’ll be infinitely easy to teach.
The week before, not so much.
I want to make it clear: Not all conferences are crap. But to put on conferences guaranteed to be great, a lot more time and effort and sincerity would be required on the part of everyone involved.
spot on. and so sad. to your point about time, effort and sincerity making a conf great — i’d love to understand why there’s verry little difference between conferences run by professional, paid staff and volunteer boards/committees.
connecting with friends IRL (in real life) is what drives me to communication conferences these days — though less and less.
thanks for the laugh.
f
Man, that is some kind of terrific. Truth, baby.
Fran, the professional, paid staffers that organize for-profit conferences are usually not communication experts; their core skill is organizing conferences efficiently and marketing them well. (Luckily, this usually does involve bringing in some proven talent, called “hired guns” in the industry.)
The people who organize conferences for associations have an even harder job. They they too are paid staffers and not true students of communication, and they have to strongly consider suggestions from volunteer boards. Predictably, suggested speakers are in some cases board members’ chums or clients, or would-be chums or clients.
Association conferences are more prestigious than for-profit shows, so again, except for the perennial favorite speakers (whose names you know: Holtz, Crescenzo, Sinickas), who gets chosen to speak has a lot to do with politics.
The game is pretty dreary, but since the players do have to sell the conference to potential attendees (and eventually attend it themselves), lots of good decisions about speakers and sessions actually get made.
But lots of bad decisions get made too, usually out of laziness.
This is a good list of reasons David. I’m one of those weirdos who actually LIKE presenting and speaking to groups. Problem is I’m your #3. I have lots of opinions, but I wouldn’t DREAM of asking people to sit still, de-Tweet, Link-Out, and un-iPhone for 45 whole minutes unless I felt like I had a solid, useful, interesting different presentation with real insights to share.
I keep looking out for something I could offer, because it would be fun to have the opportunity to engage and interact with my peers as the speaker, but I haven’t found “it” yet.
It’s a shame these conference producers don’t use the same critera when convincing people to speak, who probably shouldn’t. It has to be as painful for them, as it often is when you’re sitting in the audience watching someone crash-and-burn.
“I keep looking out for something I could offer, because it would be fun to have the opportunity to engage and interact with my peers as the speaker, but I haven’t found ‘it’ yet.”
Well, another trouble is, not too many invitees have this level of self-honesty.
(And meanwhile, of course, the conference organizer in me is thinking, “Oh, Christ, I could get on the phone with Ridley for 10 mins and find something for her to talk about and we’d have a session description together in 30 minutes and how bad could her session be? She’s smart and cool!”)
Appreciate the compliment David. As soon as I find something I have to say that I would pay someone else to listen to, you’ll be my first call.
Until then, I’m staying where I am to avoid Reuben’s basket of rotten veggie missiles!
Great post, David. One of the big conference producers in our field recently sent out a tweet thanking the sponsors and host of a big conference he put on, and called the event “A Big Success!!”
The only problem? The event hadn’t taken place yet! It was still a week away!
To far too many conference producers, success is measured not in great content/speakers/sessions, but in how many butts get into the seats.
Which leads to the sales copy, the hype, and the misguided notion of what makes an event a “success.”
How else could you explain someone calling something a “great success” when it hasn’t even happened yet????
Steve C.
Great post, David. One of the big conference producers in our field recently sent out a tweet thanking the sponsors and host of a big conference he put on, and called the event “A Big Success!!”
The only problem? The event hadn’t taken place yet! It was still a week away!
To far too many conference producers, success is measured not in great content/speakers/sessions, but in how many butts get into the seats.
Which leads to the sales copy, the hype, and the misguided notion of what makes an event a “success.”
How else could you explain someone calling something a “great success” when it hasn’t even happened yet????
Steve C.
Great post, David. One of the big conference producers in our field recently sent out a tweet thanking the sponsors and host of a big conference he put on, and called the event “A Big Success!!”
The only problem? The event hadn’t taken place yet! It was still a week away!
To far too many conference producers, success is measured not in great content/speakers/sessions, but in how many butts get into the seats.
Which leads to the sales copy, the hype, and the misguided notion of what makes an event a “success.”
How else could you explain someone calling something a “great success” when it hasn’t even happened yet????
Steve C.
I always forget the veggies, Kristen, until the moment comes when I wish I had them. Probably for the best. After all, I’m sure a few could have been lobbed my way back when a certain Murr invited me to speak at a conference he used to organize. I can certainly relate to reason #2 above. Imagine giving a speech to a room full of speechwriters. How is that a good idea?
But if anyone is organizing a conference, I’d love to do a presentation on the reasons why you should NOT have invited me to do a presentation. That could be fun.
Ah, Rueben, but your session was a big hit. How do I know? I sat through it and scribbled notes and watch how hungrily everyone else consumed the fusillade of information you smoothly delivered, dead-nuts to the session’s description.
