Shelly Alcorn, CAE, is a thought-leader, speaker and association management consultant. Reach her on twitter @shellyalcorn, on LinkedIn or at the Association Subculture blog.

Recently, an association decided to re-invent their conference. However, they were facing a level of internal and external resistance to change including detractors who had ownership and political pull.  They decided to focus on ways to get the entire team – staff, volunteer leaders and presenters – to see potential changes as a desirable opportunity instead of a threat. To do that, they needed to create pathways they could all resonate with, aspire to and hold all planners and participants accountable for. They chose to conduct a mini-strategic planning process that included adopting a vision and envisioned experience for their attendees.

Hence, their conference vision was born.

Here is how they did it:

Association Vision – They started with the vision of the association itself. The conference is their highest-profile opportunity to see their association’s vision played out in front of them, live and in living color.  Obviously, the Conference Strategic Position would need to be a direct support pillar and reflection of the overall vision.  They isolated certain key elements and asked staff to do some pre-meeting thinking as to what those elements meant to their members and how the conference could directly impact their achievement.

Conference Strategic Position – With the association vision as the starting point they worked together and developed a Statement of Conference Strategic Position.  These are long-term goals they want to see achieved in each meeting planning cycle.  Here is an excerpt:

“Our goal is to provide an environment that will move our attendees from a passive position to being vocal advocates for our profession. Attendees will learn to extend that active stance post-conference to engage in meaningful dialogue with colleagues, legislators, regulatory agencies and the public at large.”

Attendee Experience – Once the Strategic Position was established, the next thing was to clearly define and describe the envisioned attendee experience. (Ideally experience creation statements are limited to between four and six outcomes.) Here are some of the attendee experiences they want to create:

• We provide thought-provoking education utilizing creative environments and interactive adult learning techniques.
• Our conference is energetic, fun, filled with ah-ha moments and our attendees eagerly anticipate the next opportunity to engage.
• Our attendees leave feeling they have been heard, understood and empowered to take action.

Now that it is complete, the staff, volunteers and committees now have a document to refer to that acts as the final arbiter on debates regarding content and logistics. The group prioritized content first, logistics second and marketing third. Next, they did a strategic analysis of each conference component from the lowliest continental breakfast to the highest profile keynote. They threw everything on the table and every scheduling element had to answer two questions, “How does this advance our vision for our association and our conference?” and “What experience goal does this fulfill?”
Better yet, now they have a clear vision for presenters to rally around and openly stated expectations for performance. The staff and presenters have the opportunity to create a real partnership designed to advance the level of education and create opportunities for attendees to really learn. Instead of the old patterns of “relying on the kindness of strangers” and feeling like they shouldn’t ask presenters to improve their skills lest they appear ungrateful, staff is empowered to carefully coach presenters and provide examples of the types of workshops and learning techniques they want to see used in their conference.

So, setting a separate vision for your conference can be a highly valuable activity to engage in.  Breaking away from a yearly “theme” can allow you to build energy behind timeless conference goals and move you closer to achieving your larger mission on behalf of your members.  Give it a try and see how breaking down those barriers can help you develop and design the optimal conference experience.

Related Posts:

• “How the Mighty Fall” – Lessons from Jim Collins on Decline
• Branding Fails and What Association Leaders Can Learn From Them
• The Waning Days of Leadership
• Change and Engage
• Should you share your goals?