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How to manage your society events and make your meetings stand out from the rest
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How to manage your society events and make your meetings stand out from the rest
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2022-05-02T00:00:00.0000000
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Segment:0 .
JONATHAN WOOD: I'm Jonathan Wood. I'm from the British Ecological Society. We're the biggest society in Europe for ecologists. Our 6,000 members are studying the interactions of living things and their environment. And they're based-- the majority in the UK, but between 35% and 40% are in various countries around the world. So I'm the Head of Society Programs-- one of those job titles you then have to explain what it is.
JONATHAN WOOD: So my job is in two parts really-- in communication setting, the communications approach for the society. But really importantly for today's talk is that I lead the team that provides everything we do for our members-- so small grant giving to sort of prime new research ideas, our member engagement and communication. But we have a great events team of three people, who do all our events and conferences for the Society.
JONATHAN WOOD: So why we do events-- well, it's very similar to what you've heard already from Emma and others. Conferences really are still very much a part of research science. It's where findings are first presented often, where they're discussed, sometimes challenged. And it really is that networking site that is so crucial to progress in science, where ideas are shared and where new collaborations are forged.
JONATHAN WOOD: And it's also really important for people's careers. It's often where people first present their results as a PhD-- sometimes even an undergraduate student. And it's also then important through people's careers as well, as they progress, as they look for new jobs, as are highly mobile scientists move through postdocs around the world, and then as senior leaders meet up with each other.
JONATHAN WOOD: But for us as a society as well, it is our events and conferences that always come right up at the top of what members value most from the British Ecological Society. So we, like many of you-- our big sort of flagship event is our annual meeting each December. We get between 1,200 and 1,500 delegates over four days. It moves around.
JONATHAN WOOD: This year's is going to be in Belfast in December. And we've even worked with other societies in Europe as well. So we've moved onto the continent too on occasion. I mentioned our in-house events team, but we work very closely with an academic committee as well that guides what we do. So over a number of years now our, annual meeting has really become the almost physical embodiment of what our society is about.
JONATHAN WOOD: It's a welcome gathering of a global community of ecologists, where you hear the latest science. We have up to 11 concurrent streams-- I think it is our record. So it really is across ecology and into neighbouring disciplines as well. And we have lots of social and networking events throughout the week as well. We really hope it leaves people fired up about their research and the new contacts they've met.
JONATHAN WOOD: Often many of us-- and we focus on the programming and the invited speakers and what we think is the draw and the content in the program. It takes an awful long time to organize. And we get some great, great speakers. But also what we try and pay attention to, that I think when we're known in our sector for, is we're known for being friendly and inclusive. And that means thinking about our audience and their experience of that week.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've worked really, very hard on this. So I wanted to just focus on this element of what we've been working on recently. So we do have a delegate survey each year, and for some of our other meetings as well. And this really does represent what people tend to always say they value most about our meetings. And networking is right there at the top, and by a little margin as well.
JONATHAN WOOD: So this is our 2018 meeting survey. So I think close to 300 people responded from memory. Maybe it's a bit less than that, looking at the numbers. And then it's about researchers often emerging-- new early career researchers-- being able to present. And it's not just posters. Many of them present oral talks as well-- and then program content.
JONATHAN WOOD: And then actually what events teams spend a lot of their time on-- their location, the specific speakers, the invited speakers and so on-- they come lower down. So it is that people's experience in the moment of the meeting that is so important to them. One last quick thing I did-- last week, I did a quick Twitter poll. I only got 32 responses, so this is hardly hard data.
JONATHAN WOOD: But I wanted to know that idea that we have where we try and stimulate ideas and allow people to network, so hopefully those new collaborations come about. Well, those 32 people kind of agreed. 41% of them said, yes, I've had new research ideas while being at one of our annual meetings. Yes, new collaborations came out with 31%. Yeah, the social side is important. So 19% said, no they, got a sore head.
