Event Coup is a multi-author blog for event lovers. We talk about event planning with attention to technology, the environment, social media and web 2.0.
Summary: Twitter Chats have their regular followers yet even some experienced event planners still don't know about them. Here is a quick primer to get you up to speed on the top 10 Twitter Chats that all event planners should add to their schedules.
Top 10 Twitter Chats for Event Planners & Event Industry Professionals
Twitter Chats have been around for such a long time that I could just hear some Twitter veterans groaning as soon as they saw the title of this blog. After all, it's old news. Everybody knows about Twitter Chat, right? I manage the 30,000+ member Event Planning and Management group on LinkedIn. More often than you would expect, I interact with members who are finding out about Twitter Chats for the first time. They are delighted when they discover what a useful resource Twitter Chats can be. So, we're going to cover the basics. I invite Twitter Chat newbies to post your questions. I invite Twitter Chat veterans to post responses, share tips and list any chats or tools for monitoring them that I haven't included.
Twitter Chats - The Basics
A Twitter Chat is a regularly scheduled interactive event that takes places on Twitter. The format for Twitter Chats (also known as hashtag chats) is:
Hashtag (#) + a keyword. Example: #eventprofs
Every Twitter Chat has it's own schedule, format and etiquette. A number of Twitter Chats have online guides, Wikis or Facebook pages to explain what the focus and structure. For this reason, you may want to observe for a few minutes or review documentation so that you are clear about what is expected before you jump in.
Some Twitter Chats take place only once or or twice a week. When the chat is over, there is little interaction unless it's a follow up that is directly relevant to the topic of the most recent chat. Others encourage the use of the chat hashtag for interaction between scheduled chats. Tweeps share information, tips, blogs, and articles using the hashtag. Some Twitter Chats evolve into communities and establish LinkedIn groups to take the interaction deeper than what is possible in 140 characters. Some chat communities have face-to-face tweet-ups. It's the perfect way to take networking beyond cyberspace and into the real world.
If you miss a chat, there is no need to worry. A transcript of summary is usually shared on Twitter within 24 hours. Some chats even have an archive of chat transcripts.
Benefits of Twitter Chats
Twitter Chats provide an opportunity to engage with other Twitter users and discover new people to follow. They give instant access to information to help you keep abreast of trends within the event planning industry.
Twitter Chats & Hashtags for Event Planners
#eventprofsEventprofs: A thriving community of event planners and other event industry Professionals. This was the first Twitter chat for event planners. Tuesdays 9 - 10 PM EST/6 - 7 PM PST & Thursdays 12 - 1PM EST/9 - 10 AM PST
#TTOT Travel Tuesday on Twitter: Social media travel event. Five questions, every 10 minutes Tuesdays 9:30 AM & 9:30 PM GMT.
#engage365 Engage 365: For events professionals interested in social media for events & conferences. Similar to #eventprofs, but discussions focus more on event technology, engaging attendees, and event marketing. Fridays 1 PM ET.
#assnchat Association Chat: Chat for association professionals discussing current industry trends, technology and strategy Tuesdays 2 PM ET
#luxchatLuxchat: Excellent and highly relevant to event planners who work in the luxury market sector. Usually features a high profile guest. Representatives of a number of upscale resorts have been featured. Some chats are on location. Monthly. 3rd Wednesday of every month at 5:30 PM ET
#tourismchatTourism Chat: Bi-monthly twitter chat focusing on social media in the tourism industry. Thursdays 2 PM CT, 3 PM ET
#speakchatSpeak Chat: Engaging. Event planners, professional speakers, and speakers bureaus discuss a variety of industry related topics and issues. Mondays 9 PM ET.
#tniTraveller's Night In: Covers a new travel topic each week. 10 questions tweeted by various hosts. Thursdays 3:30 - 5:00 PM ET.
#weddingmarketWedding Market Chat: Trends, marketing and information for the wedding and bridal markets. Wednesdays 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET/6 P GmT.
