5 Tips for Actioning Insights: Convert Conference Takeaway from PTC 2020, Other Conferences into Tangible Results

2020 has been a year of virtual conferences and the Phyllion Tech Conference too. But before we touch on that, let’s backtrack a little and focus on YOU.

You have attended so many conferences, webinars, and meetings by now, and possibly lost count. Where are those ‘takeaways’ from these virtual gatherings?

Quite alright, some have reported getting a jolt or some sort of reawakening on their dreams, so why do we often leave these insights until later and begin to postpone execution dates?

The good news, however, we did some research and will be sharing tips to help you move from inspiration to action below.

Do you want to attend as many conferences as you want and walk away with a focus, purpose, and a goal for taking your dreams to the next level?

Do you want to align your personal goals with your career goals and also take your team and projects to greater heights?

 

Here are five (5) essential tips for actioning insights from important value-adding meetings.

 

Tip 1: Write Down Three Goals before the event.

These goals aren’t just any goals, we would recommend a personal goal, a relationship, and a business goal.

Your personal goal should be your personal takeaway from the event: the inspiration you want to get, the kind of people you want to come across that will inspire you, experiences, knowledge, and passion you want to serve as your inspiration and will be willing to share later. Writing these things down will actually bring your attention to focus so that at the conference, you will naturally be on the lookout for them.

Your relationship goal should be to develop three meaningful connections. What would this do for you? Pen it down.

Your business goal(s) should be: what insights, best practices, strategies, and skills do you want to learn or expand on? What business or career clarity do you want to get from the conference? Again, pen them down so they stay top-of-mind.

Note: When you evaluate the conference agenda, ONLY GO to those sessions that fit into your set goals.

 

Tip 2: Have a column or page in your notepad to capture consistent themes – the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory

While it is good to sit back and enjoy presentations or listen to flowery words and punchlines, your ability to take action in alignment with your goals depends on you actively engaging and processing the ideas as they come.

Taking notes is a basic way of processing what you’re hearing, but if you can go a step further and capture what you notice as “consistent themes” that keep coming up during the different sessions, you will start to simplify what you are learning. This is going to drastically reduce your feeling of information overload and increase your ability to turn insights into action.

Have you noticed that anytime you are listening with rapt attention, with the intent to summarize or to tell someone else about it, you tend to pay close attention? You stay focused, you simplify complicated context. That is the hidden benefit.

 

Tip 3: Decide what makes your “most likely to share” list.

At the end of each day, take 5 minutes to jot down, “What are three things you learned that you are most likely to share with colleagues? “

Don’t wait until the end of the entire event to do this. Take this simple step after each day, and again simplifying while the information is fresh will increase your chances of implementing it.

 

Tip 4: Map a simple integration/actioning plan

As soon as possible, you have to be able to visualize how your insights are going to translate into action. Start by making FIVE columns on your paper. The first column is the INSIGHT, second is STRATEGY/SKILL, third would be labeled OBJECTIVES, fourth would be KEY PLAYERS (who needs to be involved?), the fifth is the TIMELINE column.  Your plan has to be SMART. Remember the SMART goals? {SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE, REALISTIC & TIMEBOUND} Yeah, those.

 

Tip 5: Calendar your action items 

Heard of the saying, “what gets scheduled gets done?”, it is essential to schedule on your calendar the first action step you need to take for each of your objectives in your implementation plan. Once that first conference is underway, give yourself a timeline for completing set goals. Without a timeline, there is no completion, only procrastination.

If you can take all of these five tips, you will confidently put your conference insights into action.

Why go through all of these for you, you make ask? Asides being your trusted agency, redefining innovative communications for effective business marketing, we are also particular about your personal and career growth.

What makes us more certified is that we recently concluded a groundbreaking Tech PR conference that you may have attended, and we want to make sure you got the best out of it.

Until next time, action those insights before getting onto the next conference gathering.

Ciao!