Conferences & Convenings that Engage for Nonprofits & Associations with Lee Gimpel
3/10/2025
“every year we always get a big keynote.
And that keynote is always like an actor or an entertainer or something like that. And that person costs us, 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars and they’re like, it’s glitzy. It’s cool when it’s so and so from that TV series, is that person helping us cure cancer? No, and like honestly, that person’s probably also not really selling tickets.
It’s just every year we get some sort of TV personality to do the keynote. And for me, I say to answer your question of how we fix that. What if we’re really trying to cure cancer and we have a bunch of cancer researchers in the room. Maybe that hour is much better spent in having them instead of having them be talked by, John, from Dallas or something.”
Too many nonprofit and association conferences and convenings are built around logistics and tradition rather than purpose and participation. In episode 144 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Lee Gimpel challenge nonprofit and association leaders to rethink how convenings, conferences, and member events are designed.
They discuss:
why too many gatherings feel like a heavy lift that fails to deliver connection, energy, or real value.
why traditional conference formats fall short—and what leaders can do differently.
How effective events start with purpose, not logistics, and they are designed to tap the collective wisdom already in the room.
By centering participation, intentional connection, and simple facilitation shifts, organizations can transform events from passive, draining experiences into energizing spaces that actually advance mission and strengthen community.
Episode highlights:
[07:00] A Defining Moment: Why So Many Meetings Fall Flat
Lee shares the experience that shaped his work: attending a high-profile gathering that promised inspiration but delivered “death by PowerPoint.” The frustration wasn’t just boredom—it was the waste of collective time, talent, and potential.
[09:00] The Core Problem with Traditional Conferences
Many conferences are designed around logistics rather than people. Leaders focus on rooms, food, and schedules while losing sight of the real purpose: learning, connection, and collective progress. The result is passive audiences and missed opportunities.
[12:00] Start with Purpose: Asking “Why” (Over and Over)
The 5 or 9 whys—asking “why” multiple times to get to the root of the conference’s purpose. When organizations dig past “we’ve always done this” to the deeper purpose, the entire design of an event begins to shift.
[14:30] Rethinking the Keynote Model
High-priced celebrity keynotes often add flash, but little mission value. Lee challenges leaders to consider how that time—and money—might be better spent engaging the expertise already in the room.
[16:45] Participation Over Performance
Post-pandemic, leaders must ask: does this event deliver something people can’t get from their couch? Watching someone talk at a screen—even in person—is rarely enough to justify the cost and time of travel.
[19:30] Simple Design Shifts That Increase Engagement
Without hiring a professional facilitator, leaders can still make meaningful changes:
Shorter presentations
Built-in discussion components
Clear expectations that sessions are participatory, not lecture-based
These small shifts dramatically raise energy and value.
[22:30] Making Q&A Actually Work
Rather than defaulting to “Any questions?” Lee and Carol explore techniques like pair-and-share and written prompts that help surface better questions, reduce grandstanding, and engage more voices.
[25:30] Blending Content and Connection
A reimagined session flow: a brief presentation or interview, followed by structured peer conversation, and then a facilitated dialogue with the speaker. This approach honors expertise while activating collective intelligence.
[31:45] Fixing Networking with Intention
“Networking” doesn’t magically happen just because people share a room. Why intentional design—especially rethinking name tags—to make it easier for people to find relevant connections and have meaningful conversations.
[38:30] Why Receptions Often Miss the Mark
Beautiful spaces, loud bands, and abundant food don’t guarantee connection. Without thoughtful structure, people cluster with those they already know, leaving others isolated and disengaged.
[41:45] The One Question Leaders Must Ask
Lee closes with a challenge: before planning logistics, leaders must pause and ask, Why are we doing this event—and what does success actually look like? Without clarity on purpose, even well-executed events can miss the mark.
Guest Bio:
Lee Gimpel helps organizations design and lead meetings, retreats, and conferences that are more connected and productive. He is the founder ofBetter Meetings, a DC-based facilitation, training, and experience design firm that often works on events with a high need for engagement, collaboration, and networking. Clients include theNational Association of Realtors, Conservation International, Sodexo, and WorldBank. A frequent expert contributor toForbeson the topic of meetings, he created theConference Engagement Cards and serves on the board of the Association of Meeting Professionals
Important Links and Resources:
Facilitation processes mentioned:
World Cafe - https://theworldcafe.com/key-concepts-resources/world-cafe-method/
Peer Consulting - https://contemporaryleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PLC-Whitepaper.pdf
Conversation Cafe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COuFdEouvRQ
Liberating Structures - https://www.liberatingstructures.com/
Pechakucha - https://www.pechakucha.com/
Ignite - https://www.ignitetalks.io/
Related Episodes:
E133: Creating Safer Nonprofit and association spaces
E122: Building community through nonprofits and associations
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Carol Hamilton: I have a confession to make. One of my least favorite things to do as a nonprofit professional is to go to conferences and networking events. Now, this is not because I don't think I can learn something new, I definitely can, or that I don't wanna meet new people. I do. It's because the vast majority of them fall into the traps that my guests today on nonprofit Mission Impact Lee Gimple and I talk about.
