Seven tips to improve congress sessions

Everyone tells you 'the conference must innovate', yet everyone is afraid to change … Here are seven steps to finally get things moving, without risking your neck!

Make a plan

Step back and look at this project from a long-term perspective. Such a process of change requires at least three years. You start small and grow year by year. Small can mean minor changes in all sessions, but it may be better to go all the way in just a few sessions. Change one room and baptise it the ‘Innovation room’ or the ‘Interaction room’. Get the right people involved in that new ‘format’: in that room you can put the most creative speakers, the easier topics, the biggest fans, the flexible chairs, etcetera.

Seek help

Don’t try to do this yourself. You can’t police your own speakers; you will have less impact than an external coach and it will take too much of your time. Book a professional speaker coach, meeting designer or meeting architect. It doesn't have to cost a lot.

Respect hierarchy

Start with the congress chair, session chair, speaker and end with the audience. Before anything is announced or started, make sure you have the support of the conference chair. Remember, all conference chairs are ‘amateurs’: they may like it but will always propose to do it ‘next year’… After the congress chair, involve the session chairs in a call and finally get the speakers briefed on why, how, etcetera.

Write a song

Attention span is short, so let’s make the sessions short? Wrong! Give sessions a decent length of at least 50 minutes. But make sure you vary several times like a song: Presentation, Discussion, Feedback – Presentation, Discus¬sion, Feedback…; wave after wave rolls in and keeps everyone alert and awake. Each ‘wave’ can be a segment of one speaker’s presentation or each ‘wave’ can be a different speaker. Make each ‘wave’ last 15 to 20 minutes and reserve some time, at the very end, for conclusions, speaker panel, Q&A plus some spare time!

Improve presentations

The same session architect that assists with the briefing of the speakers also can work on the presentations and ask to look at them a few days before the congress. Using illustrations and avoiding bullet points are crucial and most speakers will comply.

Increase interaction

Try a few innovative tools that increase interaction. A ‘catchbox’ for Q&A, a set of Chromebooks (small laptops) with Google docs to collect input, comfort monitor and timer for the speaker, mini voting system, etcetera. More fundamentally: put six participants around a small table so you have small groups for discussion. (Option: ask hostesses to split friends and make full tables of six strangers.)

Measure satisfaction

Ask participants in ‘normal’ sessions how they score session design, speakers, tempo, ‘staying awake’, networking, fun, dynamics of the session, etcetera. Do the same in the ‘Innovation room’. You will see soaring satisfaction rates in the innovation room and that helps to scale up for the second year. These seven tips give you a basic idea on what change can look like. Are you ready to take the leap?