Survey about conferences

[Ray Poynter]

Following the sucess and popularity of my survey and report about Presenting (which will be featured in an upcoming issues the UK's Research Magazine), Brian Singh has suggested I run a survey and produce a report on Conferences. What makes a good conference, what shoudl organisers be looking to achieve, what should they avoide?

These seems like a great idea to me and over the next week I will be pulling the survey together. If you have any suggestions for ideas, questions etc, please suggest them in this forum.

[Grace Taylor]

Hi Ray - for about a decade I've analysed audience satisfaction for a tri-state rural conference for advisory professionals, where the program is adjusted to suit regional needs, with core elements usually similar. Each year about 700 are assessed split between three southern states.

As a result of the work, this forum has achieved high standards with participants travelling as far as 600 km to attend, and on average 110km. As high standards attained, innovation has been critical to keeping satisfaction/repeat attendance, by rejuvenating the approach - in baby steps.

Exit survey has looked at the audience composition/experience/travel/history of attending the series/variety of program/balance between room for new topics/indepth topics/likelihood participants will apply three pieces of business information/reattend (these two on 100%scale)/logistical ratings of resources/sessions/programs/venue-audio and visual (really impt) etc/individual topics and speakers rated out of 10 with room for feedback on each/suggestions/further opportunity for written feedback about whether the program provided ..sensible topics/chance to explore selected topics at depth/access to specific recommendations/opportunities to attend isssues of greatest interest/intellectual stimulation plus suggestions gleaned from other conferences and areas for improvement.

If something really should be fixed. or a speaker flopped, the important thing is there's room for people to elaborate, which have informed development.....

Selection of speakers/topics can make a big difference to overall ratings and I've seen instances where the same topic ratings have swung wildly depending on the speaker.

From this series, I have deduced the characteristics of a presentation to be rated highly include:
Good explanations/informative
Showing/tabling the economic impact/context of results wherever possible
Interesting
Fresh information
Engaging delivery and manner
Good messages & clarity
Practical and relevant information that can be applied- `real’
Enthusiasm
Fascinating subject – of ideas/issues
Challenging – thought provoking/inspiring
Good subject – backed by resources
Comprehensive subject knowledge – can speak generally and give specific examples
Farmer talks – clear farmers’ perspective
Knowledgeable speaker

Conversely the characteristics that led to a presentation being poorly rated include:
Being overly technical/using jargon, especially to show off
Not adjusting technical topics to the audience
Failure to understand audience and how they might look to use information
Difficulty understanding accents/ poor diction
Inaudible
A lack of new insights
Swamping the audience with slides
Presenting too quickly
Boring in delivery – rambling/waffling
Biased to an area or product - overt selling
Problems demonstrating visual elements
No real clear findings or clarity of message
Weak on economic analysis
Not well directed

I believe it's really essential that the program provides a balance between providing new content, and giving participants the opportunity to go in-depth on issues of significance calling forth the need for really good programing - topic selection, speaker selection, concurrent sessions, opportunities to grab latest advice quickly and followup resources, so topics don't get bogged in detail; however it's important to provide ample opportunities for interaction where participants want to go deep on issues, sometimes offering panel sessions where speakers flesh things out. Good chairmanship critical to draw out the issues, and to help people remember key points.

We know a program is in trouble if participants indicate a low likelihood of applying information or reattending.

Interestingly we've found if a bad thing happens in the area like bushfires, this can reduce ratings.

[Nick Coates]

Great Idea Ray. Looking forward to it.

I suppose it would come as no surprise to point out that we are all pulled (as conference organisers) by two opposing forces:

1. The scholarly roots of conferences (to support journals, based on 'reading' papers and gathering peer review type comments [hence one model of a conference session based on a set of papers and Q&A]

2. The participative future of conference (the 'unconference', happenings or TED-like events which favour slick nad personal presentations, diversity or generally more audience involvement)

Each has its merits, though increasingly 2 wins. However I think inspiration and socialising / networking or the wow factor are as important as learning to most, so it's often hard to strike the balance. As you know we worked hard at this year's MRS conference to mix things up a little between the 2 extremes with lots of good feedback as a result.

N.

[Emma Caronna]

Grace - thanks for your nice post. When I worked at Dow Jones APAC we also conducted exit polls at our Dow Jones Conferences and came to similar findings about conference presentations. Another critical aspect - often more important than the presentations particularly for senior executives - was the calibre of the other attendees - plus quality of attendee participation and networking opportunities.

Ray - I'd love to see you cover strategies for satisfying international audiences - how best to ensure non-native English speakers fully participate and how to accommodate the preferences of different cultures. For example a presentation that has the appropriate level of detail/data for a Japanese audience may seem too dense/micro to an American audience and vice versa.
Emma

[Henrik Hall]

This is perhaps not a help for the survey, but for the overall discussion about conference quality. After DMD (the Danish Market Research Day) we decided to be completely open with the evaluation results from the conference and have published them here: http://www.smrn.org/Home/tabid/55/ArticleId/6961/Culture/English/De.... Our intention was to attract even more information this way and encouraged our readers and the conference participants to comment the article, which no one has done!
The great thing with doing the evaluation in the form of two CCTI surveys during the day, is that I knew what people thought about the day already before the party in the evening and could then probe more into exactly what they thought when talking to them in the evening. For instance, it came as no surprise to me when people approached me in the evening saying the lunch food was bad (I personally liked it!!) and I could use these encounters for asking what was wrong and what needed to be changed for next year.
Henrik Hall, SMRN