JONATHAN WOOD: 9% said other-- I never got any reply, so I don't know what they were thinking there. But so that feels like from that tiny sample size, something's going right anyway. So I guess my point is that we try not to always think about it as a purely professional, formal meet-up for ecologists for the sector. We try and treat people as people. They enjoy social events.
JONATHAN WOOD: It's often where they talk about science continually as well. So we try and include lots of fun socializing events. I think we had a football table as well. One of the most popular things on our own society's stand was people drawing their study organism-- the animals and plants that they study. We had a Tony Hart gallery on our stand. And every few hours, we had to take ones down, because it ran out of room.
JONATHAN WOOD: It was absolutely superb for engagement. We also have an Illustrator working on sessions, making notes. And yeah, we make lots of time for social events, including evening and lots of fun events throughout. There's always a pressure to make the program expand. Knowing networking is so important, we try and make sure lunch and breaks and evening events-- there's plenty of time.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we think that getting everyone in one place is really important as well. We make our exhibition the hub I mean, many societies do that. It really brings the exhibitors into the core of the event. And that's where all the social events happen too. With our plenary speakers, after they've given their talk, they go to another room. And it's a sort of "meet the plenary speaker" session, where everyone comes along, because not everyone feels able to go up and catch them after their talk.
JONATHAN WOOD: And again, we see a lot more engagement there-- are a lot of early career researchers, PhD students, getting to meet their idols I suppose. It's really worked well-- that. We have a welcome mixer the evening before all the talks begin with lots of invited people, but it's open to everyone. We've actually now started a pre-welcome welcome mixer, because not everyone enjoys networking.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've realized those more introverted people need a space where they can come and feel more able just to be or share. And that I think at least has got some good feedback initially. Our training program-- lots of our researchers and members put together suggestions. And so it was a kind of organic thing, where workshops were put together on various topics.
JONATHAN WOOD: This year, we're trying to formalize that a lot more -- ones run by our own staff, as well as members. And for it to go around on a cycle, so every two or three years the same topics will come up. But we'll do them in different ways over those two or three years. So it's that sort of personal development really becomes a part of it, as well as the latest research findings.
JONATHAN WOOD: And that allows us to really target things at different career stages as well. So there are lots of workshops for people really starting out. But then we want to do a few more sort of skills enhancing sessions for those more mid-careers, and so on. So we will try and think through all of this for our various audiences. Another area we've tried to listen to our community about is about inclusivity.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've tried a number of things here. And we keep trying to iterate them and improve them based on feedback. So we've tried a number of LGBT initiatives. We know our last meeting we had pronoun stickers to go on badges. I think it will just become part of the delegate badge, where people can write in their preferred pronouns in this coming year.
JONATHAN WOOD: We tried gender neutral toilets-- made some gender neutral toilets available. We have an LGBT mixer early on in the event. There are pin badges-- all of which have been based on that community's suggestions to us, and listening to their feedback. There's always differences of opinions, and we don't always get it right. But just trying things, I think, is viewed positively and is seen as supporting community too.
JONATHAN WOOD: On accessibility, we also have a network of members there who help us think through those issues. Again, we had badges for the first-- I think it was the first time last year. Maybe it's been two years-- because physical disabilities are not always obvious to everyone. So we now have badges which say, "please offer me a seat." That's gone down well.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we now have a committee member on our meetings committee, who is there to represent that sort of accessibility area and help us think through that. So we've got a checklist for venues in development at the moment. We're also introducing more mental health workshops, which we sometimes had and sometimes didn't. I think we'll now have two or three in our next meeting, because a lot of what makes the difference is all this sort of personal and career development side and really thinking through what our community wants as well beyond the science.
JONATHAN WOOD: And what's guided all of this really is asking the community. Emma mentioned it as well. Our good ideas actually often don't turn out to be good ideas when we test them out with our community. So really listening and responding and acting on what people say has been crucial to all of this work. And as you've heard, it continues to change. This was photographs from last year.
