He presented three questions to the audience to think through before making any decision, big or small. Each question suggested the need to introduce objectivity or clarity into the process.

1. What would my replacement do?
2. What would a great leader do?
3. What story do I want to tell?

Throughout his talk, Stanley drove home the point that leaders are not always the smartest in the room, or even the ones with all the information, but they are the leaders because they can make—or have to make—decisions when it matters.

“Leaders are important because of the thing we hate most: uncertainty,” he said. “Uncertainty is not indicative of poor leadership; uncertainty underscores the need for leadership.”

Stanley expands on how to balance the fear and motivation question No. 1 can incite in a leader as well as how he has become a better speaker to live and virtual audiences in the video below.

The other Leadercast speakers offered insight planners can implement in their leadership roles, but planners can learn even more from what went in to planning the huge event. Read our interview with Leadercast planner Michael Williams here.

You’ll see a lot of the same elements at faith-based conferences. The style and substance of these events vary wildly (a 10,000-person congress certainly demands different things than a 200-person youth event), but most faith-based meetings have a few unifying factors: education, worship, speakers and community events. It’s the way these elements are delivered that’s changing. And a few meeting planners are stepping way outside the ascribed planning box by focusing on creating an environment that changes the attitude and conversation about a meeting before it ever begins.

“If everyone else is doing it, we’re probably not going to do it,” says Katie Strandlund, sponsor care coordinator and director of operations of Story conference, an annual event held in Chicago for self-described artists and creators (mostly Christian) who are trying to communicate their stories. Now in its fourth year, Story continues to break the standard conference mold. “It’s more of an experience than a conference,” says Strandlund. “It’s meant to inspire and help people see what’s possible and push imaginations to a greater level.”

The speakers you see at other faith-based events? You won’t see them at Story. Musicians? The bands at Story are up-and-comers or barely-knowns. Breakout sessions? Not here. Everything takes place on one main stage at Park Community Church. Speakers are intermixed with bands. Bands are intermixed with theatrical acts. Those acts are intermixed with monologues. The agenda is unexpected, the content is unusual, but the focus remains where it should be: on the attendees.

“The environment—from the time you arrive to the time you leave—is meant to be inspirational. We want to make it an experience. We want to make it something you want to come back to,” says Strandlund. That means bringing in speakers via hologram (yes, a hologram, on stage, speaking). It also means making it rain, indoors, on the main stage. It means dispatching a “surprise and delight” team who hands out throwback treats from the ‘90s (think MoonPies and Yoo-hoo chocolate milk).

Not every planner can make it rain on stage (Strandlund says, “Don’t ask me how we do it”), but much of what you see at Story can be lifted, even in part, for your own meetings and events. Story’s website is an amazing online portal and gateway to the event, with an innovative design and functionality. Last year, conference organizers checked everyone in with the EventBrite app, which, despite being relatively easy-to-use, made a huge impression on attendees. During Story’s breaks, organizers created special environments in which attendees could hang out and relax. One was a garage lounge with a DJ and comfy couches. Another was an art gallery. Yet another area was an acoustic cafe. They gave the event a “festival feel,” says Strandlund.

Story is big and bright and fun. Its vision is obvious. The passion that Ben Arment,  author and founder of several ministry events including Story, and the rest of the planning team have is clear. They want to inspire people. They want to bring their attendees something they can’t find at other events. And they have that goal in mind before they even begin lining up music acts and speakers.

“Start with identifying your goals and design meetings around that, innovate around that and create around that,” says John Nawn, an organizational psychologist and founder of The Perfect Meeting, a meeting facilitation, coaching and design advisory firm. It’s impossible to be creative and try new things without first knowing what you want to get out of your event, he says.

Blaine Hogan, creative director of Willow Creek Community Church, opens his mouth to catch a few raindrops as it rains on stage during the 2011 Story conference in Chicago.

Nawn also draws a distinction between creativity and innovation. Creativity, he says, is developing new ideas. Innovation, by contrast, is the process of transforming those ideas into valuable or profitable solutions. When planning meetings and events, you can be both creative and innovative, but being innovative can help you actually measure ROI. “You need to understand and get past self-imposed barriers,” he recommends. Instead of focusing on the fact that you have a tight budget or time constraints, think instead about what opportunities those barriers can ultimately create. Limited time for education? Consider the TED approach by shortening the time speakers have to present. Tight budgets? That’s when creativity really flows.

