Congressen

Golden Palm in the conference world

As I'm writing this I'm in a hotel named Can Garden Beach.  I'm reading nu.nl on my iPad and it says that this year, the film 'Amour' by director Michael Hanke, won the Golden Palm at the film festival in Cannes.  You know the guy, he made Das Weiβe Band. The film is a success because everything about it is right:  the direction and editing (image, dialogue, music, timing), the protagonists (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva), the entire content and the design of this moving topic.  It's about a very old man's worry for his wife who suddenly had a stroke.  To cut a long story short, it's about love in difficult circumstances.

What does this have to do with conferences? Everything.

In my career, I've seen the scores given to hundreds of conferences.  And what makes a conference a success?  Everything needs to be right.  That doesn't happen very often, of course.  That's why an average score of 7.5 is quite high. The Dutch television network Tros taught me the slogan ‘These are the programmes that matter'. They are indeed crucial.  Conference programmes are never better than the main players: the speakers and the conference chairperson. There also needs to be an opportunity for contact and all the communication and hospitality should be good.  But timing, variation, and planning are essential too. Because if some parts drag on too long or are underlit – a big problem in the film world too, then the conference won’t be a success.  

Swiss watch

Toon Hermans, the best Dutch example of a good speaker/entertainer, once said the following about his conferences:  “My performances need to fit together like the workings of a Swiss watch". That means more than perfect timing.  He carefully directs changes in mood, the quality of every note, and every word. You can see, hear, and experience this precision.  Even after - (or perhaps not until?)     –  the one hundredth performance. Conference developers need to get everything right the first time. They cannot hold rehearsals or repeat each task five times. They also lack the editing phase that would normally include travelling or mood music. Each conference needs to run like a Swiss watch from the start. That's why, as far as I'm concerned, every conference developer who has to fit things together like cogs in a timepiece, also deserve a Golden Palm for their high scoring conferences.  
Timing, variation, and planning are essential.  

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