Using science to understand the psychology of delegates at a conference or meeting is key to the Meetology Group’s latest product, the Meetology Meeting Audit. The recently launched audit has been designed to allow organisers, venues and businesses to measure attendee experience, behaviour and performance to help create more effective meetings and create a benchmark for best practice.
“The thoughts, feelings and behaviour of delegates is the core element around which all meetings should be built,” says Bradshaw. “At a conference or meeting everything you do should be with the delegate in mind. The Meeting Audit focuses on the most important aspect of meetings – the delegates.”
The Meeting Audit has been developed for the Meetology Group by a team of psychologists from the University of the West of England who created a four-step audit process:
- Measuring: attendee experience and attendee performance
- Reporting: attendee experience and performance to the client
- Recommending: psychologically validated changes to various aspects of the meeting
- Evaluating: the impact of recommendations post-implementation using the same measurement process.
The questionnaire plots attendee performance against their experience, which the group then interprets on a client’s behalf. “Delegates often don’t have the time to fill in long reports and, perhaps more importantly, interpreting the data is a skill that most organisers do not possess,” says Bradshaw.
“We design the questionnaire in such a way that it identifies the factors that impact results and customers can then make improvements to specific aspects such as interaction, motivation, learning and creativity.”
The first goal for the new audit was to secure a client for each sector: Congress, Business and Venue.
The World Youth and Student Travel Conference, which took place in Sydney, Australia in September is currently undergoing an audit, while sports nutrition manufacturer Reflex Nutrition, which has an £11m (US$17.8m) turnover, is using the audit to qualify how much they invest in meetings and what value they get from them. The audit is also now live for events for a year at London event and conference centre, The Barbican.
Bradshaw is keen to promote the importance of the venue sector, an area in which he hopes to see the most growth. “The audit means we can scientifically understand the experience delegates have in a venue and help improve it.
“The audit can provide a real understanding of the impact physical design has on attendee experience, whether it be office space, meeting room or conference hall, allowing organisations to evaluate what works best in any given situation,” he adds.
This was first published in issue 74 of CMW. Any comments? Email cmw@mashmedia.net