“I believe most people are more creative than they give themselves credit for,” says Nawn. They just need to be more confident, he says. It takes guts to forgo printed conference materials in favor of electronic ones, possibly alienating a few members, and it takes a lot of confidence to start with absolutely nothing and, within months, build an entire event and watch people explore and enjoy your creation.

That’s what happened to Scott McClellan, director of Echo Conference, an educational event for the artists, geeks and storytellers that roam behind the scenes at their churches and organizations. The conference attendees are primarily on staff at churches or ministries, and “they are communicators who don’t have a traditional pulpit,” says McClellan. “Most of them aren’t teaching Sunday mornings, but they’re communicating the same message or enhancing the Sunday morning message through other media.”

Echo was founded by RT Creative Group, which is also the parent company for Igniter Media. Igniter Media has been helping to create media resources for churches for a decade. “As Igniter Media, we were passionate about using new media to unite the church and serve its people,” explains McClellan. “We found that there was no magazine dedicated to that conversation, exploring the art and resources and practice of those things. The magazine we wanted wasn’t there, so we started Collide,” he says, which was a magazine for Christian creators the company often worked with. (Collide has since ceased publication in favor of an online outlet, EchoHub.) “The conference that we wanted wasn’t there either.” So, they started brainstorming. That’s how Echo came along.

McClellan joined the planning team for the 2009 conference, the event’s second year. One of the first things he recognized was the pressure to be creative when planning an event for creative people. “I feel that pressure,” he admits. “Although, what’s interesting about our audience is that they come from such different churches. One person’s definition of creative because they’re on staff at a 10,000-member church that does 3D and immersive experiences is truly different from someone who comes from a rural church of 400 people in Montana.” Because of that, McClellan and his team have to be careful not to overplan and overdo the technical aspects of Echo.

“We started out going full throttle, as graphically intensive and media intensive as we could get,” he says. “And our attendees said, ‘That was great, but we can’t go home and replicate that.’ In some ways, our eyes began to open. How can we model creativity without modeling something extravagant?”

That’s when McClellan and his team refocused on the goal of the conference. What they wanted to do was inspire and equip people and show them what’s possible in multimedia church offerings, but in an approachable way. “We started imposing some constraints on ourselves,” he says. What resulted is a conference that’s “creative in a good way,” as McClellan describes it. “Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean being more extravagant.”

Take, for example, Echo’s speaker introductions. Rather than having a moderator introduce speakers, Echo plays short, two-minute videos as introductions. For the last few years, the videos have featured Johnny and Chachi, a Christian comedy duo (watch the videos). The videos aren’t excessive or overproduced, but they’re funny and original.

In recent years, Echo also introduced a user-friendly mobile website with all conference information rather than producing a pricey app that has to be reformatted for different phones. The site works on any Droid or iPhone. Echo has to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to conference technology because its uber tech-savvy audience demands it. Inspiration and new ideas for Echo come from everywhere, says McClellan. He recently heard about a speaker who presents sessions using an iPad because he can seamlessly transition between his keynote address and another app that allows him to sketch something on the projected screen. McClellan plans to adopt the idea for the sessions he presents at Echo.

Richard Kang speaks during the 2011 Echo conference in a session on the mobile Internet.

McClellan gleans inspiration from lots of sources, and reviews them with his team in an effort to come up with the best ideas. Nothing impairs the creative planning process more than negative feedback, says Kristin D. Charles, Ph.D., a communications and adult learning expert. She often presents educational sessions on the topic of planning and creativity, including a recent one at an MPI-Wisconsin event, “Balancing Creativity and Critical Thinking in Event Planning,” in which she identified a number of steps in the creative planning process. “The first step is being creative and thinking divergently,” she says, which is the process of coming up with as many ideas as possible without evaluating them.

