Posts filed under ‘Conference / event evaluation’
communication evaluation event in Zurich – 28 April 2016
For any readers in the Zurich, Switzerland area, I will be giving a presentation for the EMScom Alumni Association (of which I am an alumni of..) on communication evaluation; here is a short description:
Evaluation of communication activities is consistently named as one of the top concerns of communication professionals. Yet paradoxically not even half reportedly undertake any evaluation. Drawing from his recent PhD studies and over a decade of experience in evaluating communication campaigns and programmes, Glenn O’Neil will set out the challenges and complexities of evaluation and offer insights into solutions and approaches to ensure that evaluation brings value to communication professionals and their organisation
Thursday, April 28, 2016, 18h30-21h00
Widder Hotel, Zürich
Cost: 50 CHF (free for EMScom alumni)
Hope to see some of you there! Further information >>
Register also by email: emscomalumni@usi.ch
Glenn
Evaluating conferences and events: new approaches and initiatives
Today at the European Evaluation Society Conference in Helsinki, Finland, I am chairing a session on conference evaluation, and I’m happy to share my introductory slides with readers, found below.
outcome-focused event evaluation
Here is an interesting post on conference/event evaluation from the IDS impact and learning blog.
Interesting in that they propose to go beyond evaluating just participants’ reactions and learnings from events to consider also the impact on organisers and the contributors (speakers, etc.).
Read the full post here>>
Conference evaluation: mapping success stories
New thinking on conference evaluation
Here is an interesting fact sheet from the Evaluation Uncertainty blog:
How to evaluate a conference (pdf)
The author looks at the perspective of the attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.
For example, for attendees, the focus is placed on knowledge transfer, networking and expectations.
Conference evaluation – at a glance
For those interested in evaluating conferences, events and seminars, the following presentation may be of interest to you.
With Laetitia Lienart of the International Aids Society, I presented an overview of conference evaluation for the Geneva Evaluation Network last Wednesday.
New Google group on conference evaluation
If you are interested in the evaluation of events and conference then I’ d suggest you join the new Google group on this subject:
http://groups.google.com/group/conference_evaluation?hl=en
Join the conversation!
What makes for the perfect internal conference?
As regular readers will know I am interested in evaluating conferences and events. So this report caught my eye: What makes for the perfect internal conference.
The report details a discussion from some 40 private and public sector communication professionals in the UK and recommendations for the *perfect internal conference*.
I particularly like what they had to say on “Outcomes and effectiveness”:
“If the conference is part of a wider initiative, this must beclear to participants. Stakeholders need to define and agree on the desired outcomes in advance. This doesn’t preclude unexpected benefits, but creates a frame on which to measure success”
Measuring long term impact of conferences
Often we evaluate conferences with their participants just after the conferences, measuring mostly reactions and learnings, as I’ve written about previously.
Wouldn’t it be more interesting actually to try and measure the longer term impact of a conference? This is what the International AIDS Society has done concerning one of its international conferences – measuring longer term impact 14 months after the conference – you can view the report (pdf) here.
Their overall assessment of impact was as follows:
“AIDS 2008 had a clear impact on delegates’ work and on their organizations, and that the conference influence has extended far beyond those who attended, thanks to networking, collaboration, knowledge sharing and advocacy at all levels.”
Presenting evaluation results in multimedia video
As I’ve written about before, the way in which we present evaluation findings – usually in a long undigestable report – certainly has its limitations. It’s been sometime I’ve been thinking that with the developments in multimedia there must be better ways than the written document to communicate evalution findings – and here it is! We’ve just completed a multimedia video report on the evaluation of the LIFT France conference:
This is certainly the way forward. Thanks to Patricia (concept & inteviews) , Thierry (filming & production), Benchpoint (survey) and Yona (graphics).
intelligent measurement 