Energising Conferences & Off-Sites
We love helping clients create awesome events!
Whether it be an all-company conference of 1,000 delegates, an annual kick-off event for 100 sales professionals or a senior leadership summit for 80 execs, our expertise is designing and facilitating an experience that is awesome.
An awesome event inspires. It brings people together. It serves as a catalyst for change. It is something people talk about years from now.
But an event done poorly is costly. It is costly in terms of time, money and wasted opportunity.
The service offering we have created is unparalleled. This offering – the C.A.F.E. Menu if you will – has four elements: Content, Activities, Facilitation, Event Design.
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3 STEPS TO DESIGN AN AMAZING CONFERENCE (SHAUN KENNY)
The C.A.F.E Menu
Content
Fresh content for professional development, designed for audiences who have ‘seen it all before’
It is time to raise the bar on what it means to deliver content at events. Yes, audiences want fresh ideas and tools that are rigorous, credible and genuinely useful. But they are crying out for more: an experience. A learning experience that is immersive, interactive and inspiring.
We obsessively research, curate and create content that keeps our clients at the cutting edge. Every session is focused on delivering insights and practical tools that can be delivered at scale.
Some of the most popular sessions we run are:
- The Smiling Ox Paradox – how to become the person others are compelled to follow
- The Power of Mindset – harnessing the power of a growth mindset
- The Antifragility Advantage – the science of resilience and grit in the face of adversity
- Extraordinary Teams Workshop – the science and practice of going from dysfunctional to functional, and functional to extraordinary.
Next check out Activities! See above.
Activities
Immersive activities for team building and experiential learning
The injection of a group activity, when carefully selected and expertly facilitated, can be the difference between an effective conference, and one that is truly exceptional.
Over the last few years we have carefully curated a selection of activities guaranteed to engage, energise and impact even the most skeptical of participants.
Two of our most popular offerings are the Wall Street and Office Politics simulations. These experiential learning experiences are highly energetic, competitive, team-based, business simulations with potent learning outcomes.
Don’t forget Facilitation! See above.
Facilitation: Conferences
Whether a conference is 50 people or 500 people, the ingredients of great conference facilitation are the same. A great conference facilitator should:
- Alleviate the stress of the organiser – before and during the event
- Create theatre: energy, interaction and laughter
- Have the flexibility to improvise, with a plethora of energisers and activities up their sleeve
- Engage a diversity of participants from the passionate pupils to the prisoners, different levels of seniority and different cultural backgrounds
- Have the skill to facilitate interaction at scale, including group discussions, brainstorming, Q&A panels and team activities.
Facilitation: Team Offsites
For a team offsite, particularly if the group is quite senior, the ingredients for success are different than for a ‘conference’. While energy, engagement and flexibility are just as important, there are additional opportunities that arise when an intact team meets in a more intimate setting:
Working on business problems
This is about providing the process and the tools to effectively harness the distributed intelligence of the group to solve difficult problems. We have a number of methodologies in our toolkit, including a deep expertise in design thinking, that we tailor to the problem at hand.
Working on the team itself
This delicate dance requires facilitation that is more than just managing process. It is about managing emotions. It requires creating a safe space and clear rules for critical conversations to flourish and more effective ways of working to emerge.
Event Design anyone? See above.
Event Design
A unique methodology for designing the agenda and content of an event
The success of any event begins weeks or months before the actual event. That is why we have developed a unique methodology for helping clients design the agenda and content of their conferences and offsites.
This unique methodology has evolved over hundreds of events. In a nutshell, we see an event as having five phases:
- Discovery: Applying our C.O.O.L. discovery process.
- Design: We C.A.P. off the design phase.
- Detail: It is time to get the logistical train in motion.
- Delivery: The day has finally arrived. Show time!
- Debrief: What did we learn that we could implement next time?
Our unique approach to the Discovery and Design phases is what ensures our client’s events deliver on the intended business outcomes and create meaningful change.
