Conferences are used to bring together people with common interests and discuss issues and ideas relating to a specific topic. Conferences can be held on almost any topic, come in many sizes, and can be run by any number of organizations. In order to be successful, a conference requires intensive time, planning, and resources. This section of the Toolbox describes what a conference is, why and when you might want to organize one, who might do so, and how to go about it successfully. Show What is a conference?A conference is a gathering of people with a common interest or background, with the purposes of allowing them to meet one another and to learn about and discuss issues, ideas and work that focus on a topic of mutual concern. The Latin roots of the word “conference” mean, literally, “Bring together.” A conference brings together people and ideas. In the cases of health and community work, conferences often have the goal of generating or working toward solutions to problems or broader social change. Conferences may be held in places other than the workplaces and neighborhoods of their participants, so that the people attending can focus on the topic at hand without distractions. Some conferences are even held in another area of the country or the world.
The structure and contents of conferences can vary greatly, but a typical framework would include one or more presentations of work and/or ideas about a given topic. These presentations may take the form of lectures, slide shows or films, workshops, panel discussions, and/or interactive experiences. In addition, many conferences include posters or graphic or multimedia exhibits that participants can view independently.
A conference may last a few hours or several days. It may be a one-time event, or a regular (usually annual) fixture on participants’ schedules. It may be held at the YMCA down the street, or in a hotel in Paris or Barcelona or San Francisco. It may also be one of several types: Academic conferences. Most academic conferences are centered around a single subject, and sometimes on a single topic within that subject. The format usually involves graduate students and academics presenting their research, work, and theories, and defending, expanding, or changing them in response to questions, criticism, and other feedback from colleagues. Generally annual, these conferences are often sponsored by the professional organization of the discipline involved, and may be held in a different city each year. A major focus of academic conferences, besides the exchange of ideas, is networking, which, in academia as elsewhere, is a key to collaboration, funding, employment, and other professional benefits. Professional association conferences. These are similar to academic conferences in some ways, but presentations tend to be focused more on practical issues, both having to do with the actual work participants do, and with regulations, funding, and other forces that affect the profession. Professional associations in the U.S. may exist at state, national, and, sometimes, international levels, and each of these levels may hold a yearly conference.
Training conferences. A training conference may be run by a professional association, but is at least as likely to be conducted by an industry or industry organization, a state or federal agency, or a local coalition or initiative. As might be expected, its purpose is training, and so it might include workshops on methods and techniques, information on new regulations, or simply an exchange of experience and methods among people from a number of different organizations. Another possibility for nonprofits is a conference run by a manufacturer or supplier to teach participants how to use products their organizations have purchased. Issue- or problem-related conferences. These might be convened by almost any association, organization, institution, or citizens’ group to focus on a particular concern. Such conferences range from “Education Summits” called by the President of the U.S. and attended by politicians, school superintendents from large cities, and eminent thinkers (but often no teachers or students), to local-coalition-sponsored events focusing on child abuse in the community. The purpose here may be to inform and energize people about the issue, to create a critical mass of concern about it, or to develop strategies for approaching it. Depending on the issue’s importance and the enthusiasm of the participants, this kind of conference can turn into an annual event. Why organize a conference?There are a number of reasons you might organize a conference, some practical, some idealistic, some political, and some with elements of all three.
Who should organize a conference?We’ve said that many different kinds of organizations, groups, and institutions might find themselves in the position of organizing a conference. Some of the more common examples are:
When should you organize a conference?
How do you organize a conference?
Organizing a conference involves several phases:
Creating an organizing structure
The organizing team or committee often comes from the board of the sponsoring organization. In the case of organizations that put on annual conferences, the organizing committee may be a standing committee of the board, and meet year round. It may also include the coordinator or committee chair of the previous conference. Where the conference is small, local, and a single event, the organizing team is more likely to be a group representative of several sectors of the community, or at least of the community the conference is aimed at (e.g., health and community workers). Conference committees are often split up into subcommittees, as suggested above, each handling specific parts of the conference; this arrangement generally makes for more efficiency, and keeps everyone from becoming overloaded with tasks.
