The third element of a great event: diversity
Earlier this week, after a keynote speech I gave at the Council of Michigan Foundations’ annual summit, I moderated a panel. It was a phenomenal experience because of the diversity among the panelists. There were people from different sectors, age groups (one was a high school student) and people with disabilities. By making the most out of such a diverse panel, the audience got to experience surprise, emotion and deep, unexpected insight. What follows are three ways of thinking about diversity for an event.
1. Make sure the stage is diverse
Where’s the diversity among keynote speakers, panelists, hosts etc.? This question has a lot of people engaged at the moment. There is a reason for all the conversation and energy around this topic. Just yesterday, the University of York cancelled a talk on Brexit because there were zero women on an eight-person panel.
The people that you actually see on stage says a TON about the event itself. Is it a place for people to encounter new and different ideas? Does it encourage people to explore new, interesting relationships? Is the event designed to invite new, unusual perspectives? If the speakers or panels lack women, or people of color, or people from unexpected industries, or if they are all dressed the same way, it suggests that most of what you will hear will be the same from each. (This is almost always true). So, if you are designing events, keep a laser focus on the diversity on stage. Maximize it to the best of your ability.
2. Make sure people experience the diversity
In an ideal situation, you’ll have the time, budget and resources to invite a truly diverse audience to your event, as diversity is the source of truly serendipitous and breakthrough experiences. But there are usually tight limitations as to who you can invite to an event — it’s the sales team from the North American division, for instance, or it’s a focused industry gathering. When this is the case, it becomes critical for an event to tease out the existing diversity of any given audience.
No matter how alike everyone may look, it is also true that everyone is different at some level. A powerful event is able to highlight and amplify these differences, and make the most use of them. At one event Medici organized this year, we asked each audience member to identify all the things that make up their background and personalities. We were then able to use those incredible differences as source for creating new ideas and relationships over the remaining two days.
3. Make sure the event itself uses diverse structures
Most events are like a new installment in the Saw movie franchise. You know what to expect: keynote, panel, keynote, panel, lunch, breakout, panel, keynote. Events have become stunningly predictable. (I know, I have been to probably a thousand of them). My job at these events is often to introduce new thoughts, ideas and energy through my keynote—which usually include exercises. But I believe the event itself could do far more to introduce diverse forms and mediums for the audience to engage in.
Specifically, I believe that the audience themselves can far more deeply engage in the design and construction of events—fill it with content themselves. This has already happened in social media where users create content on Facebook or Instagram. Imagine that an event is such a platform: how can the audience itself fill it with experiences? The events we have designed at Medici are filled to the brim with these types of moments, going from a unidirectional flow of information and experience (from the stage to the audience) to a multi-directional flow (flowing from stage to audience, from audience to stage and from audience to audience). This is the future of events. They must look for, prioritize, and champion diversity.
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In case you missed them, here are the first and second articles in this series.