#AVchat AV Chat: All you ever wanted to learn about AV, a key ingredient for many successful events. Thursdays 4 PM PT/7 PM ET
Bonus:
The following Twitter Chats are not specifically designed for the event industry but Event Planners will find them extremely helpful chat. They are well worth checking out regularly.
#linkedinchatLinkedIn Chat: All things LinkedIn – what you like, what you hate, useful strategies, favourite apps Tuesdays 7PM CT/ 8 PM ET - LinkChat LinkedIn Group
Event industry professionals will find useful content by using the following Twitter hashtags:
linkevents
#meetingprofs
#pcma
#mpi
#bizbash
How to Participate in Twitter Chats
In Search, type in the Twitter Chat hashtag and hit "Enter".
You'll see all of the tweets that have recently been posted using that hashtag.
To add your content, type your tweet in the "What's Happening Field". Include the hashtag in your tweet. Presto, it will be visible to everyone monitoring that hashtag.
If you never participated in a Twitter chat, these videos will demonstrate how you can join in on Twitter or using applications like Tweetdeck or Twitter Chat.
Summary: LinkedIn has gradually been improving its group moderation tools and spam control measures. This is an overview of the state-of-the art in LinkedIn Group management. If used effectively, scammers will soon find that LinkedIn is no longer a spammer's paradise. I invite all readers to share how the Linkedin Groups to which they belong are using the new tools.
LinkedIn Introduces New Group Management Tools to Fight Spam
Like all other on-line communities, LinkedIn Groups have faced the challenge of spam control. I wrote an Event Coup feature about a year ago entitled:
This Event Coup feature advocated "crowdsourcing" as an approach to on-line community management. It also described the tools that would be needed to automate this process. A group for event planners that I manage implemented crowdsourcing before the tools to automate the process were available. It took a while but Linkedin has gradually been introducing new group management tools and spam control measures. This was in response to the flood of complaints it had been receiving about spam from Group Owners, Group Managers, and LinkedIn Members. This week, with the introduction of "Permissions" and "Moderation", LinkedIn took a huge step forward to ensure that groups are spam-free.
LinkedIn - Group Management Toolkit
For some time, LinkedIn Groups have had:
a system that flags LinkedIn members who are at high risk for spamming....even in groups with open membership, these members must have their application for membership approved by a member of the group management team/li>
a carousel this is where all new discussions and job postings appear until they:
receive comments
get flagged
get deleted
a flagging system (i.e. inappropriate, jobs and promotion flags)
automatic deletion of content flagged as "inappropriate" by a numer of group members
a "Promotions" tab
a "Moderations" queue that allows Group Managers to make decisions based on group member flags
Each LinkedIn Group is different so this toolkit is flexible. Some functions are fixed, others are optional and many can be customized. This week, LinkedIn introduced a new option for group management, "Change Permissions".
Changing Permissions
Hovering over the "Change Permissions" button gives group owners and managers the option of selecting:
Block and Delete (i.e. the member is removed and blocked from the group and all contributions are deleted)
Approved to Post
Requires Moderation
Requires Moderation
"Modertion" was introduced by LinkedIn this week. By default, LinkedIn places certain group members in the "Requires Moderation" category. In addition to this, if a member post spam or promotional content", group managers now have the option of selecting "Requires Moderation". All posts from members who "require moderation" require approval before they appear in any area of the group. Group Managers have the option of deleting promotional material or placing it in the Promotions tab so that Group Members can flag to have it removed if they so desire.
LinkedIn Groups: New Spam Control Measures
Up until this week, group management teams on linkedin had only 3 options for dealing with spam:
leave it up to members to flag discussions, job postings or individual comments as "inappropriate". After the required number of flags, the system automatically deletes the item
delete it - really important for scams and pornography for example
click on the button that directs Linkedin to remove all the contributions of a specific member, remove them from the group and block them from re-applying for membership.
