Today’s typical show-goer returns home with a stack of business cards, an overstuffed goody bag and a hankering for some sleep. But if the show hit its mark, he or she also comes back with a head full of new ideas, smarter and more inspired.

Whether or not that describes your attendees should be a top concern. At a time when quality information and actionable intelligence are at a premium, shows whose attendees leave armed with new knowledge, insight and inspiration can bolster their value.

That outcome is largely a function of effort spent developing show content — the keynote addresses, panel discussions, workshops, breakout sessions and speaker presentations that comprise the event’s educational and information exchange component.

Although there’s no way to ensure people leave smarter, organizers looking to boost the odds strive to deliver content that has an edge. Content that’s substantive and presented so it’s readily absorbed lets organizers make education, formal interaction and information sharing a defining quality of their events.

Tailor It To Constituencies
As more shows seek to broaden their appeal to special constituencies or allied industries, the need for targeting subgroups with specialized content is growing.

Organizers of the BIO International Convention (convention.bio.org) have developed sessions that reflect how certain professionals like to interact and learn. Its “Think and Drink” business forum replicates an informal setting some of its members favor when they want to hash things out.

“As we were thinking of ways to attract more scientisttypes to the show, we learned that it’s common for many of these guys to get together and catch up over a beer,” says Robbi Lycett, Vice President, Conventions and Conferences for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “So we created an area to look like a bar setting, with some high tables and couches and chairs, and handed out some drink tickets good at the hotel bar.”

At this year’s show, two Think and Drink sessions attracted several dozen people. As they sipped drinks and chatted at the end of the day, one group listened to a moderator-led panel discuss a relevant topical issue. At another, they heard a presentation from a scientist/author selected for both his scholarly credentials and his ability to engage with an audience, Lycett says.

BIO also has content targeting smaller interest groups within the biotechnology industry. Its Leadership Summit allows some 1,500 biotechnology professionals in the smaller food and agriculture and industrial and environmental application sectors to gather separately and drill down on their own issues. In its CEO Forum, top executives of biotechnology companies gather to discuss and hear presenters review the latest intelligence on the regulatory, legal and financing fronts.

Emphasize “Takeaway”
As people look for reasons to attend shows, content that truly gets attendees thinking and arms them with information they can put to use can elevate a show’s profile and serve as a marketing tool.

“Compelling, for me, means subject matter that’s timely and relevant and addresses an immediate need for knowledge or pushes me beyond my current thinking on something,” says Alana Joyce, Senior Director of Global Education for National Business Travel Association, (NBTA), which stages the annual NBTA International Convention & Exposition (www.nbtaconvention.org).

For Joyce, a good guide to developing compelling content is determining whether the subject matter challenges conventional wisdom.

Organizers of the RSA Conference, an IT security show, work to make sure attendees leave educational sessions with something tangible (www.rsaconference.com ). To that end, presenters are asked to pointedly address ways attendees can apply what they’ve been taught.

“Too many presentations at shows leave attendees scratching their heads and asking how they can apply what they learned, so we ask speakers to devote a slide to it, describing guidance on how to take knowledge to the next level,” says Sandra Toms LaPedis, Conference General Manager and Area Vice President.

Content also needs to be timely, even to the point of holding open some program time for late-breaking issues. LaPedis says RSA Conference started a “Hot Topics” track prior to this year’s show aimed at quickly tapping speakers who could address last-minute developments attendees would be clamoring to hear about.

“We developed a nice stable of speakers who we could add to the program quickly to talk about new security threats, scams and breaches,” says LaPedis.

Elly McCloud, Executive Director of Marketing, Conference and Attendee Relations for LightFair International (www.lightfair.com), says the commercial and architectural lighting trade show and conference strives to orient content to what people need to know now and what to look for down the road. And it urges presenters to use all manner of teaching aids, from PowerPoint to videos to software, to deliver it effectively.

“Our content has reflected trends and developments that have become mainstream, such as daylighting and sustainability,” she says.

Get The Audience Involved
All educational sessions need a focus and a structure, something typically provided by a speaker or a panel. But the more opportunities that exist for audience members to ask questions, provide feedback, make observations, talk among themselves and become part of the action, the more they’re likely to take away.

“We want our speakers to think about opportunities to use polling devices, audience surveys and other means of getting the audience invested more in the content,” says LaPedis. “And we want panel moderators more focused on guiding discussions and pulling in the audience. The model we’re striving for is having, as they say, ‘a guide on the side’ and not a ‘sage on the stage.’ ”

At its most recent show, RSA Conference staged some sessions that incorporated interactive whiteboarding into the discussion of a topic. Led by a facilitator, the session leveraged technology to bring parts of the audience directly into the presentation.

“We weren’t sure if it was going to work, but it ended up having a great payoff because it drew on the brilliance of the crowd and permitted a very interactive format,” she says.

In its “call for presentations,” NBTA clearly signals its desire for formats that permit interaction among and between participants and exhibit a creative instructional design.

