The adult attention span is at most 20 minutes. 7 minutes if the topic is boring.  So I promise this post will take you less than 7 minutes to read and then you can engage in the discussion or move on.  It’s up to you.   As an adult you have that choice.

The same needs to be said for the conference educational session.  Speakers need to make their points within 20 minutes.  Then let the audience either engage in the discussion or leave.  Hopefully they stay and there are ways to make them stay (and I don’t mean tying them to the chairs or blockading the doors).

This is actually scientific.  Learning Lab Denmark completed the Learning Meeting Research and Development Project between 2004 and 2006 to identify how to involve attendees more, thereby increasing how much attendees learn and benefit from the meeting.    In Steen Elsborg and Ib Ravn’s book “Learning Meetings and Conferences in Practice” they detail creating a ‘learning meeting’.

A key element to the ‘learning meeting’ is to tap into the collective knowledge of the group.  Together you all have more information than the speaker alone.   By allowing attendees opportunities to express themselves, ask questions and talk to each other more learning occurs than simply listening to one speaker.

We’re going to see more and more of this.  I often see senior managers, VPs, Presidents at conferences who are anywhere BUT in a conference session.  They just don’t see the value of them.  But put them together in one room and give them a topic to discuss and they will get value.  You don’t even need to give them a topic but let them come up with one on their own.  (Open Space or Un-conferences would be ideal for this).

It’s not just the senior people.  Last week I went to a session on social media and the “expert panel” talked about how important it is to have a website.  Over a third of the room was already on twitter (and 90% on facebook) yet there was no information on good examples of using social media effectively (the group was composed entirely of non-profits).  On that very day twitter was abuzz with how to donate money to support Haiti relief!  Ok – I’m off topic here but the point is that the audience could have had an effective discussion on how social media worked (or didn’t) for their organizations but the talking heads at the side of the room missed the boat entirely.  The result was an event with very little meaning or learning involved.

We are slowly breaking the mold and starting to deliver conferences that have meaningful learnings behind them.  It’s hard to break the traditional format of 60 minute lectures but it is so worth it.