“It’s Time To Bring Real Conversations Back To Business.”

Real conversations and storytelling are getting lost in the social media shuffle.  And the texting shuffle.  And other places where we don’t actually have to talk to another person anymore.  This isn’t just bad communication.

When taken too far forgoing in person interaction can be bad for business.  Your business.  Your events.   Your marketing.

Let’s take a look at this (and better ways to be)…

ONLINE

While Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms are great places to connect they shouldn’t be the primary/only place we connect.  They’re great for continuing conversations and keeping in touch after we meet people.  They’re great for finding new, like minded people to connect with.  They’re great for a lot of things but they will never replace phone calls.  Or conversations in person over coffee.  Or…

You get the idea.  We need to remember this and strive for solid connections, friendships and relationships offline.

AT EVENTS

While the standard format of many events and conferences involves a keynote speaker talking at the audience for 45(ish) minutes and people sitting at round table tops listening.  Then clapping.  Then eating dinner or leaving to visit the trade show hall or sponsor exhibits.   While motivational speeches, entertaining keynotes and sharing great lessons definitely have their place in business and always will those are no longer the ONLY choice you have; especially when your focus is learning, team building and creating networking experiences.

The point here: Conversations can happen on stage, with the presenter(s) and with the audience.  This doesn’t mean panels (here’s my rant “Please Stop Having Panels At Your Events And Conferences!”).  The best in the conference business saw this trend happening ahead of time.  Richard Saul Wurman (The Founder of TED Talks) realized this and took a new chance with “The WWW Conference“ in 2012.  What was it?  ALL conversations.

On stage speakers can engage in exciting and  helpful conversations – NOT boring interviews with 10 canned questions and 10 prepared answers.  Ugh.  That’s just listening to 10 mini-speeches.  Do more for your event.  ONE80 does that.

And the audience?  Why leave people to idle chat at dinner tables or to hunt for conversations at networking events with hundreds of people in room bumping into each other randomly?  Let’s not.  Mastermind groups, amazing facilitators and guided conversations will change that.

AFTER EVENTS

If you have amazing learning and networking experiences like we talked about above – why let them stop when people leave the room?  What’s the usual “follow up” after an event?  You’ve probably experienced something like this:

  • You get a thank you email letting you know you’ve been added to a mailing list if you’re not already on it.
  • You get another  link (if they’re socially media savvy) to a Facebook or other photo album.
  • You get silence.
  • You get an invite to buy a ticket to their conference next year.

Sound about right?

Conversations need to happen throughout the year to build community.  If we’re talking about experiences like the ones above this means more interviews (new ones after the event – not just replays of the speeches on stage), more interaction with the audience (Q&A’s on blogs, Twitter chats and such).

In short real conversations. ONE80 does that.