Wednesday 31 October 2012

The Business Conference

Is there anything more dull than the business conference? I've been to a few recently that have all suffered from the same terrible attributes: monotone presentations, incoherent slides, illogical order and a general lack of energy and enthusiasm for the subject or theme.

My background is in theatre and I learned a long time ago that theatre was nothing without an audience and for the audience it was meant to be an experience. So we thought of theatre as not just actors and scripts but also lights, music, staging, programmes and anything else appropriate that would enhance the experience.

Why don't businesses apply the same logic to their conferences? Why not think about the experience of the audience rather than just who is going to say what? And for goodness sake at least think of the logical flow of information - watching Act 3 first doesn't help the audience understand what is going on.

This year when planning your end of year conferences or kick-off meetings for 2013 try and create a bit of theatre, and it doesn't have to be a pantomime.

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