Meeting Support Institute

The use of the words “Speaker”, “Trainer” and “Facilitator” have been used intermittently as though they are all doing the same sort of thing.  In reality each of these are skills in their own right.  To group them all together would be like mixing up singers, actors and dancers and viewing them as performers.  They are all performers but each has a skill that is honed and crafted.  To assume that one would be able to do the same as the other, would be ridiculous and show no respect for any of the professions.  Not being able to differentiate the skills and value the differences, only causes additional issues at a time when there is a call for meetings, conferences and events to show a Return on Investment (ROI).  

Toward the end of the 19th century, the German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus concocted an experiment that countless children have unwittingly replicated ever since, over a morning bowl of Alpha-Bits. Ebbinghaus took consonants from the alphabet, slapped a random vowel between them, and, voila! some 2,300 nonsense syllables were born. For years, Ebbinghaus practiced these syllables at random, learning and re-learning until he had mastered the material. In 1885, he recorded his observations in Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology — a seminal work that countless psychologists have wittingly read ever since, over morning bowls of cereal or otherwise.

If you think relaxation, or even napping at conference should be an accepted best practice, here is news for you.
With a little bit of AV (light and sound) you can now create the best relaxing environment in the world at your conference.
Add one hostess that gently wakes up individuals at the time they wish and the greatest relaxing service at conferences is now ready to welcome the stressed or tired.
A conference venue could even invest in a permanent relax room that with a simple switch of a button can be turned on or off.
The below article is copied from www.sciencedaily.com
Scientists Create 'World's Most Relaxing Room'

People like people more when holding a warm cup of coffee in their hands.

Article about Maarten Vanneste's book "Meeting Architecture a manifesto"
in the first edition of Meetings International, launched at EIBTM 2008.

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Keynote speaker at this year's EIBTM, Maarten Vanneste has a manifesto for meetings change.
Paul Colston reads and reviews some of the revolutionary thoughts in Conference + Meetings World and Conference News (UK).

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Meetings organisers can get concrete thinking from their delegates using plastic bricks. Katherine Simmons explains

Utter the word ‘meeting’ to a colleague and you’ll be more likely to be greeted with a grumble than a giggle.

At VisitBritain’s National Meetings Week launch at Event UK this September, even our national tourist authority concluded that many people see the business of holding a  meeting as being a complete waste of time. Usual complaints include that meetings take too long, they’re boring, and are often dominated by the same people leaving others struggling to get a word in edgeways. Confex Group event director Duncan Reid even called for the phrase “meetings industry” to be scrapped because of its “negative connotations,” to be replaced with the younger, funkier, branding of “events.”

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Human beings just aren’t hard-wired for traditional meetings. Katherine Simmons talks to professor Ib Ravn, who evolved the format to create a natural environment for communication.

In previous articles in the Anatomy of a Meeting series, we’ve delved a little deeper into the failings and the foibles of the adult learner. We have a concentration span of just half an hour if we are lucky and if we’re talked at too long without being asked our opinion, we’ll probably just rebel and ignore whatever the speaker says anyway.

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Want to see real results from your conferences? Try making your delegates use their hands to creatively solve problems. Katherine Simmons explains

In recent months we’ve been exploring how to get the best out of conferences by creating a multi-sensory experience for our delegates. So far, we’ve looked at how sight, sound and smell can be used to positively enhance participants’ experience. We’ve also considered that people have different preferences for how they learn best, their best methods might be any of or a combination of the following modalities: audial, visual, reading and writing; or kinesthetic – a hands on experience-based approach.

Delegates are rarely given the chance to engage their hands in a traditional meeting set up. And it seems meeting organisers make a common mistake of separating the mind from the body when it comes to helping their delegates to learn.

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Do your meetings always come up roses, or do delegates smell a rat? Katherine Simmons reports on how olfactory experiences can be harnessed to aid concentration

Smell is the sense which can knock your socks off.

The power of smell can instantly transport you back to a definite place and time, whether its sweet peas in your grandmother’s garden or the vile stench of the Portaloos at a music festival. Leading scientists argue that it is one of the most powerful methods of memory recall, yet it still remains one of the least appreciated senses.

Memories, complete with their associated emotions can be conjured up by a single smell. The association is a learned one. For some the smell of roses will conjure up a perfume or garden, but others may associate the scent with funerals. The phenomenon is known as the ‘Proust Effect’ after Marcel Proust’s description of an event in the first volume in Remembrance of Things Past.

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