In all subsequent steps, thinking divergently is a key to maintaining the creative approach. Like Nawn, Charles finds it important to identify goals and the vision for your event as a way to facilitate the creative planning process. “Ask a ton of questions of all your stakeholders. What do they want the meeting to feel like, look like, sound like and taste like? Get as many ideas as you can, then go through an exercise of narrowing down themes,” she says.

It can be difficult to get people to open up and brainstorm as a team, says Charles. Some people dominate the conversation. Others are critical of ideas, even when it’s been established that there will be no negative feedback. It takes a strong leader to set the tone and be clear about the goals of the session. “Don’t have negative consequences for thinking creatively,” she says. “Someone has to say, ‘We’re going to have fun coming up with the most ridiculous stuff we can.’ Then you reward people who are willing to go out on a limb and come up with crazy ideas.”

Deciding you’re going to bring in a speaker via hologram? That’s pretty crazy. Choosing to produce speaker intro videos? That takes some planning. Many ideas originally proposed for Story or Echo never made it into their events, but that’s OK, too. It’s about throwing out as many ideas as possible, then seeing which ones stick.

Story conference is all about the unexpected, including little-known bands.

Nawn says there are two different models for planning events, and neither is right or wrong. Neither is better or worse. They’re just different perspectives. One is comparable to the Apple model. In many ways, the late CEO Steve Jobs convinced Apple consumers what they wanted before they knew they wanted it. That’s true of many meetings. Planners organize meetings based on what they think attendees want. “That happens by default because we’ve been doing meetings like this since the beginning of time,” says Nawn.

But in recent years, another model has emerged. “We reach out to our audience and ask what they want in partnership or collaboration with them.” These crowdsourced conferences are built and improved over time based on audience response. It’s more difficult to perfect the Apple model, says Nawn. TED has been able to do it, but few conferences have replicated the TED conference well. It takes a very creative person who’s willing to take risks, implement the top-down approach and do it successfully.

Regardless of the way you plan events or who you plan them for, there’s always an opening for creativity. Some planners bust it wide open, and that’s when you get conferences such as Echo and Story. Other planners—in fact, it’s probably safe to say most planners—never quite get the courage to fully explore their creative resources. In the faith-based community, opportunities abound to break out of the norm, and one key reason is because the audience is often willing to accept what is offered. They’re looking for inspiration. They attend events because they want to see and feel something new. You can help open their minds to new ideas when you do the same.

“Bright Ideas” is the third article in our Rethinking Meetings series, which examines the way the planning and production of meetings are changing. We invite you to think about how you can use concepts presented in this series, discuss them with your teams and organizations, and share your insights with us. Email editor@collinsonmedia.com or add your comments on our wall.

Photo: Joshua White

With goals and objectives at the forefront, next look at audiovisual requirements, speaker needs and traffic flow, taking into consideration participant safety, comfort and accommodation for people with disabilities. If your program includes a food and beverage function, review your meeting room’s access to this service and decide if you will need these functions outside your meeting room or included within.

When deciding on a room setup, keep in mind three principles to guide choice of configuration:

1. Set to the long side of the room. For a rectangular room, placing the speaker on the long side will put more of the audience closer to the presentation. If you are lacking space or using rear-screen projection, you may have to set the stage on the short side of the room to be more space efficient.

2. Minimize straight-row seating. Set chairs in a semi-circle or herringbone (V-shape) to give the audience the best view of the presentation. With straight-row seating, you can only see the people next to you and the backs of heads of those in front of you. A semi-circle set enables viewing between persons.

3. Avoid center aisles. The center of the room is the best viewing of the presentation and should not be wasted on an aisle. A center aisle would be necessary if you have entertainers entering or leaving through the center of the room.

With these principles in mind, it’s time to choose the ultimate setup for your meeting.

Theater or Auditorium Style

This is the best setup for a large group where writing is not necessary and food is not served. Chairs are set in rows facing the speaker, stage or focal point of the room. Remember that a standard meeting room chair is narrower than most people’s bodies. Ask the hotel or venue not to set the chairs touching side-by-side and allow at least 2 inches between (4-6 inches for optimal comfort). This reduces the capacity of your room because not all chairs are used. You may not have a choice in chair spacing, however. Capacity restrictions and fire codes can dictate space between chairs, distance between rows and the number and width of aisles. Some hotels may use chairs that interlock to meet spacing requirements. Ask what the hotel’s regulations are up front and to provide diagrams of the various setups available. A last-minute change of setup due to fire code regulations can cost additional man hours.