How to Know if you have been flagged for moderation
If there is a lag time between when you start a discussion, post a job or add a comment in a LinkedIn Group and when it appears, then your "permissions" in one or more LinkedIn Groups have been reduced. The new "Requires Moderation" option opens up a much more proactive and powerful approach to managing LinkedIn Groups. If group members actively use flags (particularly "flag as inappropriate") and group management teams avail themselves of the "Requires Moderation" feature, spammers and scammers will quickly find that they are no longer able to roam freely on LinkedIn. Kudos to LinkedIn.
Next Steps
If you're a member of a LinkedIn group the most important things you can do to play a role in providing a meaningful experience for all members are:
start meaningful dicussions and post them in the appropriate area of the group and its subgroups
when you share an article or content from your blog, include a synopsis of highlighs and key questions to stimulate discussions
post jobs an rfps to help your fellow group members in a tough economy
refrain from posting promotional material and other spam
Use the "Flag as Inappropriate" flag whenever you see promotional material and other spam
If you haven't tried a LinkedIn group yet. I encourage you to try it. LinkedIn groups are instrumental tools in growing your network and getting more power out of Linkedin.
For more information, you may find the following helpful:
It's time to Re-Engineer Conferences & Business Meetings
Summary:Despite the volume of information about the best strategies to engage adult learners, conference producers continue to subject participants to a series of long, boring presentations. Many internal corporate meetings also follow the same dreary and tedious model of passive disengagement. Join us for this exploration of common knowledge but far from common practice strategies for engaging conference and meeting participants.
Despite all the available research about how to engage adult learners, the conference and meeting model is STILL broken. Typical Conference Model: In far too many instances, conferences still follow a predictable pattern. Participants sit in rows while keynote speakers talk at them while flipping Powerpoint slides. After that, in a series of breakout sessions, participants sit passively while more experts talk at them. Typical Business Meeting Model: Our team building firm regularly gets requests from companies that initially request a full day of interactive team building. Typically, this time slot is then reduced to 1/2 a day and, ultimately, watered down to a request for a 1 or 2 hour strictly recreational activity after dinner that is awarded to the lowest cost provider. Why? Too much content. The actually meeting ends up being a series of dry presentations (information dumps) back to back. By the time the participants get to the dinner, they are exhausted. A cocktail reception and entertainment will not fix a bad meeting design.Under either scenario, participants a hard time staying awake yet alone deriving benefit from the content that is presented. So, how can we fix a conference and meeting model that is badly in need of repair? Long before I became involved in planning and producing events, I was a training and development specialist, specializing in accelerated learning. Based on this experience, my advice is that it's time to "spice" things up and re-engineer conferences and meetings with accelerated learning.
Troubleshooing Conferences
Why is your conference agenda bursting at the seams? It could be that you are covering too much content just because that's the way you've always done it. Use some of the strategies (below) in the "Preparation" section to zero in on the content that is most relevant to participants. It would be better to reduce the number of sessions by 30 - 50% and allow more time for in-depth coverage and an interactive format.
Troubleshooing Corporate Meetings
If every time you get your team together, you have an agenda that's jampacked, bursting at the seams and composed of wall to wall presentations while participants sit passively and listen, it's a symptom of a deeper problem.
Are there serious communication stopgaps and bottlenecks that prevent team members from getting the information they need? An information dump once or twice a year is not going to fix that. You need a cross-functional team to analyze what is blocking the information flow and propose solutions.
Are your meetings too infrequent? You many need to meet more frequently or arrange for virtual meetings in between your face-to-face sessions
Are you using the wrong medium? Not all information needs to be communicated face-to-face. Virtual meetings, blogs, independent study modules, intranets, pre-recorded material that is accessible in Second Life,or e-learning may be more suitable if the need is just to deliver content that requires no interaction between participants
Consider using another platform to deliver some of the content before participants arrive at the meeting. In this way, you can carve out more time for interactive content, team building, think tanks, and sessions that require brainstorming and interaction.
Accelerated Learning: What is it?
