You can create a trail of logic to combat your biggest worries. Let’s say you’re putting on a new type of event for the first time. It’s a solve-event, and you plan to convene professionals to help solve a big industry problem. The trouble is sometimes your members don’t participate. They are busy, so they multi-task, miss big portions of your events, and tune out.
If this new event is to be successful, participants need to be engaged. What can you do to get them to pay attention, participate, and contribute?
Try determining why they might tune out and then solve for that.
At the start of past events, members might not have tuned in because they received some early signals that their participation is not required, so try skipping the long intros and instead create an activity that everyone can participate in right away.
Participants might not contribute because they worry their ideas are not good enough. Set the expectation that all ideas are welcome and explain that blurted-out ideas sometimes lead to the very best ideas.
Attendees might not participate because they do not feel comfortable. One way to ease nerves is to orient participants ahead of the event or early in the event. Set the stage for openness and generosity by using a super friendly tone.
Reverse engineer your next new event to figure out how to make the participant experience better.
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