Brené Brown: Talking About What We Don't Talk About

In our July issue, Don Jenkins, vice president of the National Speakers Bureau, shared insight on choosing discomfort over resentment from speaker Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. 

Brown takes on topics that make us squirm -- she studies the links between vulnerability, shame, courage, and authenticity -- and talks about them in a way that is funny and moving and leads to connection.

And connection, "is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives," Brown says. "This is what it's all about ... neurobiologically that's how we're wired -- it's why we're here."

You can find out more about  Brown's work on her blog, and in her books and talks, including at  TEDxKC and the UP Experience in Houston.

Bringing Back Starbucks

It's a rare CEO who doesn't acknowledge the critical role that  events can play in creating a shared vision for a company.

But maybe even rarer is the CEO who not only acknowledges the key role of events, but dives into their details, from the psychology of site selection down to the messages sent by the materials used in the exhibit hall.

But that's exactly what Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, does in his book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul, as he describes the pivotal role that the Starbucks 2008 North America Leadership Conference played in reviving the then-faltering Starbucks brand.

New Orleans plays a co-starring role in the narrative about the conference, where, Schultz writes, "at this tenuous juncture, our partners needed to connect with me, with other Starbucks leaders, and with ones another, not online, but in New Orleans."

There was the local coffee culture, but also the city's ongoing battle to recover from the effects of Katrina. "At that time, no other U.S. city's experience seemed like such a natural extension of our values as well as our crucible," he writes.

I'll stop there, because Schultz's story about the conference is so well-told, you should read it yourself.  And you can, in this excerpt from the book in the July issue of Convene. 

Convene On Site: Tina Brown at ASAE

Tina Brown is probably the most famous magazine editor in the world -- maybe the only famous magazine editor in the world -- having served memorable tenures heading up Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and her own Talk before launching The Daily Beast website and then merging it with Newsweek. But as she talked about her experience transitioning from print to online publications during this morning's opening general session at ASAE's Annual Meeting & Exposition at America's Center in St. Louis, Brown might well have been speaking as a meeting planner. Because two of her big takeaways had no small relevance for our community:

1. Story matters. "Media is always about telling stories," Brown said. "You have to make everything as personal and connected and news-driven as you can." Later, she said: "The only thing that matters is telling a story clearly and cleanly." Forget that she's talking about journalism, and imagine instead that she's telling you about something you know your attendees respond to: storytelling. Making the information and knowledge you share with them -- and they share with each other -- memorable by making it human.

Postcard from the Future of Convention Centers

Photo by Annie Rose Palmer

Recently, I sat beside my daughter, Annie, as she clicked through her laptop, showing me photographs of a recent trip that included a layover in Reykjavik. I grabbed her elbow as something familiar shimmered by: It was the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre, dazzling like a jewel in Iceland’s summer evening sunshine.

I was struck, not just by its beauty, but the fact that it turned up in Annie’s travel photos at all. She's never been one to take snapshots of statues and landmarks. Her eye tends to look for shapes and textures in her environment, and to illuminate how they combine to create new forms: clouds pooling on the side of a mountain or the afternoon light slicing across a stone floor.

So it was exciting to see the Harpa Centre there, its glass walls gleaming like fish scales and seeming to float in the Atlantic Ocean -- because a seamless environmental fit was exactly what the architects had envisioned as they designed the center.

For our cover story "Show Places," last October, Convene reached out to leading architects, including Peer Teglgaard Jeppesen, of Henning Larsen Architects, which designed the Harpa Centre, to ask, “What will the conference center of the future look like?

Here is part of of Jeppesen's answer:

One important feature will be the inclusion of local characteristics and local identity. The conference center will not be anonymous; rather, it will be characterized by a richness of local spirit, presenting the conference-goer with features and experiences characteristic to the local environment.

We also talked to Mark Reddington, a principal at LMN Architects, which designed the award-winning Vancouver Conference Centre, who said:

The design of convention centers is increasingly about creating an integrated urban experience -- a piece of the city that offers an authentic experience of place and that is connected in meaningful ways to the surrounding urban fabric and natural environment.

The convention center of the future, "first, will be more about making a city," Reddington said, "than making a building."

Check Your Phasers at the Door

© popculturegeek.com

Except for the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits (the next edition of which is April 13–15 in St. Louis), most conventions probably don't have a very active "weapons check" desk.  Not so at — if you can believe it — Comic-Con International, held every year at the San Diego Convention Center.

You see, at fan conventions like Comic-Con, lots of fans like to dress up as their favorite super-hero or fictional characters, many of which pack various forms of heat (quivers of arrows, handheld cannons, ninja swords) as part of their costume. And Comic-Con doesn't want to discourage its attendees from participating in this way; in fact, every Saturday night at Comic-Con, there's a masquerade competition — and what self-respecting Wolverine would show up to such a contest without his adamantine claws?

July 2011 Issue: Live!

One of our best covers ever (IMHO, as the kids text today) adorns our July issue, now available in both digital and text-only versions -- a fantastic illustration whose attention to detail is matched by the cover story it serves. Looking for a trade show with something to say about adaptation and reinvention in a turbulent economy, Hunter Slaton walked the floor at BookExpo America in New York City; the result is "Every Year They Write the Book," a deeply reported look at a show whose industry has been in flux for the last 15 years.