Many have taken a stab at defining accelerated learning. One definition that I have found useful is: "Participant centered, brain based learning." Accelerated learning is not a method. It is a result. All presentation methods, activities and exercises incorporated into a meeting or conference are there by design to produce theresult, specifically, covering more information (sometimes in less time):
With less stress to the participants
Greater skill mastery
Improved retention
Increased transfer of learning to the workplace
Accelerated Learning: Key Ingredients
The key ingredients for producing these results, in other words, accelerated learning, include:
Solid content that addresses a clearly identified business need and produces measurable results
An understanding of how the brain and the senses operate in the learning process
The identification of the preferred learning styles of participants in order to cater to their preferences when selecting learning activities
The selection of presentation and facilitation methods that reflect an understanding of the learning process and cater to preferred learning styles
Preparation: To get learners ready for learning experiences
Presentation: Through a variety of approaches that appeal to all the senses, not just "pour and bore"
Practice: Aimed at ensuring skill mastery and helping participants unpack what they have learned and determine how it applies to the workplace
Performance: Follow up can greatly assist with the transfer of the new knowledge and skills back to work
Here is how this model can be applied to conferences and meetings:
Participant Preparation
Pre-Conference
1.Create a Twitter hashtag and use it in all conference related communication.
2. Use Survey Monkey to crowdsource the conference agenda & select burning issues of concern to your target audience
3. Incorporate learning style surveys or HBDI Inventories into your registration process so that keynote speakers and breakout session facilitators can tailor their approach.
Be sure to incorporate strategies that cater to a variety of learning styles in the design of your conference. Currently, most designs cater to analytical and structured learners only.
4. Send a separate package with detailed information about the breakout sessions and an opportunity for participants to select their sessions.
Include learning style colour codes to give participants an opportunity to select sessions that appeal to their preferred learning style.
With your synopsis of each breakout session, ask key questions to give participants a chance to clarify the reasons for their interesting this session.
Provide information that is collected to the speakers and breakout session facilitators so that they can customize their content.
5. Give participants a chance to connect with each other, the speakers and facilitators before the conference through @Crowdvine
6. Use Youtube to release humorous or preview videos from some of the speakers and breakout session facilitators.
Humorous Videos
Preview Videos
General Session Preview
Speaker Preparation
7. Prepare your speakers with an upbeat and engaging speaker's camp.
Content is absolutely key for every conference. Bore participant to death with dreary presentations and they won't be back. They will also spread the word that the conference was a "dud". Unless you have attended presentations by individual speakers or seen DVDs that display an interactive style, each speaker should arrive a day early and attend a "Speaker's Camp". There is no need to increase the cost of your registration to offer a Speaker's Camp. It's an ideal sponsorship opportunity. Here is how it could work:
Before Speaker's Camp:
Get a sponsor to cover the cost of Speaker's Camp.
When you send out your Call for Speakers make it clear that attending Speaker's Camp is part of the process.
Release the call for Camp Counsellors at the same time as you release your call for speakers.
Engage a team of Camp Counsellors to provide coaching to the speakers who require it. (These should be professionals facilitators who are also instructional designers). You'll need 1 specialist for every 5 speakers.)
Two months before the camp, ALL speakers will need to send a copy of their packages (e.g. PowerPoint, handouts) to their assigned Camp Counsellor.
The Camp Counsellors will review the packages, provide a makeover for slides if the speakers don't have the skills, offer suggestions for exercises to make each session more interactive. Once the speaker has agreed to add the interactive content, the training and development specialists can help them design the instruction and worksheets for the handout packages.
During Speaker's Camp:
You'll need 1 camp counselor for every 3 - 4 participants.
Have the speaker's arrive the night before Speaker's Camp for an upbeat outing to get the group relaxed
Arrange for each speaker participating in Speaker's Camp will do a run-through of their presentation and it will be video taped. This should be done in front of the other speakers so that they have an audience. You will need to run this simultaneously in a number of rooms.