Now, sure. I have been to a few well-designed conferences over the years, but sadly out of the hundreds of conferences and networking events that I've been to over the course of my career, I can probably count on one hand the number that I would say were designed in a way that made it really easy for me to reach my goals for going to the event.
Ones where I can say, yes, I learned something. Yes, I met five to 10 interesting new people who I know I will follow up with, and yes, I heard about a new technology or tool or technique that is super relevant to the problems I'm trying to solve in my work. Yes, it was worth the registration fee.
It was worth paying for a flight or a train ride in a hotel room. It was worth eating out for several days. It was worth spending time traveling, waiting at the airport, taking my shoes off at security, dealing with the flight delay, not sleeping well on the first night at the hotel. Standing in long lines for coffee, I don't know whether it's gonna be good or not.
Spending two to three days trapped in an ugly conference center or hotel meeting room with no windows, they really made it worth my time and energy. And again, I can heartily say that for a mere one to 3% of the time, very sadly. Nonprofit, and association leaders really need to rethink how they design convenings, conferences, member events, organizations.
Spent an enormous amount of staff and volunteer time and energy planning these events. And yet too often traditional conference formats, including the flashy keynote, the subject matter expert who reads their PowerPoint slides to you and the networking reception that's crowded and loud, and you have the wonderful opportunity to talk to the random people you happen to be in line with for the buffet.
Sadly, for all that time and effort and money that organizations put into these events and ask their members to put into these events, they actually failed to deliver real connection, energy, or value. Lee and I discussed how to turn this around. We talk about how effective events start with purpose rather than logistics, how they can be intentionally designed to tap into the collective wisdom that's already in the room.
By centering participation, creating opportunities for meaningful connection, and making a few simple shifts in facilitation, leaders can transform events from passive draining experiences to energizing spaces that truly advance the organization's mission and strengthen its community. So sure. Hiring a professional facilitator to help you actually design an experience will really help, especially if you trust and listen to their recommendations.
But we also talk about some simple things that people can do, tweaks that those who are not professional facilitators but are in charge of planning a conference, an event, a workshop, a convening can do to build intentional points of connection into the event. So if you've ever sat through a conference session and wondered, why are there so many smart people sitting here quietly while one person drones on while they click through a set of slides and then walked outta the room thinking there has got to be a better way to do this.
This conversation is for you.
[STANDARD INTRO AND AD BREAK]
Welcome Lee. Welcome to Nonprofit Mission Impact.
Lee Gimpel: All right, great. Thank you. I appreciate being here.
Carol: So I'd like to start each episode out with a question about what drew you to the work that you do. What would you describe as your why or your motivation?
Lee: Yeah. I guess it's a bit of a story in the sense that this is. Years ago when I was doing some other work actually a lot of it was in the sort of the nonprofit realm. It was from a financial education. And I went to this conference and it's like this amazing space.
And we were up on top of a skyscraper sort of penthouse space. And they called together maybe a hundred, 200 like really great people, like real leaders in space and. We were supposed to have this great gathering and it ended up just being dead by PowerPoint. And I sat there at my table and I just, I was watching PowerPoint and I was watching PowerPoint and people were just reading these slides into the record. And I was really frustrated. It was, it felt like it was a real waste of my time, but it also really felt like it was a waste of the system's time or the entire network. When you go into something thinking this is gonna be invigorating it's going to be productive and we're gonna really make connections and we're gonna get stuff done.
And then not only do you not do that, but you feel like the whole time was wasted. To me, I just feel like that's probably the thing that gets me outta bed in the morning is looking at instances like that where we say we're bringing people together. We really want this to be. Productive and encouraging and energizing not a waste. We don't, people want people walking away as a waste. So I think about that moment a lot. And I think there's, I think we've all been in those of
Carol: Too many.
Lee: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I, that's, if I could change those, if I could go back in time and that meeting was what I think I can do with the meeting today. I'd be much happier. I probably wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing. Yeah.
Carol: Yeah you talked about, the work that you do in terms of working with organizations who, most of the organizations that we work with, nonprofits of all sorts, es especially associations, often have one of their core offerings is convenings, conferences, summits and. People come to them with expectations of meeting people.
That's one of the primary things that associations know that their members want. And yet traditional conferences are actually designed. It is almost like somebody said, let's figure out a way to make sure that nobody has any productive conversations.
Lee: Yeah. Yeah.
Carol: Tell me about your pet peeves at traditional conferences.
