Skift Take
Finding the best speakers for a meeting or event involves much more than asking whether they’ll be entertaining or not. What really matters most is whether they’re interactive, sensitive, and most of all, relevant.
The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is a weekly newsletter defining the future of business events by deciphering disruptive strategies that improve engagement and knowledge sharing.
Our weekly updates highlight the best reporting on Skift, as well as coverage from publications around the world.
The Future of Meetings & Events
How many times have you attended a meeting or event only to be mind-numbingly bored? Or worse yet, offended or made uncomfortable by the speakers?
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It’s a perennial problem that has persisted for as long as meetings and events have taken place and, given today’s often politically charged times, that challenge has only grown for meeting and event organizers tasked with picking just the right speakers.
Examining this careful balance of choosing the right speaker is writer Jaimie Seaton who, in her first piece for Skift, talks to meetings experts about what they look for when it comes to speakers — and why. Choosing the best speaker for an event involves much more than you know: it’s about having cultural sensitivity, knowing how to engage the audience, and most of all, knowing how to be relevant. Read the full Skift story here.
— Deanna Ting, hospitality editor
Social Quote of the Week
“Some day when we have grown up we will have a stage this grand and gorgeous. Great work @WTTC #GSBKK”
Next Generation Event UX
Forward Design: The Top 40 Event Designers 2017: When BizBash compiled its first list of the top designers in 2013, event designers still maintained a somewhat limited audience—usually just the guests at the actual event. Now, thanks to the proliferation of social media platforms like Instagram (which was a fledgling company in 2013), these creators are reaching a much wider crowd within the industry and beyond. Read more at BizBash
The Technological Wonders of Coachella: With each passing year, Coachella organizers are tasked with finding new and innovative destinations to add to their already well-established haunts scattered across the festival grounds. Though the focus of the event has always been the live music experience, the often overlooked technological side of the two-weekend affair has rapidly begun gaining more and more traction as concertgoers are starting to seek out adventure beyond the typical stage performance. Read more at OC Weekly
Turning the NFL Draft Into Grand Theater, With Philadelphia as the Stage: The NFL first held its annual draft 81 years ago in a Philadelphia hotel ballroom. This year they are bypassing more traditional venues like a theater or arena, encouraged by Philadelphia’s history of holding major events along the Parkway. Read more at Philly.com
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The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift editor Greg Oates [[email protected]]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.
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Tags: meetings and events, meetingsiq
Photo credit: Attendees at C2 Montreal, where speakers are anything but ordinary or traditional. Jimmy Hamelin / C2 Montreal