Often companies develop events with a view to a highly economic objective. But the power of events goes much further. In addition to being business acts for an economic purpose, its power to transform the attitude and mind of the audience is what sets it apart from the rest of the marketing tools. To create events that enhance this transforming character and reach (and exceed) expectations marked, Ruud Janssen and Roel Frissen have developed Event Canvas.
This method of event design has its pillars in the separation of the different stakeholders and the capacity to change their behavior. To achieve it, it is necessary to start by selecting the stakeholders who have the most weight on the act and to study each one in a different way. After selecting the most relevant, you have to do an exercise of empathy (pay attention to this word because it will be the next content on our blog) and put on their skin to distinguish what is their input behavior, their problems, and what we want to achieve later of the event, as well as what they are willing to sacrifice for attending / organizing it and the economic and personal benefits they hope to achieve. These concepts create (visually) a framework in which to frame the most instrumental concepts, those more physical and logistic, which have long occupied the pages of literature on the subject.
The methodology proposes to make teams for the separate study of each stakeholder, if it is possible they should be present to ensure more reliable results. Between all the teams the different boxes are filled with their corresponding content to, once finished, we’ll have a visual map of the event and all related aspects.
The advantages offered by this system of event management and design are, in addition to creating inspiring events and transforming attendees, a simple and complete system that doesn’t spend too much time. Although the process can take several days, depending on the depth required, it also allows a basic idea-sorting model in just a few hours. This can be crucial because of the little time that the companies give to their event managers to dedicate to the correct design of the acts.
In our last edition of Iberian MICE Forums, in Cartegena we were able to enjoy an interesting introduction to this method by Ángeles Moreno, creator of The Creative Dots, director of MPI Spain and one of the first generation of graduates in this methodology.
