Posts filed under ‘Conference / event evaluation’
Evaluation of events and conferences
I’ve written in previous posts about my work in evaluating the impact of events. A very interesting paper on this subject “A Guide to Measuring Event Sponsorship” has been published by US-based Institute for Public Relations. The title is misleading as the paper focuses on how to measure the effectiveness of an event and not on sponsorship evaluation (a separate subject, don’t get me started on it…).
The guide states:
“There are four central questions to keep in mind concerning
event evaluation:
1. How effective was the event? To what extent did the event impact the target public in the desired manner?
2. Did the event change the targeted public in unexpected ways,
whether desirable or undesirable?
3. How cost effective was the event?
4. What was learned that will help improve future events? “
The Guide goes further than I have done in event evaluation by looking at calculating ROI and at the impact on sales (applicable for a commercially focused event). It also confirms my general opinion on event evaluation – we have to go further than simply counting attendees, general reactions and press coverage – we have to look at the impact on attendees’ knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and anticipated behaviour (e.g. intention to purchase a product).
Glenn
Evaluation of LIFT06: can we measure the impact of conferences?
I’ve just finished a very interesting project – the evaluation of the impact of the LIFT06 conference that took place in Geneva in February 2006. In a true open source spirit, the evaluation report is available for everyone to consult. With this evaluation, we tried to go beyond the standard assessment of reactions to a conference. We looked at changes to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Using a triangulation approach combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, I believe we could identify the influence of LIFT06 on these above variables. We were aware of the limitations to the evaluation given that it was a punctual evaluation and based largely on self-assessment of attitudinal and behavioural changes, which I explain here in the report.
What sort of changes could we identify?
Changes to awareness and attitudes: Through and online survey, the majority of attendees (82%) agreed that LIFT06 provided them with interesting information on the usage of emerging technologies and 70% agreed that LIFT06 influenced what they thought about the subject. This quote taken from an attendee’s blog illustrates this point:
“And just think; if I had never gone to Lift06 I would not be feeling anything like this strongly about the issue”
Changes to Behavior: Evaluations of conferences are rarely able to show a direct relation between the event and changes in behaviour of attendees. With LIFT06, some attendees indicated a change in behaviour, such as starting a blog or getting a new partnership. another key objective of LIFT06 was to “connect” people – 94% of attendees reported that they met new people at LIFT06. 
LIFT06, WIKI and Evaluation
The LIFT team have put up a wiki page to gather feedback from people who attended LIFT06. A wiki is a relatively new tool that allows anyone to add or modify content to a web page. For evaluating an event such as LIFT06, this is an excellent way to gather feedback.
For evaluation purposes, testimonies and anecdotes collected through such feedback mechanisms can be equally convincing as quantifiable data collected by surveying and content analysis.
Glenn
LIFT 06: Life, Ideas, Future, Together, February 2-3 2006 Geneva
I am glad to announce that Benchpoint is the evaluation partner for LIFT 06, a conference about new technologies and people taking place in Geneva from February 2-3 2006.
We will be involved in evaluating the impact of the event. This will be very interesting as we are using traditional methods and experimenting with how we can use wikis, mashups and blogs to contribute to evaluation.
We will post any findings of note on this blog.
Glenn
intelligent measurement 