Schoolroom or Classroom Style 

This setup is best for meetings where attendees need to write or use a computer. It allows for minimal interaction between attendees and is best used for lectures and training meetings. Chairs are set at 6-foot or 8-foot tables facing the presenter. Standard seating is three people per 6-foot table and four people per 8-foot table. To allow for more workspace between attendees, ask the hotel to reduce this to two chairs per 6-foot table and three chairs per 8-foot table. This setup is most optimal for breakout sessions where entertainment is not used and thus center aisles create the best access for attendees entering and exiting the room.

Conference Style  

This format is ideal for smaller groups where attendee interaction is a main objective. Seated around tables, participants have a direct view of their colleagues to facilitate discussions. Specify what type of table arrangements you need based on the objectives of your meeting:

1. Boardroom: One solid, rectangular table that can be an existing table in a hotel meeting room or created by putting together 30-inch tables. This setup is best for a board of directors meeting with heavy discussions as participants are in closest reach to each other.

2. U-Shape: Tables are arranged in a horseshoe, which is ideal for meetings that need to facilitate discussion between attendees but also include an audiovisual presentation set at the opening of the “U.”

3. T-Shape: Best for a panel, presenters or lead management that needs to sit at the top of the “T” and direct the discussion down the length of the tables.

4. Hollow Square: Best for meetings that do not require an audiovisual presentation. If the hotel has serpentine tables, request a rounded hollow square setup to maximize seating on the ends. If these are not available, straight tables can be placed at an angle creating an angled hollow square setup.

5. Multi-Sided Shapes: Multi-sided shapes such as a diamond or octagonal are best for larger groups of 20 or more. They comfortably seat nearly every attendee at the end of a table and provide direct sight and voice communication to participants.

Banquet Style 

This setup works best for meetings that require food and beverage service and where participants are asked to break out into small groups. Setup includes 60-, 66- or 72-inch round tables with chairs around the entire table or only on one side—a crescent-round or half-moon setup. If your function includes a speaker or audiovisual presentation, the crescent-round setup allows for better viewing of the presentation while still facilitating discussion between attendees.

Combination Setups  

For large conventions with a quick turnaround between meeting and meal functions, consider combining a theater-style setup with banquet tables at the back of the room. Attendees can easily move from one function to the next without major changes to the room setup.

No matter what setup you choose, remember to consult with your conference services manager on what setup has worked the best in his or her facility and any challenges that need to be overcome such as columns restricting sight lines or fire marshal restrictions. Facilitating a learning environment in accordance with your meeting’s objectives should take top priority. The more comfortable the room can be for attendees, from the width of the chairs to the temperature in the room, the more likely they will learn and interact on a higher level.

The primary reason most people attend conferences is the educational content. So why is it so many sessions are disappointing? Why are the most fundamental aspects of content development so hard when the premise is so simple? The answer is easy: Too much focus is placed on the subject matter and basic principles of engagement are forgotten.

You need to create a buzz; the content needs to be in line with the buzz. The delivery needs to be engaging and interactive. The presenter needs to tell a story that connects emotionally. The material needs to be user-friendly and distributed online for various audiences.

Keeping content engaging can be difficult since the demographics of an audience can be so diverse, ranging from Baby Boomers to Gen-Xers to Millennials. Keeping the content delivery conducive to the make-up of the audience is important. Today’s presenter must engage the audience by making the session interactive, either by soliciting participation or by breaking the audience into groups to discuss the content.

The format is crucial as well. Too many presenters still make the mistake of using PowerPoint as the crux of their presentations, reading directly off the slides rather than using them as a guide. Weaving storytelling into the presentation engages the audience on an emotional and personal level. People remember good stories, especially when compelling and thought-provoking.

Conference materials should be accessible in a format that is user-friendly. If the conference content is placed online in different formats and levels of detail, it will appeal to at least three different audiences: Participants who attended the conference; prospective attendees; and sponsors who can associate their brand with a site that reaches a wider audience over a period of several weeks or months.

