"Create your best event using Design Thinking"

1 — Why should an event planner follow a structured model to design an event? How does a model contribute to the success of an event?

There are 3 reasons why you should follow a structured model:
Take time to design your event. Allow this time to analyse stakeholders’ perspectives consciously and design for the change you would like to see.
Bring your team together in this process. It is fun, highly interactive and it aligns the team on what you are doing.
Using a structured model enables you to articulate the story of your event and how this event creates value and for whom.
Design Thinking, a worldwide hype, implemented by organisations as IBM and McKinsey, is the new scientific method of the 21st century. Design thinking is a method to solve problems of any kind. Looking at these problems from the perspective of the user, events are more complicated, events have more ‘users-types’, we call stakeholders. EventCanvas enables you to apply design thinking in event design. And not only Design Thinking but also Design Doing.

2 — What are the key features that differentiate the Canvas model for events from others?

There are many theories in the Meeting & Events industry, lots of books written. Yet, here is no tool. A tool which you can apply as a team, a systematic approach to design events. A way to create better events, by following the process.

3 — How and why did you adapt the Canvas methodology to event design? What needs, problems did you identify in the Meeting & Events industry that need to be addressed?

The Meeting & Events industry is a rather immature industry. Always trying to prove its added value and proving the value of events. One of the reasons why that is so hard to prove is that the industry is not focused on value creation. The simple question “How does an event create value?” will give you thousands of different answers if you would ask the question to professionals. Why? Because Meeting & Events industry has not developed a language to express this, nor a methodology to show this value. The Business Model Canvas inspired us to develop an EventCanvas. It took us 2 years of research and development to come up with a process which resulted in a canvas.

4 — How is Big Data changing the approach and design of events?

I think we do not know yet. There are some companies who are trying to use big data for events, I have been involved in a startup before which was focusing on Big Data for associations. Big Data can mean a lot to the future of meeting & events and can potentially reveal value we all perceive when meeting face-to-face, but no one can articulate. To use Big Data, we need a lot of data and that is something this industry is not capturing very well, maybe because that we do not see the value of Big Data yet. The investment in Big Data could generate a great return, but we do not know enough. That is why it is so difficult to invest.

5 — Where is the M&E industry heading? Which trends will we see in the near future?

The Meeting & Events industry will progress on its way to maturity. See the long term perspective and act on it. Many meeting and event professionals are so focused on the results of today and tomorrow that they forget about the longer term. The Meeting & Events industry needs a different way to measure success. From Client Satisfaction to Value Creation. And that can be a painful process.

Do you want to create your own #Eventcanvas? More info here:  www.eventmodelgeneration.com