JONATHAN WOOD: We're doing them differently again this coming. One area, which we do appreciate we now need to move into, is, well, our community is ecologists. They spend their lives researching the natural world, biodiversity loss, and climate change. So we're also beginning to think carefully about how we approach issues like carbon offsetting and speakers joining remotely rather than traveling halfway around the world.
JONATHAN WOOD: Catering as well-- although I think that's going to be the most problematic of all of them actually. There's a huge range of opinions about that. But we do have to brief our venues again and then again, because they don't believe us first time about just how many vegetarians and vegans there are amongst our ecologists. Carbon offsetting is going to be, I think, our next target. There are various ways we can think of of approaching that-- a lot more voluntary and optional, some more enforcing.
JONATHAN WOOD: So again, it's assessing from our community where they are all that, because it's a competitive space. We can lose as many people that we bring on through that. And last thing to mention-- I'm actually not an events professional at all. So the last 10 minutes has just been a complete fraud. I come from a communications background, but I've worked with really good events people. So this has all been what I've picked up from their expertise, their sheer amazing organisational and logistics ability to get everything right and done.
JONATHAN WOOD: Because the success of our events is really down to their hard work. Working throughout the year-- it's a year-round process and annual meeting. So I was introduced to this a while ago, and it was actually a surprise to me. But it does make sense. So this is a survey from the states about the most stressful professions around.
JONATHAN WOOD: And of course, it starts with the military and firefighters. And with so many senior leaders in the room, you won't be surprised to notice that corporate executive bracket senior also makes the list. That's down there. But a couple of steps above that is event coordinator, and it's because there are so many things that go into a successful event. So many things have to go right for people's experience to be right.
JONATHAN WOOD: And you only hear about it when things go wrong. And not all of it is in your control. And the events team are dedicated, can-do people. They will say yes to everything, and they really take it upon themselves when things go wrong. And they are working all the hours that god sends as well, particularly through an event. So I guess not being an events professional allows me to sort of finish with, just an understanding of what your events teams go through and what they do and what events involves will go a long way to helping with this, I think.
JONATHAN WOOD: After all, I think we've seen through the session just how important events are to our organizations, our members, and our community. I think I'll end there. [APPLAUSE]
Segment:0 .
JONATHAN WOOD: I'm Jonathan Wood. I'm from the British Ecological Society. We're the biggest society in Europe for ecologists. Our 6,000 members are studying the interactions of living things and their environment. And they're based-- the majority in the UK, but between 35% and 40% are in various countries around the world. So I'm the Head of Society Programs-- one of those job titles you then have to explain what it is.
JONATHAN WOOD: So my job is in two parts really-- in communication setting, the communications approach for the society. But really importantly for today's talk is that I lead the team that provides everything we do for our members-- so small grant giving to sort of prime new research ideas, our member engagement and communication. But we have a great events team of three people, who do all our events and conferences for the Society.
JONATHAN WOOD: So why we do events-- well, it's very similar to what you've heard already from Emma and others. Conferences really are still very much a part of research science. It's where findings are first presented often, where they're discussed, sometimes challenged. And it really is that networking site that is so crucial to progress in science, where ideas are shared and where new collaborations are forged.
JONATHAN WOOD: And it's also really important for people's careers. It's often where people first present their results as a PhD-- sometimes even an undergraduate student. And it's also then important through people's careers as well, as they progress, as they look for new jobs, as are highly mobile scientists move through postdocs around the world, and then as senior leaders meet up with each other.
JONATHAN WOOD: But for us as a society as well, it is our events and conferences that always come right up at the top of what members value most from the British Ecological Society. So we, like many of you-- our big sort of flagship event is our annual meeting each December. We get between 1,200 and 1,500 delegates over four days. It moves around.
JONATHAN WOOD: This year's is going to be in Belfast in December. And we've even worked with other societies in Europe as well. So we've moved onto the continent too on occasion. I mentioned our in-house events team, but we work very closely with an academic committee as well that guides what we do. So over a number of years now our, annual meeting has really become the almost physical embodiment of what our society is about.
