maarten.vanneste@abbit.eu's blog
What can songs teach us about presentations?
Posted August 21st, 2012 by maarten.vannest...Popular songs catch and keep your attention
Verse - chorus - verse - chorus - verse.Listen to the radio and you will see for yourself: this is the structure of the typical songs we hear every day. And I suggest we can ‘take that’ as the framework we should embed in our presentations too.
“Verse-Chorus: a musical form common in popular music where the chorus is highlighted.“ (Wikipedia)
In the verse the singer plays the main role; the lyrics dominate and the story flows and develops.
The evolution of Meeting Formats, the rebirth of the Campfire Meeting
Posted July 27th, 2010 by maarten.vannest...Long ago we had meetings around a campfire. A small group of people in a circle, listening to stories, debating, conversing, learning from each other.
Much later, in more recent ages, only the rich and powerful could talk to larger groups, armies and other audiences.
And even more recently, thanks to sound equipment, we all can afford to address a public, larger than the campfire crowd.
We are an operational industry and it is time to embrace that.
Posted September 21st, 2009 by maarten.vannest...Today I saw a man cry.
Posted June 30th, 2009 by maarten.vannest...He lost 80% of his 2009 business because of perception based postponing. He had to let go more than half his team… Clients that worked with him for a decade or so just dropped him and his entire team like a useless piece of debris.
His 20 year passion died with the brutality and senselessness of the cancellations.
Do the ‘Freudian walk’
Posted June 22nd, 2009 by maarten.vannest...
Freud has lost some of his influence in the psychiatrist’s office. Psychoanalysis, the technique of probing long and deep into the mind of a patient is not used as much as in the 20th century. It used to be the system of interpretation and therapeutic treatment of psychological disorders. These days new techniques like Cognitive therapy have replaced the old one. Patients now hear they have to stop complaining and start running, or do other physical activities.
The business travel manager: our older brother is out-there, looking for us …
Posted May 16th, 2009 by maarten.vannest...The Paragon Partnership is a group of travel management organisations including NBTA and many other international and regional organisations. The Paragon Partnership held it’s first European conference in Paris this summer and I had the privilege to speak there with Dr. Elling Hamso in a combined closing general session. He introduced ROI, I presented meeting Architecture and Elling closed off with some purchasing models. I was nervous, thinking that travel people have less of an interest in Meetings.
Dinner effectiveness with CLAMP
Posted February 27th, 2009 by maarten.vannest...
After a nice dinner in London last week, I’m not sure about the business model many restaurants have.
The meal was perfect and most ingredients were present to have a great dinner, but the one or two thing I feel should change to increase the dinner’s effectiveness.
The three right ingredients were a Conversation topic, a Light meal and a Private space.
The answer to bail-out attacks and legal pressure in the US
Posted February 14th, 2009 by maarten.vannest...An alternative incentive is a good idea, but so are “alternative” meetings, with a new paradigm. Meetings with more learning and networking elements like we are dissecting and testing today at Meet Different.
Networking, the magic force in meetings and events.
Posted February 13th, 2009 by maarten.vannest..."Networking is far too important to leave it to receptions and lunches." says Ib Ravn.
And right he is!
Networking is Important. It may even be the final buoy, saving meetings from going under all together, especially in an already challenging economy,
Learning (watching presentations) you can do on-line, but meeting new people, works really only face to face. The power of random; encounters is really unique to meetings: innovations are the sparks that sometimes fly around when one bumps into a stranger at a meeting.
MPI Meet Different, Atlanta, GA February 2009.
Posted February 10th, 2009 by maarten.vannest...A few great dinners and meetings took place and more people joined.
We started off with a MA2020 meeting on Sunday morning.





