Lee: It's a very long list. I don't
We've got time for that, but yeah I think in a way, if you've seen one conference, you've seen them all. I think you. I know you have a very thorough facilitation background, so you have lots of tricks in your bag but I think most conferences don't, and I think most conferences are really driven by logistics, and they're driven by. not driven by the people really. The, the people planning conferences, and I don't mean this as anything offensive, I hope, but I think the people who are often planning those events are really thinking about how many seats do we need and how many projectors and, what are the appetizers gonna be and how many plates do we need for lunch?
We lose sight of what is the reason for this event. And I think this event is often, it's to share knowledge, it's to, to share best practices, it's to connect people. And you walk away from that event saying we really didn't do the thing that we were here for. I think within that idea of being logistics driven I think there's just too much of a focus on. Sort of the trappings of what happens at an event and and we just see the same event over and over again. So we see, I mean like everyone could probably do this agenda on their own. When you say what does an event look like? We get there in the morning and there's the quote unquote networking breakfast, and there's no, no actual networking.
It's just people like sitting on their own, looking at their phones, like there's no networking happening. It feels quite lonely and low energy. We go in, it's like a presentation by the president. A welcome, we're just static. We're being talked to. The keynote comes up, we're static and we're being talked at, maybe there's a little break, and then we have breakouts and then we're static and being talked at.
And it's like this whole day of you've got really smart people in a room who are just being talked to. And I think if I could throw a switch that's the thing that I would change. And I guess my big pet peeve is we're not participants in our own experience. And I think particularly. Post COVID. My hope is that there was some recognition that if we're going to an event, that it's outperforming what I could do at home, sitting in my pajamas watching Zoom. And I, I think events, even in person, you're still watching a screen. It just happens to be the screen is right there in front of you and it's 20 feet square instead of small.
So I, did I really need to fly to Vegas to watch? I don't think so. I'm there for the experience.
Carol: So what are some of the things that you work with groups to do to help them break out of that? Just, let's all sit in rows and watch somebody talk to us through their PowerPoint.
Lee: Yeah. The first thing and I'm sure this resonates with you, is we go back to the purpose, right? And we say I like using five whys or nine whys for that. But it's as simple as walking people through. Why are you doing this event? And I think many, in many cases, they don't really know.
And again, I don't mean that as some sort of offensive thing, but what often happens is someone gets hired to deliver this event and we've been doing it for 20 years. It's our annual conference. And, there's a whole thick manual of all the logistics that go into it. And it really becomes like follow, follow the lines or, connect all the dots that, that we've had before. So I think the first thing that I would say in terms of fixing that pet peeve, the many pet peeves that I have is just going back to, to purpose and why this exists. So for me we'll do it here actually. I'll have you. Me, in this thing or something.
And I'll be the client, but, so all you're gonna do is you're just gonna ask me why. It's super simple. I say we're having the annual conference of the National Association of Pediatric Oncology, Kids in Cancer. So a national conference. So all you say is why are you doing this conference?
Carol: Why are you doing this conference, Lee?
Lee: It's so good. And I say it's at our annual conference. We do it every year.
Carol: Why do you do it every year?
Lee: It's actually part of our bylaws. When the association was founded, it was founded to do an annual conference, and this is something that we have to do.
Carol: So why do you have to do it
Lee: Yeah. And it's, so we do it to bring members together. We want our membership to come together. I,
Carol: And why do you wanna bring your members together?
Lee: To improve research outcomes for our cancer. Studies. I think you've got one more here. Is that right?
Carol: And why is it important to improve research outcomes for your studies?
Lee: Yeah. Yeah. So the last one that we might end on is because we're trying to eliminate childhood cancer in the next 10 years or something.
And I think once we start with that and we put it on the wall, it becomes quite different than just saying we executed this booklet every year, and that was a success because. A lot of these conferences, even if they had a really great conference, events, whatever, it could be an award show or something. Even if it had a really great mission at the start, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, often it's drifted and the context has changed and the world has changed. And that thing that we started 20 years ago, that's not why we're doing the thing today. So I think that's probably the easiest one.
And I think then when you start looking at your. At your agenda, your schedule, or what you're trying to do or frankly, even if you should be doing a conference, like maybe something else is better to fit that mission or that objective. You'll look at it and you'll say, oh, every year we always get a big keynote.
And that keynote is always like an actor or an entertainer or something like that. And that person costs us, 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars and they're like, it's glitzy. It's cool when it's so and so from that TV series, is that person helping us cure cancer? No, and like honestly, that person's probably also not really selling tickets.
It's just every year we get some sort of TV personality to do the keynote. And for me, I say to answer your question of how we fix that. What if we're really trying to cure cancer and we have a bunch of cancer researchers in the room. Maybe that hour is much better spent in having them instead of having them be talked by, John, from Dallas or something.
Carol: Even if it's a medical show, like I'm not a, I'm not a doctor. I play one on tv. Let me talk to you.
Lee: shows out there. Instead of somebody talking about being a doctor or whatever it is we spend that time and to me, I think my. My instinct is to say, how do we get people to participate and collaborate and talk together and stuff?