“We’ve experimented with keypad voting systems, perception analyzers and roundtable formats, and we need to continue to try to innovate so we do a better job of getting the audience involved,” says Joyce. “Good interaction leads to good takeaway.”

To maximize interaction and participation, Lycett says it’s important to move beyond simply tacking on a few more minutes of Q and A. “The idea is not just taking questions from the audience, but getting input from the audience,” she says.

Sessions must be structured so that interaction is part of the fuel that drives the content presentation. One design might allow for a roundtable presentation, followed by smaller table discussions of the material and subsequent sharing of each table’s observations with the larger group by a designated person, Lycett says. “Some subjects lend themselves to this format, which can be superior to having a person simply talking to a crowd,” she says.

Formalize Review and Development
Shows that put a premium on compelling content devote the resources needed to critically evaluate previous programs.

NBTA considers not only audience ratings for its sessions, but also conducts attendance counts to measure interest levels. One is done at 10 minutes in and another at 45 minutes. If people have “jumped,” Joyce says, it may signal a problem with content substance and delivery. But it could also mean a session is too long.

Session surveys typically reveal good insight that NBTA uses to come up with new subjects for the next event.

“Responses to a question about the one thing they would most like to hear more about becomes great fodder for future programs,” says Joyce. “I also get a lot of ideas from the Q and A portions. That’s where things get most interesting.”

RSA pays close attention to how audience members rate presenters and speakers. Because many presentations rely on presenters’ specific knowledge and insight, LaPedis says RSA wants to find those who are most skilled at leading sessions. Using speaker scores as a guide, RSA can determine which ones to regularly invite back or even work with to hone their skills.

“It may be that the speaker is brilliant, but that he can’t organize his thoughts in a PowerPoint format,” she says. “If they’re in the middle of the pack scorewise we may hire a speaking coach to help them improve their skills.”

In some cases, shows are adapting content to fit the best presenters. Joyce used to select topics and then hunt for speakers. Lately, she’s taken more of the reverse approach, one that’s producing better results.

With evaluations and metrics in hand, content-focused shows follow a rigorous process of creating the next event’s program. Months out, both staff and industry member track development committees begin evaluating topics and presenters. For LightFair, a management committee makes the final call based on recommendations from a conference advisory committee.

“The conference committee from within the industry advises on topics, tracks and the program direction,” says McCloud. “We challenge them to create programming appealing to them, their peers, new attendees and experienced veterans.”

BIO forms about a dozen chairperson-led committees to review content for some 22 topical tracks. Working closely with staff, they evaluate candidates and determine the most compelling.

“When they meet, they’ll discuss each and may decide to tweak or combine some, and then they’re vetted by staff,” Lycett says. “From 600 to 800 candidates, we’ll settle on about 150.”

Create Some Tension
Shows are thusly named for a reason: they’re part spectacle, incorporating some element of grandeur, flourish and showmanship. But that doesn’t have to be reserved for the show floor. It also can be present in content, especially in how it’s delivered.

While care has to be taken not to over dramatize a topic or presentation, sessions that draw out disagreement and debate can grab and hold the audience’s attention.

“The best sessions have that real built-in controversy,” says Joyce. “But it can be hard to find things in our curriculum that are inherently controversial where there are two opposite sides. So we sometimes have to introduce a devil’s advocate argument.”

They can be tricky to pull off, however. For one, they can’t force a debate where there is none. It’s equally important not to make the debate itself the centerpiece. Joyce recalls a mootcourt style debate at a show where the side that was more highly skilled effectively embarrassed the other side.

Panel discussion formats present the best opportunity for spirited give-and-take. But that doesn’t often happen unless it’s somehow scripted or prompted.

“A panel is very dependent on a moderator who can take panelists with very different viewpoints and perspectives on an issue and draw those out and create some engagement and disagreement,” says Joyce.

Tom Zind is a freelance business writer based in Lee’s Summit, MO. He can be reached at tomzind@att.net.

Adult Learning Techniques

Want to spice up your breakouts? Consider the academics’ perspective.

Show organizers increasingly fear the “talking head” presentation. Even when they use teaching aids, speakers can suffer what’s been coined “death by PowerPoint.”

A better approach, some say, is adapting adult learning techniques that incorporate much more audience participation. A 2007 paper by Ib Ravn and Steen Elsborg, of the Learning Lab Denmark, titled, “Creating Learning At Conferences Through Participant Involvement,” reviewed unconventional approaches to building more value through audience involvement.

They included breaking up sessions midway through to allow audience members to talk among themselves about what they had heard; staging a moderator “interview” with a panelist part way through a presentation that would incorporate audience questions; making time for audience members to meet one another up front, thereby short-circuiting some of the cocooning that typifies audience dynamics; setting up a comfortable setting outside the room where presenters could talk with attendees postsession; and asking attendees to write questions for the panel or presenter on index cards at the start.

The dozen techniques are aimed at addressing five major conference structure faults: too much lecturing, too little learning; a panel of experts as one-way communication; stale audience “group work” formats that fail to produce anything of value; misnamed “workshops” that effectively become additional program lectures; and too few opportunities for genuine networking.