Since many organizations are cutting back on the number of people sent to a conference, it is crucial to ensure the content is on point. Attendees and their decision makers are demanding a higher, more tangible return on their investment. The goal is for the attendee to bring back information that can be shared with the rest of the team.

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Amita Patel, CHSP, has been a leader in the hospitality industry for more than 25 years. Her experience includes destination and facility management as well as hotel sales and marketing. For the past 10 years, she has championed sales and marketing efforts at the Ontario Convention and Visitors Bureau/Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, Calif. 

I was thrilled to hear Bill Buxton of Microsoft talking about ideas and innovation on NPR’s morning show. It reinforced my own experience with ideas, creativity and problem solving. And it reminds me of a phrase I use during my keynote presentations, “Date, but don’t marry your ideas.”

In the interview, Buxton talks about ideas, lots of them—how we tend to get attached to one idea and pursue it even when it might not be the best idea. Part of the creative process is coming up with lots of ideas, turning them over, sharing them, discarding them and coming up with more ideas.

As a professional songwriter, I’m used to trying out new ideas almost every day. I’ve learned that some ideas turn out to be terrific and grow into real things, like hit songs. I’ve also learned some ideas are not so great, and it’s best to get rid of them and move on to the next brainstorming session.

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Billy Kirsch is a Grammy and Emmy-nominated, CMA and ACM award-winning songwriter. His abilities as facilitator, leader and performer are the foundation of his highly successful corporate event programs: Team Building Through Song, Harnessing Your Creative Power and Everyday Team Building. The presentations help people rediscover their creativity encouraging them to be more innovative and engaged in their work.

As director for constituent resources for the Mennonite Church USA, Glen Guyton was especially interested in feedback from Pittsburgh 2011, the biennial convention held this past July, where an alternative format was incorporated as part of the goal to encourage discussion and an increased sense of belonging and ownership for the constituents. Here, he shares some notes on the experience and reactions.

We had more than 6,500 people at Pittsburgh 2011. It balanced out to more adults, fewer youth. We incorporate service projects and had two things going on—adult delegate sessions and a youth gathering. There was joint daily worship and workshops split between adults and youth. Adults also have business sessions; youth just have worship, workshops and service projects.

New this year was a conversation room where we talked about hot topics. We used what they call a Samoan circle. Before the convention we had an outline of topics we would address. We had a schedule posted on the wall and slots where people could come and have discussion. There were mediators present, and we used a variety of discussion techniques. Controversial subjects could be discussed in a safe space.

People said they felt like they were heard. They felt like they had the opportunity to discuss controversial issues in the church but didn’t feel like they were being attacked. There was an openness and safety within the discussion; people enjoyed it and we may do something like that again.

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As director for constituent resources for the Mennonite Church USA, Glen Guyton was especially interested in feedback from Pittsburgh 2011, the biennial convention held this past July, where an alternative format was incorporated as part of the goal to encourage discussion and an increased sense of belonging and ownership for the constituents. Here, he shares some notes on the experience and reactions.

The term “strategic event marketers” is common within the events industry, yet some planners remain hesitant to embrace a strategic event planning process. Acting as a strategist does not require one to understand or recite the corporate go-to-market plans or financial earnings. Rather, it is about understanding the event objectives and developing innovative tactics to create memorable attendee experiences.

If there is one thing I could change within the events industry, I would challenge all planners to become strategists and focus their attention on the attendee engagement versus merely logistics.

As a corporate event manager, it is my responsibility to act as the event strategist when planning events for Symantec Corporation. A successful strategy I use often is one of storytelling. Storytelling is the concept of developing an event around one common message, a storyline, and ensuring every element supporting the event connects the dots back to the main storyline. Whether you are planning a conference, product launch or board of director’s luncheon, the gathering should tell a story. When the attendees can recite the storyline upon the leaving the gathering, you know you have successfully relayed your strategic message. The key to storytelling is being consistent in the delivery. When executed effectively, the storyline should become intuitively obvious and, to double the punch, the attendees should feel inspired by the message.