And you look at this room and there's maybe a thousand researchers in there, in that room that each have 20 years of experience. There's 20,000 years of cumulative experience in that world, in that room. How do we tap into that? And to me then I think it gets back to a lot of the facilitative structures that, that I know are familiar to you, maybe it's a fishbowl, maybe it's some sort of peer consulting network.
Maybe it's some sort of better form of round tables or World Cafe. I think. A couple things happen. One is we don't worry about all the logistics of getting this celebrity here and paying for that, paying for the logistics and all the flights and all that stuff. We don't pay for that person's speaking fee, which often saves us money. But then we do this thing that really helps us do what we wanna do with this conference in terms of curing cancer and sharing knowledge and connecting different researchers in different institutions. And it's energizing and like people feel like they're part of something. I think we kill a lot of birds with that one stone.
And I think it just starts with us going like why are we doing this thing? And in a way it, it writes itself. I dunno if that makes sense.
Carol: So obviously having somebody who can facilitate those kinds of things and knows all of those structures that you just rattled off would make it easier. But if folks don't have that person, what are some of the, a couple simple things that they can do that brings in more participation, makes networking.
Not just milling around and everyone's staring at their phones, but actually interacting and having a conversation. What are some simple things that groups can do?
Lee: The first thing that I would say is when, and people often when they play these events, I think. Do so with good intentions, and they say it's gonna be a mix of content and connection like never the twain shall meet, right? There's always this sort of like wall between, there's connection, there's the coffee break, and then there's content and there's the keynote.
And those things never, they never come together. And I think when you look at an agenda for the generic conference that everyone's been to. often looks like 30, 40, 50% of the conference is connection, which is the thing that drive I think in the end, that really what gets us to this event and what adds value.
And when you say,
Carol: Certainly in person, right? Especially with I think it was a given right before the pandemic and then everyone moved there. Same event online, so people were then listening to people talk to them from a smaller computer screen as you said. But now I think the demand to make it worth my time to take the hassle of traveling is even more certain for me.
Lee: Yeah. Yeah. If I could sit at home and do this in my pajamas, why am I, and I think, if we're talking about an audience here for folks that are doing nonprofit work. It is expensive in terms of time and money
Carol: Absolutely.
Lee: Right? Be it in Vegas or Tulsa or wherever that thing is. I'm out of the office and, personally, I may have to figure out childcare or like my pets or whatever, but then, it's flights and meals and lodging and the registration. It's thousands of dollars and time out of the office. So better really be worthwhile. And I think that's it. I think that's a question that a lot of organizations are now struggling with if we do these events. People are pushing back and saying, I don't know that it's worthwhile. I don't know that I need to go to this event, especially if I've been to this event five or 10 times. I used to go every year. You guys are just recycling the same event. You just get a different keynote speaker and then everything looks the same. Yeah I think that engagement question to me is really central. And yeah, if people don't have the professional, the facilitator, whatever, what would you, so the first thing that I would say is let's look at our schedules and be honest about that.
And say, if connection is a really big driver, if engagement is a really big driver, if sitting in a room and being talked to is maybe not the biggest driver of getting people there. It almost never happens that someone comes back from a conference and they're like, oh my god, session
Carol: I saw the greatest PowerPoint.
Lee: Yeah, slide number 27. It is just like crystallized things. It's almost always, I met Carol in, I happen to be sitting next to Carol at breakfast and she is an amazing person for strategy with nonprofits and she cracked the code for me. It's because you were at the same place at the same time and you got lucky, not that someone was at some session.
So I think that's often what happens. And so when we look at those agendas or those schedules. It often looks like 30, 40, 50% is connected. It's an hour-long networking break in the, or breakfast in the morning. It's two coffee breaks that are networking coffee breaks that are 15 minutes and then it's an evening reception.
But then when you put this under the microscope and you say. That morning networking breakfast that you list as an hour, is it, are people really in there networking for an hour? People go no. In the last five minutes they grab a coffee and then, in a bagel, they sit there and they eat it awkwardly in front of them, when the keynote's talking or the people who already know each other, who all flew out from the same office in Detroit, sit together.
And the three of them just talk about the same thing that they always talk about when they're in Detroit. I don't know that we really got a lot of networking out of that. And then we say, okay, we've got these two 15 minute coffee networking breaks. And I know that's always the buffer time. So when our keynote runs long or things start late, we take it outta that networking connection time. So 15 minutes becomes 10, and then it takes time for us to get outta the room, and then people are gonna go to the bathroom, and then maybe they're gonna grab some coffee and then they've gotta run down a quarter mile long hallway. When do they do that? Networking, if that's the thing that's really important.