JONATHAN WOOD: It's a welcome gathering of a global community of ecologists, where you hear the latest science. We have up to 11 concurrent streams-- I think it is our record. So it really is across ecology and into neighbouring disciplines as well. And we have lots of social and networking events throughout the week as well. We really hope it leaves people fired up about their research and the new contacts they've met.
JONATHAN WOOD: Often many of us-- and we focus on the programming and the invited speakers and what we think is the draw and the content in the program. It takes an awful long time to organize. And we get some great, great speakers. But also what we try and pay attention to, that I think when we're known in our sector for, is we're known for being friendly and inclusive. And that means thinking about our audience and their experience of that week.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've worked really, very hard on this. So I wanted to just focus on this element of what we've been working on recently. So we do have a delegate survey each year, and for some of our other meetings as well. And this really does represent what people tend to always say they value most about our meetings. And networking is right there at the top, and by a little margin as well.
JONATHAN WOOD: So this is our 2018 meeting survey. So I think close to 300 people responded from memory. Maybe it's a bit less than that, looking at the numbers. And then it's about researchers often emerging-- new early career researchers-- being able to present. And it's not just posters. Many of them present oral talks as well-- and then program content.
JONATHAN WOOD: And then actually what events teams spend a lot of their time on-- their location, the specific speakers, the invited speakers and so on-- they come lower down. So it is that people's experience in the moment of the meeting that is so important to them. One last quick thing I did-- last week, I did a quick Twitter poll. I only got 32 responses, so this is hardly hard data.
JONATHAN WOOD: But I wanted to know that idea that we have where we try and stimulate ideas and allow people to network, so hopefully those new collaborations come about. Well, those 32 people kind of agreed. 41% of them said, yes, I've had new research ideas while being at one of our annual meetings. Yes, new collaborations came out with 31%. Yeah, the social side is important. So 19% said, no they, got a sore head.
JONATHAN WOOD: 9% said other-- I never got any reply, so I don't know what they were thinking there. But so that feels like from that tiny sample size, something's going right anyway. So I guess my point is that we try not to always think about it as a purely professional, formal meet-up for ecologists for the sector. We try and treat people as people. They enjoy social events.
JONATHAN WOOD: It's often where they talk about science continually as well. So we try and include lots of fun socializing events. I think we had a football table as well. One of the most popular things on our own society's stand was people drawing their study organism-- the animals and plants that they study. We had a Tony Hart gallery on our stand. And every few hours, we had to take ones down, because it ran out of room.
JONATHAN WOOD: It was absolutely superb for engagement. We also have an Illustrator working on sessions, making notes. And yeah, we make lots of time for social events, including evening and lots of fun events throughout. There's always a pressure to make the program expand. Knowing networking is so important, we try and make sure lunch and breaks and evening events-- there's plenty of time.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we think that getting everyone in one place is really important as well. We make our exhibition the hub I mean, many societies do that. It really brings the exhibitors into the core of the event. And that's where all the social events happen too. With our plenary speakers, after they've given their talk, they go to another room. And it's a sort of "meet the plenary speaker" session, where everyone comes along, because not everyone feels able to go up and catch them after their talk.
JONATHAN WOOD: And again, we see a lot more engagement there-- are a lot of early career researchers, PhD students, getting to meet their idols I suppose. It's really worked well-- that. We have a welcome mixer the evening before all the talks begin with lots of invited people, but it's open to everyone. We've actually now started a pre-welcome welcome mixer, because not everyone enjoys networking.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've realized those more introverted people need a space where they can come and feel more able just to be or share. And that I think at least has got some good feedback initially. Our training program-- lots of our researchers and members put together suggestions. And so it was a kind of organic thing, where workshops were put together on various topics.
JONATHAN WOOD: This year, we're trying to formalize that a lot more -- ones run by our own staff, as well as members. And for it to go around on a cycle, so every two or three years the same topics will come up. But we'll do them in different ways over those two or three years. So it's that sort of personal development really becomes a part of it, as well as the latest research findings.