Steve, that’s hilarious, and it brings us to the World-Class Worst-Practice of almost all conference producers, of NOT SERIOUSLY EVALUATING THEIR OWN CONFERENCE SESSIONS.
Instead, what do they do? They fall all over themselves to tell attendees HOW IMPORTANT it is to fill out the speaker evaluations, because YOUR FEEDBACK HELPS US PLAN SUCCESSFUL EVENTS … yada yada yada.
And then they wander out of the event and kibitz with their colleagues by the registration desk or with sponsors, in the lobby.
Reliance on after-the-fact, rudimentary 1-5 scales to evaluate speakers is worse than half-assed: It’s like choosing your political candidates based on exit polls from the last election they lost.
On a scale from 1-5, I’d give most conference organizers a 2. I, on the other hand, believe I am a 4.
There is so much good stuff in these comments, I don’t know where to start.
To the point about communicators being such awful presenters, I think a lot of the blame lies with the conference organizers and, yes, even the conference attenders. You see, you can’t get away with doing anything out of the ordinary. I once tried making a presentation without the aid of PowerPoint. Instead, I wanted the audience to listen to what I was saying and to respond to my questions and invitations to add to the presentation through discussion. I got dinged, not only by the audience but later by the conference organizer, for not using PowerPoint. Another time I held back the handouts until the end because, again, I wanted folks to really pay attention rather than read ahead or take the handout and run. Again, I got dinged.
As for feedback, don’t get me started. A low- to mid-tier presenter like I am doesn’t even have the opportunity to make it into the big-league conferences because, at least in IABC’s case, you have to have presented to a group of 75 or more and achieve a certain level of approval via feedback forms. Problem is, those feedback forms are either non-existent or poorly constructed so as to be useless. Never mind that you might actually have something new and interesting to say — unless you have put 75+ butts in the seats and get 4s and 5s on a 5-point scale, you are never going to present to anyone other than the local IABC chapter meeting of 20-25 people.
Oh! The conference-producer’s favorite sentence: “You know, attendees really love handouts.”
Yeah, so do hobos. Tell the shits to listen to me.
Yes, IABC has POLICIES IN PLACE.
But for-profit conference companies don’t, and they’re putting on more conferences than IABC does.
If you can come up with a really compelling talk on the theme of the conference, you can get on the agenda, even without huge experience.
What’s your new and interesting subject, Robert? Hell, man, I’ll build a conference around it. I’m not scared.
I said never mind that you MIGHT have something new and interesting to say. I’ve been out of the big-conference loop for so long, I don’t even think in those terms any more.
Having said that, I do have a presentation coming up for the American Marketing Association chapter in Charleston SC on “marketing on a shoestring budget.” I’ve given that one several times to smallish groups and it’s always been well received. I also have a fun one on 7 tips for writing “sticky” online copy.
End of commercial. Your check is in the mail.
As someone who is about to present at a conference, this is really encouraging 😉
Just wanted to comment on the feedback thing. I presented a couple of years ago and the organizers told me they’d send the feedback to me. They didn’t. I really wanted to read it. (Unfortunately I had a baby not long after that and got sidetracked or I’d have followed up.)
But in preparing my presentation for this one (which I didn’t do on the plane) I was very aware of the fact that some people might be tweeting as I spoke. (Side note: It’s put a whole new spin on a good presentation – how do you make it meaningful for the warm bodies in the room and, at the same time, offer good tidbits that are useful tips that could be shared in 140 characters for those who may be following along online?) I do expect that Twitter will offer me some useful feedback – either because people share my info or because they don’t.
Side note #2: I don’t think conference organizers use social media enough to connect conference presenters and attendees enough in advance of the event. There’s so much that could be done!
Robin, as I’ve written, I’m not to sanguine about the merger of conferences and the Internet.
http://tinyurl.com/2dremrn
However, I’m intrigued by your notion of connecting presenters and attendees in advance of the event. What are your ideas?
David – the lack of effective measurement in our profession continues to astonish at least as much as the lack of effective presenters among communications people.
First, as I’m teaching presentation skills at Kent State, and have been evaluating and training people to do presentations for, um, a really long time, I can say that the lack of rehearsal (serious rehearsal) and the willingness to proceed with less than a full understanding of objectives are the most urgent issues in presentations.
There is so much great stuff on being a good presenter available (for free), that I cannot imagine how anyone bombs. They don’t do their homework for the same reason that an exec thinks she’s a great writer — they think it’s easy. No, it only LOOKS easy if you rehearse!
Second, “smile sheets” aren’t a good measure at all — but actually asking whether someone obtained useful information and wound up using it is time consuming and difficult. Smile sheets usually are general, not focused. They don’t capture message retention or whether the speaker attained stated objectives (many speakers also don’t have measurable objectives for their presentations.) Instead, it’s a “meets expectations” sort of instrument that gives little real data.