CMP Series: And speaking of deep reporting, for this month's CMP Series article, "The Blog That Became a Conference," Barbara Palmer attended SOBCon 2011 Chicago, a social-media conference that is as warm, hospitable, and high-touch a live meeting as you'll find anywhere.

Convene On Site: DMAI in New Orleans

For the last two days, I've been on site at the Sheraton New Orleans for the 97th Annual Convention of Destination Marketing Association International, or DMAI. Of course, any time one gets to visit New Orleans is a good one — but it's even more fun to be here with 1,077 travel-promotion and sales executives (and exhibitors) from destination marketing organizations (DMOs)/CVBs from all over the U.S. (and nine other countries besides), and all in one hotel on Canal Street, right on the edge of the French Quarter.  On Wednesday night the Convene team had dinner at Dickie Brennan's Bourbon House, where I had some killer (but very messy) peel-'em and eat-'em barbecue shrimp. Delicious.

The Power of Power Girl

In honor of San Diego Comic-Con International, which kicks off tonight, take a peek at an actual, industry-relevant comic book: Power Girl #26, in which our heroine knows she's made the big time when she's invited to attend the First Annual Power Girl Convention. There's an exhibit hall, eager attendees, issues of crowd flow -- the whole deal. What's somewhat unusual is that the guest of honor has super strength, heat vision, and the power of flight, but surely that's nothing a good RFP wouldn't have taken into account.

Booking Windows: Small and Smaller

Salvador Dali clock

We reported in our July issue that more than half -- 56 percent -- of the meeting planners Convene recently surveyed said that their booking pattern had changed in the last year. Those results dovetailed with a recent Zentila survey which showed that, for corporate planners, the average booking window for off-site meetings is now 36 days.

And when it comes to booking event services, that window is getting even smaller.

According to the Congress Rental Network (CRN), a global network of A/V equipment suppliers, simultaneous interpretation specialists, and even support experts, the average confirmation time for events has dropped to two weeks.

“Perhaps a decade ago you could plan events three or four years down the line," says CRN Chairman Panagiotis Podimatas,  from PC Podimatas in Greece. But no longer, given the fast pace of business and improvements in transportation and communication.

Panagiotis said his company recently supplied interpretation equipment for the annual EU-GCC conference at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi with only two days notice.  "An event of this size is a real challenge, requiring eight large and three standard sized interpretation booths, 400 receivers, and 80 delegate microphones.  Due to prior commitments and resource locations these needed to be flown 2,000 miles from Vienna to Dubai, then transported by land to Abu Dhabi for set-up within 48 hours of confirmation.”

Source: Adam Baggs

A People-Based Approach to Virtual Meetings

Next Monday, PCMA, UMB Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute, will release a new research report that takes a fresh look at the role of digital technology in the meetings industry. 

Instead of the typical "virtual versus face-to-face" approach, this survey took a comparative approach, looking at how digital technologies can best be used within the framework of meeting environments. It delved into the social behavior and business motivations that fuel both in- person and online events, said Michael Doyle, founder and executive director of the Virtual Edge Institute, asking such questions as: Why do people attend in-person and online events? What business goals are being achieved? How are attendees engaging within these environments?

The bottom line: Attendees' business motivations and social behaviors are essentially the same at in-person and virtual events.

The full report, Business Motivations and Social Behaviors of In-Person and Online Events, will be available next Monday, (now available for download here) but as a special sneak peek for Convene readers, Doyle has shared five key findings and recommendations from the report:

Market content before, during, and after events: Respondents seek to access content online or via mobile devices throughout an entire event cycle. Digital channels allow meeting and event practitioners to engage with audiences before, during, and after events, connecting audiences from the physical event to the online channel and back again.

People are social creatures. More than 80 percent of respondents are "comfortable" or "extremely comfortable" connecting and networking with strangers, regardless of whether the setting was an in-person or virtual event.

People seek the same information at exhibitions, regardless of format: Both for online and in-person exhibit halls, respondents cited seeing ‘what is new’ as their number one motivation, followed by gathering relevant product and company information and gaining subject matter expertise. Respondents also noted that the motivation to network and connect is very high.

Exhibitor goals seem aligned with attendees’ needs: The main motivations cited for exhibiting at a conference include:  building brand awareness (68 percent), new business development (65 percent), educate market on products/solutions (62 percent), new lead generation (56.9 percent) and thought leadership (51 percent).

Participants are multi-taskers: Compared to their online counterparts, in-person participants are just about as likely to be checking email (81 percent in-person versus 83 percent online) or to leave a meeting/session for some reason (65 percent in-person versus 68 percent online). Online attendees are significantly more likely to take a phone call during a presentation than physical attendees (66 percent online versus 48 percent in-person). 

Doyle notes: “From our perspective, this report provides exciting insight on how we, as marketers and event professionals, can approach the use of digital technologies within our larger marketing and events strategies respectively."