7 Actionable Conference Design Insights from TED Events, Alessandra Cigna

On Wednesday, April 20^th I had the pleasure of joining Andrea Driessen, an award winning business owner and meetings professional, for a live webcast hosted by PCMA – an industry association to which I belong. In addition to founding No More Boring Meetings, Ms. Driessen serves on both the audience-experience and sponsor-acquisition teams of TEDxSeattle.

A self-proclaimed ‘tedster,’ Ms. Driessen effectively communicated her commitment to the revolutionary movement that is TED in her opening remarks. She recounted that what began as an annual convention in Monterey, California has since developed into a “viral video phenomenon and a worldwide community of passionate people.” Statistically speaking, more than 1.5 million TED Talk videos are downloaded per day, speaking to the value that consumers associate with the content that TED produces. Andrea Driessen explained that TED is masterful at staging innovative events that audiences crave, and expressed her desire to share how TED is able to accomplish such with those tuned into the interactive webcast.

Andrea began by telling listeners that she identifies seven design insights as most useful in making meetings more compelling, better attended and more educational. The 7 insights can be summarized as (1) Curation Over Committee (2) Elevating Event Experiences Through Exclusivity (3) Why Less Is More (4) Critical Value in Speaker Coaching (5) Risk, Reinvention and Reward (6) Speaker Selection Strategies and (7) The Connection Between Choice and Value.

Out of the seven design insights that Andrea Driessen shared, the two that I found most compelling were (5) Risk, Reinvention and Reward and (6) Speaker Selection Strategies. Beginning with the topic of risk, Ms. Driessen explained that TED’s success is directly attributable to risk. Had event organizers decided to continue with the stationary annual convention, they wouldn’t have reached the heights that they have today. However, TED risked putting their curated content online and have since touched audiences far beyond the bounds of Monterey, California; a true example of the saying “high risk, high reward.” Ms. Driessen asks that this serve as inspiration for the meeting planners tuned in, so that they too will assume reasonable risk in planning their next event.

Finally, I enjoyed hearing about the strategies that Ms. Driessen and other TED professionals utilize in selecting speakers. Thousands of individuals apply to speak at TED conferences every year, with very limited spots to fill. For this reason, Andrea routinely asks the following three questions in selecting the individuals fit to speak to TED audiences throughout the United States: 

1.  If you could invite any speaker in the world, who would it be?
2. What do you want the group to think, feel, do or believe as a result of the program?
3. What do you want attendees to be saying about the speaker as they are leaving? 

These questions are crucial in opening planners up to possibility thinking. Even if your dream speaker is not within your budget, recognizing the characteristics that he or she possesses is a good starting point for identifying a more realistic speaker who also exhibits those traits. Additionally, these questions force planners to put the outcome first. Events are about experience and connections so pinpointing how you hope your attendees will be changed or what they will say about the speaker adds a new depth to the selection process. Overall, I found this talk to be hugely informative and I hope to again participate in an interactive webcast in the near future.