simple example: Someone at some point
thought up that PowerPoint presentations
were too long and they just came up with
the idea, “You know what? Let’s just do 20
seconds for each slide, how many slides
would be useful? Well . . . if a person can’t
explain what is really relevant in 20 slides
they’re not worth their salt, so let’s do 20
slides, 20 seconds each.” And PechaKucha
was born. Now that was creative. All of the
rest is craftsmanship though, everyone can
apply PechaKucha, and I don’t think that
applying PechaKucha is necessarily being
creative or has anything really to do with
meeting design but it does have to do with
improving meeting processes.
“What I
hope is that
people get
inspired by
[the book]
to see that
there are so
many opportunities
to make
meetings
more
effective.”
What are the elements that make a
successful meeting designer?
The irst, and most important, is a sound
dose of common sense. You have to be able
to take what people say and determine the
real truth. The ability then to connect that
with stuff in the outside world is essential.
I think you also have to be very curious
as a meeting designer. You have to be curious
constantly about what is happening around
you in society—a bit like a good investigative
journalist. I think you have to have a good
sense of the relationship between form and
content. If your client wants to do something
with a certain bit of content, you have to have
some idea of how that content can translate
into some sort of form and preferably something else other than just a monologue or
a presentation, so you have to have an idea
of what you can do in terms of forms with
groups of people. That’s the basic material
that you work with—groups of people—
that’s your clay or your paint or whatever it is.
I think the journalist approach, the common sense and the applied art are all really
essential. You can’t design meetings if you
don’t have those.
– Mike van
der Vijver
5 PRINCIPLES
OF MEETING
DESIGN
The following principles are
identified in MPI’s comprehensive Meeting Design toolkit,
which includes how-to documents, worksheets, a case study,
education on the formats and phases and much more. The toolkit
debuts at IncentiveWorks, Aug. 19-21, and will be available to MPI
members at no cost at www.mpiweb.org/FOM. BY J O H N N AW N
ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION
Set clear, measurable goals before you begin
designing your meeting so that afterwards,
you can determine your ROI. Assessment and
evaluation are bookends that give meaning
to all other meeting elements. Without these,
other fundamentals will be at risk or fail.
EXPERIENCE
Ready
to define
your own
meeting
design?
Andrea Driessen’s
column online at
http://mpi.to/Aug
Design offers some
unique ideas for
breaking away from
traditional meeting
formats, whether
you have five attendees or 5,000.
The Right
Ingredients
What cooking
What’s your favorite part of the meeting
school can teach
design process?
us about meeting
What I really like is to dive into the condesign. Check out
tent and get a real understanding about
more online at
http://mpi.to/Aug
what is it about the content that the meetCookery.
ing owner wants to accomplish. What sort
of change should happen in the course of
the meeting? How should it transform the
participants? I also very much like the part where as the meeting
designer you have to come up with the forms and formats for the
meeting, and I like presenting the programs or facilitating—so
actually getting the chance to work hands-on with the group of
people for whom you created the content.
Design a meeting with the participant
in mind—not just in selling a product or
providing a service, but also in creating a
meaningful and memorable experience. The
world is awash in bad design. Meetings are
no exception.
DISTRIBUTED LEARNING
Provide people the info they need to know
when they need to know it in a manner that’s
convenient for them. The top two reasons
people attend meetings are the educational
programs and the networking. It’s really all
about knowledge retention and transfer.
COLLABORATION
Tap into the collective intelligence of the
group to better understand its needs, generate new ideas, determine best solutions and
put plans into action. One of the key reasons
people meet is to address some goal, challenge or problem. And in that pursuit, the wisdom of the crowd is an invaluable resource.
MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT
Connect with other people, physically,
intellectually and especially emotionally.
Emotionally engaged people perform better
and have higher job satisfaction. Meetings
should not be impersonal affairs during which
strangers are thrown together and left to fend
for themselves.
Download
MPI’s Meeting
Design toolkit at
www.mpiweb.org/FOM,
available August 20.
The Meeting Design toolkit was supported by PSAV, Jumeirah Hotels &
Resorts, Omni Hotels & Resorts and the MPI Foundation.
Originally published in the August 2013 edition of MPI's "The Meeting Professional" magazine.
20 THE MEETING PROFESSIONAL AUGUST 2013
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