One of the best events we ever ran did something that so many events fail to do.
If you look up the defintion of “event” on Google, you’ll get the following result.
Event: “a thing that happens, especially one of importance.”
What most events fail to do is make it clear, from the beginning, why everyone is gathering. Why are you asking everyone to take time away from their work, their lives, and their families to meet?
Our client evaded this trap because they had a North Star Slide.
Within the first five minutes of the event, they answered three key questions:
- Why are we here?
- What are we going to do?
- How are we going to measure success?
They used those points to guide everything else at the event. From networking to workshops.
I talk about it a bit in our video on North Star Slides.
Building Your Own North Star Slide
If you want to build your own North Star Slide, you need to answer those three questions for the audience.
1. Why are we here?
Make it clear. For example, a nuclear energy conference could say:
“We are here to discuss the state of nuclear in Canada. Right now, adoption of nuclear slower than it should be. That’s hurting our net-zero goals.”
From that, you can develop the what.
2. What are we going to do?
This is the output of your workshops, panels, sessions. It’s not enough to talk.
You need to come up with outcomes.
“We are going to talk about bottlenecks in nuclear, and compare notes on how to talk to politicians.” How are we going to measure success?
So you met and came up with notes and whiteboards full of drawings. Now what do you do with them?
“We will take this output and make a guide on how to talk to politicians about nuclear energy. Next event we’ll talk about how that went.”
3. Measuring success of an event is often missed.
Each event should produce some sort of summary output that feeds the next event.
The next time you gather should feel like a natural continuation of where you left off.
Just with more real-world lessons to discuss.
Don’t feel overwhelmed - let’s build your online event together
It can be a challenge to pivot your in-person event to online. Done well, it’s an incredible way to connect with your audience. We take our client’s event ideas and transform them into unforgettable online experiences for their audience. If you’re ready to build a tailored experience for your attendees but you’re not sure how to make it happen, talk to us.