Whatever the circumstances, it’s almost always a good idea to have a single coordinator – or, in some circumstances, two co-coordinators – as the focal point for a conference. Being the coordinator doesn’t mean doing all the work, but rather being the one person who knows what’s going on with every area of the event’s planning and execution. This makes for a much more efficient operation, and also simplifies communication and accountability.
Planning the conference
The following steps will help you and your organizing committee to plan your conference:
In the case of many national or international organizations, the annual conference is scheduled for several days as a matter of course, at least partially because most people have to travel long distances to get to it, and often piggyback vacations onto it. For a small local conference, where everyone will go home at night, length will probably depend more on how much time participants can afford to spend, how long the space is available, and what the program is. The conference date should be set in order to avoid conflict with other events that affect the intended audience, or with the realities of their work. (You wouldn’t plan a school administrators’ conference for September, for instance, which is probably the busiest time of year for these folks.) The conference should also not conflict with events of national interest (e.g., a national election or the Super Bowl) or that would affect family obligations (standard public school vacations, or the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays).
An often-used general format for a large conference, and one that many smaller conferences follow as well, begins with a keynote address – a speech or presentation, usually by a well-known or inspirational speaker, that is meant to introduce the theme of the conference, kindle attendees’ enthusiasm, and/or make them think. Following the keynote speaker, and for most of the rest of the conference, the day might be divided into as few as two to as many as six shorter sessions (and sometimes evening sessions as well), often with several choices for each session, where the real content of the conference is presented. Each day may include lunch as part of the conference fee (although some local conferences may be brown-bag, especially if they charge no fee), and some or all days may also include dinner. Meals may include a speaker, awards, or organizational business, or simply be social occasions. Finally, many conferences end with a wrap-up or final speaker, in order to send people home thinking about the issue, and feeling that they had a coherent experience. This is hardly the only structure for a conference, only a typical one. We’ll mention others as the section goes on. So…
What other kinds of sessions will you have? Some possibilities:
A question for the organizer of a small conference is whether to “break out” into several sessions, or simply to stay together for the whole time. The answer really depends on what you want to accomplish, as well as on the number of participants. There are many possibilities. Even some relatively large conferences may keep everyone together, but schedule activities in which people form smaller groups to work on problems or discuss issues, then come back together to share their results or responses. Others may keep the group intact throughout the day so that everyone can hear or participate in the same presentations and activities. Small conferences may take advantage of the size of the group to program activities that would normally take place only in a break-out session. You can be as creative or as conventional as you want – a small conference may sacrifice variety, but gain from the types of activities it can offer and the amount of mixing among participants.
Coordination and troubleshooting. As we discussed above, the coordinator should be the point person in dealing with the conference site, or with caterers, suppliers, presenters, entertainers, exhibitors, participants, and anyone else. It generally falls to him to negotiate with the hotel or other site, to discuss payment and any other benefits with exhibitors, and to handle participants’ problems, complaints, or special needs. He also generally works out the details of mutually acceptable contracts with sites and others.
Publicizing the conference, registering participants, and recruiting presentersPublicity and recruitment. Some conferences draw entirely on members of the sponsoring organization, and so publicity may be limited to the sending of calls for presenters and of pre-conference registration materials to members; in some cases, this all may be taken care of by simply posting the information on a website. But for conferences that are single or first-in-a-series events, rather than part of an annual series, or for annual conferences that seek to attract a broad audience, publicity is often necessary. In addition to mailing to a list of interested people and posting conference information on the Internet, other strategies include:
Pre-conference registration. It makes sense for almost any conference, no matter how small or informal, to have a pre-conference registration procedure for participants. That gives the organizers an estimate of how many people will attend (so they can provide the right amount of food and materials, and estimate the number and size of sessions and the amount of space they need), and it gives participants a solid date to plan for. If the conference is short – a day or less – and free, the registration may be a very simple “I will attend” return card, or even a phone call or e-mail. In addition to the registration form, pre-conference materials should include as much information about the conference as is available: the schedule of workshops, if you have it firmed up; the keynote speaker(s); any special events, such as an awards dinner, annual meeting, or banquet; field trips; and entertainment or other social/fun events. If the conference has a fee, participants are generally expected to send it in with their registration. Registration forms should be sent out early – several months before the conference. Registration forms are also usually posted to an organization or conference website, and participants can register for many conferences online. If possible, there should be some automated procedure for letting people know that their registration forms have been received. (Please see Tool # 1 for sample registration forms.) Recruitment of presenters. Many conference presenters come from the same pool as conference participants – people in the field or members of the sponsoring organization. Calls for presenters, therefore, often go out to the same people as pre-conference registration information and, like pre-registration, can usually be done on line. In addition, you may have particular people in mind, especially potential keynote speakers, whom you will contact personally, or make sure to send presenter information to. Anyone being offered something over and above what most presenters receive – expenses, an honorarium, an award – should be contacted personally.