So I, I think even if it's not, me as a professional or you as a facilitator, like running some session, just simply saying, the engagement part, this connection part is really important. And when you reduce it down to one minute of running down the hole, maybe you're gonna get lucky. I think it's hard to say that I got a lot of value out of that conference. The other piece that I would say is. You don't, it's your conference, right? Or it's your event. You get to set the ground rules. It can be as simple as we don't allow PowerPoint or we only allow four slides or we do something like that.
Or every session has to have a discussion component or something like that. And a bit of a blunt object to hit people with. It's also probably 10 times better than what's gonna happen without that rule. I think it forces people to say, even though I think I'm the expert on, or I'm preparing to speak, I'm doing a pitch to, to speak. Huh. Instead of me talking for an hour and then saving four minutes for questions at the end. This conference is saying I only get 30 minutes to speak and then 30 minutes as people discussing what I just spoke about. Okay. And that person still gets to be the expert. They still get to be at the front of the room. But I think there's a lot of levers like that. And I think, and I would probably say that most round tables that people are running are not well done. Great round tables. There's just not a lot of thought. And technically they're just not done well. They're often better than not doing something.
So are you and I gonna probably organize a round table that's like a World cafe or a conversation cafe or there, there's some actual format that works better than just 10 people at a giant table and give them half an hour and hope for the best. Like but I think there's still a lot of that connection that's still probably even if it's bad, versus just sitting in a room and watching panel number seven, with, and panel number seven has nine people on it who we just like. Politically, they all need to be
Carol: Here.
Lee: So it's a 30 minute panel with nine people. You need to talk for a minute and a half, so I think there's lots of really low hanging fruit with these conferences. And I'm gonna let you ask another question instead of spending the entire time talking about how I would, what levers I would throw here.
Carol: It's interesting that you talk about just asking speakers to incorporate a discussion element
Lee: Yeah.
Carol: I've worked with groups to try to help them do that, and it's so interesting how folks one, they will default to the q and a, and the first question is in the beginning of the q and a.
Does anyone have any questions? The answer is almost always no. Versus what questions do you have and folks might actually have them. Or, another simple way is to leave everybody an index card and have them write questions as they go and hand them up so that you don't, you don't have the pontificator who's just giving a speech, not asking a question, but it's so hard for folks.
It's interesting to me that it's hard for folks to think of anything other than that, versus. Let me think of a couple questions that could be a reflection question. You know what you just heard? What you know, what, what's resonating for you? What surprised you? What do you agree with?
What do you not agree with? What questions do you have? And I think the other thing that I've seen with folks who aren't skilled facilitators who are doing a presentation is when they get into that mode. Then they overload people with questions. They do what I just did, and they give them six questions to answer instead of, let's start with one, come back to, and make it manageable for people.
So folks then stare at their partner and they're like, what? What were you supposed to talk about?
Lee: Yeah. I should let you ask a question here, but I'm
Carol: So we should go. We 'll start with yeah. So facilitation is a real skill that people learn and you could, as you suggested, skip the keynote and hire somebody to help you facilitate the whole event versus trying to learn some of these tricks. But you know what, so that's one way, right?
Ask your presenters to incorporate, a discussion element, not just a q and a
Lee: Yeah.
Carol: into their segment. What are some other things, especially with the networking pieces, right? That, that, that lunch or that breakfast or that reception, what are some things that you can do to really help people actually make connections and.
Lee: I feel like we didn't practice this, but I feel like we just did you, I feel like you teed me up with joining those two things. So how do we do more engagement and less talking, and then also at the same time how do we do more? And I like almost the way you said it assumes that they could happen at the same time, but I think most people, like I said, like there's this great wall in between those things.
Carol: Right.
Lee: We see a content session and like people talk at you and you listen, and then there's a connection session and now this is networking. And I think there's no reason why those things can't happen at the same time and we can't have
Carol: Absolutely.
Lee: connected to content and content that's connected to connection.
And I'm gonna show you. A little sketchier that is very battered at this point. And I'll try and talk it through for folks that are just listening on the audio. And so the first thing that we see is like the way conferences tend to be and this is almost all conferences are built around, let's say it's an hour long session and there's. Two, three minutes at the beginning. And I introduced Carol as an expert on nonprofit strategy. And then, Carol's got, she basically on her own, right? You've got 45, 50 minutes to fill up there and you're almost always gonna do a PowerPoint because that's what everyone does.
And that's what the expectation was. And when you signed up to do this speaking gig, or when they asked you for your presentation and they wanted you to get it. It's very driven towards that, that PowerPoint thing. Here's Carol or whoever standing in front of this room for 45, 50, 55 minutes doing a presentation.
And we all know what happens despite the best of intentions, many of us, most of us are not professional speakers, and we don't have the time and we don't have the training. It's not a TED talk and like we just it's people doing their very best. And that often means writing this thing out and then putting it on slides and then just reading the slides.
So it's really hard to make this great without spending lots of time on it. And I think. People have in their minds like, we're gonna do a Ted, our speakers are gonna be like TED speakers. And I think it's an innocent question that I ask, but it's almost always the same way, which is at a TED Talk or a TED conference.
