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Changing The World
By Woody Huizenga | November 26, 2008
Last summer, Hugh Lee, President of Fusion Productions of Rochester, New York told a seminar at MPI’s World Education Congress, “a conference can get you excited about change, but it won’t make change happen.”
If a conference won’t make change happen, what will? How do we initiate change? And how do we make sure that the change we get is the change we want?
Conferences can get people excited about change, but it’s not enough just to create buzz. How do we take the giant step from a brilliant keynote, from engaging workshops, from a great conference experience… to the specific changes you want to carry forward from your conference?
It takes you straight back to the fundamental question: why did you decide to bring all of these people together? And why did they accept your invitation? The focus on strategic objectives must guide every step of your conference, from the “what a great idea!” stage through planning and delivery of the onsite experience. All too often, that’s where the strategic focus stops.
Let’s face it: nobody holds a conference for the sake of holding a conference. We organize conferences to change the future. One of the most important conferences with which our firm has been involved was the Landmine Treaty Conference. And there were approximately as many landmines ready to blow off a child’s foot at the end of that conference as there had been at the beginning.
But at the end of the conference there was also a path, a documented way forward. One of the proudest moments in the history of our firm was when Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs stood before the closing plenary of that conference, waving a very thick document that he described as “an agenda for change.” It was the official report of the Landmine Treaty Conference, and we prepared it.
There was no magical disappearance of every land mine, but in the 11 years since that conference, fewer innocent men, women, and children have been maimed or killed.
That’s ROI for the Landmine Treaty Conference. That’s ROI for our report.
That’s how a conference that only lasts one or two or three days after years of preparation can give focus and direction to more years of work… and change the world.
Topics: Conference Content, Meeting Professionals International, The Conference Publishers |