Now that the groundwork is laid, the conference itself has to take place. For a large conference, that means taking care of logistics beforehand; handling registration each day in such a way that it’s not unpleasant for anyone; responding to participants’ and presenters’ problems and needs; and making sure that everyone provides feedback so that you can evaluate the conference later.
Logistics just before and during the conference. There are a number of scheduling and similar tasks that must be attended to in order to make things flow smoothly:
Conference registration/check-in. People who have pre-registered (the vast majority of participants) should have conference packets waiting for them. (See Tool #3 for contents of a typical conference packet.) Registration tables should be set up so that checking in and receiving packets is as quick and easy as possible – perhaps several lines set up alphabetically. There should always be someone at the registration station – the coordinator, or one of her assistants – who can answer just about any question. There should also be a clear procedure for walk-in registrations – what to do with conference fees, when to stop accepting walk-ins (because the facility is at capacity, for instance, or you’ve reached the limit of extra meal preparation), letting walk-in participants know which presentations are full, etc.. Care and feeding of speakers and presenters. If there are keynote speakers or honored guests – politicians, celebrities, big names in the field – someone should be assigned to make sure that they have what they need, get to the right places at the right times, understand what’s expected of them, get meals, get introduced to people, etc.. At a small local conference, this is less important, since mixing will occur naturally. At a large conference, however, organizers should make sure that these folks – especially if they’ve made room in their schedules to be there, or have agreed not to charge a fee – have a good experience, and leave with a positive feeling about the conference and the sponsoring organization.
Crisis management. The failure of one or more presenters – or, even worse, a keynote speaker that everyone’s been looking forward to hearing – to show up. A weather emergency that makes it impossible for most people to get to the conference. A computer error that leaves many participants without the hotel rooms they thought they’d reserved. Any of these and any number of other crises can arise in the course of a conference. It’s impossible to have a contingency plan for everything that might happen, but it is possible to try, and to anticipate the most common problems – it’s not unusual at a large conference for at least one presenter to fail to appear, for instance – and to have a Plan B if they arise. It’s also crucial to know who’s going to deal with crises as they come up. It’s generally the coordinator, but she should have a backup as well. Be sure you have a plan for medical emergencies (and a first-aid kit, with band-aids, aspirin, and other basic supplies) and for other possible extreme situations. Know where all the fire exits are, and develop a plan for getting people out of the building quickly and calmly. All conference staff should know exactly what to do in these situations. You should also be prepared to deal with participants or presenters who are angry or irrational – everyone on staff should know who will take on that job, and how to reach him quickly. (Conference staff, as well as site representatives, can use cell phones or walkie-talkies to communicate, and having such a communication network can lower the stress level immensely, especially in crisis situations.) Evaluation forms. In most cases, you will want to evaluate the conference (see below), so you need some way of finding out what people thought of it. At a small conference, it may be possible to end the day with one or more short group evaluation sessions, and to get the information directly from participants’ mouths. More common, however, is to hand out simple evaluation forms for each session, and one for the overall conference experience (see Tool #4 for sample evaluation forms.) These forms might also ask participants to identify committees or issues they would be interested in working on in future conferences. The “host” for each session is responsible for making sure that there is time at the end of the session for participants to fill out the evaluation forms, and for collecting them and depositing them at a central point.