It's Bill Gates or it's someone who's like the most famous, most interesting, most whatever. Someone in the world, most knowledgeable on this thing talking about, like the most interesting topic in the world. They get 18 minutes and they're coached and they probably spend a hundred hours on those 18 minutes. And it's very highly produced and practiced and everything. Then when I say, okay, conference, the local conference person tells me about your conference. And they're like not Bill Gates, it's the assistant deputy, store manager, talking about some change in accounting, something. And it's an hour and that person has gotten no, no coaching, no help, no nothing whatsoever. So if we go back here, intro, we basically leave somebody out to drive for, or somebody out to drive for, 45, 50, 55 minutes. And then if we're lucky, if this thing didn't start late or this person didn't run long, we have four or five minutes for questions at the end, it's not super satisfying.
And I think the other thing here is often in a room, even if this person who's talking. Is an expert on this topic and has 30 or 40 years of expertise on it. The room is almost always way smarter, right? The room of a thousand people who are 20 years old has 20,000 years of experience, and we don't tap into any of that.
We don't do any of the connections. Trying to describe this picture on audio, probably the biggest prescription or the most common prescription that I write for conferences is if you do nothing else, I think you can make this change to your standard presentations, which is, introduce my speaker.
I still say Carol's great and she's super smart at strategy. Then we do something shorter. That's not 45 minutes to leave you all alone on the stage with PowerPoint, but it's maybe 15 minutes or it's 20 minutes and like it's still a PowerPoint. Maybe it's a PechaKucha or something like more structured or ignite talk. Maybe it's an interview, right? You get somebody who's like a client or a friend or something and they interview you. It doesn't have to be hard hitting. Gotcha. It's just way easier like we're doing now to answer questions than if right now if I was having to do a presentation on this, it would be a much bigger lift.
So let's say that's 15 minutes and then the next block to me is where the magic happens, where we blend connection and content and we say. We wanna, we want questions for our speaker, for Carol, or we want comments or what's working or what do you agree with, or whatever that is. But like to get there instead of, Hey, first hand up, what do you think?
Which is almost never the best question in the room. It's
Carol: Nope.
Lee: Big guy named Steve, who just wants to tell you how smart he is, right? So now that doesn't work. So the alternative here is like an interview, or a sorry introduction, maybe an interview or something short. And then we have people just talk to each other, maybe twos or threes or fours. And maybe you're at a table, but also if you're sitting theater style, which is miserable, like you can turn to the person next to you and you just say, what would you wanna ask our speaker? Or Is this working for you?
Or what questions do you have? Then we have to narrow those down. And I think it does a lot of things. One, just the energy in the room goes up, the engagement in the room goes up. The number of people who are connecting and making those connections goes up. I think it's an energy break unless you have an amazing presenter.
Usually the energy of someone just talking at you is quite low. And then I think that filter mechanism of, if you just say first hand up or whoever's got a question. What tends to happen is when people, in groups of twos or threes are talking over the questions that they want to ask. It tends to filter out the grandstanding or whatever, and someone will say, I once did this and I wanna tell people how smart I'm, and someone else in the group is really good. But I think as a group we'd like to ask this question and it's quite humane and I think subtle the way that happens. And then we save the rest of, whatever it is, 15, 20, 25 minutes. And we come back to our expert and our expert takes those questions and takes those comments. still the same hour. It's still that same, person gets to look famous and look important and be in front of the room. But I think we tap into the expertise of the room more. We make more connections. There's more energy. It's more fun. It's still, and I think it's just an easier logistics lift in many cases. 'cause it's like we don't worry so much about the presentation and all this stuff. And I think it feels lighter and. And more community driven. And I think that's often why we do these events . It is a community thing, not a 10 important people talking to a thousand people like the Plebes. So yeah I think that's probably
Carol: That's a simple one, right? So
Lee: simple.
Carol: You're generating, you're actually generating a good set of questions for that q and a. So it goes to that kind of traditional structure, but yet making sure that it actually happens. And then you're also getting people to talk to each other. Very, like you said, even in theater style, you can turn to your neighbor and have a quick conversation and, asking them to not only brainstorm the questions, but then, choose their favorite one or two that kind of brings that filter to, like what are the key questions that people need to ask.
Lee: I'll just briefly add onto that it's a room of a thousand people and it's, whatever, 300 groups of three. Are they all gonna follow your directions? Are they all gonna come up with No? And some of them are gonna say, I've got a question about, solving this thing, this cancer lipid question or something.
And someone else goes, that's exactly the work that I'm doing. And they go off on this little thing and they like to solve some little thing right in between them. And I don't get a question from that group, but you know what,
Carol: You create a connection.
Lee: Yeah. Yeah.
Carol: And. The person couldn't handle the, if it was a thousand questions anyway
and there's gonna be a lot of duplication probably, right? They're gonna let
Lee: Yeah.
