Person-Centered Agendas

What is a Person-Centered Agenda?

Person-Centered Events(tm) are events designed to address the needs of a wide variety of attendees and their individual needs. An agenda that is Person-Centered is: flexible, organic, customizable, and integrated in such a way that while it is flexible, it will also achieve the key objectives and community-building goals of the brand that is presenting the event.

Overall Event

On the whole, events need to open up a bit.? A little less structured, but not so loose we lose people. People like to have options for any given moment, so that one or more activity choices would hold their attention. Break up the general session into smaller segments, deliver content in other, yet still engaging ways. Allow breathing room and a real, brand-centered environment to spend the time between sessions and activities. Include early-morning choices as well as late evening ones.

People also have a need to know what’s next. We’re uncomfortable when agendas are opaque and confusing. We know apps help, it’s even better when paired with large, printed agendas and maps in key locations. Apps can help build personal agendas – none of this is new – and we’ll be seeing these more flexible in the future so people can change their minds and have their agenda adjust to compensate. We’ll be seeing more and more AI-enabled agenda-building technology to help attendees have the experience they’re looking for.

General Sessions

The General Session, or Keynote portion of events tend to hold a lot of “sacred cows” for brands. I suspect that if you look at who holds those cows dear, you’ll find that it’s largely older executives. It’s not really their fault, it’s just very difficult for them to understand where their audience is coming from because their experiences are so very different.

Boomers are comfortable with long-form media as they were raised on it, but they are also huge consumers of YouTube and Facebook that both have a plethora of short-form media available at their fingertips (that they love to share). It’s important to note that boomers have nearly all aged out of business event audiences.

Gen Xers take it even further. They get their news and media on an even split between TV and social media. And they were rabid consumers during the pandemic. They spend a ton of time on YouTube and Facebook.

Millennials are the driving force for podcasts and streaming – on-demand content – and engage across all social media platforms. Most of them are more interested in personal, authentic messages.

Gen Z has a wider range of media habits than all the rest. Their news is from social media, they connect with others online.? They are bigger gamers than the rest of us, and they go to Twitch, TikTok and Spotify more than the rest.? Games hold attention because the audience members are active in the process. An important thing to note when building agendas that will engage this group.

All of this is to say that a long, daily, 3-hour plenary is not necessarily a recipe for success with a diverse audience. It wasn’t that long ago that we were promoting the “TED-Talk” format. 20-minute keynote talks with few, big and bold visuals to support it. And yet, there are still events out there with the 45-minute CEO speech and the Marketing Data Analysis with eyecharts that are accompanied by “I know you can’t read this, but…”? We’re slowly moving to shorter presentations, and the next step is to re-invent those 3 hours (and shorten it) altogether.

Instead of a 20-minute talk, why not have 2-3 presenters deliver 5-10 minutes each. All different, one with visuals, one with a discussion format and yet another as an interactive (digitally driven) Q&A with the audience? Or even driving the action with a digital, choose-your-own-adventure experience, using second screens and inviting the audience to participate in the evolution of the agenda?

Some of the steps we take may be bold and a bit scary, but someone had to use the first digital slide (I might have been there…) someone had to cut their keynote to 20 minutes, and someone had to be in-the-round for the first time. All of these are things designed to engage the audience better.

The bottom line: The more personal, authentic, and engaging you can be, the more you’ll hold your valuable audience’s attention and deeper the community connections will be.

Breakout/learning sessions

So many of the above thoughts apply here, and with smaller audiences, you can go even further. Some questions to ask yourself – when selecting topics of learning for your audience, do they need to have slides? Really? Do they need to be set up theater-style? Do they need technology? Do they need to be in a breakout room in your hotel/convention center? Do they need to be seated? Can they happen while on the move? Your topics are valuable, especially if you’ve done your homework and you know what the audience wants/needs. They deserve the best thinking toward presenting them in a way that your audience can receive them.

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Networking

Well, we know Gen X and Gen Z don’t consume the same amount of alcohol that Boomers do – by a lot. They are also more inclined to get up early, work out, meditate, and engage in self-care than their older counterparts.? And, more and more of those older folks are choosing healthier lifestyles, too.

Bottom line: Nighttime alcohol-fueled networking isn’t necessarily the best bet. If we build our agendas with more white space in them, time between sessions and programmed elements, AND create a branded space that is conducive to conversation, then organic networking can take place. These spaces probably need to be more than just charging stations and a comfy chair. We can also build in activities for people to engage with and connect with others over. These can be high-tech or high-touch. ?Either way, they should be interesting and engaging for the attendee. Morning self-care rituals can be group events, too. Workouts, yoga, meditation, and other activities can be social and help facilitate networking. And we cannot underestimate the importance of these opportunities. Community-building happens while networking.

Technology

I’m very excited to see where AI will take us. It can be the driving force in creating Person-Centered Events before too long. As I mentioned earlier, some of the obvious applications are in building agendas for attendees at registration, and in matching people for networking opportunities, but extend that a bit further and I can see in-real-time agenda updates for those last-minute decisions to catch a talk, or skip one, your agenda will be able to automatically morph to compensate. Or using input from an entire audience, re-arrange show flows within sessions and even within talks. ?We’ll be seeing more in the media creation, cutting video production budgets, but up-leveling the expectations for a highly customized audio and visual experience in the on-site media. Not to mention the almost instantaneous creation of this custom content.

The future is exciting. And it’s here.

How are you creating agendas that are more “Person-Centered”? Are you adding flexibility, more time between elements? How are you building communities across diverse audiences? Please share!

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