Storytelling creates a huge opportunity for event strategists to cultivate longevity in the conference objectives and messaging. While the story is unveiled at the event, it can act as the foundation for post-event communications throughout the year.

In addition to storytelling, planners can also act as strategists by leveraging technology throughout their events. The event technology landscape is vast and the options, features and usage can be overwhelming. However, as planners we cannot allow ourselves to become paralyzed by the immensity of it, but rather see it as an opportunity to customize our specific events. When evaluating how and what technology to incorporate into an event, the handy storytelling strategy can act as a useful tool. Determine how the technology can help tell your story and connect the dots back to the one common event message.

A story used at Symantec’s annual sales conference was based on the need to motivate the attendees to propel their efforts from a successful 2011 into greater achievements in 2012. In an effort to understand the conference objective, the executive team was surveyed with a few key questions: One, how do you want the attendees to feel pre- and post-conference? And two, what is one message you want the attendees to walk away with? The executive responses helped shape the conference storyline into “Fast. Forward. Move fast and move forward into 2012.”

Vibrant, yet visually and tactically appealing, the storyline was carried through every conference element from the signage, website, messaging, evening events and even the technology.

To amplify the forward motion aspect, we used the hottest and latest technology trend of “gaming” in an effort to engage attendees. Mobile device applications are the direction of the future and a gaming experience was yet another opportunity to create a memorable event and drive home the common message.

A good event strategist is the heartbeat of a memorable event, and every planning decision should be leveraged to inspire the attendees and further the conference story. We need to challenge ourselves daily to act as strategists and implement new conference planning technologies.

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Ashely Muntan, CMP, is an event marketing manager for Symantec Corporation and resides in Atlanta. With more than 11 years in the industry, she project manages large events and takes pride in acting as the team “storytelling champion” and seeing projects come to fruition.

Social. It’s a word that strikes fear in some and excites others.

Today it seems that everything is social. From social media to social networking to social technology to social business, the trend is all things social. It’s the new black.

So what is the social conference?

Does it mean adding more social media efforts to our event marketing? Is it allowing people to use social networks to communicate with speakers during the event? Is it integrating face-to-face audiences with live streaming remote audiences?

For me, one of the most critical things a conference organizer can do to appeal to our increasingly sophisticated audience is to design experiences that are more engaging, participatory and social. People are not coming to your conference for the content. (They can get that online.) They are coming for the conference experience, so make it social and less independent.

Humans are essentially social beings. Our meetings and events are complex social experiences. And our conference experiences have the power to alter our attendees’ minds.

When we require our attendees to sit passively and quietly in rows with little or no social interaction, we work against the brain’s natural social systems. We rob attendees of the chance to engage, interact and learn. We create social isolation in the midst of a crowd. In short, we are treating our attendees like robots trying to download data from the speaker into their hard drives: the brain. We think that if our attendees hear the information, they automatically learn it.

In traditional conferences, an expert stands at the front of the room and lectures to an audience that sits passively listening. It’s a one-way monologue. Research is clear that this conventional conference design is directly opposed to how our brains learn.

Conference organizers need to work hard at making a shift from long-established one-way, vertical presentations to more multi-directional education experiences.

Our traditional vertical, one-directional conference experience from the speaker to the audience needs to shift. We need to create multi-directional, horizontal experiences where attendees are invited to talk to each other, talk about the content, talk with the speaker and engage in active learning with one other. This means fewer speaker monologues and more attendee dialogues.

In short, we need more structured and facilitated conversations to create a compelling, irresistible social conference experience that continues to attract today’s sophisticated audiences.

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Jeff Hurt blogs about the convergence of Web 2.0, social media, meetings, events and education. He is the director of education and engagement at Velvet Chainsaw Consulting and an in-demand speaker (he’s at Rejuvenate Marketplace this year). He describes himself on Twitter as a thinker, advocate, progressive, nonprofit junkie, meeting/event planner, educator, change strategist, social media explorer.