Carol: a lot of the common questions. So that's a very simple thing to do for your standard kind of session. How about a simple thing to do ? We started out with the dim description of the sad networking breakfast where everybody rushes in the last five minutes. Of course breakfast is hard because you have to, so let's put it, let's have lunch. Most people will go to lunch just 'cause they want to get fed.
So what's one thing that groups can do to make that lunch work better
Lee: Yeah.
Carol: be more about connection?
Lee: Yeah, so I, I'll I should say that you asked me something earlier and it was like, if you don't have Lee, what do you do? And I should I should mention that I run into this lot in the sense that, I think lots of people wanna fix events, but they don't wanna go through the process of hiring me. And so I've been on this quest over the last couple years to basically collect all of these, not all, to collect hundreds of these ideas and put them in one, like one box. So I've now come down to its 60. It'll be about 60 tactics to use. And I think for most folks who are planning events. really driven by the, the content and we're really driven by the logistics. And I think there's often just not much recognition or tactics of how do we do the connection piece or the networking piece, or the engagement piece. And so it gets LA less left to the last minute.
And I know that because sometimes I get calls, which is like our conferences next week, and we have, we've been planning it for a year and just now, we're thinking like, oh. We don't really know what's gonna happen at the reception or if it's gonna be successful. That should be out in the next few months.
So it actually, I know folks on the podcast want too, but so like a proper deck of cards, right? And then each card basically, it's like a three by five card of here's what to do. And I think I would sleep very well at night knowing that even if I don't ever meet anyone. And have that conversation.
But for someone to say, oh, I think I could do this technique where we just insert the conversation in the middle of an hour instead of only taking three questions at the end and people are being talked at. So I think it's lots of stuff like that. A lot of those over the years that I have borrowed, steeled, whatever stolen it comes from seeing it and trying it and hearing from other folks and it's fun.
I would say be at the breakfast, be at the lunch, be at the reception. One of the things that I don't know is a facilitation technique, but is more just like an event technique. I am a huge believer in name tags. I'm a name tag, nerd. And so I'll try and describe this again for the audio folks.
When we look at most name tags, actually most name tags are just like a name. Then maybe a title, and then maybe an organization or something. And I, particularly being here in DC in the nonprofit space, we have a lot of these abbreviated things. So like you'll see someone who, in this case it says Pat Vasquez, assistant professor, C-S-U-M-B. Eh, I'm judging an assistant professor, not a full professor of what, I don't know. C-S-U-M-B. I don't know what that is or what it stands for. There's no reason for me to stop and talk to Pat other than I know Pat's name. And I think that sort of breaks down the little barrier that makes it okay to say, Hey Pat, where'd you come in from? But it's not, I think it still then leads to us going. So what do you do Pat? And Pat then tells it and it's not very helpful and it's frustrating. So every, I have a whole string of name tags over here, and they all basically look the same. Many of them have a huge logo that takes up most of the space and then a very tiny print and it's just something that I think is so helpful for networking, regardless of breakfast or lunch or the reception or whatever it is. This to me is a really important key that we often played out. So what I would say. Folks, let's put more information on there. Let's downplay this giant logo. Let's actually think about the human factors of, can I read it? And, when it's turned around, can I not read it?
If it's turned around, like I, I think even though it's a 50 50 shot, 90% of the time name tags are turned around,
Carol: somehow that always happens. Yes.
Lee: But, so in this case I've got my name right. It's Pat Vasquez. And it says, looking for data visualization. And then talk to me about, and I've got a couple things here.
Peptide signaling, mountain biking, mentoring programs, right? I did not think about this. To go back, like the TED conferences do a nice job of this like that. Other folks have done stuff like this. It is way, way easier to walk up and see, you can read it and you say, oh my god, pat you're looking for help with data visualization.
That, that's what I do. I'm an expert in data visualization. a very natural easy start, and I think you both walk away from that conversation feeling like that was helpful and productive instead of what do you do? Or Was your flight delayed? Or, boy, it sure is hot here in Orlando in the summer, and we all flew out to this really important conference and we're talking about how hot it is or how cold it is, or, our flight delays. Or just going through our resume, what do you do? And really the thing is not, it's not what do you do, it's what do you need or what do you need help with and what are you interested in? So I'm doing an end around, end run around your question of, what would you do for lunch or breakfast. I think this thing that persists on our person at almost all events is done. Without a lot of thought or a lot of intention. And I think just a couple tweaks there, make it so much easier for you to meet the right people and have the right conversations. And it's not, it's not rocket science. You don't need a lead to coach you through that. You just say oh, our old name tags are not very good. We change 'em and put something else on
Carol: We're gonna change, use them for different things and have different fields. Yeah, I love that, I'm looking for what you need? I know I've done events with you where you've, if it hasn't been on the name tag, it's been a session where there've been boards and names, and then people find each other.
