- Read our objectives for the event and tell us: what happened actually? why were there differences?
Added objective - Opportunity to speak with industry leaders & getting contact information/ Exclusive news stories.
- Leading thought space 3 (5)
- Celebrate League Tables 3 (1) 4 (3) 5 (1)
- Growth for platform 3 (2) 4 (3)
- Access to industry leaders 3 (2) 4 (3)
- Good news stories 1 (3) 2 (2)
* What worked?
Time keeping was excellent - within 10mins of stated time makes a big difference
Hosting/helping worked well
Trendy atmosphere - fast beat music made a nice difference
Venue worked well
Active discussions during breaks
Avoided having repetitive structure
Table discussions gave a structure to interaction - & made it easy for people to get to know each other
* What didn’t? Why?
Conflict between hosting and journalism. How should they be labeled next year?
Chatham house rules - took time to get enough "information on the record"
Difficult to get the NEF word out because it was mostly clients
Venue length caused eyesight issues - from back to front was difficult to see
Table host sends too much information - large percentage wasnt useful
Staff room too far away to be useful but was more of a drop place for bags for part of the team
Stage needed to be more elevated - was difficult to differenciate between speakers
Moderating was too passive - Chris set a good standard. Margaret gave too much history. Emma was funny/ lively. Guy asked a lot of leading questions.
Michaels opening presentation was too long - ended up rushing through last slides. 5 to 6 more appropriate.
Michaels closing was too long.
Keynote is important but too much expectation on speech - Q&A was more useful
Strong on financiers & light on industry execs
* What would you do differently next time?
Q&A session wouldve helped, more debate with people standing
Polling or voting wouldve been useful
Only met 2 or 3 press - they seemed happy
May be useful to open part of the conference to the trade press. Specialist press are very important - they are often the ones who "get the word out" - consider a press conference with a few speakers.
Chatham house rules should be used again
More monitors so people can see the stage better
* Any personal comments, notes, suggestions, etc
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Debrief with Anthony O'Connor, Angus, Susan regarding publication and edit of The Book of Results and Findings
What was objective in terms of doing the book -
- provide people who attended with an added value document to bolster their recollection - give 4 out of 5
- marketing tool for NEF and the NEF Summit - give 5 / 5 (NEF looks serious and professional)
- give tangible evidence to the partners / sponsors… that it actually happened - give 4 / 5
What worked? What didn't?
- regret that the blue on the front is not zippy / eyecatchy enough - a bit mat (balanced on the wash)
- anthony - would have gone for the color photos and glossier color vs. the wash
- start this earlier enough? i think it was started early enough, perhaps
- more people could have been aware of the time scale and pressure in terms of deadline - hard to communicate the urgency
- example - getting the tapes, it was 10-11 days to get them when coming from West London
- it always felt like he was chasing and could have shared time urgency
- we were looking at 3 weeks before (4-5 April) when we expected
- unnecessary wild cards of the H&S study, change the insight notes, susan requiring summary of each floor discussion
- went from 48 to 64 pages - a third extra - that affected the time it takes (data charts, H&S, etc.)
- for first time project it was worth getting the extra time to get it really right
- was it worth it to have an outside editor to run this, it still took a lot of angus time
- back cover looks nice
- add on the inside back cover - waiting for feedback
- photographs are good - and Andriana editing was good
- all the writers hit the deadline, this was different from usual stuff, all did just fine
- anthony felt a bit on the outside… thought would get quotes from printers… and it was awkward, took a bit longer to find out than necessary
- andriana liked having just one person to deal with
- no problem in terms of her location¨
- actually an advantage as it forced you to be precise in descriptions in terms of style and tone
- contents are correct? or should there be a different balance? didn't get as much info was where the talk on the floor focussed. perhaps and extra writer who does mini interviews at tables and gather the intelligence that way… get face to face comment vs. 2-3 words in Tony's systems - could have a bit more detail / the table hosts weren't being discriminating in what was sent to the distillers… sent all the scraps regarding of how it was entered…
- so the distillers had to pull things out and that was hard
- sound bites stand out from tables
- for the print version, if someone separate from what they are doing and go around and do interviews and listen to various conversations and we would have got more info…
Do differently next time?
- all house issues of style (usd / $, capital letters for titles) get settled early
- minimize the Andriana expense, with more proof edit time in word - typos in there, and bits where we could have changed at the word stage
- before we get into page lay-out - one change domino's into lots of other things
-because Andriana working on apple mac and her version of quark was different from Anthony's, he could not do anything - had to center everything with her
- IT alignments could be helpful
- get angus and susan to see it / the word stage before it went to andriana
- putting some words on the spine… 64 pages
- not recycled paper, but paper from rainforest approved (sustainable)
- missing the transcripts of the videos as an input
- data charts - have andriana compeletely redo them to match format
- it was hard to get the raw data - to redo the charts
Video
- have a camera set up somewhere and catch — Diary Room at Big Brother.. becomes very personal
- Jodie only picked up speakers and only one background shot
- do it differently - with a real producer / control of production values
- use the logo all over the screen so it shows up all over the videos ( like the WEF and other awards)