Finally (ending the rant now), when participants offer ideas on subjects for future conferences, they often aren’t honest. They say what they think they should, they offer outlandish suggestions, they don’t fill the blank at all.
Worst of all, they don’t want to offend. Bland sells.
You need multiple tracks to attract the most people. You need popular, well-known speakers. You need new faces. You need different ideas, but people won’t pay for them. It’s hard stuff (I did programming for IABC Cleveland this year and worked on speakers for Heritage Region this fall, so feel free to burn me in effigy if you don’t like them…)
😉
Good points, Sean.
I learned the hard way about rehearsal: I didn’t rehearse early in my career, and I sucked. The more I rehearsed, I found, the less I sucked. If I rehearsed enough, I didn’t suck at all!
I know: I’m a friggin’ rocket scientist.
And you make an important point: conference planning, if you’re determined to put on a uniformly good show, is very hard. Good speakers with good ideas do not grow on trees, and they’re very rarely free.
Sean, I’d like to hear your ideas on what a speaker might set as measurable objectives for a presentation. I agree with you that meaningful measurement of presentations, for the most part, does not exist, so I’m intrigued by what you think could be measured (and would be meaningful).
The Murr: You are riling me today! 🙂
I gotta jump in on this, and – while some may dismiss me as biased – know that I’m not drinking the koolaid… I agree with some good points in this discussion.
But. Speaking as a past program chair for two IABC World Conferences (Los Angeles in 2004 and Washington, DC in 2005), I have to tell you what really happened, at least back-then:
– The call for speakers went out from paid IABC staff
– Many of the same-olds respond; some newbies too
– A committee of content-expert volunteers from around the world is assigned to review speaker proposals according to the tracks that are in place. They come back with recommended speakers and also with comments on holes, in terms of speakers and topics.
– The chair (at least I did) reviews every single one of – gosh, I can’t recall – something like 500 proposals, for – again, the numbers-brain fails me – something like 60 speaking spots.
– Paid staff also review, and are focused on keynote and all-star speakers.
As volunteers, our screening and scoring of potential speakers was guided by feedback from attendees at past conferences.
All to say….
– Is this a mostly reactive, vs. proactive, process? Yes. Should it be? No.
– Is it “political?” If you mean this as relationship-based politics, it wasn’t for me, and I lost friends over that stand. Do geography, gender, industry/company and other questions of diversity come into play? Yes, as they should with an association aiming to be more global, more diverse.
– Should there be a way to find more ways to include fresh, less “tested” content at IABC World Conferences? Absolutely. Though a) It’s hard to ignore the through-the-roof speaker ratings some of our same-olds get, and b) It’s a risk at a conference that is a lot of money for most of us to attend. In my view (and I’m not involved in conference planning for IABC at all right now), it’s a risk worth figuring out.
A conference is, by its very nature, a lowest-common denominator experience. I feel I’ve gotten my value if I come home with ONE great idea or inspiration, and that’s always been the case – because I go looking for it.
But I’ll be honest: I often find that nugget in the “hallway track,” over any other. And I wouldn’t find it at all if I was so cynical I didn’t show up in the first place…
All very good points, Jennifer, and just some very good information.
I’ll concede that the process is aimed at fairness.
But I stand by my claim that the process is “dreary,” and I’d also argue that such a process, with its myriad political (not personal, just political) considerations and Byzantine complication–“screening” and “scoring” and “committees,” oh my!–will ensure a certain amount of mediocrity.
And yes, the conferences will still be worth going to.
Agreed?
Hi David,
Sorry, I got sidetracked and forgot to come back to this. As to your question (“…I’m intrigued by your notion of connecting presenters and attendees in advance of the event. What are your ideas?), here are my ideas:
– Encourage presenters to post outlines or even (gasp!) draft presentations in advance of the event (as one presenter at my last conference did). Getting feedback about whether it will address what attendees are interested in will make the presentations better.
– Create a group (like on Facebook, but maybe another platform) for attendees to share information and “meet” in advance.
– Use a hashtag on Twitter and start a discussion with attendees before the event.
– A company you know and love, who organized the conference I presented at, uses a 30 ideas in 30 minutes format for idea sessions. I liked it, but you could do that, or something similar with main speaking points, on video in advance (but maybe shorter) and then ask attendees to comment or rate ideas and indicate which they want more information on.
– Simply give out Twitter usernames and blog URLs etc. as standard part of pre-conference information and encourage people to listen and connect.
I’m not sure if any of these ideas are radical, or even really guaranteed to be successful, but it would be a start. I just find that when I attend conferences I’m going by the session overviews and hoping that they’re going to tell me something interesting. Even if someone did a microblog version of their presentation as though someone was live tweeting it that would be cool – I’ve sat in sessions that aren’t jazzing me and watched the tweet stream from another session and wished I were there instead.
Anyway, that’s the gist.
Robin