Conference Canvas — participate with better purpose in any conference.
How we developed the Conference Canvas as a tool for participants to prepare for a more purposeful and actionable outcome in any conference — and how to use it.
The Conference Canvas is just another canvas actually, just like the Business Model Canvas, the Team Canvas and the Pirate Metrics Canvas. But each and every one of these canvases has a specific purpose. What they all have in common is that they aim to synthesise vast amount of information related to a specific topic into a visually compelling and easy understandable structure with a specific outcome, or more simply said…
A canvas is like a cheat sheet from back in school. Putting it in writing helps you remember and process the information better.
The Conference Canvas is used by conference participants to bring focus and prepare to get the most out of their conference by assisting them to define their Purpose, setting relevant Goals and Key Actions. The Conference Canvas also help participants to highlight their main offering and how to pitch it.
Born out of experience
For the launch of our internal startup — the venture builder agency Startship — we joined forces with The Next Web Conference and planned an official side-event workshop to execute. Participants came from all over the world to attend the workshop as they wanted to explore how to make the most out of the conference as well as getting a more intimate connection with other participants. We had scale-ups in educational technology from Brazil, accelerators and investors from Spain and up-and-coming UX designers from India participating in the Conference Canvas workshop.
Developing this canvas came natural to us. Having attended the The Next Web Conference with the entire team for seven years in a row, we have attended small intimate conferences like Designing for Childrens Rights and even the Burning Man festival. So we have accumulated quite a lot of experience over the years.
Reaching out to The Next Web team for support also came natural as we have built a good relationship with them over the years (and it help that they are really good people).
It’s for your own benefit.
It’s been said that in order to succeed you should learn something new everyday. Sometimes this means reading a blogpost, watching a video which makes statistics fun, attending a MOOC course or taking it one step further by attending a conference, like the Startup Grind Europe Conference for example.
Know your purpose, what to offer, who to talk to and what key actions to take during the event.
Attending any conference can be a daunting experience with all the impressions from people, talks and side events happening. So, how do you maximise the benefits with the sheer amount and intensity of possibilities? We’ll shortly have a look, but first…
Who is it for?
For any person who want to get more out any conference, as long as you want to be an active participant and not a passive observer. Be it a sports conference, business development conference, traveling, human resources, wood work… you can benefit from using this canvas.
For us being a venture builder we are confident that this canvas will benefit any member of a startups and scale-ups planning to participate in a conference. A founder might look for funding or the CTO might look for new team players with a specific skill set.
For a conference organiser it might be to promote this canvas to their attendees as a way to provide an easy structure to induce more focus.
How to use the Conference Canvas
It’s as easy as one-two-three and has a similar structure to the other canvases. So let’s take 20–30 minutes and dive into a step-by-step guide of it, but before reading on you should download the canvas here.
As Simon Sinek coined in his top-view TED talk and book…
- Let’s Start with why
Start with defining your purpose of attending the conference. Why do you attend the conference? What is your purpose of going to this conference? Describe your main reason for participating and be bolder than “get inspired”, be visionary! Ask yourself “The 5 Whys” to dig even deeper. - Goal
Goal setting is key to moving forward. What do you want to achieve at and what do you want to get out of this conference? Look into the purpose you just wrote and define one or a few high-level key goals. - Who
This will act as a mini-persona of the people you want to meet. It’s important you understand who you want to talk to and connect with during the event. Identify some characteristics, behaviours, position they have. Also, estimate and assume some of the needs and pain points they might have.
Who do you benefit from talking to? Who would be interested in your offering? Which needs do they have that your offering can satisfy? - Offering it
What can you offer them that might solve their issues and emotionally connect to their characteristics? A service, product, skill, advice, money? Why is it interesting for them to connect with you? Describe the products and services you offer that might be of interest to them. - Express it
Now connect more with the emotional part of it. What trigger the person you want to reach? How can you offer it? What makes your product, skill or behaviour so unique? - Pitch it
Now it’s time to refine and pimp it up a bit, make it shine. How do you compress your proposition into one punchy phrase? Keep your offering and the Who in mind. - Key actions
Which specific tasks do you need to do at the conference to achieve your goals? Write at least one key action per goal and remember your purpose. - Prepare
Based on your goals, key actions and purpose, what do you need to prepare for the event? - Follow-up
It’s easy to fall back into monday-routines after a conference. To really benefit from the outcome of the conference you can already now make some initial plans to take actions after the conference. How are you going to follow-up this conference? What can you prepare today to take (immediate) action after the conference?
This is the first iteration of your plan to make the most out of the conference. It’s good to go through the content of your canvas one more time — tweak, remix, rearrange, change, improve. Remember the “5 Whys” and ask “Why is this relevant?”, “Why does this connect to…?”… Have one of your colleagues or friends look it over and practice your pitch.
Now you are ready to go to your next conference with more confidence! Make it happen. Make connections, talk to people. If you as an organiser want to provide this canvas to your conference visitors, we are more than happy to tune and style it for you. Contact us for more
Enjoy your conference!
PS. If you haven’t downloaded the canvas yet, do it and spread the word.
And if you and your startup or scale up need some specific backup with developing your product or getting it to market, then we provide you with workshops and sprints targeted to the specific needs have.
Check out www.startship.nl for a better idea of how we can support you and our Instagram and Facebook where we’ll post some goodies for you.
