RESEARCH & THESIS IDEA BANK

This page contains ideas for research projects and thesis in meeting content. The topics concentrate on the learning, networking and motivation of participants in meetings and conferences. If you decide to use one of the ideas, we kindly ask you to let us know so we can ad your data next to it, mention it is in process or remove it from the list. Of course we would appreciate your feedback, papers, results etc. We would gladly publish those for our readers.

Any ideas that you may want to propose to our student or academic visitors can be sent to the Meeting Support Institute.

This two way communication will generate valuable research results that will help drive the meeting and conference industry forward by applying scientifically backed methods.

Thank you for your contributions.

Kind regards,

Maarten Vanneste

President Meeting Support Institute

February 23rd 2007

6) Look at optimum food for concentration.
Should we be banning the bread, kicking the caffeine and passing on the pastries?  Bin the three-course buffet for grazing instead? Stand up networking lunch versus sit down lunch? What are the best ingredients, cooking methods and how should we be serving up food. Plus the effects of lunchtime drinking!

5) Meetings with or without facilitators or moderators, what is the difference?

4) What difference makes staging, organizing and facilitating networking ?

How much better can the average networking become for meeting participants?

3) What do we know we learned from a presentation and what do we know but forgot we know it?

What do we do or use that we learned at a presentation and don't remember where we learned it?

What is the real and perceived connection between things we now and even do and the moment we learned it? Can we demonstrate that after so many years an individual does something based on what he learned so many years ago at a conference? How much actually came from conference learning and how much do we realize that is came from conference learning?

2) the relation between size and length of conferences and the quality of the networking.

Can one assume that a small conference (e.g. 85 participants) has more potential for high quality networking than large conferences (e.g. 2.500 participants)?

Can one assume that a 3 day conference is better for good networking than  a short one day one? The reason would be that there is more opportunity for multiple connection moments with a new contact.

Can we produce a graph that shows the relation between the quality of networking on one axis and length or size on the other axis.

1) Measuring the quality of networking at meetings.

How to measure networking in meetings and conferences quantitatively and qualitatively? Can we develop a standardized participant survey that Meeting Content Managers can use to measure the success of networking of participants at their events.

What is a good new contact at a conference?

How do we take subjectivity out?

Is remembering the name important?

Does a participant need the business card from a new contact to make it valuable?

Is a repeat contact with a new contact at one event a measure for quality?

Is the length of a conversation a measure?

How many new contacts does the a participant make on an average?