SISO Women’s Leadership Forum 2024 Recap

SISO Women’s Leadership Forum, Philadelphia, PA - 

The 2024 SISO Women’s Leadership Forum was focused on “Creating Awe” at events. Keynote Dee O’Neill started off the day with “Wired for Wonder” explaining how to apply brain health in our events based on current brain (neuro) science.

Citing the $3 billion USD loss due to stress and stress-related illnesses in the workforce, she suggested events and a changed focus in the workplace can be a solution to this big problem.

Some of the primary causes of stress, defined, as the feeling that demands on a person are beyond their capacity, are not adapting or changing as circumstances warrant, burnout, complacency, and multi-tasking. She went on to explain that providing wonder and awe at our events (and in the workplace) can be transformative - positively impact eventgoers’ mindsets and brain health. She also suggested minimizing distractions and focusing on being present and engaged instead.

Next up was, “Creating ‘Awe’ Moments at Events” with Rachel Wimberly, Hyve, Michelle Metter, Fast Forward Events, Jackie Jaquez, Informa Markets, and Drake Slaikue-Lawhead, Clarion North America Events.

Jackie talked about the importance of data in recruiting an audience. She discussed the role of data intelligence by using it to determine segmentation and provide meaningful experiences throughout the visitor acquisition process.

She shared how Informa Markets has been using multichannel marketing (with inclusively worded promotion) according to the 70/20/10 rule (Seventy percent of tried-and-true tactics, twenty-percent innovative strategies, and ten-percent experimental types of promotion) to boost attendance at their expos.

Drake talked about how ITC Las Vegas uses a variety of activations and events to transform their exhibit floor into a playground of sorts to foster community. There is an “Everyone from the industry is in the room” approach – with 150 matchmaking tables (meetings held in 15-minute increments) on the show floor, sixty parties (many hosted by sponsors) held all around the expo, affinity (segmentation) group meet-ups, 12 educational tracks, and more over three days. In other words, the level of activities is intentionally overwhelming, and visitors have plenty of choices in how to engage with others.

Michelle said the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival runs 43 events in the city over ten days. It’s about delivering their brand’s promise: Arrive at Awesome. “We want everyone to say, ‘that was awesome’ after every event!” As a small company, a lot of time is spent talking about the emotional quotient on how attendees will feel – and how they can deliver on awe and spark joy.

Instead of looking at the ticket buying/attending process as transactional, Fast Forward Events wants their event goers to be educated and entertained. They work with brand partners to help create activations.

Rachel asked the panelists about how they encourage their teams to create awe. Jackie said they try to create a ‘failure safe environment’. Drake disclosed they select new ideas every show with some of those accepted being larger risks, others less so. The big question is if the new ideas can be executed. He cited being able to fail quickly as a key component to all the ideas put forward.

Michelle said the company holds an annual team pitch where employees are asked to bring new ideas to the table. Successful ideas are selected through the lens of: 1) What ideas have the greatest likelihood to succeed; and 2) will the new idea(s) substantially change the experience? Additionally, they encourage an open-door policy on new ideas throughout the year.

Round table discussions were then held on bringing awe to everyone’s expos.

Q1: What ideas from other events and festivals can you bring into your own events?
Answers included: Taking inspiration from retail such as pop-ups, Apple Stores; changing the mindset from booths to activations and using your exhibitors as partners.Kimberly Hardcastle, mdg, a Freeman Company, asks her clients, “If you were to launch a competing event to yours, what would it look like?”

Q2: What experiences that create awe can you bring into your own show?
Answers included: Charge your teams with creating memorable events that last long after your events. Stimulate the senses. Gather an exhibitors’ only band, change up the show entrance into an experience (a la Money 20/20).

Q3: What are your barriers to creating awe?
Answers: budget (of course), can you make a new experience more affordable by thinking outside of the box? Can you give yourself and your team permission to be playful and engage with others?

Q4. How can awe be created throughout the year?
Answers: using social media effectively (year-round engagement), utilizing USG (user generated content), video engagement, and local industry meetups.

The last session of the day, “Optimize Your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) Strategy,” moderated by Ray Rhoads, RX Global and panelists Mel Montes, Clarion Events North America, Don Pietranczyk, Informa Markets, Michelle Metter, Fast Forward Events.

Ray suggested cutting through today’s political noise by sharing the value of DEIB instead. He explained 1 in 6 people experience a disability and 9% of the world’s population are LBGTQ+.

Mel said empowering show leads in a thoughtful and organic way and checking metrics year-over-year has been working for Clarion. Michelle mentioned being open as an owner to learn what they don’t know, along with continually learning are a couple of her company’s core values. They empower their teams to make DEIB decisions with regards to the communities they serve and enforce a code of conduct at their events.

Measurement is a tricky subject – as one cannot directly ask if someone is LBGTQ+. Don said that DEIB is not a fad and shouldn’t be thought of that way. Unfortunately, this is still a topic that must be discussed as there hasn’t been enough change (yet).

Mel suggested incorporating DEIB and inclusivity as part of your universal event design. Younger generations of event goers look at it as “must have” instead of “nice to have” when deciding to attend – or work somewhere. She asked, “Do the people attending your events see people who look like them? If you don’t belong to an affinity group, you can be an ally. There’s room for everyone in the conversation.”

Don suggested partnering with Diversity.org, an organization who brings high school juniors and seniors to expos, expanding their world and showing the different kinds of careers available to them. He also suggested using the words diverse and inclusive instead of DEIB.

Michelle advised that if people aren’t in the room, they can’t connect with leaders in their industry and advance their careers. To that end, they started a mentorship program (now sponsored) for those disadvantaged financially to attend their events. For nay-sayers, she said, “For the ones we lose [who don’t like the program], there are others we gain.”

The SISO DEI SIG group has developed a questionnaire available for members to jumpstart the process within your company.