This Is Not Your Grandma’s Conference: Conference 2.0 Education

Did your Grandma attend conferences and events? Perhaps she attended local faith-based or women’s meetings.  Maybe she went to canning or quilting gatherings or she attended meetings about state fair competitions. Or maybe she started the local neighborhood crime watch.

As a child, she may have attended a school that was based on the rhythms of the season for an agrarian society. Students got summers and early fall off to help with the planting and harvest seasons. During World War II the education system changed with a top-down controlled hierarchy t to prepare students to enter factories and work in assembly lines. Students were not to question teachers, rather do as told and follow instructions.

The world has changed from the agriculture society to the industrial revolution to knowledge and information based society. Today’s education structures often don’t serve today’s society. And these outdated education models also don’t serve today’s conferences and events.

So what about conferences and events? Where did the typical education session model begin? Most conferences offer the traditional didactic lecture based on the ancient 1800s university teaching model. Anyone who attended school in the 1800s could walk into most conference education sessions and feel right at home. Not much has changed except central air, carpeted venues and AV.

Today’s traditional conference format has some unspoken expectations for both presenters and attendees.

Traditional Conference Education Format 1.0

• The presentation is about and for the speaker, not the attendee.
• As the primary focal point of the education session, speakers are the sage on stage and should “stand and deliver.”
• The conference organizers know what’s best for attendees.
• All attendees should embrace all conference education programming willingly and learn from the experts.
• Attendees are to enter education sessions, sit down, be quiet and passively listen to what is being presented.
• Attendees are to sit facing forward with the eyes on the presenter at all times. (Actually, attendees are looking at the back of heads of those sitting in front of them.)
• Attendees don’t talk unless spoken to by the presenter.
• Attendees’ questions are held until the end of the presentation, if there is time.
• Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more powerful you are and the more you are seen as an expert.

This implied unspoken conference agreement has served many conference organizers for years.

Today’s Conference Education Format 2.0

Today’s audiences have become more sophisticated and many no longer tolerate the old-guard Conference 1.0 format. The Internet has changed everything. Attendees come to the conference knowing more and expect to be engaged in new ways. They are no longer willing to sit quietly for several hours a day and passively accept anything that is said to them

• The presentations are for the attendees, not the speaker.
• The attendees’ learning is the primary focus of the education session. Speakers are to be the guide on the side, not stand and deliver like the sage on the stage.
• Conference attendees know what’s best for their learning. They are problem-centric and arrive with expectations to find solutions to their specific problems.
• Attendees want to sit and be able to look at each other in the eyes as the converse with each other.
• Attendees want to talk with each other about the conference’s content during the presentation.
• Attendees will fact check everything the presenter says, usually while the presenter is stating it, with their mobile devices.
•  Attendees are constantly texting their friends and colleagues about the presentation.
• Attendees want their questions answered as they arise, not at the end of the presentation.
• Sharing knowledge is power. The collective credibility of the group is more than the speaker.
• Attendees embrace subject matter experienced, not subject matter experts.

Here is a Conference 2.0 Attendee’s Learning Process Manifesto

1. Before we can understand a concept, we have to remember it.
2. Before we can apply a concept, we have to understand it.
3. Before we can analyze a concept, we have to apply it.
4. Before we can evaluate its impact, we have to analyze it.
5. Before we create something new with this concept, we have to remember, understand, apply, analyze and evaluate it.

The challenge facing conference organizers today is providing education experiences designed to engage the mind, help the brain retain and understand concepts, and allow attendees the chance to deconstruct concepts with other attendees.

How does the new Conference 2.0 model impact meeting professionals planning and organization? What barriers exist to keep the old passive model from changing to one of more attendee engagement?