Learn From Proven Entrepreneurs

On his blog today, Seth Godin said that because travel costs are increasing, conference-goers are demanding to be more engaged.I think most conferences are boring and people have been demanding more engagement since before PowerPoint was invented.

I want to learn to make my events better than anyone else’s. To get some help, I called Francisco Dao, Inc magazine’s leadership columnist, author of Killer Attitude, and founder of (tomorrow night’s) Startup Alliance. Here are some of the techniques he taught me:

Give people something to do – It’s hard for guests to sit still for a long time while someone’s talking at them. Where possible, stop talking and give people opportunities to try what you just taught them.

Illustrate using the audience – I did that at the PR forum. When the reporters taught us how to pitch our story, I asked them to demonstrate their ideas using companies founded by people in the audience.

Give them resources – At the SEO panel, I noticed the audience perk up and grab their pens when BlueSEO gave us a list of sites that will help us come up with our keywords. It’s simple, but it works.

Prep the panelists – The problem with most panels is that panelists are forced to come up with something smart and interesting with a crowd of people staring at them. I’ve found that a 30-minute pre-interview helps me steer a panel properly. (I’ll post my pre-interviews on this blog where possible.)

Keith Ferrazzi says booze helps. I agree, but only after the presentations are done.

What else can we do to make conferences more engaging?