We introduced Jeff Shinabarger to readers in the last issue as one of our under 40 influencers. The young (31) founder of Plywood People, an Atlanta nonprofit that organizes conferences around social issues, and former creative director of the Catalyst conferences, has run 23 events so far and continues to come up with new initiatives. When we talked with him for our young leaders issue, he had plenty to say about how events should be organized. We decided we had to include some of his comments here.

Yeah, related to event planning, I believe everything is going toward more collaboration and more sustainable practices. It’s why TEDx is so popular…because of its collaborative nature and local learning.

Now, the question is with all the opportunities there are, how do you choose what to do? It’s kind of an oversaturated market right now; there are a lot of events. If you’re going to do a new event, there has to be a reason. Before you try to create something new, join with others.

The hardest thing in the world is to get people to show up. With events, a lot of people try to over hype things. I would rather err on the side of under-promising and over-delivering—and add surprise from the backside.

The greatest limitation is me…my time. The more I can get involved in with others, the more I can help them make it happen. Some of the projects we’ve begun can get bigger. Ten years from now there will be 20 to 30 issues we’ve resolved with others [Plywood People’s slogan is “We will be known by the problems we solve.”]

How do you focus on something in your local community? I see more and more localization of those processes [giveback events and opportunities associated with conferences]. Global charity water projects will come back to localized solutions.

My favorite quote is “Influence is gained by doing something.” That’s what we’re looking for at these conferences.

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Meetings are not inventive. In most cases, they look, feel and are delivered as they always have been. I, for one, get bored at most meetings. Given the opportunity to change anything now and for the future, I’d wave my magic wand and…

Make it all more visual—art on walls, sculpture in hallways, places to create art for the spontaneity of creating and using the right side of our brains. Why are meeting spaces so boring? Invest in community and have community artists. Even have items for sale for people who want a bit of the local flavor.

Add water and light in places that allow participants to relax. This means redesign of the traditional buildings we use for hotels. An article in the Sept. 19 issue of The New Yorker, “Laboratory Conditions,” gives insights into how design can change.

Use music, appropriate and thoughtful, designed to stimulate thinking and relaxation.

Play is a bit of art, too. It’s the ability to use different parts of our bodies and brains, and to incorporate creativity differently into what we do. If a game of golf at a meeting is OK, then different play can be. And it can be created to accommodate all.

Create seating that’s not too low or too high—and in places convenient for conversations that bubble up when people gather.

Encourage intentionally created community and spontaneously created community encouraged by the venue and organizers, who may be the community themselves. (We’ve seen it happen with Tweetups. We’ll see it continue to happen and we’ll broaden the access to anyone without prejudice or membership.)

Provide more resources, outside the usual. That is, access to different thinking and the people who do it. This is an easy one; in every venue and virtually, there are people who are subject experts who want to share ideas.

Include reflection time without overcrowded agendas. No one needs that “one more” session or speaker. Having time to reflect, alone or with others (while seated near light and water in appropriate seating) allows us to regroup after filling our heads.

Offer experiences as part of the meeting that are designed to fill our heads differently. For example, I’d like to have an art tour at the D.C. convention center or at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia if I’m in those buildings for other purposes.

Also—because my magic wand is not that powerful—I’d immediately add the following…

Audience-centric room sets—à la Paul Radde (thrival.com). Why, after all these years, are we still seated in the same bad chairs in the same straight rows at the same draped tables? Let’s move stuff around and open it up. Let’s have spaces that allow participants to move and flex and write and talk and listen and learn.

Awareness about those who attend meetings and their needs—not because it’s PC, but because it is empathetic and appropriate. We’re all different and we learn from each other. If we feel—if we are—included, we can fully participate and everyone gains.

Comfort—defined however each of us wants to define it. My comfort includes availability of appropriate seating; bio-needs met including foods and beverages available throughout and not only from 10 to 10:30, at lunch and from 3 to 3:30; adequate restrooms that are near the space used; lighting that allows me to see; sound that allows me to hear; and signs and badges that are the right size to read.

Service from the venue and vendors and the meeting organizers from the minute I arrive until I leave—for example, I loved the story in The New York Times about the Occupy Wall Street protestors ordering pizzas. Who knew that protests could be so organized? There are more great tips and ideas from Occupy Wall Street—really!

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have more spontaneous meetings?

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