Paying for Results

I once had a friend who had an interesting idea about her pay when speaking at a conference. In lieu of charging an honorarium for general sessions or keynotes, she envisioned passing an offering plate at the end of her talk and asking people to make a contribution based on how valuable they found her presentation.

While she never actually did it, I'm convinced that the quality of her work would have led to much bigger paydays from the participants than the fee she was charging the sponsoring organization.

Paying for value. It's an idea that seems to be increasingly gaining traction be it artists releasing CDs online and letting you pay whatever you want ... to pay what you can for local theatre performances ... to advertisers paying ad firms based on actual sales changes from the ad campaigns they design as opposed to flat fees regardless of the ultimate results.

Whil I doubt many professional societieis would ever fully embrace this mindset when it comes to member dues or conference registration, I'd sure be curious about what price people would pay to affiliate or attend if they were able to name their own terms. Given the minimal value associated with some memberships and conferences, I'm not really sure just what it is we are paying for or why people continue to do it.

Powerful Presentations Tip #2: If Content is King, Context also is Royalty

After they determine learning outcomes, many presenters immediately identify content segments for their session. Too often though, presenters don’t sufficiently consider context before selecting content, and that’s a missed opportunity. At least four participant contexts should be considered as a part of session design:

Their profession or industry

What’s happening in the participants’ profession? Is it a growing or contracting industry? Is it characterized more by stability or rapid change? What immediate challenges and issues confront it? Who are the critical stakeholders for the profession or industry? What partnerships or alliances are in play?

Their workplace (and their role in it)

Are your participants students, self-employed, small business staffers, or part of a large organization? Are you speaking to front-line workers, middle managers, or executive leaders? What’s the geographic distribution of the participants and what do you need to understand about similarities and differences between various locales? How are workplace decisions made and changes introduced and managed? What workplace factors could influence participants’ efforts to apply the content from your session?

Their overall knowledge, experience, and personal characteristics

What knowledge and experience do participants possess? Is your session a refresher on fundamentals or an introduction of new ideas and concepts? What’s the necessary mix of theory and practice given the participants’ current experience and work challenges? What learning styles do you need to design for and what general participant preferences or tendencies do you need to keep in mind? What are participants' general demographics that can help you select appropriate pop culture references, quotes, content examples, etc.?

And don’t forget

Your session’s placement in the overall workday or conference schedule is one final context to consider. What will happen immediately before and after your training session, and what implications does the timing have for participants’ attention, energy, interest, and expectations?

Considering context at this early stage in your presentation design helps ensure your choices about content, format, and supportive materials are relevant and will resonate with session participants. A session that can be presented to anyone, in any profession, in any environment, at any time will speak to no one with the authority and customization that learners deserve.

Association Starbucks

Starbucks has long touted that it is as much about community as it is about coffee. But its rapid expansion cannibalized its essential essence and commoditized its brand value and its offerings. Faced with declining revenues, a tough economy, and pricing challenges from high-end coffee-come-lately challengers like McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks is fighting back with revamped product pricing and offerings.

And they're taking their campaign to the public with aggressive ad campaigns, including two messages with significant meaning for the nonprofit and association communities.

"It's not just what you're buying. It's what you're buying into." This message echoes one of the core findings from the Decision to Join study from ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership: people join associations as much for the greater good and a higher purpose as they do for any product or service that might meet their own self-interest.

And another message I can't help think is meant as a reminder to the company's executives and all its team members as much as it is for the general public: "Starbucks or nothing. Because compromise leaves a really bad aftertaste."

As Jim Collins and Jerry Porras noted so convincingly in Built to Last, identifying your core values is one thing. Living up to them and aligning strategy, tactics, and results are quite another. Doing the latter requires a much higher percentage of the leadership's time and attention than is generally offered.

In these difficult times when too many associations are further commoditizing their own efforts and subsequently marginalizing the true purpose many turn to the organization for, association leaders would be wise to heed the two messages from a corporate community that appears to have seen the light. It's time to return to the core and to reignite and reengage the community.

Powerful Presentations Tip #1: Design With the End in Mind.

For much of March and April, my professional work involved teaching presentation and facilitation skills to subject matter experts (SMEs). SMEs are folks who know their content inside and out, but aren’t always well-versed in how to help others learn from their expertise. Yet they are the ones that associations, in particular, often rely on as speakers and workshop presenters. I worked with a variety of folks in a mix of formats: webinars, full-day and multiple-day sessions, and one-on-one coaching.

Through these varied assignments I’ve gleaned about a half-dozen insights that will be valuable for anyone who has to deliver a presentation from the stage or facilitate a more interactive learning experience. With a little effort on your part, the same content can also inform how you generally communicate with others, particularly when trying to influence decisions being made. I’ll be offering each one of these insights as separate blog posts during the month of May.

#1 Design With the End in Mind

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? And most conference program proposals require you to do this by asking you to share learning outcomes for your session: "At the end of this session, participants will … "

While writing learning outcomes is indeed an initial step of presentation design, thinking of your workshop as the end immediately sends you down a wayward path.

That’s because your session isn’t the end of the learning process. The real learning occurs when participants actually try and apply the information they take from your talk. It’s natural to write learning outcomes that focus on what you hope participants will take away from your session. But your content and session design needs to have an end in mind that is farther out on the horizon.

• How will participants act differently weeks after your presentation?
• What results will they be producing that previously were beyond their capabilities?
• What personal or professional habits or behaviors will they have altered?
• What changes in their work might their colleagues be noticing?
• How might they feel about the work they do or the personal choices they make?

For longer sessions offering time for more content and more varied learning formats, I often go beyond learning outcomes, mapping out a day in the life of a session participant months after attending the workshop. visualizing them in action and how they have changed as a result of the learning they have acquired.

So, yes, the start of good presentation design involves honing your learning outcomes and beginning with the end in mind. Just don’t forget that what usually is thought of as the end is really just the beginning.