Adrian Segar
Adrian Segar, Director of Eventcamps and author of Conferences That Work, focuses on making connections at business events.
“Connections turn into more business value than just learning a piece of information to apply,” Adrian says. “They can always watch someone talk on video. Why would they want to just watch someone talk if they can’t engage with other people while they’re there?”
It’s a sign of the times that events are turning away from places to get people to know about your website, and back towards places to connect with them in person. “You can’t replicate face-to-face contact on the internet.” Adrian says. “Events can facilitate conversations with people. Offering seven or eight major forms of participant engagement at large events, or having each person at a small event answer three questions briefly to the entire group, helps build the relationships, and from the relationships comes value.”
Unconference prompts a successful career change
His method of conference is called an ‘unconference’, because the activities are decided by the participants at the event. For Jenise Fryatt, it was especially helpful. The unconference-style event “pushed me out of my comfort zone,” Jenise said, “and now I’m focused on doing the thing I love the most.”
Jenise Fryatt
It was at EventCamp East Coast 2010 in Philadelphia and a small group did a ’round table’, each person answering three questions about themselves. Jenise Fryatt, who then ran an A/V company, said at the round table she does Improv. After the Round Table, they asked participants to write down workshops they’d like participants to give based on what they had said.
“One man said, ‘If I write down Improv, will you do a session?’,” Jenise said. “In Improv, you always say ‘Yes, and…’, so I agreed. The session the next day was a big hit and everyone had a lot of fun.”
On the final day of Eventcamps, everyone got together for one final roundtable session to discuss what they got out of the event. “I stated my intention to pursue teaching Improv at events, something I’ve always thought would be a great idea. Afterward, a lady I admire offered to be my mentor, and a man who was on the board of directors for another event asked me to do an Improv session at his event.”
“No program committee would have thought of Improv for an event planning conference,” Adrian says of this incident. “It started a whole new career line for her.”
Thanks to Adrian and Jenise for taking the time to talk with me!
Find out more about the people in this article:
Adrian Segar: Twitter ~ Consulting ~ Conferences That Work
Jenise Fryatt: Twitter ~ Sound ‘n Sight ~ Engage 365
April 7, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Emily,
Thanks so much for writing about this. Adrian has told me that my story isn’t that unique. One of the benefits of his “Conferences That Work” model is that it gets people, who aren’t ordinarily tooting their own horn, to share expertise that can benefit the group. I have found that often it’s these people who have the most useful information. Often, the true expertise of those who toot their own horn turns out to be tooting their own horn.
April 7, 2011 at 4:16 pm
It’s definitely a great model for creating engagement to events. Just let people connect many times, and in many ways, then get out of the way! It just makes sense.
Thanks again for talking with me!
April 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Emily, you’ve illustrated really well one of the delightful aspects of the Conferences That Work event design: namely how it allows participants to discover people of real value to them, people that, at a traditional conference, would remain unknown.
Creating a time and place for others to find the special expertise of participants like Jenise is one of the most rewarding aspects of my work.
April 8, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Thank you! I had heard of ‘unconferences’ before we spoke, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. Since we talked, I’ve run into examples of its use all over the web. I’d like to try it out myself soon.