Clean-up and packing of materials and equipment supplied by the organizers. At the end of the conference, there’s still work to do. If the contract with the site doesn’t include clean-up in the site provider’s responsibilities (it will for a hotel or conference center), then the organizing team and volunteers have to make sure the place is clean before they leave. Even when clean-up isn’t an issue, organizers have to make sure that they have all forms and other stray materials, any equipment that they supplied themselves, and anything else that needs to go back to the sponsoring organization. It is also often necessary to establish a lost and found box, and to notify participants about lost items that now reside with the organizers, so that their owners can retrieve them. Follow-up. The other major piece of work still left at this point is to follow up on any loose ends. If a plenary (whole-conference) session ended with an agreement to do something, it needs to be initiated. Continuing education certificates have to be issued, if that wasn’t done during the conference itself. Anyone who helped with the conference, from keynote speakers to key presenters to site representatives to volunteers, should be formally thanked in writing. The coordinator and organizers have to settle up with the site or suppliers financially. (Payment for any extra meals, for instance, is generally left till after the conference, so that the actual number can be established.) Regardless of how great it might have been, the conference isn’t over until all the follow-up tasks are done. EvaluationIn evaluating a conference, there are several areas that need to be examined. Individual presentations. Was the presentation relevant to the topic of the conference? Was it clear and understandable to those attending? Did the method of presentation mirror the content, and did it add to or subtract from the effectiveness of the presentation? Did people enjoy and learn from it? Should the presenter be invited to another conference? You should be able to answer these questions if you’ve either interviewed participants or devised good evaluation forms and collected enough of them.
The overall experience. Once again, if you’ve done your work at the conference itself, either by getting direct spoken feedback or by devising good evaluation forms and collecting them from most participants, you should be able to answer the important questions: Did the conference provide a variety of experiences related to the topic? Did participants get what they hoped to, and what they needed? Were there enough opportunities for networking and socializing? Were the sessions generally interesting, helpful, and relevant? Did the conference seem well-organized? Did it flow smoothly? What did participants like best? What would they have done differently? The site and its services (if you held the conference at a hotel, conference center, retreat center, or similar site). Here, the questions are for the coordinator and others who interacted directly with the site, as well as for participants. Was the site easy to deal with? Was the site liaison available and helpful? Did the site provide what it said it would? Did it go beyond the terms of the contract to help make the conference successful? How did it handle errors and problems? Was the food decent and reasonably healthful, and was it delivered on time? What other services did the site provide, and of what quality were they? What did the site provide as a matter of course at no extra charge (water? paper and pens? coffee?) Was the site easy to find and to get to? Were there enough conference rooms, and were they large enough for their purpose and comfortable (neither too warm nor too cold, furnished with reasonably comfortable chairs, tables where needed, etc.)? Was the cost reasonable, compared to other possibilities? Performance of the coordinator, team, conference staff, and volunteers. This should not be a performance review (especially if this was a first or one-shot conference), but rather an examination of what went right, what should happen differently, and how good the systems were. A good bit of this part of the evaluation needs to be done by the people whose performance is being evaluated. Some of the important questions: Were everyone’s assigned tasks clear and well-defined, so that people knew what was expected of them, and there was no overlap except where there needed to be? How well did everyone work together? Was there good communication among all the people involved? Did everyone know who to ask when they had a question? Did everyone know who was in charge of what? Were tasks accomplished in a reasonable amount of time? Did the coordinator know to whom to turn when she needed assistance? The organizing process. There is much overlap between this and the previous part of the evaluation. Here, you need to examine:
Once the evaluation has been completed, and you’ve decided how to make improvements, you’re ready to organize your next conference. But first, take some time to put your feet up and relax now that this one’s over. In SummaryConferences come in many shapes and sizes, but all need to be organized. While small and large, local and farther-reaching conferences have different needs, there are some organizing guidelines that work for most. Just about any sort of conference needs a framework of people and systems to build it on. Any conference needs to be planned – its location, space, timing, content, and form have to be determined. Any conference needs to inform its intended audience of its existence, and convince that audience – or enough of them – to attend. Any conference has to attract interesting presenters, whether they’re from the next office down the hall or from the far reaches of the world. Any conference has to be run well if participants are to have a good experience. And a conference should be followed up and evaluated as well, so that the next one will be better. Regardless of whether it’s aimed at an immediate problem, improvement in practice, networking, or advocacy, a conference should excite participants, and leave them wanting more – more ideas, more contact with others with the same concerns, more change, more ways of doing their work. A good conference has the ability to put into motion currents that can have great influence on an issue or a field. It’s worth the effort to organize it well. |