Short and Sweet

In his fine and readable book ‘Brain Rules,’ molecular biologist and Professor John Medina speaks from both research and personal experience about the human attention span. That's Medina above delivering a "Authors@Google" talk.

The good news for general session planners is that adults have attention spans. The bad news is, don’t count on them being much longer than about 10 minutes.

Does that mean you should start programing 10-minute general sessions?

Well, no. Medina’s suggestion for dealing with 10-minute human attention spans is more nuanced than that.

“I decided that every lecture I’d ever give would come in discrete modules,” Medina writes in Brain Rules. “Since the 10-minute rule had been known for many years, I decided the modules would last only 10 minutes. Each segment would cover a single core concept--always large, always general, always filled with ‘gist,’ and always explainable in one minute. Each class was 50 minutes, so I could easily burn through five large concepts in a single period. I would use the other 9 minutes in a segment to provide a detailed description of that single general concept. The trick was to ensure that each detail could be easily traced back to the general concept with minimal intellectual effort.”

When the ten minutes ends Medina wraps up the topic and baits the hook again with the next topic, he writes. The brain likes hierarchy and it processes meaning before detail. Science demonstrates that repetition builds memory, so repeating key concepts maximizes memory.

Topic hooks must trigger emotion, fear, laughter, happiness, nostalgia, incredulity, etc. Narratives work if they’re strong and to the point.
Hooks can be a joke or story or anecdote, but they must be relevant. And tying modules together is smart.

Medina’s insights as a researcher and lecturer hold three lessons for general session planners:

• Program your general sessions with 10-minute rule in mind. 
• Have a preference for presenters mindful of the 10-minute rule. 
• Include “mindbreaks” in between presentations.

Include Multiple Entry Points to the General Session Main Stage

The human mind craves newness and it remembers surprise and difference much better than it does the routine. That’s why vacations are more memorable than your daily commute to work, even though most of us commute more often than we vacation.

So for general sessions design sets with multiple entry points onto the stage. Consider holding some entry points for things like new product reveals or VIPs.

And remember that entrances can also come in space, something that the wizards at Cirque du Soleil excel at. “Flying” someone onto stage is extra work and budget, and it requires a presenter who’s game and a theme that makes sense for such entrances. But when it’s done right it can be not only grand, but unforgettable.  

Key General Session Attention Getters to the Venue

When in New Orleans, bring on the 'Second Line.'

When general session attendees go to a convention in a city they don’t know well, oftentimes they want to get a sense of the local culture. And attention getters in the general session is one place where you can give them some local flavor.

Culture in North America is often accused with being pretty much the same wherever you go. If the cool kids in Santa Monica start wearing skinny striped pants, it won’t be long before the cool kids in Brampton, Ontario are doing the same.

You can see much the same in food. A McDonalds in Manhattan Beach, California is about the same as one in Manhattan, New York, as are all the McDonalds in between.

But for all the sameness of large food and retail chains across the country, this is just a surface analysis. North American culture has much more range than just the culinary distance between McDonalds and Taco Bell.

Again, you can see it most clearly in food. You might be able to buy a decent New Orleans style Po’boy sandwich in Minneapolis, for instance, but the best experience eating one is going to be in the Crescent City itself.

Likewise, you can find talented improv troupes in many cities. But seeing Second City in Chicago or Toronto is going to be more special because of their history in those two cities.

When people are at a convention or show in an unfamiliar city, they want to sample some of its local flavor. If your convention is in Nashville, even people who aren’t country music fans want to hear a little twang when they’re in town. Oblige them in the general sessions with attention getters that feature a slide-guitar band.

In Maui bring out the Polynesian dancers and musicians. In New Orleans hire a brass band and invite attendees to serve as the “second line.” In Las Vegas find a place in your general session for some showgirls. In Memphis it would be a crime not to use a blues band in your general session. In Tucson you’re almost certainly going to eat some deliciosa Mexican food. Why not hire a spirited mariachi or ranchera band to perform during your general session?

By keying general session attention getters to your show’s venue you’ll help cement their memories of that city and the show you held there.

Viva the Dimensional Set!

The faceted dimensional set from 2014 Event Marketing Summit. 

When Steve Jobs unveiled new Apple products at Macworld inevitably there was an inconspicuous dais at stage right and an enormous center screen. As in so many other things, Apple was a trendsetter and for many years the defining characteristic of general session sets has been a minimalist flat wall of screens.

Increasingly, however, companies are turning to more dimensional sets for their general sessions.

There’s no denying how impressive it is to walk into a general session room with more screen space than Times Square! And certainly Apple had good reason for favoring its huge screen approach, none the least of which was that Steve Jobs’ considerable charisma didn’t require augmentation. Moreover, Jobs was typically demonstrating products that could be held in his hands and they needed the magnification of huge screens to be visible from the stage.

Dimensional sets, or sets that exist on more than one plane, bring a number of advantages:

• They hold more visual interest for attendees

• They can accommodate more stage entrances, which also adds visual interest

• They offer lighting designers a more interesting canvas to paint on and a more interesting palette to paint with

• And, with today’s video-mapping techniques you don’t give up much projection space compared to sets with wall-to-wall screen.

• Dimensional screens can also be more involving for the general session attendee

That last one requires a little bit of explanation. Today, all general session attendees are accustomed to having screens in front of them. Their lives are filled with computer screens, mobile device screens, television screens, etc. In today’s world another set of screens in the general session just doesn’t have the punch that it once had.

And, in a general session, big stage screens are more like television which is passive, and less like mobile devices and computers, which are interactive. And interactivity is inherently more powerful than passivity.

So viva the dimensional set!

Putting Fun Back in the General Session

Author C.S. Lewis once wrote, “my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy.” Anyone who’s ever been in an overly long, dry, tedious general session may beg to differ.

The fact is, general session attendees have always had options. The human mind craves the new and the different. And when general sessions weren’t stimulating enough plenty of attendees just walked out, tuned out, or, like the cadets at the left, drooled on their neighbor. 

Nowadays, when almost everyone has a mobile device, general session attendees have even more options for leaving their body in the general session, but taking their mind somewhere else.

And so meeting planners are increasingly turning to fun, both as a way to break up general sessions, but also deliver content in a way that is memorable and engaging.

Dale Irwin, a Chicago comedian who bills himself as a “professional summarizer,” told Meetings Focus magazine that fun helps keep people not only in their seats, but off their phones: 

“As a presenter and as a planner, you have to remember that keeping people laughing is a valuable tactic,” Irwin continues. “When you’re in the audience and laughing, you’re not asleep, you’re paying attention. Very close attention because you don’t want to miss the next line in case it’s about you, or somebody you know, or maybe your boss. When you’re laughing, you’re not checking e-mail, playing Angry Birds or walking out of the presentation. You are actively engaged with the content. That doesn’t happen so much with PowerPoint.”

What kind of fun are planners putting in general sessions?

• Karaoke with live bands 
• Rock groups including legend acts 
• Comedians
• Comedy sketch and improv troupes 
• And more

There has to be a business purpose to the fun. No one wants to get a call from their boss or a reporter asking about your ‘lavish’ meetings. But today those kinds of questions can be answered if there is a business purpose.

How are you bringing fun to your general sessions? Comment below.