Evaluating conferences is a crucial skill for conference organizers, speakers, and attendees. It helps you measure the impact, satisfaction, and value of your events, and identify areas for improvement. However, evaluating conferences can also be challenging, time-consuming, and subjective. How can you evaluate conferences more effectively? Here are some tips and methods to help you.
Before you start evaluating your conference, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Your indicators should be quantitative or qualitative data that reflect your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase the attendance of your conference, your indicators could be the number of registrations, tickets sold, or attendees checked in.
I always start with brainstorming. Go for quantity NOT quality. Use these prompts when brainstorming: - Why does the business need a conference? - What happens 12 months after this conference? - If you were really lucky, what should happen to the conference? - If money or skills weren’t an issue, what would be the ideal scenario of the conference? That should trigger some interesting goals.
There are many ways to evaluate conferences, depending on your goals, indicators, and resources. Some of the most common methods are surveys, feedback forms, interviews, focus groups, observations, and analytics. Surveys and feedback forms are easy to administer and analyze, but they may suffer from low response rates, bias, or incomplete answers. Interviews and focus groups are more in-depth and interactive, but they require more time, skills, and preparation. Observations and analytics are objective and reliable, but they may not capture the full experience or opinions of your participants.
Once you have decided on your evaluation methods, you need to design your evaluation tools accordingly. Your tools should be clear, concise, relevant, and engaging. For example, if you use surveys or feedback forms, you should use simple and direct questions, avoid jargon and ambiguity, use multiple-choice or Likert scales for quantitative data, and open-ended questions for qualitative data. You should also use incentives, reminders, and follow-ups to increase the response rate and quality.
Don't forget to get feedback from your conference participants. 3 ways I regularly use: - Approach people during conference for a 5 minute recorded feedback session - Send out a survey 1 day after - Integrate a suggestion box or include it as an activity for a small reward, i.e. $10 gift voucher for Starbucks
The next step is to collect and analyze your data using your evaluation tools. You should collect your data as soon as possible after the conference, while the memories and impressions are still fresh. You should also ensure that your data is accurate, complete, and secure. To analyze your data, you should use appropriate techniques and software, depending on the type and amount of data you have. For example, you can use descriptive statistics, charts, and graphs for quantitative data, and thematic analysis, coding, and quotes for qualitative data.
The final step is to report and share your results with your stakeholders, such as your sponsors, partners, speakers, and attendees. Your report should be concise, informative, and actionable. It should include an executive summary, an introduction, a methodology, a results section, a discussion section, and a conclusion. You should also include recommendations, best practices, and lessons learned for future conferences. You should share your report in a timely and accessible manner, using different formats and channels, such as email, social media, blog posts, or webinars.
Evaluating conferences is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process of learning and improvement. You should always seek feedback and suggestions from your stakeholders on how to improve your evaluation process and tools. You should also review and update your goals and indicators regularly, and compare your results with previous or similar conferences. By doing so, you will be able to evaluate conferences more effectively, and deliver better value and satisfaction to your participants.