Each speaker will review their DVD privately with their assigned camp counsellor.
This will be followed up with a private coaching session during which each DVD is reviewed with the speaker and there is an opportunity for coaching and rehearsal.
At the end of Speaker's camp, the speakers should reassemble and present their greatly improved content to the group. For some variety, re-arrange the groups for this final rehearsal.
Not every subject matter expert will have the skill set to be a facilitator. The Camp Counsellors can, if required, facilitate the interactive exercises and energizers during the general sessions and breakouts.
During Conference
7. Use a cracker barrel session with facilitated table top discussions to give participants a chance to identify questions and concerns that relate to the topics to be covered during the conference.
Provide the information that is uncovered to the speakers and breakout session facilitators. Ask each speaker or facilitator to start their session with a review of what participants have identified as their areas of concern and how the content relates to them. If you provide a template, a couple of slides can be ready so that presenters can quickly add the information to their presentations.
The 2010 PCMA Education conference in Montreal modelled this approach beautifully model. Late in the afternoon before the Montreal conference started a snack that was available throughout the session was provided. Mike McCurry @MichaelMcCurry facilitated a well attended session using this model. Participants had a chance to switch tables twice. There were also some "open topic" tables.
8. Music boosts retention. Incorporate music into the conference design. Use it while people wait for general sessions, in presentations, during breaks, and at lunch.
9. Extend the conference or meeting beyond its 4 walls. Use Second Life or similar platform to include virtual attendees. In the main conference room as well as breakout rooms, provide reserved tables near electrical outlets for tweeters and bloggers to share conference highlights and engage a larger audience.
This approach appeals to kinesthetic learners and net savvy attendees. It's a powerful way of taking notes to boost retention. It is also a great way to move your conference outside its 4 walls and whet the appetites of those who follow the tweetstream to attend your next local or national conference. This approach was modeled beautifully during the 2010 PCMAEC in Montreal.
Re-engineered Pre-Conference Design:
Pre
2 Days Before Conference
Speaker's Camp: Full Day Train the Trainer, Rehearsal, & Coaching for Subject Matter Experts Who Are Used to Lecture Based Delivery
Day Before Conference
AM
Reserved for Optional City Tours & Site Inspections
PM
Opportunity to engage participants by creating video instructions for breakout sessions of interactive exercises for general sessions with participants who arrive early (see Hidden Faces of Diversity Video ) below
Optional Off-site Networking Lunch for Early Arrivals
Optional Venue & Destination Orientation
3:00 Afternoon Tea for networking Replaces a cocktail reception and ensures that people are bright and alert
3:45 Crackbarrel/Tabletop or Unconference Session
5:30 End to give participants an opportunity to get an early dinner and lots of rest for the next day
Presentation
10. Re-engineer the design of your conference agenda to make provide more interactive content
Expand your breaks to 30 minutes to build in more opportunity for networking and give facilitator more time to set-up between sessions.
Instead of sticking with standard 1 hour time slots that force presenters to do an information dump at breakneck speed, provide a variety of time slots.
11. Cater to diverse learning styles through a variety of presentation formats. Provide icons to help participants identify the learning styles to which each session caters.
No one has only one learning style. We use a number of styles to decipher meaning. Each individual has one or more preferred learning style. These ideas are primarily for breakout sessions. It is a good idea to gear your breakout sessions to a couple of styles. Kinesthetic/Visual and Analytical/Structures are natural fits. However, there are also many Visual/Analytical learners. You can appeal to more than one style in the same room and even incorporate these approaches into general sessions by using colour coded tablecloths on some of the table to help participants easily identify learning environments that are a good fit for them.
Kinesthetic (Red)
Provide:
Provide large sheets of paper and thin coloured markers to encourage mind mapping.
Provide a dedicated discussion room with couches clustered in small groups. This is a sponsorship opportunity.Kinesthetic learners need a chance to engage and discuss the content with other conference participants.