But the name tag makes it even easier.
Lee: yeah
Carol: And then the other part's what can I help with? Or, other things, other fun things to talk about that are a little more memorable than, yeah. What's your title for this? Acronyms that I don't understand.
Lee: I think networking at events or social events, here in the DC area. There's tons of, like socials and networking events and stuff and I think mostly what we do is we just dump people or we like, what mostly happens is we just dump people into a room and the right people are there.
To go back to my first example of my, my why, what gets me outta bed in the morning, it's like the right people are there. we just expect mag magic to happen and people tell me this oh, we have a networking session at our conference. I go, that's awesome.
Tell me about your networking session or your reception. They go, oh, we have this beautiful broom and the lighting is amazing. And and I
Carol: The music is really loud and.
Lee: Yeah. That's a big piece of it. People go, we have this great band, and you go and who's the conference? And they're like the Minnesota Association of 60-year-old podiatrists.
And you're like. They might be a group that's gonna throw down and they really want to be like a big, loud band, but they probably wanna talk about podiatry, right? I think again, it goes back to the book and executes the book. And the book says get a band. And we always get a band without thinking. Whenever we get a band, actually everyone leaves the place where the band is and they go and they hang out at the hotel bar and they talk there. We just spent $10,000 on this band and it was too loud and it was hard there. Yeah but so we bring people into this room and we say, it's this big room.
It's amazing, and I go and tell me about the room. They go, oh God, there's this huge spread and there's hummus and there's this amazing cheese plate. It's amazing. Okay. And so then what happens? They go and we open the doors at five o'clock and people come in. I go, great.
And then what happens? And they go and people network. And then I push back a little bit. 'cause that's what I do. And I go, but do they really? Do they, and people go. No, you're right. They really don't. The people who know each other, the people from Detroit who have all come together, they know each other and like the board, you often see the board with all their name tags hanging out together.
They all know each other. Then you see a whole bunch of other people checking their phones or just like eating cheese in a lonely way by themselves. and so
Carol: And ask or if they're really bold asking each other about how their flight went to get there.
Lee: Yeah. But I, do these magic hallway moments happen or these magic like cheese plate moments happen? They certainly do. But do they happen and un-like without intention enough times and with enough regularity and with enough value to say should spend this $5,000 to go to this event in Chicago. I might meet someone by the cheese plate, I might. And I think that to me is if that's where the value is, let's engineer that. In a good, benevolent way, I can help people with something as silly and stupid as a name tag of saying I'm trying to start a mentoring program. It's amazing how people will come up to you and tell you about the mentoring programs that they are in or have started or running instead of just so I see you're from DC times in dc and then, we're talking about, politics in DC instead of, what I wanna talk about, which is. This mentoring program?
Carol: So just to close out, what's one question you would have? Nonprofit and association leaders ask themselves to be more strategic about their conferences and their meetings and member events. One question.
Lee: Tell me again. I just blanked out. I didn't hear you quit.
Carol: What's one question that you would ask? You would have association leaders ask themselves to be more strategic about their conferences and events?
Lee: About events and doing conferences. Yeah.
Carol: Yeah.
Lee: I guess I go back to, I guess it's those five questions of why? But to really push yourself there is I think it's really easy to get on autopilot and say. We're gonna, either we've been doing this event for 20 years and we're gonna keep doing this event. Or we're starting, someone has an idea, we should do an event, and then we're just off and running and next thing like we've rever we've re we have reserved space and we've got speakers and all this stuff. Just, I think for someone to take to put on the brakes and tap the brakes and go, whoa. What are we trying to do here? And for me, the work that I do is helping people fix their events in many cases. And I think I often inherit events that either have just like they're on this autopilot mode and it's hard to get them off that, someone has said, our CEO said we should have an event.
So we went, we planned this event, we went and reserved, we reserved space at the Hilton and we've already booked all these speakers before, like really asking, what are we trying to do here? You end up with we are in the wrong space. Like it turns out the thing that probably would've served this group better is like one giant room that we could subdivide or everyone's gonna go through this whole experience together. Or on the other hand, it's we don't need a giant room at all. We just need 20 breakout rooms. And they were like, oh, we didn't think about that. We just went and got space. Where people will commit to. We really know that we need to have these eight funders here. So we've asked all of the eight funders to speak at this event.
And you're like what's the event about? And they're like it's connecting, the actual people in the trenches, in the field at our, in our network. You're like, okay, so what are the funders gonna do? And they're like, no, the funders are just gonna talk about, so you're like. Okay, we've already filled up our day with stuff that isn't quite what we're trying to do. So I think just tapping the brakes and saying like, why are we doing this event and what does success look like? What do we wanna hold in our hand at the end? And I think that's often not there.
Like success for an event is often just judged on, did we
And did it
Carol: How many people showed up. Came.
Lee: Exactly.
Carol: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lee. I appreciate it.
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