Designing Meetings for Content First: 5 Strategies 

Logistics are a major part of meeting planning, but in many situations planners also have an opportunity to help shape a meeting’s content through their decisions. By understanding audience needs, and choosing formats that lend themselves to interaction and speakers who engage instead of entertain, planners can help keep content at the forefront.

Here are 5 strategies that will lead to more meaningful and memorable content:

1. Do Your Homework 

It requires in-depth research to choose the topics that need to be covered, the titles that will attract people to register, and the right speakers to convey the content.

“You have to determine what people want through qualitative and quantitative research with the community before the program is ever written,” said Lea Worth, program development and events manager at Southern Methodist University. 

2. Ask Yourself If It Could Be Done Virtually

It’s time to rethink the old 80-20 rule, in which 80 percent of the conference is auditorium or panel time, and 20 percent is networking. “Switch it completely around and focus on what you can accomplish in person that you can’t in a Zoom meeting,” said Bruce Bolger, president of Enterprise Engagement Alliance. 

One successful example is a plenary session that offers a platform for collective discussion and decision-making. 

3. Change Up Room Formats

Why not put the stage in the center of the room? Or use a town hall set-up, where everyone talks to each other? These formats put the focus on the content, and transform the speakers into facilitators who engage the audience and encourage them to tell their stories.

4. Offer Opportunities for Feedback

Companies have an opportunity to make the most of their investment in bringing people together thousands of miles away from their homes. Meetings are a chance not only to disseminate content but to create it as well, by using the group to brainstorm, innovate and solve problems.

5. Focus on ROE

The other thing that’s difficult to achieve from a Zoom meeting is an emotional response. Tobias Weber, creative director and CEO of live communication agency format:c, emphasizes the importance of return on emotion from thoughtfully designed content and opportunities for connection. 

“There are many theories about how emotions work in an audience, about perception, and about how spectators digest content and visual input. We call this theory stage identity,” said Weber. “We strongly believe that all of these aspects of a live event need attention.”