Series: How Adults Learn, Now

This new Convene^® series, How Adults Learn, Now is intended to offer meeting professionals a new paradigm, focused on optimizing the adult learning experience.

January 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - Meetings Remix Part I

This first article describes how four major factors - learning environments, fragmented audiences, technology, and networks - affect how adults learn.

February 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - Meetings Remix Part II

This second article in the new How Adults Learn, Now series - and second half of Meetings Remix- focuses on integrating the tried-and-true practices with new ideas to create a richer learning experience.

March 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - There's a Reason to the Rhythm

The blueprint for a song is the musical score; it's what the vocalists and instrumentalists follow. Meetings, too, start with a blueprint…

April 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - Don't Miss a Beat

A meeting planner never wants to skip over information needed to create the learning environment that is essential to a successful attendee experience.

May 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - Synthesizing, Composing, Designing

Think "planner" and "designer" are synonymous? There's a distinct difference, and nowhere is this more apparent than with meetings. Planning follows a staid process involving a systematic arrangement of elements. When you design, you create. Meeting professionals need to take a holistic approach to designing events that focuses on the end user's experience. Here's how.

June 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - Striking the Right Chord

By adding a variety of new instruments, notes, and chords, you refresh the sound of a remixed song. So it is with designing meetings. By remixing elements - changing up formats, methods of delivery, and repackaging the content - you refresh meetings to make them relevant to today's learners.

July 2008: How Adults Learn, Now - An Environment to the Attuned Learner

A well-designed concert hall boosts the talents of the vocalist and instrumentalist - as well as the audience's ability to experience music that moves the soul. Likewise, a well-designed learning environment is in tune with learners' physical, psychological, and physiological needs, enabling them to immerse themselves in the learning experience.

The actual creation of the content and learning materials — based on work done during the design process — takes place in the development phase. The materials, manuals, program design, selection of topics and developing sessions, audio, video, and graphics are ready for review. All of the checklists are completed, the details attended to, and the learning event — with all the components in harmony — is ready to implement.

The average consumer is exposed to hundreds of advertising messages every day and besieged with information in the workplace. So it’s crucial for meeting professionals to create event-marketing campaigns that cut through the cacophony and resonate with potential participants. Here are 16 ways to get your message heard.

You’ve gone through all the planning stages — analysis, design, and development — and now it’s time to execute. The stakes are high. There’s no dress rehearsal for a foolproof meeting that will reach today’s learner. It can’t be entirely scripted. You need to make room for participation, informal learning, and technology ... and let the meeting “unfold rather than be foretold,” borrowing a phrase from Mary Boone, an authority on interactive meetings.

While evaluation is considered the last stage of meeting planning, it should be conducted throughout the entire process. Indeed, it is formative when it takes place throughout the planning process; at the close of the meeting, it is summative. Or, in keeping with this series’ musical theme, when the conductor rehearses the orchestra, it’s formative; when the audience applauds the performance, it’s summative. Formative evaluation ensures your event is on key. Summative evaluation informs your future efforts.

The How Adults Learn, Now series is sponsored by the Hiltons of Chicago.