JONATHAN WOOD: And that allows us to really target things at different career stages as well. So there are lots of workshops for people really starting out. But then we want to do a few more sort of skills enhancing sessions for those more mid-careers, and so on. So we will try and think through all of this for our various audiences. Another area we've tried to listen to our community about is about inclusivity.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we've tried a number of things here. And we keep trying to iterate them and improve them based on feedback. So we've tried a number of LGBT initiatives. We know our last meeting we had pronoun stickers to go on badges. I think it will just become part of the delegate badge, where people can write in their preferred pronouns in this coming year.
JONATHAN WOOD: We tried gender neutral toilets-- made some gender neutral toilets available. We have an LGBT mixer early on in the event. There are pin badges-- all of which have been based on that community's suggestions to us, and listening to their feedback. There's always differences of opinions, and we don't always get it right. But just trying things, I think, is viewed positively and is seen as supporting community too.
JONATHAN WOOD: On accessibility, we also have a network of members there who help us think through those issues. Again, we had badges for the first-- I think it was the first time last year. Maybe it's been two years-- because physical disabilities are not always obvious to everyone. So we now have badges which say, "please offer me a seat." That's gone down well.
JONATHAN WOOD: And we now have a committee member on our meetings committee, who is there to represent that sort of accessibility area and help us think through that. So we've got a checklist for venues in development at the moment. We're also introducing more mental health workshops, which we sometimes had and sometimes didn't. I think we'll now have two or three in our next meeting, because a lot of what makes the difference is all this sort of personal and career development side and really thinking through what our community wants as well beyond the science.
JONATHAN WOOD: And what's guided all of this really is asking the community. Emma mentioned it as well. Our good ideas actually often don't turn out to be good ideas when we test them out with our community. So really listening and responding and acting on what people say has been crucial to all of this work. And as you've heard, it continues to change. This was photographs from last year.
JONATHAN WOOD: We're doing them differently again this coming. One area, which we do appreciate we now need to move into, is, well, our community is ecologists. They spend their lives researching the natural world, biodiversity loss, and climate change. So we're also beginning to think carefully about how we approach issues like carbon offsetting and speakers joining remotely rather than traveling halfway around the world.
JONATHAN WOOD: Catering as well-- although I think that's going to be the most problematic of all of them actually. There's a huge range of opinions about that. But we do have to brief our venues again and then again, because they don't believe us first time about just how many vegetarians and vegans there are amongst our ecologists. Carbon offsetting is going to be, I think, our next target. There are various ways we can think of of approaching that-- a lot more voluntary and optional, some more enforcing.
JONATHAN WOOD: So again, it's assessing from our community where they are all that, because it's a competitive space. We can lose as many people that we bring on through that. And last thing to mention-- I'm actually not an events professional at all. So the last 10 minutes has just been a complete fraud. I come from a communications background, but I've worked with really good events people. So this has all been what I've picked up from their expertise, their sheer amazing organisational and logistics ability to get everything right and done.
JONATHAN WOOD: Because the success of our events is really down to their hard work. Working throughout the year-- it's a year-round process and annual meeting. So I was introduced to this a while ago, and it was actually a surprise to me. But it does make sense. So this is a survey from the states about the most stressful professions around.
JONATHAN WOOD: And of course, it starts with the military and firefighters. And with so many senior leaders in the room, you won't be surprised to notice that corporate executive bracket senior also makes the list. That's down there. But a couple of steps above that is event coordinator, and it's because there are so many things that go into a successful event. So many things have to go right for people's experience to be right.
JONATHAN WOOD: And you only hear about it when things go wrong. And not all of it is in your control. And the events team are dedicated, can-do people. They will say yes to everything, and they really take it upon themselves when things go wrong. And they are working all the hours that god sends as well, particularly through an event. So I guess not being an events professional allows me to sort of finish with, just an understanding of what your events teams go through and what they do and what events involves will go a long way to helping with this, I think.
JONATHAN WOOD: After all, I think we've seen through the session just how important events are to our organizations, our members, and our community. I think I'll end there. [APPLAUSE]
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