Presentation:
Ensure that each presentation segment is no more than 20 minutes.
Then, involve participants in a group exercise.
Have a short energizer every 40 minutes
Puzzles
Game shows and trivia contest with prizes
Do a lyric writing exercises to help participants prepare summaries of their experience using songs. These can be presented at some of the general sessions.
Forum role-plays. (Video provides example of in-house video used to provide instructions for internal meeting).
Energizers:
Tactile objects on most tables (i.e. wooden hand massages, stress balls, Chinese stress balls, lego, play dough, silly putty, slinkies, Rubik's Cubes)
Use stretching, massage chain or dance breaks every 40 minutes
Visual (Yellow)
Provide:
Use lots of posters and peripherals when setting up the room
Provide digital cameras and give groups an opportunity to summarize the output for their group exercises on video.
For longer sessions, provide Bristol board, scissors and glue and give participants time to create a collage to summarize what they learned
Provide flip chart sized post-it notes on easels or on the wall for cartoonists and artists in the group to capture the content in a unique format.Michael Gelb's wife did this in a training and development conference in Toronto some time ago and I have never forgotten this.
Presentation:
Photos
Cartoons
Video Clips
Colourful visuals on slides
Energizers:
Have a 5 minute vacation break and project vacation DVDs with music. The end of the video signals the end of the break.
Analytical (Blue)
Provide:
Provide a quiet, reflection room with outlets for laptops away from the hubbub of the conference. You can likely get a sponsor for this. Analytical learners need time to pause and reflect on what they are learning.
Presentation:
Use presentations but ensure that they are engaging.
Graphs
Statistics
Start with a "write your own case study" exercise and re-visit it at the end of the presentation.
Energizers:
Candy
Gum
Suduko
Chess sets in Reflection Lounge (Participants will start a game and come back to it during breaks)
Reserve Venues Pool, Billiard or Darts Lounge
Structured (Green)
Provide:
Standard Markers and notepads
Presentation:
Ensure that each presentation has clear objectives, a structured agenda, section introductions and summaries. Keep them brief so that you don't put the kinesthetic learners to sleep.
Use case studies
Charts
Flow Charts
Energizers:
Candy
Gum
Checkers
Number Puzzles
Word Search
Appeals to all Styles
The structure will appeal to structured learners. Analytical learners will benefit from reflecting and providing content. Kinesthetic learners will welcome the opportunity to participate in the role-plays. Incorporate colourful elements or perhaps video tape the scenarios to appeal to visual learners.
Fishbowls
Forum role-plays
Performance
12. Provide USB drive with notes and worksheets that participants can use to apply what they have learned in the general and breakout sessions once they get back to work.
13. Provide videos with conference highlights on Youtube or a dedicated conference website to make it easy for participants to review what they learned during the conference.
14. Follow-up with hashtag chats on Twitter twice a month using the conference hashtag.
Each chat should have a different focus and give participants an opportunity to engage and share success stories and ideas for applying the conference content at work. Involve some of the conference speakers in the Twitter chat.
How it all Comes Together
Re-Engineered Meeting Design:
Preparation:
Learning styles inventories and participant profiles sent out before meeting to assist with planning, crowdsourcing agenda and team formation if required.
CEO presentation to set the stage for the meeting & Identify Business Objectives
Table top exercises in which participants work in small group to identify related issues of concern to their team or department.
Presentation & Practice:
Re-group into cross-functional teams
Team Building Simulation
Recreational activities and team challenges interspersed throughout the session to keep the participants alert, engaged and, most of all, awake
Application:
Debriefing
Presentation
Interactive Presentation and Breakout Sessions with Focus on Key Business Issues Short energizers throughout the sessions
Application:
Business Application Exercises in Original Teams
Business Meeting to Generate Solutions and Formulate an Implementation Plan
Implementation and Follow-up
Re-Engineered Conference Design:
Day 1
AM
Start early on day 1 when delegates are fresh and have a lot of energy
Comments [4]